Tag Archives: 11 December 2012

Exclusive Franchise for Solid Waste Collection Services @ LCC 2012-12-11

Why did the Lowndes County Commission make

this exclusive franchise
with a Florida or Alabama or New York company


and then

sue a local Lowndes County company after

the VDT reported the previous spring that any contract
would be non-exclusive and wouldn’t put anybody out of business?

Here, obtained by LAKE through an open records request,
is the

contract with ADS of Middle Georgia, LLC.
The

the agenda item for the 11 December 2012 Commission meeting at which
this contract was approved
says ADS of Central Alabama, Inc.

The contract says ADS is “a Florida corporation”,
and we know ADS is owned by

Highstar Capital of New York City.


Once again,

why is granting a cheap monopoly to an out-of-state company
more important than either letting local companies compete for the service
or having the county continue to provide a public service directly to
its taxpayers and citizens?

The termination clause

I pointed out to the Commission
after
an ADS executive made excuses for nonperformance
is

Paragraph 18 of the contract:

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Zero owed in 2010; why $8.9 million owed now on county palace? @ LCC 2012-12-11

If Lowndes County owed $0 (zero dollars) on the county palace in November 2010,
why are we paying on

$8,965,000 in bonds for it in December 2012?
If that palace was “100% Paid by SPLOST” in 2010,
why in 2012 is the county pledging our property tax dollars to pay those bonds?


Zero balance on the county palace?

In November 2010:


$22,380,000


Judicial Building Cost


$6,728,000


Administrative Building Cost


100%

Paid by SPLOST


$0


Balance Owed

So says a double-page flyer about “the Lowndes County Judicial &
Administrative Complex”

Flyer from November 2010
produced by the Valdosta Daily Times for Lowndes
County in 2010 and signed “Highest regards, Joe Pritchard, County Manager”.
There’s no dateline, but it invites the public to a dedication of the Complex
“on Friday, November 12, 2010.”


Preliminary Official Statement Dated November 20, 2012
from Morgan Keegan about the $8,965,000 in Refunding Revenue Bonds
(Lowndes County Judicial/Administration Complex)
Series 2012, which says this:

The Bonds are payable solely from payments to be made by Lowndes County,
Georgia (the “County”) pursuant to an Intergovernmental Contract,
dated as of December 1, 2012 (the “Contract”), between the Issuer
and the County. Under the Contract, the County has agreed to levy and
collect an annual tax on all taxable property located within the County
as may be necessary to produce in each year revenues which are sufficient
to make the payments required by the Contract.

So which is it?

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Videos @ LCC 2012-12-11



Moody and the Chamber won, rural residents got wasted,
and taxpayers still didn't get to see a single thing the Lowndes County Commission
voted on last night in 45 minutes (very long for them)
in front of the biggest audience I've ever seen there.

They

appointed John "Mac" McCall to ZBOA.
They revised the

alcohol ordinance with some unspecified "changes to the fee schedule",
and added another alcohol restriction to the
Lake Park rezoning
before approving it.

They approved the

solid waste ordinance and granted a waste collection monopoly to

a company from New York City
despite all known public input being against it.
Two
more people
spoke
against it
in Citizens Wishing to Be Heard.

Gretchen Quarterman recommended adding
all the appointed Boards and Authorities to the county's calendar.

Commissioners accepted applicant's withdrawal of

the rezoning request near Moody AFB
and tabled indefinitely the related

zoning code amendment.
They
approved rezoning for the
Naylor Dollar General.

Commission approved four Decorative Lighting Special Tax Districts (forgetting it was supposed to be a
public hearing),
and a refund for one that wasn't.

Danny Weeks got approved a new netclock
and new phones for the 911 center,
and he and his staff got an award.
The library railroad continues,
the bonds renegotation was approved with
about $2 million savings and some legal questions,
the Annex has asbestos but they'll deal with it,
and after Friday's demolition ceremony
there will be a going-away reception for Chairman Paulk,
and Bill Slaughter will be the new Chairman.

You missed all that and more at yesterday's Commission meeting.

Here's

a video playlist of the Regular Session,
followed by the agenda with the videos linked into it.

Update 2014-04-09: Fixed embedded video link.


Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 11 December 2012.

For reference here are the

videos of
yesterday morning's Work Session.
And here is

the agenda with links to the videos and some notes.

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Why did the county use bonds and not GEFA? @ LCC 2012-12-11

Regarding



the refinancing the county is bragging about to save a million dollars,
and that

they're going to vote on tonight at 5:30 PM,
a memory ping reminded me that

Hahira got a GEFA loan for $431,777 a water well this August,
at zero percent interest during construction, and then 1% during
the 20 year repayment period.
Is the county's bond deal better than that?

GEFA is the

Georgia Environmental Finance Authority,
and it's not just Hahira that has gotten water project loans
through GEFA.
According to GEFA PR of 13 May 2011,

GEFA Approves Environmental Infrastructure Projects Totaling $60.7 Million for
Seven Georgia Communities,
just this year others included
"Cobb, Cook and Newton Counties; Cusseta-Chattahoochee County; and the
cities of College Park, Ludowici and Valdosta."

