Tag Archives: Economy

FPL already dirtying Georgia air at Plant Scherer: and a pipeline, too?



Georgia Power’s Plant Scherer is #1 among the U.S. dirtiest power plants.
But FPL owns most of one of the four units there,
dirtying Georgia’s air for Florida’s power.
The same FPL that wants the fracked methane Sabal Trail pipeline
through Georgia, destroying Georgia’s environment.
It’s time for Georgia to say no to destroying Georgia’s environment
for a company in another state.

Thomas Stackpole wrote for Mother Jones 11 September 2013,

1 Percent of America’s Power Plants Emit 33 Percent of Energy Industry’s Carbon, Continue reading →

Change order, KLVB, and Pipeline @ LCC 2014-04-08




$78,892.56 for an unbid change order for Val Del Road.
The Board of Tax Assessors’

appeal to a Board of Equalizations
decision to grand PCA an unusual depreciation was approved
by the Lowndes County Commission
by a rare split decision, 2 to 1.
Greg Powell of Langdale Industries
appointed to KLVB.
And

Citizen Noll recommended the Commission pass a resolution
or ordinance about the proposed Sabal Trail pipeline.

Three voting Commissioners
(Raines was absent and Page vacated his seat)
unanimously approved
three

rezonings with nobody speaking for or against.
They granted permission to

the Sheriff’s office
and to

Emergency Management
to apply for equipment grants.
There was a

weather report,
and a report on
an animal adoption event the previous weekend.

Here’s the agenda, with links to the videos and a few notes.
See also the videos of the previous morning’s Work Session.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, APRIL 7, 2014, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2014, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

Defibrilators from Homeland Security @ LCC 2014-04-07



The

KLVB presentation told us up to three states dump in
the Pecan Row Landfill in Lowndes County,
for which the county gets some unspecified amount of tipping fees,
which go to fund KLVB.
An appointment to
KLVB was added to the agenda,
although nobody deigned to reveal who was “that individual that has
requested to serve on that board”.
The

Homeland Security grant application turned out to be for defibrillators.

Here’s
the agenda, with a few annotations and links to the videos.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

AMENDED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, APRIL 7, 2014, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2014, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

Golf and aviation @ VLCIA 2014-04-15



Some interesting stuff on there, such as the

South Georgia Golf Classic,
which

appears to actually be 2-4 May 2014
(even though that event’s
facebook about still refers to last year),
and the
South Georgia Fly-in,
which apparently already happened on April 4th.
I wonder what is the
Presentation by Mr. Ben Futch about?
And VLCIA’s May meeting has a time change, to when

this agenda
does not say.

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority

Thursday, April 15, 2014 5:30 p.m.

Industrial Authority Conference Room

2110 N. Patterson Street

Continue reading →

U.S. Rep. Bishop to listen to landowners about Sabal Trail pipeline

Maybe Lowndes County Commissioners can ask Rep. Austin Scott (GA-08)
to do what Dougherty County Commissioners have successfully asked
Rep. Bishop (GA-02) to do: those two Congressional districts
cover the entire Georgia part of the proposed path of that methane pipeline.
And maybe they could help Greenlaw
get the FERC scoping period extended and get the GIS data from
Sabal Trail.



Carlton Fletcher wrote for the Albany Herald yesterday,

U.S. Congressman Sanford Bishop to take part in pipeline listening session:
Metting called to address safety, other concerns surrounding controversial natural gas pipeline,

Two Dougherty County Commissioners and one of their former
colleagues who is running to rejoin them have scheduled a listening
session at 10 a.m. Thursday with U.S. House District 2 Congressman
Sanford Bishop to discuss the proposed Sabal Trail Transmission Gas
Pipeline project and a planned accompanying Continue reading →

Videos: Garbage falling off trucks @ LCC 2014-03-25



If the County Commission hadn’t privatized garbage collection,
Frenchie could have registered his complaint about

garbage falling off trucks
through the new

turnkey government website service once it’s online.
No mention of the

annexation request by the City of Hahira from the Work Session.

Commissioner Powell
noted the three SPLOST VII projects were

“a direct reinvestment into the community of those funds”.
The

road resurfacing of four roads
is actually mostly from a GDOT LMIG grant,
but the other three,
shoulder paving on

Val Del Road
and

Boring Pond Road
and a

bridge replacement on Cat Creek Road
are all from SPLOST VII funds.
Plus

some trucks for Animal Control and

tablets for the Fire Department,
an

alcohol license, and some alphabet-soup agreements,
one of which turned out to be for

a grant for a victim advocate position in the Solicitor General’s office.

Here’s

the agenda.
See also
the previous morning’s Work Session.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, MARCH 24, 2014, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2014, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

1 change order, 2 grants, 3 rezonings, 1 KLVB appointment @ LCC 2014-04-07

A non-competitive no-RFP un-explained change order,

this time for Val Del Road, on the agenda for the Lowndes County Commission.
Would you like to know why county staff doesn’t want to go out for
competitive bids before spending your tax money?


We can guess it’s about that

shoulder paving
they
just approved

$949,493.85 for to Scruggs Company.
But why should we have to guess if that’s it and why they need a change order for a million dollar project
at the very next Commission meeting?

We’d be able to see why if the board packets were online with the agenda,
as happens in many metropolitan areas, such as
Leon County, Florida,
or
Glynn County, Georgia,
or

Richmond County, Georgia.
Our own Lowndes County Board of Education

often links board packet items in with its agenda.

While much smaller Glynn County Continue reading →

Videos of Day 1 @ LCC-Budget 2014-03-10



It’s a good thing the county held these first-ever (as far as I know)
comprehensive budget sessions.
Here are videos of the first day.
Most of the departments are asking for more money,
due to increased population and increased demand for services
during a period of economic downturn.
Something needs to be done, and these sessions are one step in
getting to doing something.

Here’s

the agenda.

Sheriff Prine @ LCC-Budget 2014-03-10



Lowndes County Sheriff Prine
talked about
Administration,
the
Jail,
the
Commissary,
and
Enforcement
at the
first day of Budget Presentations to the Lowndes County
Commission, 10 March 2014.
Like most other county-funded departments, he asked for more personnel.
The long squeeze of the economic downturn needs to be addressed somehow.
These videos show how the Sheriff proposes to address them.

Continue reading →

Church parking back yet again @ ZBOA 2014-04-01




North Valdosta Church of God
is back for perhaps the fourth time about the parking lot for their new building.
Plus

a house variance in
Lowndes County
and

a gas station variance
in
Valdosta.

Here’s

the agenda.
The City of Valdosta puts ZBOA agendas and minutes

online in real PDFs.

Continue reading →