Category Archives: SPLOST

Houston County has exclusion zones around Warner Robins AFB like the Lowndes County MAZ

Lowndes County is not

“the only community in the country with a MAZ”:
Houston County has very similar zones of encroachment protection around
Warner Robins Air Force Base (RAFB).

As we’ve already seen,

Houston County is buying up houses around RAFB
using $7.5 million from the state of Georgia.
That’s in addition to $6 million from Bibb County and
some unspecified amount from the Defense Department.
Plus Houston County
allocated $7 million from SPLOST funds,

and their SPLOST won by a landslide, apparently partly for that reason.

But what are

Warner Robins Air Force Base encroachment zones

those encroachment zones around Warner Robins AFB
depicted on the buyback map?
I called Houston County to find out.
Their Community Planner, Jacob Cox, said yes, Houston County
has crash zones, and noise attenuation zones in which they can
have businesses but not residences.

He pointed me to

The Robins Air Force Base and Middle Georgia
2004 Joint Land Use Study,
which notes:

The 2004 JLUS examines land issues as they relate to RAFB flying
missions and suggests measures to ensure compatible land use in the
Base environs now and into the future. The 2004 JLUS process
utilizes information provided in the 1998 RAFB Air Installation
Compatibility Use Zone study (AICUZ) to evaluate land use
compatibility and regulatory adequacy in areas subject to air hazard
potential and noise impact. Additional considerations related to air
navigation, including air protection surfaces are examined. Clear
Zones and Accident Potential Zones are all considered compatible
with AICUZ guidelines. Incidences of incompatible development are
predominantly restricted to a limited number of non-noise attenuated
residences built prior to 1994.

The results of the 2004 JLUS demonstrate that previously adopted
land use regulations have been effective in limiting incompatible
development within the Base environs. The 1994 adoption of the Base
Environs Zoning District (BEZD) model by the surrounding communities
has served to check most encroachment-type development. Only a very
low number of sporadic, isolated examples of noise-related
incompatible development was observed to have been built since
implementation of the BEZD land regulation strategy. Consistent
local government implementation of adopted provisions must be
maintained in order to continue to provide the protection necessary
to prevent incompatible development from restraining Base operations
in the future.

So as far back as 1994 the communities around RAFB were using zoning
to limit base encroachment.
The 1998 AICUZ recommended further
Clear Zones and Accident Potential Zones.
Why?
Mission changes at RAFB.
So the 2004 JLUS made recommendations and the local governments, including Houston County,
decided to go ahead and do something about it.

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SPLOST won in Houston County but not in Lowndes County: why?

Why did SPLOST in Houston County, Georgia win by a landslide
while SPLOST VII in Lowndes County lost?

Houston County’s SPLOST passed in March 2012 by a landslide.
Christina M. Wright wrote for The Telegraph 6 March 2012,

UPDATE: Houston officials celebrate landslide SPLOST approval,



“This is a ‘thank you’ for the voters,” said Houston
County Chairman Tommy Stalnaker as Warner Robins Councilman Paul
Shealy presented the black and white sign. “They are the real
victors of this thing tonight.”…

Unofficial results showed the SPLOST received 10,029 ‘yes’ votes
to 4,799 ‘no’ votes. More affirmative than negative votes were
cast in every precinct.

That’s 67.6% to 32.4%, and a difference:
Houston County local elected officials
thanked the voters.
Lowndes County Chairman Ashley Paulk,
who rushed through a SPLOST vote a year early,

Continue reading →

Solid Waste, Developer Favors, Dollar General, Library, and Alcohol: Agenda @ LCC 2012-12-10

Updates 9 Dec 2012: Marked with *.

