Tag Archives: Georgia

Videos: Courthouse Preservation Committee Hearing #1 @ Courthouse 2014-06-09

SCAD or VSU? Historical Society or Public Defender? Business incubator or state offices? Outside and inside. These and other ideas were brought up in the first of three Courthouse Preservation Committee meetings, 9 June 2014.

Baha Zeidan and Varian Brown wanted a business incubator. Judge Ellerbee said the way the courthouse got into a mess in the first place was people wanting to use it for many things in addition to courtrooms, and he suggested not going the same route again. Pat Sullivan suggested bringing in SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) and having them design the building before renting it as a local campus. Stanley Cox seconded that. Sullivan even volunteered his oldest downtown Valdosta building, home of ClientTell, for planning meetings. Gretchen Quarterman said to be sure Valdosta Farm Days, Juneteenth, and all the other courthouse lawn events still can happen in conjunction with whatever happens inside, G. Norman Bennett said it would be a natural location for the Historical Society. Glenn Gregory told stories of historic preservation and suggested VSU, state offices, or the Public Defender, plus he noted there’s another courthouse by the same architect, in Abbeville, GA. They even let somebody speak who hadn’t signed up: Valdosta Mayor John Gayle, who cautioned that the longer it sits, the more it deteriorates.

Here are links to each video, followed by a playlist. Continue reading →

Videos: Hahira rezoning and annexation, two Valdosta CUP @ GLPC 2014-04-28

Tabled at applicant’s request: the Hahira rezoning and annexation; see also the Lowndes County Commission letter of objection of 22 April 2014. The proponents to establish a recycling center didn’t show up to answer questions, and due to lack of information (noise, hours, odors, vermin, expansion, etc.), GLPC unanimously voted to recommend tabling. GLPC voted to recommend approval with selected conditions for Langdale Ford’s minor automotive repair facility.

Remember, Lowndes County answered an open records request for the agenda 47 hours after this Planning Commission meeting started. Here’s the actual agenda by other means.

Greater Lowndes Planning Commission

Lowndes County City of Valdosta City of Dasher City of Hahira City of Lake Park

REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING

AGENDA

Lowndes County South Health District Administrative Office
325 West Savannah Avenue

Monday, April 28, 2014* 5:30 P.M. * Public Hearing

Here are videos of what GLPC did. Continue reading →

About 90% of U.S. wiretaps are for drug deals

Yet another reason to end the failed War on Drugs: by far most U.S. wiretaps are for that one reason. Sure, a wiretap helped catch a Mexican drug lord. But without the War on Drugs, there would be no drug lords, just like alcohol bootleggers vanished after Prohibition ended.

Brian Anderson wrote for Motherboard 15 July 2014, Almost 90 Percent of All US Wiretaps Listen for Suspected Drug Deals,

Earlier this year, Continue reading →

Videos: fire chief, teachers, web site, and chairs @ Hahira 2014-05-15

They talked about a new website; is it up yet? Nope, according to http://www.hahira.ga.us/cityofficials.html Wayne Bullard is still Mayor, Rose Adams is still on the Council, and new Council members Kenneth Davis and Mason Barfield are nowhere to be seen. However, former Council member Bruce Cain has vanished, even though he’s the actual Mayor per last November’s election. Here are some videos from the May 15th special called meeting of the Hahira City Council where they talk about that proposed new website.

Here’s a video playlist:


Videos: fire chief, teachers, web site, and chairs
Special Called Meeting, Hahira City Council (Hahira),
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Hahira, Lowndes County, Georgia, 15 May 2014.

-jsq

Seven Out Superfund Assessment Public Meeting 2014-07-17

6-8PM tomorrow, Thursday 17 July 2014
Memorial Stadium, 715 Dewey St., Waycross, GA 31501

The Environmental Protection Agency, GA Environmental Protection Division, and Georgia Department of Public Health will be present to discuss sample collection and results from the Seven Out Tank site in downtown Waycross.

