Tag Archives: Hahira

Shadowy LOST talks tomorrow morning among all the local elected governments @ LOST 2012 04 09

It’s great that the local cities and the county government think they can negotiate how to share Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) money this time without spending a lot of money suing each other like they did back in 2002. It’s not so great that they’re doing it at an unannounced time and place.

Kay Harris wrote Saturday in the VDT, LOST talks set to begin: County, cities to meet Monday,

As required by state law, Lowndes County issued a letter to the mayors of all the municipalities in the county, requesting they attend a renegotiation meeting Monday, April 9 to discuss LOST (local option sales tax) distributions.

“This has to be done and approved by the end of the year in order to stay in place, so we have to start the process now,” said Commission Chairman Ashley Paulk.

Well, that’s interesting. When is this meeting? Ah, the time of day wasn’t included in the article.

There’s a clue in David Rodock’s 31 March 2012 writeup about the Commission retreat, Continue reading →

Lowndes County and Valdosta history: origins of the old boys

If we want good clean industry for jobs for local people, we need good clean local government, too. Why do our local government bodies hide when they discuss public goods like waste disposal, try to avoid stating public positions on issues, and fail to publish minutes of elected bodies?

A little reading in local histories of the area or talking to people who were involved even a generation or two back indicates that Lowndes County has always been a cliquish sort of place, mostly run by old boys, for reasons that made some sense in the early days (lack of resources, mainly), but doesn’t so much anymore in these days of I-75 and I-10, airport, railroads that still go everywhere, Moody AFB, VSU as a regional university, technical and community colleges, two hospitals and medical industry, TitleTown, Grand Bay WMA, Wild Adventures, and south Georgia sunshine we can export to Atlanta and points north.

Here are a few books about the old days, all available in local libraries and possibly in local bookstores: Continue reading →

Solar parking lot in Atlanta

We don’t have to look to far Texas for examples of where to put solar panels. Let’s try Atlanta.

Next to the downtown Marriott in Atlanta:


Atlanta, Georgia, 26 June 2011.
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

That’s Gretchen in the center as reference human for scale.

Google map picture:

Continue reading →

Where could we put utility solar in south Georgia?

Where could we find 380 acres for a 30 Megawatt solar plant in south Georgia? Here’s a clue from Texas.

Citizen Carol wrote for Texas Vox 6 January 2012, Austin Energy drought proofs its energy with new Webberville Solar Project

A number of years ago, the City of Austin purchased this land planning to install a new coal-fired power plant. When those plans fell through, a landfill was proposed for the site that now boasts 280 acres of solar panels with a view of downtown Austin along its horizon.
How about on the proposed coal plant site in Ben Hill County?

Of course, it doesn’t have to be that big, or all in one place. How about on top of a landfill? How about on the cotton fields next to Valdosta’s Sallas Mahone Elementary School? Energy to air condition the school instead of drifting pesticides, and profit to the landowner! How about at the airport? At the mall parking lot? On top of the new county palace? On the warehouses in Hahira?

-jsq

Motorcade against CCA, 5PM Tuesday March 6th

Do you want to live in a prison colony? Help us say, CCA Go Away!

Join us 5PM Tuesday March 6th 2012 at the private prison site (Dasher-Johnson Road off US 84 at Inner Perimeter) for a motorcade by Valdosta City Hall to the Industrial Authority offices: for education and against the private prison.

When:5PM (rush hour) Tuesday March 6th
How:Cars, trucks, motorcycles, and bicycles
Who:Everybody is invited
What:Oppose the Private Prison
From:Proposed Private Prison Site
US 84 @ Inner Perimeter Road
(Staging on Dasher-Johnson Road next to US 84)
By way of:Valdosta City Hall
Valdosta City Council Work Session
Honk to say No CCA!
To:Industrial Authority Office
2110 N. Patterson Street
(Patterson at Park Avenue)
Bring a sign: No Private Prisons!
Contact: noprivateprisons@gmail.com
Winn Roberson, 229-630-2339, winnroberson@bellsouth.net
John S. Quarterman, 229-242-0102, politics@quarterman.org



on the web


View Larger Map


Petition

Winn Roberson read the newspaper Friday (February 24th) and realized the prison site was down the street from him, so the news finally sunk in. This motorcade was his idea to drive the point across to the Industrial Authority: we don’t want a private prison!

John S. Quarterman lives about as far away from the prison site as you can get in Lowndes County, but realizes it will affect everybody for many counties around. So let’s say CCA Go Away!

-jsq

PS: If you can’t come, you can still sign the petition to the Industrial Authority, or write a letter to the editor, or…

Quartzite Council cited by Arizona Attorney General

We haven’t looked in on the little town of 3,000 odd people of Quartzsite, Arizona, lately. Its goings-on continue to seem eerily applicable to our own county of 100,000 odd people.

On 9 December 2011, the Attorney General of Arizona, Tom Horne, issued a statement Re: Open Meeting Law Complaint against Town of Quartzsite Common Council (the “Council”), saying that the town Council had violated the state Open Meetings Law (OML) four times:

  1. by not warning Jennifer Jones before removing her on 28 June 2011;
  2. by holding a Council meeting on 10 July 2011 in which they excluded the public by actually locking the doors of their meeting room;
  3. by failing to post minutes of the emergency meeting on its website as required by Arizona Law (yes, Arizona law, like Texas law, requires posting minutes on the web) and by not including a required statement of the emergency requiring the meeting;
  4. and by failing to post withing the required three working days minutes for the 10 July 2011 emergency meeting, nor for seven of its work sessions, nor for its 14 June 2011 regular session.
This one wasn’t a violation, but may be at least as important:
The purpose of the OML is to require public bodies to meet publicly and openly so that al persons so desiring may attend and listen to the deliberations and proceedings.
Why, I believe that’s the same in Georgia!

It seems back-room meetings are bad: Continue reading →

January 2012 LAKE meeting: Apple Valley Restaurant at Hahira truck stop

Flitting back to the NW corner of the county, the owl lights in Hahira tomorrow!
What: Monthly LAKE Meeting
When: 7 PM, Tuesday 10 January 2012
(or later if the Lowndes County Commission runs late)
Where: Apple Valley Restaurant
(at the Pilot Travel Center)
1311 Ga Highway 122 W
(Exit 29, I-75)
Hahira, GA 31632
(229) 794-2037
View Larger Map

If you follow the LAKE blog, On the LAKE Front, you know what we cover, from elections to gardening, connecting the dots. What else do you want to investigate?

If you’re on Facebook, please Like the LAKE facebook page. You can sign up for the meeting event there, Or just come as you are.

jsq

How to read Comprehensive Plan documents

I’m always getting a civics lesson, learning more and more about how our local and state governments work. Most recently, I had the opportunity to have explained two documents related to the Lowndes County Comprehensive Plan: the Short Term Work Projects (STWP) and the Report of Accomplishments (ROA). In the spirit of information exchange, I share what I learned with you.

The state of Georgia requires a Comprehensive Plan and collects and approves them through the Department of Community Affairs (DCA). The current plans for all of Georgia are available at the DCA Planning Site.

The current STWP documents that are being reviewed locally are the projects that the local governments and agencies expect to actively work on in the next five years. The ROA documents report on what was done in the past five years: what was completed, or will no longer be pursued. Many municipalities and counties file separate reports. Locally, because there is significant cooperation among the cities and Lowndes County there is one document with all the projects included and a place that indicates which agency is participating in the project. However, their input documents are filed separately, and LAKE has collected them on the LAKE web pages. Also, each local municipality holds its own public hearings.

Reading the STWP and ROA can be a bit tricky but once I understood the format, the process became much easier. The overall topics are prescribed by the state and are in general categories like “Population”, “Economic Development”, “Housing” and “Land Use”. There are sub-categories in each of the ten major categories, like “Secure High-Wage Jobs” and “Address Workforce Adequacy” in the “Economic Development” major category. Then, under each of these items are one or more specific projects that will be done in the next five years to help achieve each goal.

One reason the draft STWP is complex is that it redlines projects that were performed in the previous five years and are now being removed or modified for a variety of reasons. Many projects were completed, some moved from one stage (investigate) to another (implement or market), and still others simply lacked the staff or funding resources to continue being pursued.

The ROA document is in a similar format but the focus of it is to report the status of the STWP for the previous five years. An Explanation Column gives details on the status of each previous project. For example, it says that the “Feed the Elderly Senior Citizen Nutrition Program” has been discontinued because “Budgetary constraints have limited Lowndes County’s role in this supporting action.”.

The STWP and ROA documents are meant to be read as a pair, giving the reader an understanding of where we have been, where we are going and how we are going to get there as a community.

-gretchen

Baltimore’s place-based model

Growth isn’t everything, and vacant lots can be leveraged to deal with food disparity and obesity, Baltimore is demonstrating.

Vanessa Barrington wrote for Grist 21 November 2011, Baltimore’s can-do approach to food justice

…43 percent of the residents in the city’s predominantly black neighborhoods had little access to healthy foods, compared to 4 percent in predominantly white neighborhoods. Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of the city’s adults and almost 40 percent of high school students are overweight or obese.
That’s the problem.

There are solutions:

Speaking on a panel at the recent Community Food Security Coalition Conference in Oakland, Calif., Abby Cocke, of Baltimore’s Office of Sustainability, and Laura Fox, of the city health department’s Virtual Supermarket Program, outlined two approaches to address the city’s food deserts. Both were presenting programs that have launched since Grist last reported on Baltimore’s efforts to address food justice. And both programs come under the auspices of The Baltimore Food Policy Initiative, a rare intergovernmental collaboration between the city’s Department of Planning, Office of Sustainability, and Health Department. They also show how an active, involved city government and a willingness to try new ideas can change the urban food landscape for the better.

According to Cocke, Baltimore’s Planning Department has a new mindset. She calls it a “place-based” model. “In the past,” she says, “growth was seen as the only way to improve the city, but we’re starting to look at ways to make our neighborhoods stronger, healthier, and more vibrant places at the low density that they’re at now.”

The article outlines the specific solutions, such as: Continue reading →