Big Little River Paddle Racepostponed
on account of weather for one week until Saturday 29 30 March 2013.
Sorry about that; please come next week!
-jsq
Postponed one week: Big Little River Paddle Race
Big Little River Paddle RaceCategory Archives: Water
Big Little River Paddle RaceHarris resignation letter —Gretchen Quarterman
Some thoughts on the
Kay Harris resignation letter.
- If the library building is going to fall down, move the library to another available building like the soon to be closed federal building downtown.
- Has she forgotten that the newspaper brags that SPLOST is paid half by people who don't even live in the county?
- If Valdosta had gone ahead with the MOST then for sure county residents would have been paying for something that they wouldn't get to use. How much "shopping" is outside the Valdosta city limits? Harvey's in Bemiss, Harvey's in Hahira and the stores in Lake Park.
Certainly a SPLOST is better than a MOST.
-gretchen
Big Little River Paddle Race
Today is the last day of the $20 online registration for the
Big Little River Paddle Race, cosponsored by WWALS Watershed Coalition
and Friends of Reed Bingham, to be held Saturday March 23rd
at Reed Bingham State Park.
WWALS blog post; event flyer PDF, and much of the flyer text is below.
Continue readingKay Harris resigned as Chair and from Library Board
Received today: PDF, with transcription appended below. -jsq
Continue readingMarch 15, 2013
Joe Pritchard
County Manager
Lowndes County
327 N. Ashley St.
Valdosta, GA 31601
Dear Mr. Pritchard:
It is with great regret that I find the need to step down from the Lowndes County
and South Georgia Regional Library Board of Trustees. I fear that I am no longer
capable of holding this position in light of the county’s recent actions.
As you are aware,
South Ga. officials expecting sinkholes after rain while NYTimes plays down the risk
Sinkholes aren’t just
for Florida anymore: Albany’s got them.
Are sinkholes risky?
You may think so if one is under your house.
And here above the Floridan Aquifer you probably won’t know that
until your foundations starts cracking.
Maybe we should do something to prevent the problem,
and to help people who are affected by it.
Perhaps the Lowndes County government till pay attention when
somebody’s house falls into a sinkhole.
Jim Wallace wrote for WALB 9 March 2013, Expect more sinkholes,
Some sinkholes have opened up in South Georgia since the recent heavy rains.
And engineers and public works experts say they expect more sinkholes to develop in the coming weeks. It’s just nature at work, but it can really cause some problems.
Really? Does “nature at work” include sinkholes predictably forming after massive water pumping to sprinkle strawberries during a cold snap?
The WALB story pooh-poohs the possibility of anything like that Sefner sinkhole showing up in south Georgia, and then details two Albany sinkholes:
Continue readingSuwannee County sinkholes —WCTV
Sinkholes in
Seffner, Fort Myers,
Tallahassee,
and now even closer.
Follow the Withlacoochee River south to the Suwannee River,
and two counties south of us in Suwannee County, Florida,
they’ve got dozens of sinkholes,
one of them massive, with another one this month,
including apparently a cavern under some yards.
This is in the same Floridan Aquifer that underlies Lowndes County,
where we had
a road drop into a sinkhole three years ago
and sinkholes were discovered under a man’s garage and yard last year.
Greg Gullberg 4 March 2013, The Science Behind Sinkholes,
Continue readingMikell Cook says he and his neighbors have learned more about Geology than they ever cared to since last summer when Tropical Storm Debby swept through much of Florida leaving Live Oak and surrounding areas peppered with sinkholes.
He and his neighbors live in the town of McAlpin, where
Tallahassee sinkhole
Even closer than Tampa Bay or Fort Myers, Tallahassee has sinkhole problems in our same Floridan Aquifer just across the state line. Will the Lowndes County Commission do anything about our sinkhole problems before people start losing their insurance and get sucked into holes in the ground?
Andy Alcock wrote for WCTV Wednesday, Tallahassee Woman Faces Sinkhole Problem,
Imagine living in a home you can’t insure, no one wants to buy and it may not be safe.
A Tallahassee woman is currently facing that problem.
At first glance, her home in Tallahassee’s Mission Manor neighborhood on the city’s northwest side doesn’t look much different from any of the other homes in the neighborhood.
Then about two years ago, homeowner Vickie Gordon found a problem.
“I started noticing that the doors were getting stuck in the bathroom, couldn’t open them,” said Gordon.
Then the issues became more noticeable.
Cracks started showing up all over the house.
After Gordon contacted her insurance company, investigators found sinkhole activity at her home.
I wish this part was a joke:
Continue readingLeon County Florida trouble ticket system
Why do citizens have to nag our local governments to find out what's
going on even about
cleaning up sewage all over their back yards and under their houses?
How about if our governments deploy issue tracking systems?
Here's an example of how that works.
As previously mentioned,
Leon County, Florida, lets anyone
Report a Problem or Request a Service
through their web page.
Then you can
find your service request
and
track a problem
using a ticket number.
This is not rocket science. Thousands of businesses have been using such issue tracking systems (also known as trouble ticket systems) for many years. There is off-the-shelf software to implement them. Beyond the obvious advantages to the citizens of being able to tell what's going on with their issues, such systems also greatly aid local governments by
Continue readingMore Valdosta wastewater correspondence
Some interesting questions have come up in
Gabe Fisher's continuing correspondence with the City of Valdosta
about
sewage in his back yard
and
under his house,
while
City Council Tim Carroll continues to respond,
both copying a long list of people.
From: Gabe Fisher
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 14:23:12 -0500All, I appreciate the update on where the city stands on moving the sewer all together—I just wish we had been kept informed of the plans over the last 4 years. Living with the *real* threat of flooding is stressful enough, add in the guaranteed associated sewage spill is more than I can handle.
I also appreciate the city workers spreading lime and working on the sewer line behind my house today. But I have questions—What about the sewage in my yard and under my house? Is this my responsibility?
Thanks, Gabe
Tim Carroll responded with a couple of suggestions:
Continue readingVideos: Two rezonings and a lease @ LCC 2013-03-11
A surprising number of questions were asked by Commissioners
at yesterday morning’s Work Session, yet still nobody asked
about the well near
one of the proposed rezonings.
We had a microphone failure during the first few items;
sound picks up as the Commissioners start asking questions on
5.b. REZ-2013-04.
Because of the sound glitch
you can’t tell that for sure from the videos that nobody discussed SPLOST,
but Gretchen was there from call to order to adjournment, and she didn’t hear anything about
SPLOST.
Maybe they’ll say something about it tonight at their 5:30 PM Regular Session,
at which they vote on these rezonings and contract.
Here’s the agenda with links to the videos and some notes.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, MARCH 11, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor