Tag Archives: engineering

This issue has a lot of peculiarities. —Barbara Stratton

Received today on

Valdosta water project on county land, with no city or county approval. -jsq

This issue has a lot of peculiarities. The city engineer was quoted
as saying he hoped Radney Plumbing, Inc. could be chosen for the


project since the company had provided them a low price on similar
work. Whatever happened to the bid procedure that is supposed to proceed
any new construction activity regardless of personal preferences. Is
this an impromptu public/private partnership where bidding gives way to
cronyism? Oops, seems like I recently read that PPP’s were now being
called beneficial corporations. Either way they are blatant fascism
(mixing government & private business)& we don’t need them in Lowndes
County. Under proper bidding procedures it would have been imposible for
a contractor to have been given a go ahead by any mythical person. The
project is expected to cost $132,000 of tax payer money & I think we
deserve proper bid procedures to be certain we are getting maximum
benefit from our expenditures.

I have no comment on the statement the pipe needed to be put in the
ground so it would not go to waste other than I never new water/sewer
pipe had a short expiraton date. Perhaps we should ask how so many feet
of pipe were left over from another project since I’m sure 12″ pipe is
not cheap. Does our project estimator need to sharpen his pencil?

It seems County Commission Chairman Paulk questions “the wisdom of
spending that much taxpayer money without any prospect of income in the
near future’. I’m glad someone is concerned about the taxpayers. Since
it has been acknowledged we citizens have an interest in the obvious
four way fiasco between city, county, private contractor & private
landowners,I trust the VDT will continue to keep us informed of all the
facts as they surface.

-Barbara Stratton

Valdosta water project on county land, with no city or county approval

It seems the City of Valdosta is installing a mile of water and sewwer pipe
on county land without approval or prior knowledge of the Lowndes County government.
Or, cats and dogs not playing well together.
And, given that the Valdosta City Council apparently didn’t approve it either,
cats not playing well together.
Who is in charge of herding the cats?

David Rodock wrote in the VDT 23 November 2011,

City project on county land

Without City Council approval, the installation of 5,600 linear feet of
water/sewer pipe is being installed on Racetrack Road, at the very edge
of annexed City property.

County says City didn’t notify.
City says did.

This part is particularly interesting:



City Engineer Pat Collins said they had sent the county a letter and
had not started on the project. He also said the city hoped to bring the
project before council on Dec. 8, so they could make use of approximately
1,000 feet of 12 inch pipe leftover from a previous project.

So “not started” apparently includes digging ditches and installing 12 inch
water mains.
And “approval” means ask the Valdosta City Council after that’s already
been done.
And never ask the Lowndes County Commission,
despite this project being on county land.

Not to worry, there’s a familiar excuse:
blame the contractor!

Continue reading →

How much does it cost to pave a county road?

How much does it cost to pave 3.5 miles of dirt road?
Apparently $1,413,097.92, or around a million dollars a mile,
when the county insists on paving it like a state highway
at the expense of safety:

How Much To Whom From For What
$7,200.00 Lovell Engineering Associates Valdosta Design of Culvert
$48,010.00 Doyle Hancock & Sons Construc. Doerun Clearing and Grubbing
$1,357,887.92 The Scruggs Company Valdosta Paving
$1,413,097.92 All contractors Total

This financial information comes from an open records request
filed by Carolyn Selby more than a year ago
and finally fulfilled 17 March 2011.
Copies of all the pages received are
in the flickr set.



How many other roads could have been paved for $1.4 million?
If this road had been paved like a local rural road,
instead of like a state highway (literally according to
state highway standards) it would not have cost nearly
as much and probably another shorter road could have been paved, too.
And if other roads were paved like local roads instead of state
highways, how many more of them could be paved?
They still wait while this one got paved to the tune of $1.4 million.

-jsq