Category Archives: Transparency

Videos: lift station, weather, jobs @ LCC 2014-02-24

A special called voting meeting about Industrial Authority bonds. followed the Work Session. In the Work Session, the last item was the presentation by Industrial Authority Executive Director Andrea Schruijer, preceded by a severe weather report For Nine minutes they discussed a deficit for special tax lighting districts throughout the county: apparently they didn’t take into account that power rates or lighting times might vary. Lowndes County’s sewer lift station at a subdivision with a private golf club apparently needs replacement. This is the subdivision for which the Nelson Hill Wells were drilled as possible replacements. The abandonment of some unspecified unopened right of way off of US 41 South is apparently resolved now after two years.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Six small rezonings and a planned development @ GLPC 2014-02-24

Mostly single-family rezonings this time, plus one 15 acre planned development request.

Here’s the agenda, supplied by an informant. This one came as a real PDF, permitted extracting the text, so that’s an improvement over last month. Too bad about that “the expense” for the county to put it on the web in the first place.

Greater Lowndes Planning Commission

Lowndes County City of Valdosta City of Dasher City of Hahira City of Lake Park

REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING

AGENDA

Lowndes County South Health District Administrative Office
325 West Savannah Avenue

Monday, February 24, 2014* 5:30 P.M. * Public Hearing

Continue reading →

Golf club lift station on agenda @ LCC 2014-02-24

Lowndes County’s sewer lift station at a subdivision with a private golf club apparently needs replacement. This is the subdivision for which the Nelson Hill Wells were drilled as possible replacements. And an abandonment of some unspecified unopened right of way off of US 41 South. Plus a presentation by Industrial Authority Executive Director Andrea Schruijer.

Here’s the agenda:

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Transparency in government is essential to the public trust –VDT

VDT editorial yesterday, Violating public trust,

Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens successfully fought for and implemented changes to the state’s Open Records law, believing that transparency in government is essential to the public trust. The law passed in 2012 states, “The General Assembly finds and declares that the strong public policy of this state is in favor of open government; that open government is essential to a free, open, and democratic society; and that public access to public records should be encouraged to foster confidence in government and so that the public can evaluate the expenditure of public funds and the efficient and proper functioning of its institutions.”

The VDT asked for records from the Lowndes County school system and didn’t get them. Their experience sounds quite similar to many LAKE has had with the county government in particular, with records not being provided in the statutory three days, and sometimes not even an excuse or a list of what might eventually be available.

That plus failure to make even agendas for the Planning Commission available in a timely fashion so citizens can see whether they need to attend (somebody explain to me the expense of agendas; clearly I don’t understand this Internet suff), and even in response to open records requests returning paper when the documents are obviously composed in electronic formats, agendas for County Commission meetings that are just plain incorrect, resulting in people taking time off from work to show up unnecessarily for a Sabal Trail pipeline item that didn’t happen, a public hearing that wasn’t listed as such on the agenda, a secretive retreat “work session”, and not even being clear about what tax dollars for SPLOST would go for. That’s not even all; just a sample of county government lack of transparency.

And it’s not just the County Commission. Look at Continue reading →

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

Fourteen (14) minutes. The most time was spent on the Wheeler rezoning, on yet another Dollar General, Elections Supervisor Deb Cox personally made her Board of Elections personnel request, which is to change five part-time positions for one full-time, and several Commissioners asked questions about the Human Resources service contract, which might result in educational requirements for positions, and is supposed to survey everybody paid by the county: but does that include employees of boards with their own millage, namely the Industrial Authority and Parks and Rec?

They vote tomorrow, Tuesday 11 Feb 2014 at 5:30 PM. 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 →

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 →

Free speech for bloggers as journalists reaffirmed

This should have been obvious already from the Open Government Act of 2007, among other laws, but now a court has reaffirmed it.

Dan Levine wrote for Reuters 17 January 2014, Blogger gets same speech protections as traditional press: U.S. court,

A blogger is entitled to the same free speech protections as a traditional journalist and cannot be liable for defamation unless she acted negligently, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday.

Crystal Cox lost a defamation trial in 2011 over a blog post she wrote accusing a bankruptcy trustee and Obsidian Finance Group of tax fraud. A lower court judge had found that Obsidian did not have to prove that Cox acted negligently because Cox failed to submit evidence of her status as a journalist.

But in the ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said Cox deserved a new trial, regardless of the fact that she is not a traditional reporter.

“As the Supreme Court has accurately warned, a First Amendment distinction between the institutional press and other speakers is unworkable,” 9th Circuit Judge Andrew Hurwitz wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel.

Here’s the actual ruling: Obsidian Finance Group, LLC; Kevin D. Padrick v. Crystal Cox, United States Cour tof Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 17 January 2014, 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 →