Tag Archives: Gretchen Quarterman

Library Architect RFP and “Bible” (part 2)

Here is the Request for Proposals and the “Bible” of related documents that served as background for the architect selection process for the new library at Five Points. These were received on a CD as part of the library architect selection documents in the very organized open records response from the South Georgia Regional Library; see the previous post for related agendas and minutes.

Included in the RFP (which was issued by the County, not by the Library Board), is a list of fourteen numbered submittal instructions that looks like it might have been the basis for the list of 90 items on the Library Scoring Worksheet.

The RFP also includes this interesting section:

RESERVATIONS

Lowndes County Board of Commissioners reserves the following rights:

Rejection of any and all submittals
Negotiate changes in the Scope of Work
Negotiate services to be provided
Negotiate fee proposal
Waive any and all technicalities

That last line basically seems like it could be interpreted to mean they could select whatever appealed to them no matter what the fit (or not) with what was asked for in the RFP.

The “Bible” includes a cover sheet that says:

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Gretchen canvassing 2012-10-30

Gretchen Quarterman, running for Lowndes County Chairman, will come to your house to remind you that early voting is 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. this week at the Board of Elections, 2808 N Oak St., Valdosta.

Down a street To a house

He already voted for her, so she’s on to the next house. After early voting, Election Day is Tuesday November 6th at your precinct.

Talking to a constituent Here she comes

Here’s a video playlist:

Pictures and videos by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Lowndes County, Georgia, 30 October 2012.

-jsq

Library Architect Selection Documents (part 1)

Thanks to a very organized open records response from the South Georgia Regional Library, we have available agendas and minutes of the SGRL Board and other materials related to the selection of an architect for the new library at Five Points. Here is a first batch of those materials, which sheds a little light on the library architect selection process.

SGRL Minutes 2012-07-17 According to the SGRL Board minutes of 17 July 2012 as approved at the SGRL Board meeting of 18 September 2012,

SOUTH GEORGIA REGIONAL LIBRARY
BOARD MINUTES
July 17, 2012

…

V. Architectural (Building and Grounds Committee)

The Firm of Clemons, Rutherford and Associates (CRA) was approved as the architectural firm for construction of the Five Points Library.
Moved: Ray Devery Second: Wyn Miller
Ayes: All Nays: None

No further detail is provided in those minutes.

Library Scoring Worksheet A Library Scoring Worksheet for the design and construction of the “Lowndes County Library” was included in the materials received in response to the open records request (it’s the extra item in the left edge of the picture in the previous post). It lists 30 topics with a potential score of 3 points each for a total of 90 points, grouped in categories of “Responsiveness/Quality of Presentation/Capabilty”, “Experience, Design Concept and Creativity”, and “Personal Overall Impression of the architectural team”. However, no marked-up worksheets with scores for any architecture firm were included.

The complete agenda packets for the SGRL board meetings of 18 September 2012 and 17 July 2012 are available on the LAKE website where more will be added later.

Next: the RFP.

-jsq

WALB on Lowndes County Commission Chair candidates

Gretchen Quarterman billboard

WALB says we have a choice for Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission.

Lydia Jennings wrote for WALB yesterday, Meet candidates vying for Lowndes Co. Commission Chairman,

Gretchen Quarterman Bill Slaughter and Gretchen Quarterman are two very different candidates. Both are running for Lowndes County Commission Chairman. Slaughter is the CEO of Waller Heating and Air Conditioning and Quarterman is a farmer and owner of Okra Paradise Farms.

“I’m very curious, I have a math and science background so I’m always asking why do we do it this way, not just what do we do, but why do we do it, what problem are we solving,” said Quarterman.

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Agenda @ GLPC 2012-10-29

GLPC Agenda 2012-10-29 The Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC) meets tonight. Here’s the agenda.

The agenda was faxed by GLPC Chairman Bill Slaughter to Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, at her request; GLPC itself still doesn’t have agendas online, fifteen months after SGRC stopped posting them.

In his fax cover letter of 23 October 2012, Bill Slaughter noted:

Videos of 30 Club Candidates Forum 2012-10-22

Great Job Last Night!

See You Wed. Evening!

Videos of AAUW Candidates Forum 2012-10-24 Presumably he was referring to her appearance at the 22 October Candidates Forum 30 Club at Serenity Church and the then-upcoming 24 October Candidates Forum by AAUW at Valdosta High School. Gretchen Quarterman and Bill Slaughter are the two candidates for Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission. You can see LAKE videos of all four Candidate Forums online.

There is one Valdosta permit case on tonight’s GLPC agenda, and three rezoning cases, one from Hahira, and two from the county. I have been transcribing these faxes, but I don’t have time today, so here’s a brief summary table.

Valdosta,
Final action
Thursday
8 Nov 2012 		2. CU-2012-07 Stafford Properties
1609 Norman Drive, Valdosta
Request for a Conditional Use Permit (CUP for a Car Wash in a Community Commercial C-C zoning district.
Hahira,
Final action
Thursday
1 Nov 2012 		3. HA-2012-01 Gateway Pines
1022 W. Stanfill Street, Hahira
Request for a Variance to Parking Requirement prescribed by Section 7-1.1, 7-4, and 9-3.2 of the Hahira Zoning Ordinance
Lowndes County,
Final action
Tuesday
13 Nov 2012 		4. REZ-2012-16 Cook County Land Ventures
SW corner of Georgia Highway 122 East and Cat Creek Road, Hahira
Request to rezone ~2 acres from E-A (Estate Agriculture) to C-C (Crossroads Commercial)
5. REZ-2012-17 John Henry Davis dba Lowndes Development, LLC
Davidson Road, Valdosta
Request to rezone 23.49 acres from MAZ-II and MAZ-III (Moody Activity Zone) to R-10 (Suburban Density Residential)

-jsq

Library open records request 2012-10-26

The most-organized open records response ever! Well, that we’ve asked for, anyway. Sure, sometimes local government bodies deliver a three-ring binder of papers. Sometimes they deliver a CD. Sometimes they deliver on a USB stick. Nobody ever delivered all of the above. OK, I brought the USB stick and the scanner (not pictured), but look at that CD lying on top of the really thick binder: the CD contains everything that’s in the binder, and that saved us a lot of scanning time.

Thank you, Kelly Lenz, Patrick Spurlock, and Tom Gooding!

It will take a bit of time to process all this information; stay tuned.

Kelly Lenz, Library Director, Tom Gooding, Attorney

Kelly Lenz, Library Director, Tom Gooding, Attorney
Left to right: an extra item, the four architect presentations, the “bible” of what the new library should be (the thick binder and the CD), and agendas, minutes, and board packets (the other two binders).
Picture by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
at South Georgia Regional Library, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 26 October 2012.

I know of at least one open records request somewhere else that, two years later and counting, Continue reading →

Video of 6 minute meeting @ LCC 2012-10-22

Here’s a single video of this morning’s entire Lowndes County Commission Work Session. The railroad item was neither of the ones on which I was speculating. The animal shelter wants a 24 hour “cooling-off period” with a submitted animal kept at home before “evaluation” by the shelter. The Tax Commissioner wants to refund some taxes they apparently accidentally overcharged. The Fire Chief has bids for equipment for the new fire truck. And there’s going to be an animal health fair. They vote tomorrow evening at 5PM.

Here’s the video, followed by the agenda, with links to the relevant parts of the video, and a few notes.

Video of 6 minute meeting
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 October 2012.
Thanks to Dexter Sharper for use of his video camera.

Here’s the annotated agenda:

Continue reading →

Rairoad, animals, taxes, and a fire truck @ LCC 2012-10-22

Five minutes? Or will they discuss any of the four items on the agenda for Monday morning’s Work Session?

What’s the CSX project? CSX in Lowndes County Is it this item from the T-SPLOST constrained project list?

RC11-000071 Construction of St Augustine Road Overpass

That overpass went from $12,000,000 to $14,627,933.04 during the T-SPLOST selection process. On the ground down there on St. Augustine Road it sure looks like people are preparing for an overpass. Has the county found some non-T-SPLOST way to fund that railroad overpass?

Since it’s CSX, I’d guess it’s not this other T-SPLOST project:

RC11-000077 Georgia and Florida Railway (GFRR) — Valdosta to Willacoochee Rehabilitation

The Commission could just post the proposed agreement along with the agenda, and then we’d all know.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
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Locals weigh in on presidential debate on WCTV

Who would understand base politics better than Jack Kingston?

Jack Kingston's green tongue “I think for base politics, the red meat Democrats, the red meat Republicans, they like to see a good squabble and they saw one.”

Kingston, who lapped up Moody Air Force Base with his green tongue. He left out the rest of Lowndes County, so he’s barely local anymore. But two others on WCTV last night are local.

Eames Yates wrote for WCTV yesterday, Emotions of Local Politicians and Voters Run High After Debate,

Laverne Gaskins Laverne Lewis Gaskins is with Obama For America. She said “it was a decisive victory for President Obama. I think he was clear in his message. He was able to articulate the future that he has for America.”

Congressman Kingston said “I really think it was a tie. I would like to say that Romney won, but I have to say I think Obama won on some questions.”

That’s Jack-speak for he would like to say that, but he can’t, because he knows it’s not true. Laverne was more straightforward. So was Gretchen:

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See Gretchen Quarterman on the radio

Gretchen Quarterman on Chris Beckham's radio show 11 October 2012 “I think people would be more interested in government if they could see it going on,” said Gretchen Quarterman, candidate for Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission, on the Chris Beckham drive-time radio show 11 October 2012, 105.9, WVGA. Here’s video of that interview, followed by some excerpts.

A few excerpts:

Our county government does a lot of stuff really great… but one of the things they don’t do very well don’t advertise themselves; not very transparent; they don’t say what a great job they’re doing; so I thought we could improve in that area.

The County Commission a couple of years ago had two different studies commissioned about growth and planning, and one of them was… Sprawl to ruin, by Prof. Dorfman growth close to existing services. The county already has an urban service area, like how far the water line goes, how far the sewer line goes. And that growth should be infilled, and not expand outside of that area, because that saves resources in terms of how far you have to send the sheriff, how far the school bus has to go. And they also gave an average house price, what it costs in terms of property taxes to support the services that are sent to them, to a development. So I would say close in to existing services is the way to go.

We need to actively seek out manufacturing jobs,

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