Tag Archives: Georgia

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 MuchTo WhomFromFor What
$7,200.00Lovell Engineering AssociatesValdostaDesign of Culvert
$48,010.00 Doyle Hancock & Sons Construc.Doerun Clearing and Grubbing
$1,357,887.92 The Scruggs CompanyValdosta 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

Walk out into the audience —Leigh Touchton

This came in Sunday as a blog post on To Speak or Not to Speak. As a contrast, Lowndes County Commissioners do usually talk to people before and after their meetings, and sometimes they use that time to answer questions citizens asked during the meeting. -jsq
Yost engaged Dr. Noll (and was unpleasant about it) at one meeting that I attended, Mayor Fretti engages people sometimes, Attorney Talley engaged J. Smith last Thursday, and sometimes others at other meetings, myself included, and Vickers talks pretty much to whomever he wants whenever he wants. The whole CTBH policy is a smokescreen. The Council Comments period ought to be followed by adjournment and then the Councilmembers making their remarks from the dais during Council Comments ought to have to walk out into the audience and deal with the voters’ concerns directly.

When Jimmy Rainwater was Mayor, I may not always have agreed with him, or he with me, but he always came out into the audience and talked to us.

This Council is not responsive to the concerns of its citizens,

Continue reading →

Georgia first to copy Arizona anti-immigrant bill

Georgia passes anti-immigrant law that benefits private prison companies.

Seth Freed Wessler wrote 15 April 2011, Welcome to the Wild, Wild South: Georgia Passes SB 1070 Copycat Bill

Many worry about the financial costs of the bill. Though these are surely not the greatest concerns for immigrant communities who would be most impacted if Georgia’s bill is enacted, many business groups are anxious. A national boycott of Arizona cost the state an estimated $250 million in lost taxes, tourism and other revenue, according to the Center for American Progress.

Even before the Georgia bill passed, a group of organizations across the country threatened to wage a boycott of the state of Georgia if it enacts the legislation.

Most states that have had this bill introduced have had the good sense to get rid of it. Continue reading →

LCC 5:30 PM Tuesday 26 April 2011

Even a light agenda includes a water item.

It’s a very light agenda for the Lowndes County Commission; so light the work session was cancelled. However, the regular session is scheduled as usual for Tuesday evening.

They’ve moved Citizens Wishing to be Heard back to the middle of the meeting. Historically, it’s been here and it’s been there in different places in the agenda. I still think at the end is a fine place for it, since then more people may stay for the entire meeting. I posted my other thoughts on CWTBH back when they changed to their current policy on that.

Groundwater sampling near a landfill is an item. The same item was on the agenda last time, but didn’t get resolved. Water is an issue throughout the region.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION CANCELLED
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 2011, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Executive Director wanted —VLCIA

Get your applications for VLCIA Executive Director in no later than today!

Found on IEDC for 18 April 2011 and also on SEDC with no date, this job posting:

Executive Director, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (Valdosta, GA)
A very exciting opportunity with a successful industrial authority with numerous assets.

Greater Valdosta is the business, cultural, educational, medical, leisure, and retail hub for thirteen South Georgia and North Florida counties and more than 1.2 million citizens. Valdosta and Lowndes County are quickly becoming the fastest growing area in Georgia and are home to Moody Air Force Base; two Regional Medical Centers; and Valdosta State University, a regional university with over 13,000 students.

Starting salary $100,000 to $125,000, DOQ.

See cb-asso.com for a complete Position Profile.

The Authority’s website is www.industrialauthority.com

Digging around on cb-asso.com finds this detailed job description. It’s four GIF images (copies here) of a VLCIA logo and three pages of a four-page flyer.

Brief excerpts: Continue reading →

Sentence reform in Georgia?

AP wrote 22 April 2011, Deal signs measure creating sentence reform panel:
Gov. Nathan Deal signed legislation Friday [House Bill 265] that would create a panel to study Georgia’s criminal justice system with an eye toward overhauling the state’s tough sentencing laws.

The laws have left the state with overcrowded prisons and taxpayers with an annual corrections bill that tops $1 million.

The legislation creates a 13-member commission that would study sentencing reforms in hopes of offering alternative sentences for some drug addicts and other nonviolent offenders. The panel would have to report its findings by early 2012, in time for lawmakers to act on them in the next legislative session.

That annual bill has to be more than $1 million; maybe $1 billion.

Anyway, Georgia seems to be discovering what Texas already did some years ago: we can’t afford to lock up so many people.

The high incarceration rate comes with high costs. Georgia pays $3,800 each year to educate a child in public schools, and $18,000 every year to keep each inmate behind bars, Deal said.

What will we do with them instead?

Hall County is one of several counties that have adopted drug courts, which aim to provide alternative sentences for low-level drug offenders. At the ceremony, drug court graduation Mike Wilcoxson said the program changed his life.

“One thing drug court has done for me is give me a sense of purpose in my life, to set goals for myself, to be accountable for my actions, and to break the cycle of addiction I had,” Wilcoxson said.

That’s one solution.

And if we’re not going to lock up so many people, why do we need to build a private prison in Lowndes County?

-jsq

Other owls around town —Paige Dukes

Gretchen Quarterman continued interviewing County Clerk Paige Dukes about the owl on the historic Lowndes County Courthouse.

Q: “Are there other owls around town?”

A: “There may be!”

Paige suggests owl spotters. She says the owls cost about $20 each, and this one works for the county without any further expenditure.

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

To Speak or Not To Speak @ VCC 21 April 2011

Can Council members answer in Citizens to Be Heard, or can’t they? One did; another says she can’t.

In Council Comments at the end of the 21 April 2011 Valdosta City Council meeting, Sonny Vickers talked about bids.

Then Deidra White said she would attend any meeting where she could hear and reply to citizens’ concerns, but she can can’t say anything about Citizens to be Heard because there’s a Council policy.

That’s interesting, considering that in the previous Valdosta City Council meeting, in Citizens to be Heard, Council Sonny Vickers responded to Dr. Mark George saying that he had already told everyone that he was for the biomass plant. Does this mean that Council supporters of the biomass plant can speak Continue reading →

Special Called Meeting 27 April 2010 —VLMPO

When VLMPO has a special called meeting, it announces it well in advance on its facebook page and sends out messages to interested parties, which is how LAKE got the appended agenda for that meeting. Note the item “TIA Update”, where TIA is for the Transportation Investment Act of 2010 which implements T-SPLOST. There is a “Public Comment” item, as well. -jsq
Valdosta-Lowndes MPO

Policy Committee
Special Called Meeting Agenda
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
1:30 PM
Continue reading →