EPD will also be available to address issues and answer questions regarding CSX.

From Satilla Riverkeeper’s facebook event. Here’s a map: Continue reading →

New place, new member, new officers, new name? @ VLCIA 2014-07-15

Six years in the making! Finally VLCIA meets in its new office near the hospital. Georgia Power VP Terri Lupo was just appointed to VLCIA by the Lowndes County Commission (without ever showing up and speaking). On this VLCIA agenda is the annually expected officer nominating committee report. Plus “Proposed VLCIA Name Change”. How about SolarTown?

Hm, this move uptown leaves their old building to Sabal Trail and its proposed fracked methane pipeline. Has VLCIA ever developed an opinion on that boondoggle?

Here’s the agenda. Continue reading →

Videos: a few appointees spoke @ LCC 2014-07-08

The Commission awarded no-bid contracts to Lovell Engineering (for Zipperer Road and Boring Pond Road) and ASA Engineering (for Coppage Road). Three of the seven board appointees showed up and spoke: Sam Allen and Penelope Schmidt for Library Board, and and Russell Mast for VLPRA. The Commission appointed all of them unanimously, including no-shows Terri Lupo to VLCIA, Martha Cunningham and Matt Lawrence to Library Board, and Susan Prince to VLPRA. Chairman Bill Slaughter consistently omitted the “Valdosta” from the names of all these boards, even though the reason VLCIA and VLPRA exist is a state law requirement for no overlap between uninincorporated and incorporated area taxation for such services.

There was no public hearing for Whitewater Road because the applicant withdrew it, and half of Nelson Hill was withdrawn while the other half was tabled.

Four of the nine contracts were approved all at once. Mr. Anti-Grant Commissioner Richard Raines actually made the motion to approve the EPMG grant request.

They finally posted an agenda after the Work Session. And they added another item to an amended agenda between the Work Session and the Regular Session.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JULY 7, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JULY 8, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

Here are links to the videos in the order they actually held the meeting. See the videos of the previous morning’s Work Session for more detail on many of these items.

Here’s a video playlist:


Videos: a few appointees spoke
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 8 July 2014.

-jsq

Millage Hearings for Lowndes County

Even though the County Commission already voted on the budget for spending your tax money (and still hasn’t published that budget), it will have public hearings on the millage before final adoption of that number that decides how much tax you pay. While the proposed millage rate is still low compared to other counties it’s curious that while the Lowndes County Board of Education has published at least a summary of its new budget the Lowndes County Commission has not.

According to the county’s online calendar and Current Events (but not its Public Notices nor the VDT’s online public notices), these meetings are scheduled: Continue reading →

Board of Elections listened

One precinct off the list for closing, but what about others? And what’s this about an unannounced change to the date of a publicly-announced meeting of the Board of Elections?

After several people went to the 8 July 2014 Special Called Board of Elections Meeting that I found in the VDT Public Notice listings, and some of them talked to that board and to Lowndes County Commissioners, apparently somebody listened. According to Lowndes County Elections Supervisor Deb Cox to Lowndes County Democratic Party Elections Chair Dennis Marks 13 July 2014:

Mildred Hunter is not being considered for consolidation. Deb

However, she did not say what other precincts might still be slated for consolidation.

Rumor has it that Continue reading →

Solar Power Hot Topic on LAKE blog

Some like pithy posts, and others like long historical summaries: see the Solar Hot Topic for the latter. I’ve just added links about solar parking lots, Oakland, CA, Dublin, GA and Lowndes High Schools, and super-lobbying group ALEC’s efforts in every state legislature to oppose solar power.

Solar will win, simply because it’s already cheaper than anything else and the prices keep going down. The fossil industry will delay as long as possible to suck up more profit, but even Wall Street has turned against fossilized utilities that aren’t doing renewables yet. We the people will win. We just need to stop the fossil junkies from doing more damage before they lose. The sun is already rising.

-jsq