The city of Valdosta was approved for a CWSRF loan of $18,500,000 to
finance phase two of the Mud Creek Water Pollution Control Plant
project, which includes increasing capacity from 3.2 million gallons
per day (GPD) to 5.7 million GPD, and additional improvements and
modifications to the facility. Valdosta will also design a new
solids treatment system. The city of Valdosta will pay 3 percent
interest on the 20-year loan for $18,500,000.

So why is the County of Lowndes having to float bonds?
And are bonds on the commercial
bond market really a better financial deal for the county?

For that matter, where's the public notice with agenda of the
4PM meeting today of the Lowndes County Public Facilities Authority?

-jsq

Chamber of Commerce vs. County Commission Re: Moody AFB @ LCC 2012-12-11

Received today (yes, I’m a Chamber member). -jsq

From: “Tim Jones, Chairman of the Board ” <chamber@valdostachamber.com>

Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:47:01 -0500 (EST)

Subject: Alert: Chamber needs your help to protect Moody!

Dear Chamber Member,

Our Chamber recognizes the $448 million economic impact Moody Air
Force Base has on our regional economy each year. We meet with Air
Force officials at the Pentagon annually and ask them, “What else
can our community do to protect MAFB from the next BRAC?” The
answer, every year: prevent encroachment, and the best way to do
that is by protecting the Military Activity Zone (MAZ).

Today

(Tuesday, Dec. 11) at the Lowndes County Board of
Commissioners meeting there are two agenda items that could put
Moody at risk.



Spot zoning for a proposed densely settled subdivision in the MAZ
is an invitation to other developments and inherently sets a precedent.
It’s a very slippery slope. How will the County tell the next one
“no”?

The second agenda item would

change the zoning ordinance
to allow even more densely settled neighborhoods in the MAZ.

One of the reasons we’ve been able to keep MAFB here

for more than
70 years is because MAFB can be utilized for a number of types of
missions, largely because of the protected activity zone. Both
agenda items, if passed, could increase encroachment into the MAZ
and could very well limit MAFB’s future mission possibilities.

Another Georgia community (Warner Robins)

is actually using taxpayer dollars
to buy back residential properties in

their military activity zones
as a result of their failure to prevent encroachment.

The Planning Commission voted unanimously to deny this subdivision,
and

to deny the proposed changes to the MAZ that would allow more
dense residential development. The County Commission should vote to
deny, too.

The

Chamber’s GAC Executive Committee voted unanimously to oppose
actions that allow encroachment and weaken the MAZ. The Chamber
encourages our members to contact our County Commission members to
let them know how you feel about protecting MAFB. The Chamber
encourages our members to attend the County Commission meeting at
the Dec. 11 meeting at 5:30 p.m. at the Administation Building.

Please respond to this email to share your thoughts.

Sincerely,

Tim Jones, Chairman of the Board

Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce



I added the links above.
All that Tim Jones said,
plus Crawford Powell’s discovery that the proposed subdivision

would be a fire code violation,
plus

according to Forbes Valdosta MSA housing prices are still dropping,
so

do we even need any more housing, anyway?

-jsq

Privatization: if it’s bad for Moody AFB, it’s bad for county trash collection

Why is Lowndes County Chairman Ashley Paulk decrying alleged privatization
of Moody Air Force Base while promoting actual privatization
of a basic Lowndes County public service, trash collection?

Jason Shaefer wrote for the VDT
5 December 2012,

County disagrees with proposed zoning amendment,



Paulk alleged Moody’s intervention has prevented development
before—the establishment of a small schoolhouse within a
church near the base, for example, he said. He told the committee
that Moody had 30,000 acres to the east on which to build, and that
the air base has become “privatized.”

According to

the free dictionary:

pri·va·tize: To change (an industry or business, for example) from governmental or public ownership or control to private enterprise:

And yet at the

upcoming commission meeting,
Chairman Paulk will ask the commissioners to vote on this agenda item:

8.b. Exclusive Franchise Agreement for Residential Solid Waste Collection Services with Advanced Disposal Services of Central Alabama, Inc.



Seems to me that’s a privatization of one of our own county governmental
services.
Perhaps the commissioners will reconsider the “curbside only
by a private firm” path they are on and conduct some public hearings in an
effort to understand what the citizens might want in solid waste disposal.

-gretchen

Veolia bought by Advanced Disposal Services of Alabama, owned by Highstar Capital of New York City @ LCC 2012-12-10

Received today on

Solid Waste, Developer Favors, Dollar General, Library, and Alcohol: Agenda @ LCC 2012-12-10:

Veolia was acquired by Advanced Disposal, there is no conspiracy theory
here or a change of vendor than was previously voted for.

http://www.wasterecyclingnews.com/article/20121120/NEWS01/121129990/advanced-disposal-closes-veolia-deal,

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