Tag Archives: Gretchen Quarterman

New Nottinghill subvivision finally resolved @ LCC 2013-12-10

The long-deferred rezoning for the Orr Road version of the Nottinghill subdivision
was finally resolved at the

10 December 2013 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.

6.a. REZ-2013-11 Nottinghill, Orr Rd R-A to R-21

County Planner Jason Davenport said
“staff has laid out for you background information”, etc.
and staff recommended approval.

Commissioner John Page pointed out that there was still
some question of the land being purchased by applicant,
and not all the signatures were yet ready.

Davenport said some were word of mouth, others were power of attorney,
etc.

The
alleged County Attorney Walter G. Elliott
said Continue reading →

2 interagency agreements, education, jail, alcohol, and a health care presentation @ LCC 2014-01-13

We can probably guess who

“Dr. Grow” is
and the general topic of his presentation,
but why does the county make us guess?

The county wants

an architect for a new roof and shower in one jail pod;
it’s considering two interagency agreements,
one for

Valdosta Inspections for Lake Park
and the other for

the county extension,
plus

setting election qualifying fees
and

a Special Assessment Rate for 2014.
There’s a

beer license
and acceptance of

infrastructure for part of Grove Pointe Subdivision.

Here’s

the agenda: Continue reading →

Secret meeting of Lowndes County Commission and state reps @ LCC 2013-12-20

The VDT report doesn’t say when or where, and doesn’t say whether
Dexter Sharper (District 177) wasn’t invited or chose not to attend.

There’s nothing about this meeting in the online

agendas
or

calendar,
even though that calendar lists

Pictures with Santa at the Historical Courthouse (12/19/2013).

There is this undated

public notice with no agenda:

The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will meet with members of
Lowndes County’s Legislative Delegation on Friday, December 20,
2013, at 4:00 p.m. in the Commissioner’s Conference Room located on
the 3rd floor of the Judicial-Administrative Complex, 327 North
Ashley Street, Valdosta, Georgia.

K. Paige Dukes, County Clerk

pdukes@lowndescounty.com 229-671-2400

Matthew Woody wrote for the VDT 22 December 2013,

Commissioners host local delegation,
oddly omitting the when and where and much of the why from
the traditional

who, what, when, where, and why of journalism.

The Lowndes County Commission hosted Continue reading →

Spectra reps unfamiliar with Spectra fines @ LCC 2013-12-09

Both of Spectra’s principal representatives to the Lowndes County Commission
and the Dougherty County Commission claim not to be familiar
with Spectra’s well-known public record of safety violations,
and some of what they say contradicts the public record,
so how can we believe any of their safety assertions about
Spectra’s proposed Sabal Trail Transmission pipeline?

Update 3PM: more evidence from Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

As I’ve mentioned
before,
Spectra’s Andrea Grover told us that
everyone in Pennsylvania was happy now, after I asked her
about

the Steckman Ridge compressor station leak
in front of reporter Matthew Woody,
at the

16 October 2013 Spectra meeting at Wiregrass Tech in Valdosta.
There’s more beyond
the article about pipeline fines and incidents

Woody wrote 24 November 2013 for the Valdosta Daily Times (VDT), the local
newspaper of record.

Her excuse for the compressor leak, if I recall correctly,
was that Continue reading →

Sabal Trail answers: Commissioners did forward questions @ LCC 2013-12-09

Nobody said
last Monday
that Commissioners had asked for a written response from Sabal Trail.
All we knew was

the four questions Commissioners asked.
Maybe the county should hire a public information officer;
I see they no longer
have one listed on their website front page,
and the last
website public notice is from April.
Fortunately, Commissioner Demarcus Marshall forwarded Spectra’s answers
yesterday. He also copied the Valdosta Daily Times, with
attached PDF.
-jsq

From: Demarcus Marshall

Date: December 13, 2013, 3:01:32 PM CST

Subject: FW: Sabal Trail/Lowndes County Commissioner response FINAL 12122013.pdf

Concerned Citizens,

These are the responses from Sabal Trail regarding the questions
forwarded to me. Please forward to those in opposition of the
surveys and those that have agreed to them.

Commissioner Demarcus Marshall, M.P.A.

From: Fahrenthold, Brian C

Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2013 9:46 PM

To: Demarcus Marshall

Cc: Bill Slaughter; Joyce Evans; Richard Raines; Crawford Powell; John
Page; County Manager; Belinda Lovern

Subject: Sabal Trail/Lowndes County Commissioner response FINAL 12122013.pdf

Commissioner Marshall, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners and County
Manager Pritchard:

Attached is a more detailed summation to the questions posed to the
Commission by Ms. Singletary.

Should you need Continue reading →

All 4 Commissioner questions about the pipeline –VDT @ LCC 2013-12-09

The VDT let local citizens speak, unlike the Lowndes County Commission.
Perhaps the VDT, like many local citizens, does not think transparency
means what the County Commission thinks it means.

