Category Archives: Valdosta City Council

Thanks for concern about drinking water from the Floridan Aquifer –Don Thieme about Valdosta draft resolution against Sabal Trail pipeline @ VCC 2014-12-09

Water matters, too, said a comment yesterday on

We all live in Lowndes County: Valdosta Draft Resolution Against Sabal Trail Pipeline @ VCC 2014-12-09.
The Valdosta City Council votes tonight at 5:30 PM on this resolution.
And don’t forget to get your comments or motions to intervene to FERC
before the deadline of 24 December 2014.
-jsq



Many thanks to Tim Carroll for adding

the part about this important environmental issue which

affects everyone in the city of Valdosta
and Lowndes County as well. This is not just about the property
rights of a few concerned citizens although those are important as
well and demand protection from elected politicians.

–Don Thieme

We all live in Lowndes County: Valdosta Draft Resolution Against Sabal Trail Pipeline @ VCC 2014-12-09

Last night, while the Lowndes County Commission
unanimously approved

300x169 Council discussing the resolution, in Valdosta Draft Resolution Against Sabal Trail Pipeline, by Valdosta City Council, 10 December 2014
their

resolution against the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline,
the Valdosta City Council

discussed a supporting resolution at its Work Session.
Council Tim Carroll
said Valdosta had added

a clause about the Floridan Aquifer.
Council Robert Yost said he didn’t think such a resolution was something
the City of Valdosta should be doing, and he would not vote Thursday.
No other Council members expressed any reservations.
Council Sonny Vickers said he thought it was worth doing to show unity.
Mayor John Gayle remarked, “We all live in Lowndes County.” Continue reading →

Anti-pipeline ordinance resolution + 3 more ordinances @ VCC 2014-12-09

As

promised,
item 5.c) on the agenda for Thursday’s Regular Meeting and Tuesday’s
Work Session of the Valdosta City Council:

300x352 Page 1, in Agenda, Valdosta City Council, by John S. Quarterman, 9 December 2014


Consideration of a Resolution in support of the Lowndes County Board of
Commissioners regarding the Sabal Trail Project.

Has staff found the digital copies of the maps for

CU-2014-11 Normal Life of Georgia?
If the county put agenda packets for the Planning Commission online,
staff wouldn’t have to worry about that.

Here’s the agenda, thanks to images from

Council Member Tim Carroll.

3:26 PM

120514 Agenda Packet.pdf

AGENDA

REGULAR MEETING OF THE VALDOSTA CITY COUNCIL

5:30 PM Thursday, December 11, 2014

Continue reading →

Valdosta proposes resolution against Sabal Trail pipeline @ VCC 2014-12-09



A draft resolution in support of

Lowndes County’s resolution against the Sabal Trail pipeline
will be discussed by the Valdosta City Council at their
Work Session Tuesday 9 December and very likely voted on at their
Regular Session Thursday 11 December.
This is according to

Valdosta City Council Tim Carroll, who has
seen the draft resolution.

This would be a very good idea, not just since Valdosta is the county
seat of Lowndes County,
but also because three alternative routes would go

right down I-75 through Valdosta.

Both Valdosta City Council meetings are at 5:30 PM at Valdosta City Hall, 216 E Central Ave, Valdosta, GA 31601.
Yes, that means the City’s Work Session is at the same time as
the County’s Regular Session when the county proposes to vote on their own resolution Tuesday 9 December 2014.

Another very bad PR week for Spectra, what with Continue reading →

Valdosta recognized for solar power, LED lighting, wastewater improvements

City of Valdosta PR today 5 December 2014,

Valdosta Named “Smart Energy Municipality of the Year”,



The City of Valdosta was named “Smart Energy Municipality of
the Year” by the

Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) on
Dec. 4, at an awards banquet held at the Georgia Tech Wardlaw
Building in Atlanta, Ga. The event recognized successful
individuals, businesses and municipalities who have shown dynamic
leadership over the past year in Georgia’s large and growing Smart
Energy sector.

