Category Archives: Water

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 →

9 for consideration, 6 special tax lighting, 4 appointments, 2 rezonings, 1 proclamation @ LCC 2014-11-10

Only one emergency expense this time, and it’s not for a road or water treatment! It’s for security video monitors for their own palace. Presumably those are different from the big monitor behind their podium that very rarely we see in use.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Pipeline, road repair, Bailey, water, and Commercial Tax Schedules @ LCC 2014-10-28

They finally made a decision onG the Bailey rezoning: the one the applicant liked least. They accepted the Creekwood Subdivision detention ponds; and the Glen Laurel infrastructure; will all that be maintained any better than the one at Hamilton Circle? Dr. Michael Noll spoke for WACE against the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline.

Agenda item 6.i. is changed in the county’s online agenda from Rural to Commercial without the agenda being marked as amended.

See agenda, the LAKE videos of the previous morning’s Work Session, and the board packet obtained via open records request by LAKE and scanned and posted on the LAKE website. Here are videos of events as they transpired, followed by a video playlist.

Continue reading →

Videos: Existing Industry Spotlight @ VLCIA 2014-10-21

They’re hiring an Existing Industry Coordinator to start in October or November. They granted an easement on Madison Highway to Valdosta for a rechlorination booster station.

No citizens spoke at the 21 October 2014 Valdosta-Lowndes County Development Authority meeting. Nobody there but Greg Justice of Regal Marine (presented a framed copy of the VDT article about his company), VDT reporter Stuart Taylor (here’s his report), and Gretchen (who took these videos). Roy Copeland wanted to know about numbers of new jobs and reporting to the community.

Here’s the agenda, and below are the videos of events as they transpired.

Continue reading →

A Hazardous Sabal Trail to LNG Export

Here are the slides for the talk I gave at the Alabama Sierra Club Retreat 1 November 2014.

The outline, with links to supporting evidence:

Afterwards, somebody asked me if there was a study on LNG exports driving up domestic natural gas prices. Turns out there is, requested by LNG-export-authorizing Office of Fossil Energy from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. EIA’s summary of 29 October 2014: Continue reading →

Board Packet @ LCC 2014-10-27

Surprisingly, when asked for this packet Monday morning, the County Clerk agreed to provide it later that same day, and did. However, she delivered it on paper. Processing time for that interleaved with other tasks took LAKE until now. Here is the board packet for the 27 October 2014 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission. It answers many questions that the public board meeting left hanging, such as what land does the county plant to acquire for that booster pump. If the county would put these board packets on their own website before their meetings, the citizens who pay their salaries would be able to see what they were talking about.

-jsq

WWALS on Tourism Authority agenda @ VLCCCTA 2014-10-28

Dave Hetzel from Tifton will appear via video at the Tourism Authority Tuesday morning to talk about the Alapaha River Water Trail that WWALS Watershed Coalition is preparing. Here’s the agenda, sent by VLCCCTA board member Tim Carroll. -jsq

VALDOSTA-LOWNDES COUNTY
CONFERENCE CENTER & TOURISM AUTHORITY
MEETING
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
8:00 a.m.
AGENDA
Continue reading →

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

Received 27 October 2014 about Whose rights come first? –Tim Carroll. -jsq

So because the owner of the property, which appeared to be a national property owning corporation for the fraternity’s local chapters, couldn’t, or more likely, didn’t want to see the cultural and architectural significance of the Nichols’ House, and merely wanted to unload the property as quick as possible, their property rights trump all other citizens of Valdosta in regards to our historical/cultural history and what we may wish to preserve? Do private entities, which may not even live here, have carte blanche to run roughshod and do whatever they please in our city irregardless of the interests of the citizens that do?

If you think I have a “lack of true understanding Continue reading →

Videos: Emergency road repair, grandfathered business, water, and Rural Land Agricultural Improvement Schedules @ LCC 2014-10-27

More detail and issues with Bailey REZ-2014-16 after much discussion last time. Almost ten minutes on 6a. Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention. Numerous things incomplete or just FYI such as drug seizures in the financial report, none of which the citizens could see. This was in the Work Session Monday morning. They vote Tuesday 5:30 PM in the Regular Session.

They actually named the multiple bids for a water item, unlike the single-source price-not-quoted pump replacement last time. And they’re buying some property (at some place unnamed) for a booster pump.

The Rural Land Agricultural Improvement Schedules was actually for Commercial land. We learned why Shiloh Road needs emergency repairs. Nothing about that on the new county Lowndes411 twitter account, and the county still doesn’t publish its own board packets.

I can understand why the Commission needs to approve a juvenile justice grant, a GEFA loan application, to accept quit claim deeds for a subdivision’s detention ponds, and to accept infrastructure for a subdivision, not to mention a CDBG agreement. But to replace batteries in a UPS?

See the agenda. Here are links to the videos of the items as they transpired this morning. Continue reading →

Whose rights come first? –Tim Carroll @ VCC 2014-10-23

Received 25 October 2014 on Too bad about the Nichols House –Jim Parker @ VCC 2014-10-23. -jsq

I realize many may think none on council heard what Dr. Willis had to say, but that was not the case. What I think was missed by many in the audience was the fact that the owner of this property was not the applicant of this request, but was adamantly opposed to it. Not only did they have an offer on the table to sell, but it was pending the outcome of the vote regarding historic designation. To take away the rights of a property owner at the request of another is a very tricky thing. Whose rights come first? This was a tough decision in and unto itself. To suggest that only the monetary value of the property for taxation purposes drove the decision demonstrates a lack of true understanding of the all the pertinent facts of this case.

-Tim Carroll

I think the applicant’s frat alumnus attorney speaking for 15 minutes against probably tipped off most people about that first point. -jsq