Category Archives: Lowndes County Commission

Lowndes County attorney has been discussing the pipeline with other county attorneys

As usual, the citizens of Lowndes County are the last to know.

Alan Mauldin wrote for The Moultrie Observer 8 February 2014, County commission meetings to focus on Sabal Trail pipeline,

County Attorney Lester Castellow, who reently met with his counterparts from Brooks, Doughterty and Lowndes counties, is scheduled to address commissioners about the project during a Monday afternoon commission work session.

That would be the alleged Lowndes County attorney Walter G. Elliott.

Meanwhile, Colquitt County attorney Castellow is on the agenda for today’s noon Work Session in Moultrie, and again at 7PM Tuesday in the Colquitt County Commission Regular Session, with Sabal Trail pipeline reps in attendance. More here.

Which is something the Lowndes County Commission has never done. Sure, the Lowndes County Commissioners asked four questions and forwarded citizen questions in writing, which got cut-and-paste PR answers from Spectra. From one of the same Spectra reps who was “not familiar” with Spectra’s sorry rap sheet of corrosion, leaks, and fines.

-jsq

Bird Supper this Wednesday in Atlanta

On the county’s front page:

LOWNDES COUNTY BIRD SUPPER—Tickets on sale now!

For more than 50 years, local citizens have met face to face with members of the General Assembly during the Lowndes County Bird Supper. Hosted by Lowndes County and the City of Valdosta on behalf of our community’s local legislative delegation, this year’s Bird Supper promises to be one of the best yet!

The event will be held Wednesday, February 12, 2014, at 5:00 p.m. at the old railroad depot, downtown Atlanta. Tickets are $50.00 and include refreshments and a quail dinner. Attendees will enjoy the music of the Valdosta State University Faculty Jazz Ensemble, while meeting with state officials in a business casual atmosphere.

The Lowndes County Bird Supper is our community’s chance discuss upcoming or pending legislation with lawmakers, with an opportiunity to explain how legislative decisions impact South Georgia. For more information, please contact Lowndes County Clerk, Paige Dukes, at 229-671-2400, For tickets, please contact Event Coordinator, Belinda Lovern, at 229-671-2400 or blovern@lowndescounty.com.

Colter Anstaett wrote for WALB 8 January 2014, Valdosta Mayor looking forward to “Bird Supper” next month, Continue reading →

Dollar General, Elections, and Human Resources @ LCC 2014-02-10

Three water wells ( Wheeler, Brown, and Dollar General), a Board of Elections personnel request, and a Human Resources service contract, plus whatever the Chairman interjects off the agenda and whoever the County Manager has give reports.

Here’s the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Moody Family Housing Environmental Assessment published

Spotted first by Michael G. Noll in the VDT yesterday, the document promised by Col. Ford the previous evening. A quick search finds nothing about the Nelson Hill Wells, and no mention of VSU or any of the professors there who have expressed concern and asked for access to the site to conduct an independent study.

USAF ANNOUNCES AN
ENVIRONMENT ASSESSMENT

In accordance with the National Environmental Policy
Act and Air Force regulations, the Air Force Civil
Engineer Center (AFCEC) has completed a Revised Draft
Environmental Assessment (EA), Finding of No
Significant Impact (FONSI), and a Finding of No
Practicable Alternative (FONPA) to evaluate the
consequences of the following stated proposed action:

The revised Proposed Action would involve the
construction of 11 housing units for senior leadership on
a 15-acre parcel on the base and 90 units on an
approximately 60-acre parcel located northwest of the
city of Valdosta, GA on Val-Del Road (the Val-Del
Parcel). This represents a reduction Continue reading →

Air Force has the environmental assessment for Moody Family Housing

Last night I chatted briefly with Moody’s Col. Ford, before he spoke at the Lake Park Chamber Annual Awards Dinner. He said he had been able to get on the site of the proposed Moody Family Housing about a year ago. I mentioned the Nelson Hill Wells and he said they had spent a lot of time already investigating water issues, and now the Air Force has received the environmental assessment. Perhaps it includes the missing piece this time, and maybe there’s a way for the public and local professors to provide input.