Will the Lowndes County Commission Tuesday evening
finish railroading through their non-solution to solid waste disposal,


without shouldering its legal responsibility to protect
the environment and the public health, safety, and well-being from solid waste,
and what’s this about a vendor change?
Will the Chairman once again invite a developer to speak in Monday morning’s
Work Session without letting anyone else speak?
Will the Commission change the zoning code and rezone inside and against
the Moody Exclusion Zone for that same developer they already
provided $130,000 in road construction labor to back in 2007?
Does Naylor need the area’s nineteenth Dollar General, and who’s behind it, anyway?
How come the Five Points library is still on the agenda even though SPLOST VII failed?
And what are they doing to the Alcoholic Beverage Ordinance this time?
Come Monday morning at 8:30 AM and Tuesday evening at 5:30 PM and see!
Better yet, also call or write your Commissioner before then.

Trash

6.b. Solid Waste Ordinance

Will the Commissioners finish

railroading through their



already-failing non-solution to solid waste disposal
in the last session of this Chairman?
The plan for which they held

zero public hearings while any of
the Commissioners who voted on it this October were on the Commission,
yet someone down there feels free to

anonymously ridicule concerns about that plan failing?
Two citizens

spoke up anyway,
even though

Citizens Wishing to Be Heard
was after the scheduled vote last time,
and

another on this blog,
all willing to state their names, unlike the anonymous pro-trash-railroad
ridiculer.
What was that

unspecified new information
that caused them to table it last time, anyway?

8.b. Exclusive Franchise Agreement for Residential Solid Waste Collection Services with Advanced Disposal Services of Central Alabama, Inc.

What happened to Veolia;

Continue reading →

SPLOST, media, southside library: videos @ SGLB 2012-11-20

Here’s
a video playlist of the 20 November 2012 South Georgia Regional Library Board meeting.


And here’s

George Rhynes’ editorial on what he saw, heard, and was asked at that meeting.
He’d prefer SPLOST being spent first on sidewalks
than on moving the library where people would have
to go farther to get to it.
Also, like many of us, he’s tired of a few people controlling
the purse-strings without input from the rest of us.
He gave an example:

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SPLOST VII @ SGLB 2012-11-20


SPLOST on the ballot again? --Willis Miller @SGLB 2012-11-20
At

Tuesday’s South Georgia Library Board meeting.
a board member (his nameplate said Willis Miller)

wanted to know about SPLOST:

How we know it’s going to come up next November or at another time?

Good question.



Here’s video of the discussion as

it resumed later in the meeting:


SPLOST VII discussion at Monthly Meeting, South Georgia Library Board (SGLB),

Video by George Boston Rhynes for K.V.C.I. and bostongbr on YouTube,

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 20 November 2012.

Kay Harris said there had to be a
minimum of twelve months, so November 2013 would be the next possible time.
She said County Commissioner Richard Raines had expressed full support for the new library,
and she was talking to the other commissioners.
She was asked whether the SPLOST lists would be the same,
and said there might be some changes,
but she hadn’t heard anyone suggest that the Five Points property might be deleted.
That’s curious, because

she quoted Valdosta Mayor Gayle in the VDT 7 November 2012 as saying:

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Airport Authority says County Commission shorted payment —VDT

The Lowndes County Commission apparently
failed to pay the Airport Authority $150,000,
yet the City of Valdosta paid their part in full.
Once again the VDT did a little investigation and came up with a story.

Brittany D. McClure wrote for the VDT 15 November 2012,

Airport Authority chair states County Commission came up short,


Pictures of authority members on the wall at the airport
When the Valdosta Regional Airport had hangars built on the
property, both the city of Valdosta and Lowndes County pledged
$900,000.

According to [Steve] Everett, the city paid their part in full but the
county failed to pay $150,000 of the dedicated funds.

Why?

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Keep waste sites open and reprioritize SPLOST —William Geyer @ LCC 2012-11-13



William Geyer expressed two widespread opinions,
keep the solid waste disposal sites open, and reprioritize SPLOST,
when he spoke at Tuesday’s

Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.
County Manager Joe Pritchard, the driving force behind the waste disposal decision,
still wasn’t listening.

Keep the solid waste disposal sites open

Saying he was William Geyer of 5474 Union Road, Hahira,
he asked the Commission to
reconsider their solid waste plan, and to keep the waste disposal sites open.

