Category Archives: Trash

Public Hearing for Road Abandonment of Old State Road @ LCC 2010-10-26

In 2010, 450 people signed a petition to keep open
the road leading to Hotchkiss Landing on the Alapaha River,
according

the Lowndes County Commission minutes
for the 26 October 2010 Public Hearing.




Photograph by Brett Huntley.

Abandon a portion of Old State Road (CR 16), County
Manager, Joe Pritchard, presented the road closure for consideration,
adding that the engineering department had indicated twenty-five
vehicles per day on the road. Glenda Cofield, Mullins Lane, spoke
against the request, and presented

Continue reading →

Why must the small business owner be discarded? —Deep South Sanitation

Cary Scarborough, owner of a local sanitation business, previously

asked the Commission not to grant a monopoly on waste collection.
He was quoted in

today’s VDT article,
and he has elaborated on his company’s facebook page.

To the Commission,

13 November 2012:



Don’t do this to private enterprise, to an individual. If it’s done
to me, it will get easier later down the road to do it to someone
else.

In

the VDT:

“I have not been told by the County that what I’m doing is
illegal,” Scarborough said. “But I realize they’ve drawn
up an ordinance, and they’re probably going to say that it’s
illegal. If they come after me, I guess they have to come after
me.”

Scarborough believes that if the citizens aren’t required to
contract with Advanced Disposal, they are then allowed to choose.

“If the citizens can choose, why can’t they choose me?”
he said.

On Deep South Sanitation’s

public facebook page:

“REGARDING THE ISSUE OF THE TRASH ORDINANCE IN LOWNDES COUNTY”

Continue reading →

No choice on trash —”representatives from Lowndes County”



The VDT went deep under the Lowndes County government’s anonymous cover
for an interview with “representatives” who
confirmed that unincorporated residents have no choice
for trash collection other than

the monopoly the Commission granted
to a company from New York City.

Jason Schaefer wrote on the front page of the VDT today,

County trash ordinance goes into effect Friday:
VDT has Q&A with county leadership about new law, burning,

VDT:
Lowndes County has said residents aren’t required to sign a
service contract with Advanced Disposal. What other services are
there in the area, and do they include Deep South Sanitation in
Valdosta?

LC:
“According to the solid waste ordinance, Advanced Disposal
will be the only residential hauler licensed to serve unincorporated
Lowndes County. There’s been some confusion about trash collection
service in the city. This ordinance is just for unincorporated
Lowndes County, not for any of the cities.”

Maybe these were the same “representatives” who sent

an unsigned letter
saying there were 5,000 residents of unincorporated parts of
Lowndes County who didn’t already have curbside service, and they
have one choice now: the one-and-only
county-appointed purveyor of waste bins.
What could possibly go wrong?

Continue reading →

KLVB Alapaha River cleanup at Old State Road in 2007

So if Old State Road to the Alapaha River has, according to

the criteria recited by County Engineer Mike Fletcher,
“ceased to be used by the public to the extent that
no substantial public purpose is served by it”,
why did Keep Lowndes/Valdosta Beautiful (KLVB) do a cleanup there in 2007?
Is the removal of that section of road
“from the county road system… in the public’s best interest”?

Jessica Pope wrote for the VDT 30 September 2007,

River cleanup,

Saturday’s Alapaha River cleanup will be held in cooperation with
Rivers Alive, a statewide annual volunteer waterway cleanup that
targets Georgia’s 70,150 miles of streams and rivers each October,
and Hands On Georgia Week 2007, which will culminate on Saturday
with Hands on Atlanta Day, the largest volunteer service day in the
country. A number of volunteers will spend the day cleaning
Georgia’s waterways, building wheelchair ramps, collecting cans of
food for Georgia’s food banks and as picking up trash along
Georgia’s highways.


Anyone interested in participating in the Alapaha River cleanup
Saturday should head on U.S. 84 East past Naylor, turn left on Good
Hope Road then turn right on Old State Road. Small boats and canoes
are welcome. Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m., and participation
waivers must be signed.

Continue reading →

Get a job —Lowndes County to waste site workers

Continuing to ignore its responsibilities to protect public health, safety,
and well-being,
the Lowndes County government proceeded with its plan
to trash rural residents’ waste collection sites,
and told part time workers there to get a job.

Jason Schaefer wrote for the VDT today,

Trash centers dumped:
Final week to make trips to county recycling centers,

The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners near the end of 2012 voted


to approve a contract with Advanced Disposal to serve as the sole
waste company to conduct curbside trash pick-up in unincorporated
Lowndes County. Some citizens remain critical of the change in
service, which will cost $12.80 per month, and many are trying to
get their last loads to the collection/recycling centers before they
close….



Full-time employees at the recycling stations, which are already
employees of Public Works, said County Clerk Paige Dukes, will be
moved to different positions within the department. Part-time
employees will need to find new jobs.

Why might citizens be critical?

Continue reading →

January 2013 LAKE meeting: Let’s Eat Cafe, Valdosta

Local governance: Water, trash, and money.

What:
Monthly LAKE Meeting

When: 7 PM, Tuesday

29 January 2013

Where:
Let's Eat Cafe

2102 W. Hill Ave.

(just west of I-75,

at the Shell station)

Valdosta, GA 31601
View Larger Map

Don't let the location fool you:
Let's Eat is locally owned, and serves a lot of locally-grown food.

Agenda, not necessarily in this order:


  1. Roads and river access


  2. Solid waste disposal


  3. Local government transparency


  4. Zero owed in 2010; why $8.9 million owed now on county palace?


  5. Distributed solar power for jobs
    including

    GA SB 41
    vs.
    failing nuclear power


  6. Fast Internet access everywhere

  7. Other

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

Videos @ LCC 2013-01-07

The

public defender said the county palace (that we’re still mysteriously
paying on) didn’t have space for his office.


The

Industrial Authority request to buy some still-unspecified property
“has been pulled from the agenda” by unspecified forces.
The new

4-H agent spoke and

a bus was discussed.
One Commissioner forgot to show up until late to hear

Workers’ compensation is going up and the Commission’s own

schedule is being adjusted for holidays.
There was little substantive discussion, and
there’s no sign anything will change at the Lowndes County Commission
unless enough people want it to.
They vote this evening at 5:30 PM, and they do have Citizens Wishing
to be Heard, although it is still at the end, after all the votes.

Here’s

the agenda,
with links to videos,
and a few notes.

Continue reading →

New Commission meets Monday morning and Tuesday evening @ LCC 2013-01-07


Pictured: newly elected Commissioners
Page, Evans (re-elected), Slaughter, and Marshall

The Industrial Authority wants to buy some unspecified property
public defender needs renewing,
plus 4-H agent and school bus activity.
Also workers’ compensation,
and the Commission needs to approve its own schedule,
since it’s a new Commission now, with two more voting members than
last year, and a new Chairman.

Here’s

a list of the current Commission members:

  • Bill Slaughter, Chairman, At-Large
  • Joyce E. Evans, Commissioner, District 1
  • Richard Raines, Commissioner, District 2
  • Crawford Powell, Commissioner, District 3
  • Demarcus Marshall, Commissioner, District 4
  • John Page, Commissioner, District 5

Their

Commission web page
still has at the top this mission statement:

“To provide an efficient, effective and responsive local government
to all citizens of Lowndes County while maintaining the financial strength
to meet any contingency”

The county government has apparently been pretty good about that last thing
(although

that $8.9 million discrepency could make some wonder).
On responsiveness, not so much, considering

the trash non-solution railroaded through at the last meeting
of the previous Commission.
Maybe this new Commission will be different.

Here’s
the agenda.

-jsq

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2013, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 2013, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor

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Waste offer letter: take it or….

Unsigned trash letter from Lowndes County
I received the appended unsigned letter from Lowndes County
recently,
which says the
5,000 residents of the unincorporated parts that currently use the
county’s waste disposal sites can sign up with Advanced Disposal
(of New York City) for curbside pickup or…. There is no or. So
look forward to trash dumping long roadsides, in parking lots in
town, and on your property. And neither outgoing County Chairman
Ashley Paulk nor County Manager Joe Pritchard even had the courtesy
to sign the letter.

After noting that back in June the county changed waste permit
cards from 12 months to 6 months, the letter says:

At purchase, information was made available regarding
possible future options for solid waste management in
unincorporated Lowndes County.

So the county is backing off from claiming card buyers got a
letter spelling out options. I got no such letter with card
purchase.

This consideration became necessary due to revenue
generated by the sale of the permit cards, not covering the cost of
operating the centers.


And that’s all the accounting we get. Where is the summary of
expenses for the centers compared to revenue? The VDT reported from
the Commissioners’ stealth retreat back in April:

“In total, the county is currently spending $782,058.34
each year for solid waste disposal, a reduction from $1,176,207.75
in 2007.”

As I pointed out then, “So that’s a rapid reduction in cost to
less than a third of what it used to be, and less than half of what
it was only a year ago.” Later Joe Pritchard said those numbers
didn’t include everything being spent. So what was actually being
spent? We the taxpayers and we the card payers don’t know. After

a long series of meetings to which the public was either not
invited at all or was not invited to provide input, at its last
meeting of the year (exactly as I predicted),

Commissioners approved changes to the solid waste ordinance
eliminating the collection sites and

granted a monopoly to Advanced Disposal Services of

New York City.

Former Chairman Ashley Paulk

recently complained Moody AFB had become “privatized”. Yet at
his last Commission meeting he presided over privatizing the
county’s public service of solid waste collection.

Three new Commissioners were just sworn in yesterday, including
a new chair. The new Commission in the new year is not, so far as I
know, bound by the decisions of any previous Commission. It could
undo the damage the old one just did. Or it could, like the old
one, ignore concerns of

public health, safety, and the environment that

the state requires them to implement, plus concerns of

local waste collection businesses, of local residents

about recycling and

about the lack of any other option than curbside; will the new
Commission continue to kick 5,000 county residents towards curbside
collection or tossing their trash in the your yard?

Unsigned trash letter from Lowndes County:

Continue reading →

Videos @ LCC 2012-12-11



Moody and the Chamber won, rural residents got wasted,
and taxpayers still didn't get to see a single thing the Lowndes County Commission
voted on last night in 45 minutes (very long for them)
in front of the biggest audience I've ever seen there.

They

appointed John "Mac" McCall to ZBOA.
They revised the

alcohol ordinance with some unspecified "changes to the fee schedule",
and added another alcohol restriction to the
Lake Park rezoning
before approving it.

They approved the

solid waste ordinance and granted a waste collection monopoly to

a company from New York City
despite all known public input being against it.
Two
more people
spoke
against it
in Citizens Wishing to Be Heard.

Gretchen Quarterman recommended adding
all the appointed Boards and Authorities to the county's calendar.

Commissioners accepted applicant's withdrawal of

the rezoning request near Moody AFB
and tabled indefinitely the related

zoning code amendment.
They
approved rezoning for the
Naylor Dollar General.

Commission approved four Decorative Lighting Special Tax Districts (forgetting it was supposed to be a
public hearing),
and a refund for one that wasn't.

Danny Weeks got approved a new netclock
and new phones for the 911 center,
and he and his staff got an award.
The library railroad continues,
the bonds renegotation was approved with
about $2 million savings and some legal questions,
the Annex has asbestos but they'll deal with it,
and after Friday's demolition ceremony
there will be a going-away reception for Chairman Paulk,
and Bill Slaughter will be the new Chairman.

You missed all that and more at yesterday's Commission meeting.

Here's

a video playlist of the Regular Session,
followed by the agenda with the videos linked into it.

Update 2014-04-09: Fixed embedded video link.


Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 11 December 2012.

For reference here are the

videos of
yesterday morning's Work Session.
And here is

the agenda with links to the videos and some notes.

Continue reading →