Matthew Woody wrote across the top of the front page of the Valdosta Daily Times
today,

Sabal Trail presents at County Commission work session,

Protesters stood outside of the Lowndes County Judicial and Administrative Complex at 8:30 a.m. in opposition to the Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline project as representatives from the company made a presentation at the Commission Work Session.

That’s Matthew Woody across the street taking that picture,
and

here are more pictures of the protesters.

“We strive everyday for zero incidences,” Fahrenthold
said “All of our meetings, company wide, starts with a safety
update.”

Really?
So why afterwards did both Brian Fahrenthold and Andra Grover Continue reading →

Spectra Sales Pitch, Nothing about Nottinghill, etc. @ LCC 2013-12-09

Given

dozens of questions submitted by citizens
and every opportunity,
Commissioners asked only four perfunctory questions after
Spectra Energy’s

Sabal Trail pipeline sales pitch.
Chairman Bill Slaughter repeatedly let multiple Spectra reps
speak from the audience without having them come to the podium,
or even identify themselves before they spoke.
They were pointed at by the chief Spectra speaker when he named them,
but they did not stand up or raise their hand at the time,
so it was quite hard to tell which was which.
The Chairman never allows that sort of behavior from local citizens.
Why is he granting extra courtesies to a company from Houston
that wants to exercise eminent domain on local citizens’ lands?
Who does the Lowndes County Commission represent?

At least
WALB
and
WCTV
let a landowner speak: that’s more than the County Commission did.

Nottinghill is back yet again.
A Commissioner did ask staff whether it was really ready,
and it isn’t, but no Commissioners asked any such probing
questions of the Spectra reps.

The three

beer licenses, a

liquor license,
the

contracts, and the

bids were glossed over in almost as
perfunctory a manner.
There were some questions from Commissioners about
costs to the county government.
But there were none from Commissioners about costs to landowners
from gashing a pipeline through their property.

Given that there’s a

settlement for back pay for some county employees,
it appears that the employees maybe had to sue to get paid.

Staff did express concern about

“customer service” for a decorative
special tax lighting district, but none about service to the
landowners of the county whose land Spectra proposes to run through,
or for that matter to the taxpayers of the county to whom the
Commission and staff cannot be bothered to show what they’re voting
on before they vote.

Here’s

the agenda plus links to the videos and a few notes.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED-AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2013, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2013, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street — 2^nd Floor

Continue reading →

90 percent approval? Larry Rodgers doubts that @ LCC 2013-12-09

WCTV isn’t just publishing Spectra press releases or sales pitches,
unlike the Lowndes County Commission.

Winnie Anne Wright for WCTV today,

Sabal Trail Addresses Lowndes County Commission,

“Gas needed to come from one point and end up at another. We looked
for those existing corridors that are already in place, to be able
to run adjacent and parallel to those so we are lessening the impact
on stake holders and the environment and this path that we are
currently on, is over 80% adjacent or parallel to those types of
things”, says Andrea Grover, Director of Stakeholder Outreach for
Sabal Trail.

Well, no it doesn’t need to.
Some fat cats in Houston and Juno Beach, Florida want to pump
methane through here for their profit and our hazard,
but that’s not the same as “needed to”.

But not everyone believes Sabal Trail has Lowndes County’s best
interest at heart.

The proposed pipeline would run through Larry Rodgers’ property. He
says he gave Sabal Trail access Continue reading →

Frack Off Spectra, We Want Solar @ LCC 2013-12-09

Some citizens spoke up before the

Lowndes County Commission meeting, even if the Commission didn’t want to hear from them during.

Continue reading →

A huge impact on land values, not to mention the safety factor –Larry Rodgers on WALB @ LCC 2013-12-09

WALB did what the Lowndes County Commission did not after Spectra’s
sales talk this morning: let local citizens speak.

Robert Hydrick on WALB today,

Sabal Trail gives information on pipeline project,
quoted Spectra rep. Brian Fahrenthold (one of five Spectra sent)
about Spectra’s feint of a former route through Valdosta,
now aimed through rural Lowndes and Brooks Counties instead:

This updated route, Fahrenthold pointed out, reduces the amount of
the city of Valdosta that would be affected as well as reduces the
overall area of Lowndes County that would be affected.

“The first route was 31.3 miles and the [new route] is 15.6. That’s
a fifty percent reduction in our proposed route,” said Fahrenthold.

Well, no, it’s a shift in Spectra’s proposed route for their
Sabal Trail Pipeline to go farther west, past Clyattville
and through Brooks, Colquitt, Mitchell, and Dougherty Counties.
How does it feel to be expendable, rural landowners?

Fahrenthold also emphasized Continue reading →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange