Category Archives: Trash

ADS fails to recycle, appeals DSS ruling anyway

Why is Lowndes County leaving the City of

Valdosta to subsidize the county’s
failed
“exclusive franchise”?
And is ADS’ failure to recycle recyling a breach of its contract with the county?


Adam Floyd wrote on the front page of the VDT today,

Advanced Disposal appeals Deep South decision,



Requests made to Advanced Disposal Service’s corporate office and
Robert Norman, the lawyer who filed the appeal, to learn the
company’s reasoning behind the appeal were not returned by press
time.


Meanwhile, the City of Valdosta’s recycling center has denied
Advanced Disposal further access to its facilities, citing concerns
about volume.




John Whitehead III, deputy city manager for operations, said that
the center could not process the company’s deliveries fast enough,
and material was beginning to pile up. The suspension is temporary,
Whitehead said, and was done to ensure that the city could process
its recycling which increases during the holidays.


“We had been taking our recycling to the City of Valdosta, and
Monday they cut us off without any notice,” said Greg Walk,
local general manager for Advanced Disposal. “We’ve
constructed a bunker at the landfill, and the material that is being
collected in that bunker will be taken to a processing plant in
Milledgeville.”

The company had to dispose of recycled materials collected Monday
and Tuesday but continued recycling service Wednesday.

“It was the last thing we wanted to do to our recyclables, but
we responded as quickly as possible,” said Walk.

Does that mean the city of Valdosta sent the recycling to the landfill?
And is that a violation of the county’s contract with ADS?

-jsq

Buried under nine feet of manure: 19th century horse predictions



There is a big difference between the 19th century horse excrement
crisis and the current 21st century energy crisis,
similar as they may sound.
One was real.
The other is manufactured by the modern equivalent of stagecoach vendors.

Stephen Davies wrote for The Freeman 1 September 2004,

The Great Horse-Manure Crisis of 1894,

In 1898 the first international urban-planning conference convened
in New York. It was abandoned after three days, instead of the
scheduled ten, because none of the delegates could see any solution
to the growing crisis posed by urban horses and their output.



The problem did indeed seem intractable. The larger and richer that
cities became, the more horses they needed to function. The more
horses, the more manure. Writing in the Times of London in 1894, one
writer estimated that in 50 years every street in London would be
buried under nine feet of manure. Moreover, all these horses had to
be stabled, which used up ever-larger areas of increasingly valuable
land. And as the number of horses grew, ever-more land had to be
devoted to producing hay to feed them (rather than producing food
for people), and this had to be brought into cities and
distributed—by horse-drawn vehicles. It seemed that urban
civilization was doomed.

Continue reading →

Lowndes County can’t make a monopoly –Judge Harry J. Altman on DSS in VDT

Maybe filing the lawsuit in the first place was “premature”,
to use Chairman Bill Slaughter’s word in the VDT yesterday
about a possible appeal.
Commissioner Demarcus Marshall
had the common courtesy on WCTV to

apologize to DSS for the

unnecessary lawsuit.
How much did the Commission spend on that waste of time and effort?

Editor Kay Harris wrote on the front page of the Valdosta Daily Times yesterday,

Company wins fight to stay in business:
Deep South wins case brought by County,



Southern Circuit Judge Harry J. Altman issued a ruling Monday in the
civil action filed by Lowndes County against Deep South Sanitation,
LLC to enjoin Deep South from continuing its garbage business.
Advanced Disposal Services was later added as an intervenor
plaintiff in the case against Deep South as well.

In the ruling, Altman denied the County’s request for an injunction
to put Deep South out of business. The order addresses the County’s
ordinance passed in 2012, saying that to “simultaneously
invoke an exclusive franchise agreement with one company would, in
effect … permit Lowndes County to construct a monopoly while
simultaneously putting pre-existing companies out of
business.”

Well, it appears the judge thought it was

about right or wrong.

The county Chairman’s view now? Continue reading →

DSS on WCTV

The WCTV reporter interviewed Lowndes County Commissioner
Demarcus Marshall at yesterday’s

Chamber of Commerce Legislative Lunch
because Chairman Bill Slaughter was not there.

Winnie Anne Wright wrote yesterday for WCTV,

Deep South Sanitation Will Continue Work In Lowndes County,
quoted Cary Scarborough about winning
the lawsuit the Lowndes County Commission brought against his
company,
and then:



He has invested quite a bit of money in his only truck that you can
see here. Despite all of the litigation, he is proud to be born and
raised in Lowndes County.

One of the Commision’s newest representatives, Demarcus Marshall,
says he hopes the County and private businesses will be able to
negotiate out of court, if an issue like this comes about again.

“I commend him for his efforts. Commend his family. And I just
really apologize to them that they had to undergo this. And I hope
that in the future, don’t be afraid to do any business here in
Lowndes County”, says Marshall.

Residents of Lowndes County will now be able to choose between Deep
South Sanitation and Advanced Disposal, as well as any other
sanitation service for their trash collection.