Colonel Edward Ford is commander of the 23d Mission Support Group at Moody AFB, Ga. He leads a group of more than 1,450 military and civilian members providing support and services to a population of 28,000 active duty, retired military and family members. His group maintains an installation with more than 830 buildings and more than 17,500 acres, including an adjacent bombing or strafing range. He is responsible for ensuring the readiness of support forces to mobilize and deploy to build, secure, and sustain air base operations at austere bare base locations anywhere in the world.

The 23d Mission Support Group also retains responsibility for civil engineering, environmental compliance, Continue reading →

Nelson Hill Wells

Seen today on Recent clear cutting in north of Lowndes County:

In the Northwest and Southwest of the most westerly boundary line of Nelson Hill Subdivision there are two well sites that had been previously deeded to Lowndes County for Deep Wells for Lowndes County Water Supply due to the problems at that time with the Well at Stone Creek location. However the test bore water samples came back with negative results due to surface water contamination entering the aquifer from all the fractures in the fragile lime stone basin and active sinkholes in that area, there is a sinkhole less than half of a mile south from where the test bores were done and it’s probably 90 feet deep. All this boarders the subject site Moody Housing.

So let’s look on the west side of the remainder of the Nelson Hill site, parcel 0071 006B. There are two cutouts, each about 50 feet square or 2500 square feet or 0.057 acre. Trying to select those in the online tax assessors maps, we get:

No data found for Continue reading →

Recent clear cutting in north of Lowndes County

Multiple people reported clearing work at the site of the Moody Family Housing project on Val Del Road, with its sinkhole next to an aquifer recharge zone, that not even Moody Air Force Base can get in to inspect. So we went out to look. There is clear cutting happening on Val Del Road (both sides) but it does not appear to be happening on the property slated for Moody Family Housing.

There has been clear cutting going on in the north of Lowndes County for some time on large tracts near Skipper Bridge Road, Staten Road (near the new river bridge) and on Val Del Road immediately south of the Moody Family Housing tract.

It appears that most of those properties are owned by Natco LLC: Continue reading →

Open Records, let’s compare.

ORR-planning-minutes-2013-page1

Recent open records requests at the City of Valdosta and the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office were similar. An unscheduled visit to the respective open records office (Valdosta City Clerk and Information Window at the Sheriff’s Office) resulted in a simple form and information returned on the spot. No waiting, no hassle.

Open records requests at the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners is a different story. It’s not too hard to get the form, it’s here: Continue reading →

Open Records, Open Meetings

LCC-open-records-request-form-7.2013 One effective way to keep an eye on what’s happening in our government is through open records and open meetings, and Georgia has pretty good laws for both of those.

Attending meetings generally requires only a small amount of time for any agency. Some government agencies meet only once per month and sometimes for less than one hour. Some may meet twice a month (work session and regular session) or some as frequently as four times (two work sessions and two regular sessions). Attending meetings is a good way to show the elected and appointed officials that you are interested in what they are doing as your representative. Making open records requests is a good way to get additional information about issues in which you are interested.

In Georgia, the Open Records Act is O.C.G.A. §50-18 and the Open Meeting Act is O.C.G.A. §50-14 . The official copies of these can be found online at http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/, however there are handy links on the State Attorney General’s site at http://law.ga.gov/law which provide easily readable PDF files.

The introduction of O.C.G.A. §50-18-70 says: Continue reading →

Weather report by Ashley Tye, Emergency Management Director @ LCC 2014-01-28

Lowndes County’s Emergency Management Director reported yesterday on projected icy roads today.

Here’s the video:


Weather report by Ashley Tye, Emergency Management Director
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 January 2014.

All the local schools are closed, public and private, K-12 and college, so the best thing to to is to stay home.

Commissioner John Page said a constituent had just asked him if Lowndes County owned any snow plows. Answer: no, but the county can get access to them if needed.

County Clerk Paige Dukes enumerated ways she had tried to get the word out, including this information on the county’s front web page, which will probably disappear without trace in a day or so, so I’ve copied it below. Continue reading →