Category Archives: Transparency

How much does it cost to pave a county road?

How much does it cost to pave 3.5 miles of dirt road? Apparently $1,413,097.92, or around a million dollars a mile, when the county insists on paving it like a state highway at the expense of safety:

How MuchTo WhomFromFor What
$7,200.00Lovell Engineering AssociatesValdostaDesign of Culvert
$48,010.00 Doyle Hancock & Sons Construc.Doerun Clearing and Grubbing
$1,357,887.92 The Scruggs CompanyValdosta Paving
$1,413,097.92 All contractors Total

This financial information comes from an open records request filed by Carolyn Selby more than a year ago and finally fulfilled 17 March 2011. Copies of all the pages received are in the flickr set.

How many other roads could have been paved for $1.4 million? If this road had been paved like a local rural road, instead of like a state highway (literally according to state highway standards) it would not have cost nearly as much and probably another shorter road could have been paved, too. And if other roads were paved like local roads instead of state highways, how many more of them could be paved? They still wait while this one got paved to the tune of $1.4 million.

-jsq

Walk out into the audience —Leigh Touchton

This came in Sunday as a blog post on To Speak or Not to Speak. As a contrast, Lowndes County Commissioners do usually talk to people before and after their meetings, and sometimes they use that time to answer questions citizens asked during the meeting. -jsq
Yost engaged Dr. Noll (and was unpleasant about it) at one meeting that I attended, Mayor Fretti engages people sometimes, Attorney Talley engaged J. Smith last Thursday, and sometimes others at other meetings, myself included, and Vickers talks pretty much to whomever he wants whenever he wants. The whole CTBH policy is a smokescreen. The Council Comments period ought to be followed by adjournment and then the Councilmembers making their remarks from the dais during Council Comments ought to have to walk out into the audience and deal with the voters’ concerns directly.

When Jimmy Rainwater was Mayor, I may not always have agreed with him, or he with me, but he always came out into the audience and talked to us.

This Council is not responsive to the concerns of its citizens,

Continue reading →

LCC 5:30 PM Tuesday 26 April 2011

Even a light agenda includes a water item.

It’s a very light agenda for the Lowndes County Commission; so light the work session was cancelled. However, the regular session is scheduled as usual for Tuesday evening.

They’ve moved Citizens Wishing to be Heard back to the middle of the meeting. Historically, it’s been here and it’s been there in different places in the agenda. I still think at the end is a fine place for it, since then more people may stay for the entire meeting. I posted my other thoughts on CWTBH back when they changed to their current policy on that.

Groundwater sampling near a landfill is an item. The same item was on the agenda last time, but didn’t get resolved. Water is an issue throughout the region.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION CANCELLED
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 2011, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
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Executive Director wanted —VLCIA

Get your applications for VLCIA Executive Director in no later than today!

Found on IEDC for 18 April 2011 and also on SEDC with no date, this job posting:

Executive Director, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (Valdosta, GA)
A very exciting opportunity with a successful industrial authority with numerous assets.

Greater Valdosta is the business, cultural, educational, medical, leisure, and retail hub for thirteen South Georgia and North Florida counties and more than 1.2 million citizens. Valdosta and Lowndes County are quickly becoming the fastest growing area in Georgia and are home to Moody Air Force Base; two Regional Medical Centers; and Valdosta State University, a regional university with over 13,000 students.

Starting salary $100,000 to $125,000, DOQ.

See cb-asso.com for a complete Position Profile.

The Authority’s website is www.industrialauthority.com

Digging around on cb-asso.com finds this detailed job description. It’s four GIF images (copies here) of a VLCIA logo and three pages of a four-page flyer.

Brief excerpts: Continue reading →

Runaround —Leigh Touchton

Leigh Touchton responded to Valdosta Mayor John Fretti’s response to her previous post. -jsq
Happy Birthday, Mayor Fretti, and thank you for posting publicly.

However, I wish you would stop trying to pass Mayor and Council’s portion of responsibility for the biomass incinerator to the Industrial Authority. I delivered a letter to Mayor and Council Thursday night outlining 10 reasons your Utilities Director can legitimately give when he (hopefully) follows Mayor and Council’s recommendation to refuse to sell gray water to the proposed biomass incinerator. I and many other citizens are tired of the run-around and the shifting of responsibility for this “biomess” from one public official or group to another.

A councilmember told me that Council would never vote

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To Speak or Not To Speak @ VCC 21 April 2011

Can Council members answer in Citizens to Be Heard, or can’t they? One did; another says she can’t.

In Council Comments at the end of the 21 April 2011 Valdosta City Council meeting, Sonny Vickers talked about bids.

Then Deidra White said she would attend any meeting where she could hear and reply to citizens’ concerns, but she can can’t say anything about Citizens to be Heard because there’s a Council policy.

That’s interesting, considering that in the previous Valdosta City Council meeting, in Citizens to be Heard, Council Sonny Vickers responded to Dr. Mark George saying that he had already told everyone that he was for the biomass plant. Does this mean that Council supporters of the biomass plant can speak Continue reading →

Special Called Meeting 27 April 2010 —VLMPO

When VLMPO has a special called meeting, it announces it well in advance on its facebook page and sends out messages to interested parties, which is how LAKE got the appended agenda for that meeting. Note the item “TIA Update”, where TIA is for the Transportation Investment Act of 2010 which implements T-SPLOST. There is a “Public Comment” item, as well. -jsq
Valdosta-Lowndes MPO

Policy Committee
Special Called Meeting Agenda
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
1:30 PM
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Touchton v. City of Valdosta, Georgia, et al.

Mayor Fretti mentioned a lawsuit against him and the city of Valdosta that was dismissed. Court records on that are available.

According to Justia.com Dockets & Filings, Catherine Leigh Touchton filed a federal civil rights lawsuit 30 May 2007 against John Fretti and the City of Valdosta Georgia Middle District Court, On 17 April 2009:

Court Opinion or Order ORDER directing judgment for defendants on federal law claims. State law claims are dismissed without prejudice. Ordered by Judge Hugh Lawson on 4/17/2009.
A dozen similar lawsuits were filed the same day by Karen Camion, Faye Chachere, Jesse Clark, Callie Fielden, Reggie Griffin, Kathryn Harris, Willie Head, Joann Mosley, George Rhynes, Willie Roberson, Floyd Rose, and Mary Sherman. All appear to have had the same result.

Access to related documents is available by registering with PACER. They don’t charge until a user runs up a minimum amount of usage.

-jsq

Quality time —Mayor John Fretti

More from the person posting as Mayor John Fretti, this time responding to Dr. Noll’s recent post. -jsq
Update 12:40 AM 23 April 2011: Mayor Fretti confirms that the post was by him. -jsq
Perhaps this is my last post: It is in regards to Michael Noll’s most recent post. I will attempt to cut and paste the section that I would like to respond.
“What I found most disturbing are actually the following things that happened at last night’s meeting:

1) A Mayor in absentia because he is celebrating his birthday and decided not to attend because of a lack of agenda items for the meeting.”

Michael – I hope that I have always been polite and respectful
Continue reading →