Here are videos of the entire 30 January 2012 Regular Session of the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC). You’ll have to figure out what they’d doing, because they don’t post agendas or minutes.
Here’s a video playlist:
Videos
Regular Session, Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 30 January 2012.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
-jsq
Whatever happened to the agendas and minutes of the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC) that used to be on the SGRC website? Gretchen asked at the January GLPC meeting whether they would be posted again. The chair said he didn't know. County Planner Jason Davenport added:
The regional commission used to do the minutes on the website for us. We have the minutes. Ms Gretchen, if you'll email us, we have the ability to email those minutes back to you, but we don't have plans right now to put those minutes back on the web.
The chair suggested "Maybe at some point in the future would be good." Jason Davenport reiterated that they had no plans to do that.
Here's the video:
Minutes on website?
Regular Session, Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 30 January 2012.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
That's similar to what he told me by email back on 28 November 2011:
Last year the agreement between the SGRC and the various local governments regarding the GLPC responsibilities changed. This website is a result of those changes. I have your request and will plan on getting direction and clarification about how to deal with these types of requests.
There has been a little bit of improvement. The GLPC chair faxed LAKE the April agenda.
-jsq
Local governments around here seem reluctant to post videos of their own meetings, or even to post board packet items on the web. We’ve seen examples of how to do it from Travis County, Texas and Leon County, Florida, but those are other states; maybe our Georgia local governments don’t want to look at such examples. How about Glynn County, Georgia?
Found on Glynn County’s facebook page:
Did you know…Glynn County now offers live streaming and archived videos of BOC meetings ONLINE! No cable? No problem! Join us tonight at 6:00 p.m. Glynn County, GA — Official Website — Media Center
Looks like their 24 April 2012 Work Session lasted more than two hours.
And they live-stream and archive videos of their planning commission, as well. It’s 18 April 2012 meeting lasted about 24 minutes.
Back on the Glynn County web pages, they have their proposed budget online more than a week before their budget public hearing which is a special called meeting that they will put on cable channel 99 and live stream online.
Meanwhile, they have Board of Commissioners minutes online that include Continue reading
Apparently the same day Tallahassee and Leon County Florida Commissioners met together, 
the Leon County Board of Commissioners had its Regular Public Meeting. I know this because they publish on the web agendas with board packet details for each item plus video. They already have video on the web after yesterday’s meeting.
Do you prefer just to listen, without having to look at them?
View Live or Previously Recorded Commission Meetings on Real Audio
They’ve even got a trouble ticket system for tracking requests from citizens!
Maybe the Lowndes County Commission and the various local city councils could ask Leon County, Florida how they do it.
-jsq
That’s at 2110 N. Patterson Street in Valdosta. Here’s the agenda:August 16, 2011 Industrial Authority Board Meeting 5:30 pm at the Industrial Authority Conf. Room
Just joking. They don’t publish their agendas! Or their minutes.
-jsq
Tucked away at the end of David Rodock’s 8 June 2011 article about a special called VLCIA meeting is this tidbit:
You wouldn’t know that by looking at VLCIA’s own meeting schedule web page, which shows no change from the regular schedule. That page also still says this:Board members changed the date of their next meeting to June 14 at 5:30 p.m. The public is invited to attend.
All Meetings will be held at 5:30pm in the Industrial Authority Conference Room, 2110 N. Patterson Street, unless otherwise notified.So maybe that’s where it is, or maybe not. Maybe it’s possible to determine the time or the location, but not both. Valdosta-Lowndes County Heisenberg Authority.
I would post an agenda, if they made them publicly available before their meetings, which they still do not. They should have quite a collection of agendas and minutes to approve Tuesday, given how many special called meetings they’ve had lately.
-jsq
Could the Industrial Authority try any harder to make it look like
they’ve got something to hide?
Of all things to go to the mattresses about: their board minutes?
The VDT picked up on our series about a local citizen being overcharged for an open records request for VLCIA agendas and minutes. In a front page Sunday VDT story, David Rodock reports:
In response, The Valdosta Daily Times submitted their own Open Records Request for the salaries of all Industrial Authority employees.The salary quoted on the invoice is not the same as either Continue readingAccording to the information provided by the Authority, the lowest paid fulltime employee, the Operations Manager, is paid an annual salary of $46,526.
When this number is divided by 2080, (52 weeks multiplied by 40 hours per week) it shows that the lowest paid full-time employee is making $22.40 per hour.
Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority, VLCIA, Open Records Request, Bobbi Anne Hancock asked Allan Ricketts why a bunch of agendas and minutes should cost $125.09? She received back this itemized invoice:
Apparently the lowest paid VLCIA employee who can convert documents to PDF is paid $24.23 an hour. According to Georgia Code 50-18-71: Continue reading
How much should it cost for a citizen to get access to agendas
and minutes of a tax-funded board?
How does about $2 per meeting strike you?
Bobbi Anne Hancock filed an open records request for the agendas and minutes of all regularly scheduled and called meetings of the VLCIA letter asking $125.09 for copies of agendas and minutes of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) from 2006 to the present, and got this letter back:
So at 12 meetings per year for five years plus another 3 months, that would be about 63 meetings, divided into $125.09 gets about $1.99 per meeting.
Is this normal practice? Let’s compare. Continue reading