Your elected Commissioners and top county staff
listening to Finance Director Stephanie Black’s report,
around 9:30 AM on
the all-day retreat agenda.
The seemingly most boring subject, but the key to all the others.
Gretchen is there videoing, but apparently nobody else other
than the VDT reporter. Continue reading
Category Archives: Water
County Commission retreats to Lake Park Thursday and Friday @ LCC 2015-02-05
Everything from Animals to ZBOA
agenda
for the annual Lowndes County Commission retreat, now billed
as 2015 Annual Planning Meeting.
Unlike
the Valdosta City Council,
this retreat is in Lowndes County,
at the same location as the recent Lake Park Chamber of Commerce
annual dinner.
Gretchen will be there with the LAKE camera.
You can go, too: it’s an open meeting.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
2015 Annual Planning Meeting
Quail Branch Lodge
7601 Zeigler Road, Lake Park, GeorgiaThursday, February 5- Continue reading
One variance at Lake Alapaha @ ZBOA 2015-02-03
One variance at Lake Alapaha, about not connecting to county water.
Since the county has had to
spend a lot of money recently on
upgrading the Lake Alapaha water treatment plant, digging individual
wells down into groundwater containing Alapaha River water seems dubious
to me.
With no County Director of Utilities since Mike Allen moved on,
I wonder who will represent the county?
Here’s the agenda, which oddly is not yet on the City of Valdosta website. Thanks to Alexandra for sending it.
Valdosta-Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals
Matt Martin, Valdosta Planning and Zoning Administrator Carmella Braswell, Lowndes County Zoning Administrator 300 North Lee Street, Valdosta, Georgia 327 North Ashley Street, Valdosta, Georgia (229) 259-3563 (229) 671-2430 AGENDA
February 3, 2015
2:30 p.m.
- Call to Order
LOWNDES COUNTY CASES:
- VAR-2015-01 — Robert Dinkins (Lake Alapaha Boulevard, Naylor)
Variance to ULDC Chapters 4.04.02 (F2) and 6.03.03 (D) as they pertain to water connection requirementsOTHER BUSINESS:
- Approval of Minutes: January 6, 2014
- Adjournment
-jsq
Videos: Mike Allen, Anti-Tethering, Budget, Surplus, Abandonment, Evidence, Workers Comp, Manhole @ LCC 2015-01-27
The room was packed as
the Chairman commented on
Dr. Amanda Hall’s proposal
for an
anti-tethering ordinance,
as did
four citizens
(realtor Alan Canup,
veterinarian Jeff Creamer,
LCDP Chairman Tom Hochschild,
and
Carol Kellerman),
plus
Chairman Slaughter again.
Citizen
Frenchie DePasture
commented on trash,
at Tuesday evening’s Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
Mike Allen, Utilities Director until last Friday,
got an offer he couldn’t refuse from Hilton Head, South Carolina
and
a presentation from County Manager Joe Pritchard.
Finance Director Stephanie Black
read from the agenda
about
a budget award (or
passing grade) received by Lowndes County for the ninth year in a row,
as one of 1400 awardees this year.
No rezonings, but Continue reading
Videos: Anti-Tethering, Budget, Surplus, Abandonment, Evidence, Workers Comp, Manhole @ LCC 2015-01-26
Mike Allen, former Utilities Director,
no longer works for the county as of last Friday, according to
County Manager Joe Pritchard.
Dr. Amanda Hall
proposed an
anti-tethering ordinance.
Both at yesterday morning’s Work Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
Lowndes County won
an award for its budget as “a policy document, a financial plan, an operations guide and a communications device.”
All good except: as a communications device?
They’d probably have to publish drafts of it before they passed it for
that to be true.
Unless they mean as in a public telling, not a public hearing.
They won last year, too,
along with 45 other winners in Georgia,
including Valdosta.
Award, or passing grade?
They’ll
present it tonight
at the Regular Session.
No rezonings, but surplus computing devices, abandonment of Deloach Road E (CR 95), more on the never-ending juvenile justice Evidence Based Associates topic, Workers Compensation Insurance Renewal, and sewer gasses corrode manhole covers. I wonder how much gases corrode pipelines?
See the agenda. Videos are linked below, followed by a video playlist.
Continue readingVideos: Packets, paving, safety, trash, education, appointment, jail, taxes, water @ LCC 2015-01-13
Teri Lupo
reappointed to VLDA
and almost all the Commissioners asked questions at some point during the
at the Tuesday 5:30 PM 13 January 2015
Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission, at which
two new Commissioners got to vote.