There’s people out there that can’t afford
what y’all are offering.
And with a budget as large as we got, I know there’s some way
to keep them open.
Not only that, Florida has them, and they don’t even man them.
I talk to a lot of people out there,
they don’t come here,
but I wish you really would reconsider,
because it is a plus for this county,
the elderly,
a lot of people here who are struggling, who can’t afford it.
I’m not saying I can’t; I can afford it,
but there’s a lot of people here who can’t afford it.

Reprioritize SPLOST

Geyer noted SPLOST was supposed to be for paving roads, but
lots of roads hadn’t gotten paved.

At that first SPLOST meeting, it was around 1984 or 5
they did my road, Union Road.
What happened to the rest of the roads that are dirt?
We’ve somehow lost our priorities.
We want a new library, we want a new this or that.
What about these people who live on these dirt roads
that were promised they’d be paved.
County Manager, how many miles of dirt roads do we have in this county?



County Manager Joe Pritchard obviously wasn’t listening,
“Pardon me?” he said, after the Chairman prodded him.
He didn’t know, either; he motioned

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What people are interested in having their pennies spent on —Gretchen Quarterman

Received yesterday on

Allocate resources in a yearly budget? -jsq

As I was out campaigning, it was interesting what people are


interested in having their pennies spent on. Many want better
sidewalks and safer places to ride their bikes. One Valdosta police
officer particularly commented on the dangerous bike riding
conditions (especially on North Oak Extension). Many in the
un-incorporated areas want increased fire protection and it seems
that everyone better drainage (and I don't mean simply open ditches
for rain water) and still others would like to see some soccer
fields.

It seems like we should be able to do some prioritizations and then
save up for these things. I guess that will be up to the new
commission chairman and members and they will have to figure out how
to move forward without a SPLOST immediately in 2014.

Personally, I'd like to see a public accounting of how the previous
SPLOSTS were spent. And not in big categories, but the actual
details… But that's just me.

-Gretchen Quarterman

-jsq

Allocate resources in a yearly budget?

Received today on

SPLOST VII lost. -jsq

After reading this post, a question came to mind. Have we the
citizens of Lowndes County


actually been encouraging our elected
officials to be fiscally irresponsible with public funds by allowing
SPLOST to continue? if elected officials had to allocate resources
in a yearly budget, we may actually encourage our officials to
allocate resources towards public projects that would be desirable
by the public rather than a priority in pthe minds of our elected
officials.

-Bill Grow

SPLOST VII lost



Speaking of

transparency,
Lowndes County voters defeated SPLOST VII 18,864 to 17,923 (51.28% to 48.72%).

Kay Harris in the VDT today quoted Ashley Paulk with this reason:

The defeat came as a surprise to Mayor John Gayle but not to Lowndes
County Commission Chairman Ashley Paulk, who said he warned the
mayors of the five municipalities that if they continued to argue
over

LOST, the local option sales tax, that voters would turn
against SPLOST in retaliation.

“I told them at the beginning if they didn’t stop arguing over
a few percent of the LOST and refused to leave the numbers as is by
taking the county’s offer, that taxpayers were going to turn against
the SPLOST,” said Paulk.

“Voters are disenchanted with the way their local governments
have gotten greedy and they’re tired of the arguments over money.
They voted SPLOST down because they don’t trust us with their tax
dollars, and it’s a real shame.”

I would agree
bickering over the
LOST pie was one of the reasons
SPLOST lost, and add to that the opaque back-room processes by which
the SPLOST VII projects were selected.
While the library needs updated and expanded facilities,

the lack of documented decision process
for the architect

and lack of adequate explanation for that
probably didn’t help, either,
nor did
the county’s puzzling lumping of the library in with Parks and Rec.

which they later tried to clarify.
Perhaps the voters are

tired of seeing transparency be a constant source of tension.
And I’m using the library as just one example. I could equally cite the
project for a farmers market under the overpass, which I think is a bad idea
because the farmers market already has a fabulous location at the historic
Lowndes County Courthouse, and so far as I know none of the vendors who sell there
were even asked if they wanted a new location, much less the public who buy there.

At the public-not-invited
SPLOST VII kickoff speeches
the last speaker said they were not there

Continue reading →