Category Archives: Valdosta City Council

How to get fast Internet service —Susan Crawford

Susan Crawford has a plan for getting us fast Internet access for jobs, community, education, and health care.

Susan Crawford wrote for Wired 2 October 2012, We Can’t All Be in Google’s Kansas: A Plan for Winning the Bandwidth Race, about how the incumbent telephone and cable companies that provide our Internet access aren’t going to help:

They have no incentive to do so. Because they never enter one another’s territories, they don’t face the competition that might spur such expansion.

Instead, incumbent internet access providers such as Comcast and Time Warner (for wired access) and AT&T and Verizon (for complementary wireless access) are in “harvesting” mode. They’re raising average revenue per user through special pricing for planned “specialized services” and usage-based billing, which allows the incumbents to constrain demand. The ecosystem these companies have built is never under stress, because consumers do their best to avoid heavy charges for using more data than they’re supposed to. Where users have no expectation of abundance, there’s no need to build fiber on the wired side of the business or build small cells fed by fiber on the wireless side.

If the current internet access providers that dominate the American telecommunications landscape could get away with it, they’d sell nothing but specialized services and turn internet access into a dirt road.

So what is her plan?

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Bird supper tickets on sale

Once a year busloads of people go to Atlanta from Lowndes County and Valdosta to lobby their legislators with small birds. It’s curious we only hear about this from Valdosta, not Lowndes County. -jsq

Bird Supper 2013 Tickets on Sale Now
Posted Date: 1/3/2013

Sementha Mathews, Public Information Officer
Phone: (229) 259-3548
E-mail: smathews@valdostacity.com

Tickets are on sale for the 2013 Bird Supper, scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013, at the historic Georgia Railroad Depot, in Atlanta, beginning at 5 p.m. The tradition—over 50 years old—brings together hundreds of state officials and local business, professional and government personnel for a dinner of quail and important conversation.

The event, sponsored by the City of Valdosta and the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners, allows local professionals the opportunity to have an impact on the current legislative agenda through face-to-face conversations with those who will make some very important decisions impacting our local area and entire state.

Tickets may be purchased

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Valdosta City Council meetings cancelled @ VCC 2013-01-10

And now a word from award-winning Valdosta City Clerk Teresa Bolden. -jsq

Good morning — I wanted to let you know that the Work Session scheduled for January 8th and the Council Meeting scheduled for January 10th have both been cancelled due to the lack of items on the Agenda. Our next Regular Council Meeting will be held on January 24th.

Valdosta City Clerk earns international certification

And now for some good local news: Valdosta City Clerk Teresa Bolden has been recognized by an international institute.

Valdosta city PR 18 December 2012, Valdosta City Clerk Teresa Bolden Earns CMC,

City of Valdosta Clerk Teresa Bolden has earned the designation of Certified Municipal Clerk (CMC), awarded by the International Institute of Municipal Clerks (IIMC), Inc. IIMC grants the CMC designation exclusively to municipal clerks who complete the demanding education requirements and who have a record of significant contributions to their local government, their community and state.

“In light of the speed and drastic nature of change these days, lifelong learning is not only desirable, it is necessary for all in local government to keep pace with growing demands and changing needs of the citizens we serve,” said City Manager Larry Hanson. “Teresa performs her duties with the highest degree of professionalism and integrity and is a great credit to our city and to her profession. We are fortunate to benefit from her talent and ability.”

As an example of Clerk Bolden’s work, here is baldosta’s apparently complete online list of ordinances.

-jsq

Bainbridge beats Valdosta!

Bainbridge City Hall now hums with solar energy, Tristan Baurick wrote for Kitsap Sun 2 August 2012:

City Hall’s array of 297 rooftop solar panels is expected to produce the equivalent of 20 percent of the building’s energy needs, according to Joe Deets, executive director of Community Energy Solutions, the Bainbridge nonprofit group that spearheaded the privately-funded project.

“This is a great day for Bainbridge,” Deets said.

How many solar panels do you see on Valdosta City Hall? Well, that’s a historic building. But how about City Hall Annex? The parking lot? The formerly “100% Paid by SPLOST” Lowndes County palace that we’re now paying almost $9 million in bonds for? Nope, not a solar panel in sight.

Oh, sorry, that’s Continue reading →

Additional license fee for Sunday alcohol sales? @ LCC 2012-12-10

Why should businesses have to pay an additional license fee for Sunday alcohol sales, if the only justification is to raise money to pay for administering that license? That was a topic at yesterday morning's Lowndes County Commission Work Session for agenda item 6.a. Revision to the Lowndes County Alcoholic Beverage Ordinance.

Finance Director Stephanie Black mentioned the things we already heard from the staff, brown bagging, social hosts (serving alcohol at private events to underage drinkers), and the Sunday package sales. She said for the voter-approved Sunday alcohol sales the license fee would be $250, plus a requirement for an immigration affidavit. Commissioner Powell took exception to that additional license fee, which would be on top of a license fee already necessary for the rest of the week. Black and Chairman Paulk defended it as necessary to collect money to administer the license fee. Powell wondered if they'd need the money if they didn't have the license fee. Paulk said the city of Valdosta charges $1000 for a Sunday license. Powell said he disagreed with that, too.

Here's the video:

Additional license fee for Sunday alcohol sales?
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 10 December 2012.

-jsq

SPLOST won in Houston County but not in Lowndes County: why?

Why did SPLOST in Houston County, Georgia win by a landslide while SPLOST VII in Lowndes County lost?

Houston County’s SPLOST passed in March 2012 by a landslide. Christina M. Wright wrote for The Telegraph 6 March 2012, UPDATE: Houston officials celebrate landslide SPLOST approval,

“This is a ‘thank you’ for the voters,” said Houston County Chairman Tommy Stalnaker as Warner Robins Councilman Paul Shealy presented the black and white sign. “They are the real victors of this thing tonight.”…

Unofficial results showed the SPLOST received 10,029 ‘yes’ votes to 4,799 ‘no’ votes. More affirmative than negative votes were cast in every precinct.

That’s 67.6% to 32.4%, and a difference: Houston County local elected officials thanked the voters. Lowndes County Chairman Ashley Paulk, who rushed through a SPLOST vote a year early, Continue reading →

Board of Health members

Here is a list of the members of the Lowndes County Board of Health:

Board Members

William R. Grow, MD, FACP
District Health Director
Mark Eanes, MD
Chair, Physician
Mary Margaret Richardson, EdD
Vice Chair, Licensed Nurse
Randy Smith, DDS
Secretary, Consumer Advocate
Sheila Warren
Advocate for Needy,
Underprivileged or Elderly
Richard Raines
Lowndes County Commissioner
John Gayle
City of Valdosta Mayor
Wes Taylor
Lowndes County Schools
Superintendent
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Who implements trash, health, and safety?

As we’ve seen, solid waste is a matter of public health, safety, well-being, and the environment, according to Georgia state law. Whose responsibility is it to protect the environment and the public health, safety, and well-being from solid waste?

Many health and safety issues are handled through the health department, Diagram of the waste hierarchy including the Georgia Department of Public Health, and the South Health District (Ben Hill, Berrien, Brooks, Cook, Echols, Irwin, Lanier, Lowndes, Tift and Turner Counties). Particularly, water quality (septic tanks, well water), food safety, cleanliness of hotels, motels, restaurants, swimming pools and so on are the responsibility of the local health department, such as the Lowndes County Health Department.

However, disposal of solid waste (trash/garbage) is handled by the local municipality or governmental body (county).

The EPA has a variety of documents available about solid waste.

So does the state EPD, as enabled through Georgia Legislation: Existing Rules and Corresponding Laws.

So, where does this leave us? See next post.

-gretchen

SPLOST, media, southside library: videos @ SGLB 2012-11-20

Here’s a video playlist of the 20 November 2012 South Georgia Regional Library Board meeting. And here’s George Rhynes’ editorial on what he saw, heard, and was asked at that meeting. He’d prefer SPLOST being spent first on sidewalks than on moving the library where people would have to go farther to get to it. Also, like many of us, he’s tired of a few people controlling the purse-strings without input from the rest of us. He gave an example:

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