Several citizens spoke, on
getting board packets on the web,
on
getting their road paved,
on
safety on Val Del Road and reopening some of the waste collection sites,
and
the
National Council of Negro Women;
the
Chairman weighed in on a couple of topics.
They meet again Monday morning 26 January 2015 plus a Special Called Meeting on Waste Management that same morning.
The Alapaha River Water Trail resolution, according to the Chairman before the meeting, is waiting until they’re ready to dedicate the new boat ramp at US 84, which is waiting until the river water goes down enough to pour concrete. Maybe some time this spring.
See the agenda for details on what they were considering, and see the videos of the previous morning’s Work Session for background. Below are links to the LAKE videos of each agenda item, followed by a video playlist. See also the county’s own much more professional one big long video.
Continue readingVideos: VLDA appointment, jail, taxes, water @ LCC 2015-01-12
Teri Lupo was available for questions about
being reappointed to VLDA at the Monday 8:30 AM 21 12 January 2015
Work Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
There were no questions, but
Commissioners Demarcus and one other (I think Mark Wisenbaker) had compliments.
The Chairman asked for a motion to appoint, but was reminded this was
a Work Session, so wait until the next evening for that.
The agenda item for the resolution in support of the Alapaha River Water Trail, according to the Chairman before the meeting, is waiting until they’re ready to dedicate the new boat ramp at US 84, which is waiting until the river water goes down enough to pour concrete. Maybe some time this spring.
See the agenda for details on what they were considering. Below are links to the LAKE videos of each agenda item, followed by a video playlist. See also the county’s own much more professional one big long video.
Continue readingTVA needs to listen to former chair S. David Friedman about solar power
Will you bet on the blinkered money-only policies of the current TVA Chair, or the accurate clean solar future predictions of former TVA Chair S. David Friedman?
Seven years ago S. David Friedman wrote:
“As a substitute for oil, coal, and nuclear energy, the sun can replace the three poisons with inexhaustible fuel.”
The former TVA Chairman wrote that in 2007 his boook Winning Our Energy Independence: An Energy Insider Shows How, which also says (page 4):
There are breakthroughs in new technology that promise to make the cost of solar power as low as that of coal, nuclear, and oil. Almost simultaneously in South Africa and the Silicon Valley in the United States, companies are building huge new solar factories to manufacture a paper-thin solar coating that can generate electricity that could actually lower our electric bills. These breakthroughs promise solar power at 75 percent less than today’s price. Continue reading
Budget, Surplus, Abandonment, Evidence, Workers Comp, Manhole @ LCC 2015-01-26
Update 25 January 2015: Additional item #5 Anti-Chaining Ordinance Request – Dr. Amanda Hall; see separate post.
Lowndes County won
an award for its budget as “a policy document, a financial plan, an operations guide and a communications device.”
All good except: as a communications device?
They’d probably have to publish drafts of it before they passed it for
that to be true.
Unless they mean as in a public telling, not a public hearing.
They won last year, too,
along with 45 other winners in Georgia,
including Valdosta.
Award, or passing grade?
No rezonings, but surplus computing devices, abandonment of Deloach Road E (CR 95), more on the never-ending juvenile justice Evidence Based Associates topic, and sewer gasses corrode manhole covers. I wonder how much gases corrode pipelines?
The agenda (PDF) still doesn’t give the dates; just Monday and Tuesday, so I’ve inserted them in [brackets]. But congratulations on having the agenda online a week in advance!
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
Continue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, [January 26th] 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, [January 27th] 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
MLK and pipeline opposition
The fossil fuel opposition is the child and grandchild of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
With their nonviolence, truth, and action as a model, we shall overcome.
Bill McKibben, The Guardian, 25 August 2011, Martin Luther King’s legacy and the power of nonviolent civil disobedience: In opposing the Keystone XL oil pipeline, demonstrators are getting a sense of the civil rights leader’s courage,
Preacher, speaker, writer under fire, but also tactician. He really understood the power of nonviolence, a power we’ve experienced in the last few days. When the police cracked down on us, the publicity it produced cemented two of the main purposes of our protest: First, it made Keystone XL “ the new, 1,700-mile-long pipeline we’re trying to block that will vastly increase the flow of “dirty” tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico “ into a national issue. A few months ago, it was mainly people along the route of the prospective pipeline who were organising against it. (And with good reason: Continue reading