Category Archives: SGRC

Live Oak bus service starts Monday 2015-07-20

How come Live Oak (pop. 6,974) in Suwannee County (43,734), Florida can do


what mighty Valdosta (56,481) in Lowndes County (112,916), Georgia can’t?

Amber Vann, Suwannee Democrat, 17 July 2015,

Live Oak bus route starts Monday
,

The Suwannee Valley Transit Authority’s Live Oak bus route will
begin operating on Monday, July 20, running continuously from 7 a.m.
until 7 p.m. throughout every direction of the city, Monday through
Friday. The route’s unofficial stops include apartment complexes and
other residential neighborhoods, public schools, grocery stores,
parks, government offices, nursing homes, the library and the
hospital.

The route starts at the intersection of Walker Avenue and US 90 West Continue reading

VLMPO Public Open House on 2040 Transportation Vision Plan 2015-07-22

Anytime all day, 10AM to 6PM, Wednesday July 22nd, you can advise
SGRC on transportation for the region,
at the VLMPO office at 327 W Savannah Ave, Valdosta, Georgia 31601.


Here’s

VLMPO’s facebook event
.

According to SGRC’s

Transportation Planning web page
:

2040 Transportation Vision Plan… Public Comment Period July 7-August 7, 2015

Federal regulations require Metropolitan Planning Organizations
(MPOs) to develop a new Long Range Transportation Plan at least
every five years. In the summer of 2013, the VLMPO kicked-off the
latest effort to plan for a multi-modal transportation system
through the region for the year 2040. The plan will address:

Continue reading

Transportation explained to Lowndes County Commission @ LCC 2015-07-13

The county asked SGRC a bunch of questions about the $15,957 public transit and trucking studies at yesterday morning’s Work Session that
they didn’t ask about the $16,915 they spent
two weeks ago to upgrade a water main to subsize a developer.
Commissioners seemed to think VLMPO hadn’t involved them in planning
the study proposals, when in fact their own Chairman and County Manager
and Engineer had been involved all along, plus five county-appointed
citizens.


300x225 Corey Hull, in Public Transportation and Trucking Studies Explained, by Gretchen Quarterman, 13 July 2015

County Manager Joe Pritchard said Commissioner Joyce Evans and
Chairman Bill Slaughter had asked him to get the Southern Georgia Regional
Commission (SGRC) to explain its proposed transportation studies.
He also introduced Lisa Crib, whom he said was the new SGRC Executive Director.

Corey Hull spoke for SGRC, saying he first wanted to know their questions.
Chairman Bill Slaughter asked: Continue reading

Videos: Budget Work Session @ LCC Budget 2015-05-18



“Once you put in your transfers in and out, you have a balanced budget,”
said Finance Director Stephanie Black.
Transfers in from where?
How does this magic work?

Even the Commissioners had no agenda to look at,
although they did have printed copies of the draft budget,
which the public could only see as it scrolled by on the screen
at yesterday morning’s Lowndes County Commission Budget Work Session,
which was over by 10AM even though it was announced as 8:30AM to 5PM.
However, it is good that they had this Work Session in public.

County Clerk Paige Dukes
told Gretchen afterwards that no draft
budget would be available to the public until after two changes
requested by the Chairman were incorporated.
She did not say when that would be finished or when the draft budget would be
available so taxpayers could comment.
She did refer people to
last year’s budget.
The slides that
Finance Director Stephanie Black
presented do provide an interesting high level overview.
Other than Commissioners and very few staff,
the only people in the room were VDT reporter Joe Adgie, someone unidentified,
and Gretchen taking these LAKE videos so you can see what happened. Continue reading

Videos: Regional water council meeting in Valdosta @ SSRWPC 2014-05-21



Anticipating water and wastewater needs,
coordinating with Florida and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
comparing water usage to available resources in the face of droughts,
floods, and climate change,
Georgia’s regional water management council for this area
considered all this and more when it met
in Valdosta to finalize a document:
Regional Assessment of Implementation Status.
Here are videos of the whole meeting.

Digital Economy Workshop Cancelled Tomorrow

Received just now by email from Julia Shewchuk.