Sixty nominations were received collectively in the three
categories. In the municipality category, which includes cities,
counties and state government agencies, the City of Valdosta was one
of two finalists and the overall recipient of the award ” the
other finalist was the Georgia Department of Corrections.

“We are extremely honored Continue reading →

Videos: Lost Maps, New Vice, Lake Park R-P, Lowndes County C-G, Valdosta R-M @ GLPC 2014-11-24

Complete agenda? Maps? Election process? Calendar? But few people were there to notice these things missing.



At the Work Session we had all maps and things to show you,
but between then and now the digital copies have vanished
off of both laptops.
And we are sort of
at a loss as to where they went but they’re gone.
So if you’ll use the
maps that are in your packet and perhaps some memory from the Work Session discussion….

That’s right, staff lost the digital copies of an agenda item,

CU-2014-11 Normal Life of Georgia.
Board packets on the county’s website would serve as a backup
for copies on planners’ laptops.

Gretchen, who was there, reports further below, including
a note about that charming young white man recently appointed
to the Planning Commission. -jsq

At a brief and poorly attended GLPC meeting, Continue reading →

Videos of Open Government Symposium in Macon @ OGS 2014-10-17



Here are videos of last month’s event organized by

VDT editor Jim Zachary, director of the Transparency Project of Georgia,
and Holly Manheimer, director of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation,
adding to
the still picture we already posted.

Lake Park R-P, Lowndes County C-G, Valdosta R-M @ GLPC 2014-11-24


300x388 Page 1: Lake Park R-P, Lowndes County C-G, Valdosta R-M, in Agenda, by John S. Quarterman, 24 November 2014

Thanks to the City of Valdosta for the
agenda for tonight’s Planning Commission meeting.
It’s all small cases, but how would you know whether one of them
might affect you, since Lowndes County still doesn’t post Planning Commission
agendas or minutes or board packets?
And is there a second page?
If the county did post these agendas regularly on their own website,
this sort of omission would be less likely to occur.

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

Continue reading →

Update on Water/Sewer Projects –Tim Carroll

Received 8 Nov 2014 from Valdosta City Council Tim Carroll. -jsq


300x232 Map, in Force Main and Pump Stations, by City of Valdosta, 8 November 2014
City Ahead of Schedule on Sanitary Sewer Collection System
Improvement Projects

The City of Valdosta is making significant headway on two capital
improvement projects that, once complete, will eliminate some
sources of stormwater I&I; but more importantly, they will resolve
the overwhelming majority of the sanitary sewer overflows in
flood-prone areas of the city during heavy rain events—making
these projects the city’s highest priority.

The

$36 million Force Main Project, which is currently six months Continue reading →

Valdosta’s Penn Station to be torn down –Alfred Willis @ VCC 2014-10-23



Received as a response to

Outside corporation trumps Valdosta citizens about historical Nichols house? –Jim Parker @ VCC 2014-10-23. -jsq

The City Council’s deliberations on the 23rd had nothing to do with
any construction project, but rather focused on the sale of a parcel
— as

Councilman Carroll’s message of the 25th accurately
conveys. The Council’s vote was historic because it signified openly
the supremacy of certain private property interests (specifically,
those entailed in selling as a form of enjoyment) over civic
cultural interests, at least within the municipality of Valdosta. In
doing so it gave Valdosta’s citizens a peek behind a curtain that
had remained drawn over historic preservation here since 1980. The
construction of buildings, the demolition of buildings, the
remodeling or moving of buildings, the maintenance and preservation
of buildings, their sale and their purchase, their adaptive reuse
— all of those processes are historical processes that turn on
the resolution of conflicts among interests. Thus they all reveal
structures of power and the machinations of powerful individuals and
groups. How could they not?

The construction of the Nichols house in
the early 1950s showed with a degree of clarity that probably no
other Valdosta building of that time did, the identity, values,
attitudes, and mode of operation of Valdosta’s leadership. Its
demolition will Continue reading →