-jsq

Local company trashed County Commission lawsuit



According to

Deep South Sanitation’s facebook page today,
DSS won

the court case brought against them by the Lowndes County Commission.

So how much money did the

alleged County Attorney
spend sueing a local company to benefit ADS investors in New York City?
The County Commission was very concerned recently about

how much the Sheriff and the Coroner spent
(which
the Sheriff
and

the Coroner
ably rebutted).
Why isn’t the Commission as concerned about spending money on a
completely unnecessary lawsuit that they started?
Why do they let that same attorney

set prices for purchase orders?



That

exclusive franchise with ADS: not so exclusive anymore, is it?

Will ADS sue the county, as many people rumored was the Commission’s
greatest fear?

Will the county now have to pay DSS’s attorney fees?
As a taxpayer I don’t like the idea of wasting more of my tax dollars
on that lawsuit, so maybe they could take it out of the fees or
salaries of whoever recommended and approved that lawsuit.



Maybe somebody down at the county should

“check our work”.

-jsq

Another October LAKE meeting Tuesday 22 October 2013



Pipeline and
local governance: Water (sinkholes, aquifer recharge,
runoff,
drinking water, and wastewater), trash (how about that Exclusive Franchise!),
and money (no-bid contracts and plus SPLOST VII).
If you want to help, we have a little list of tasks you can do.
Why another meeting in October?
The first one was at a time when many of the regulars couldn’t come, so here’s one for them.


What: Another October LAKE Meeting
When: 6:15PM Tuesday

after the

Lowndes County Commission meeting

7 October 2013
Where:


Michael’s Deli

1307 N Ashley St.

Valdosta, GA 31601

If you're on Facebook,
please Like the

LAKE facebook page.
You can sign up for

the meeting event there,
Or just come as you are.

-jsq

Next Deep South Sanitation court date: 25 Nov 2013



According to Deep South Sanitation, their next court date is
Monday 25 November 2013 at 9:30 AM, presumably at the

Lowndes County Judicial Complex, 327 N. Ashley Street, Valdosta, GA 31601.
The longer you drag this out, Lowndes County, the more
good press DSS gets out of it.
DSS reports 25 new customers for the fourth quarter,

providing $125 to Lake Park Elementary School.

Oh yes, the
alleged county attorney spending our tax dollars to sue Deep South Sanitation
was the attorney for
many of the cities that sued about LOST
and just

lost before the Georgia Supreme Court,
resulting in many cities and counties

scurrying around to make rapid agreements,
including

Lowndes County
and
Valdosta.

-jsq

No contracts for tenants of Leila Ellis Building @ LCC 2013-10-07



Two, four, six, many:
that’s how Lowndes County counts tenants.
It’s great the county is providing space for organizations
that help the needy,
but it’s kind of curious that the county didn’t seem to know
who or how many organizations were using the Leila Ellis building,
and had no lease agreement with them.
Not to mention it took twenty questions from Commissioners to get
staff to admit that lack of contracts,
at Monday morning’s

Lowndes County Commission Work Session.

6.b. Leila Ellis Building-Available Space

Kind of like they have

no contract with the alleged county attorney.

Chad McCleod at one point said
two organizations are currently in the building,
LAMP and Cash Prosperity.
He said the County let LAMP use it, and LAMP let Cash Prosperity use it.

In response to a question from Commissioner DeMarcus Marshall,
County Manager Joe Pritchard said under normal circumstances
any organization would need to come to the Commission to ask for space.
They currently have more applicants than space.

Commissioner Crawford Powell wanted to know if the county was going
to set up guidelines for who could lease.
Pritchard said they could, and they couldn’t lease to a private business.

Commissioner Richard Raines wanted to know if annual leases were the practice
of this board.
Pritchard, not actually answering the question asked,
said “That would be my suggestion.”




JoTaryla Thomas
came up to speak for Continue reading →

October LAKE meeting Monday 7 October 2013



Different day (Monday) and time (4PM), and some new developments, also adding that

natural gas pipeline to the
usual agenda of local governance: Water (sinkholes, aquifer recharge,
runoff,
drinking water, and wastewater), trash (how about that Exclusive Franchise!),
and money (no-bid contracts and plus SPLOST VII).
If you want to help, we have a little list of tasks you can do.

If you're on Facebook,
please Like the

LAKE facebook page.
You can sign up for

the meeting event there,
Or just come as you are.


Pipeline points with streets

What: Monthly LAKE Meeting
When: 4PM Monday

7 October 2013
Where:


Michael’s Deli

1307 N Ashley St.

Valdosta, GA 31601

-jsq

Cash for Trash –Deep South Sanitation



The longer you drag on

that lawsuit,
Lowndes County Commission,
about your bogus

exclusive franchise
that benefits nobody but

ADS investors in New York City,
the more good PR local company DSS gets.
We could use

better than trash government around here.

Advertisement by Deep South Sanitation in the VDT yesterday: Continue reading →