Due to potentially unsafe travelling conditions through tomorrow
morning and several people letting us know they would not be attending,
we are cancelling the Digital Economy workshop in Valdosta tomorrow.
Please feel free to come to the February 6th
workshop and we will add
an hour before or after to discuss ISP specific issues and review the
business survey.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Julia

See

previous post
for details about the other workshop dates.

-jsq

Digital Economy Plan Workshop

Update 3:30 PM 29 January 2014:

Thursday 30 January 2014 session cancelled due to weather;
come to the 6 February 2014 meeting instead.

Received by email and there’s a

facebook event
. -jsq

Good Morning and Happy New Year!



We would like to invite you to one or more workshops to help us
develop a Digital Economy Plan for our Region.

The Southern Georgia Regional Commission, in partnership with the
Georgia Technology Authority, is coordinating and developing a
Digital Economy Plan for the 18 counties in the South Georgia
Region to identify the unique characteristics of the digital
economy in our region, its strengths, weaknesses, its needs and its
opportunities.

The focus and intent of the plan is to Continue reading

Open House at Mildred Hunter on Common Community Vision @ VLMPO 2013-10-23

“We have broadband”, said Bill Slaughter, while other people had
different opinions on that and other topics Wednesday night at
the Mildred Hunter Community Center.



Corey Hull introduced the session and a small but vocal group of citizens
discussed all

the main topic headings
.
He noted that there are more than twelve plans already in place
in the various cities and counties in the Valdosta Lowndes Metropolitan
Planning Area.
Yet there were many common themes in those plans, and VLMPO was looking
for other common areas in these meetings and online,
and more specifically strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
If you have a community group of any size, VLMPO can come talk to it.
They’ve been to the Chamber, to Rotary, to churches, etc.
They expect to wrap this process up in December,
with common vision and goals for the next ten or twenty years.


Matt Martin

Local officials present included Matt Martin,

Planning and Zoning Administrator for the City of Valdosta
,
and Lowndes County Chairman Bill Slaughter.
Martin didn’t say much, but Bill Slaughter was quite vocal.
I thanked him for speaking up, even though I didn’t agree with everything he said.
He helped clarify current county codes for stormwater retention,
and Martin helped clarify the city’s codes.

As a long-time participant in
local development (he’s CEO of Waller Heating and Air)
Slaughter said when people are buying houses all they look at is Continue reading

Common Community Vision for Lowndes County



What do you the citizens want Lowndes County to be?
Here’s a chance to speak up, so when somebody asks where were you when
the decisions were being made, you don’t have to answer “lying on the couch
watching television.” (Thanks to Nolen Cox for that phrase.)

Corey Hull wrote on facebook today,

Help Spread the Word for the Future of Lowndes County
,

My office is conducting a survey and gathering public input on
Facebook (go to

www.facebook.com/valdostalowndesmpo
) about what they
want the Lowndes County Common Community Vision to be


(
www.bit.ly/LowndesCCV
). So far our participation has been low. I am
calling on all of you to encourage your friends, family and
colleagues to spread the word and let us know what you think about
the future of Lowndes County and its cities.

Over the next two months there will be future opportunities for
public input so stay tuned.

Thanks for your help.

On the Southern Georgia Regional Commission’s website,

Lowndes County Common Community Vision
, Continue reading

Valdosta and Army Corps of Engineers in Flood Risk Management Study

First public update since

May
:
Valdosta has had several recent meetings with other governmental groups
and has agreed to co-fund a flooding study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

WCTV has also

picked up

Valdosta PR 23 July 2013,

City Enters Agreement with USACE for Flood Risk Management Study
,



The City of Valdosta hosted a Regional Flood Preparedness meeting
with the Georgia Silver Jackets on June 25—a continuation of
discussions that began earlier in the year focused on regional
interests and on maximizing area resources.

Representatives from the cities of Moultrie, Sylvester, Tifton and
Valdosta and from the counties of Lowndes and Turner attended the
meeting to discuss current and future flood monitoring and
forecasting issues throughout the Little River and Withlacoochee
River watersheds. These two watersheds are part of the overall
Suwannee Basin that is approximately 10,000 square miles in Georgia
and Florida.

Among other information shared, Continue reading