Apparently there is some sort of spotted leaf blight, and they were considering what to do about it.
-jsq
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.
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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…
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:
by not warning Jennifer Jones before removing her on 28 June 2011;
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
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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
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
Vanessa Barrington wrote for Grist 21 November 2011, Baltimore’s can-do approach to food justice
That’s the problem.…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.
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.The article outlines the specific solutions, such as: Continue readingAccording 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.”
79.07% No Consolidation with 14 out of 16 precincts. All that is outstanding is provisional ballots and military, which are usually a handful. The percentage of no votes kept going up. Also more people voted on the school consolidation referendum than there were validated signatures on CUEE’s petition.
It looked like a landslide, and it was:
In other news, the mayoral vote almost voted that of four years ago. John W. Gayle will be the new Mayor of Valdosta with 57.3%.
Ben H. Norton retains his Valdosta City Council Seat with 76.56%.
Sunday sales of alcohol in Valdosta won with 52.3%. A similar alcohol referendum won in Lake Park with 65.99%.
It looks like Ben Futch will be the new Mayor of Lake Park with 54.85%.
Sandy Sherrill, Russell H. Lane, Paul Mulkey, and Roanald Carter will apparently be on the Lake Park City Council.
In Dasher, Edwin R. Smith will be City Council P3 and Donald J. Bryan will be P2.
In Hahira, Ralph Clendenin retains his City Council seat.
The school referendum details: Continue reading
According to their letters of transmission to the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) Valdosta, Hahira, Remerton, and Lake Park all held public hearings on the Short Term Work Programs and Report of Accomplishment documents.
Here is video of the Valdosta Public Hearing.
The
Lowndes County resolution
does not say that a public hearing was held.
That’s because no public hearing was held, as you can see in the video below.
A public hearing was listed in the agenda of the 11 October 2011 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
7. Public Hearing
a. REZ-2011-13, Fred’s Dept. Store, 4401 Bemiss Rd., 145c-90a, 2.0 ac., water/sewer, C-H(c) & C- G(c) to C-G
b. Greater Lowndes 2030 Comprehensive Plan Updates – Lowndes County Report of Accomplishments (ROA) and Short Term Work Program (STWP)
However, citizens were not invited to speak for or against the document. In fact, the document was not provided to the citizens for comment and an open records request for the document has not been satisfied by the county. Here is video of items 7a and 7b.
The County’s Resolution to Transmit says in part: Continue reading
The Standards and Procedures for Local Comprehensive Planning,
established by the Georgia Planning Act of 1989, require updates
to the Short Term Work Projects (STWP) list and the Report of
Accomplishments (ROA) every 5 years.
Lowndes County and the cities in Lowndes County have submitted the
documents to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs
(DCA)
An open records request to Lowndes County for the documents was not satisfied. However other government agencies were willing to abide by the Georgia Open Records Law ocga 50-18-70.
The documents are available for review on the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange website for Valdosta, Lake Park, Remerton, Hahira and Lowndes County.
I encourage you to read carefully what our elected officials see as the future of our community.
-gretchen
The Chamber’s Meet the Candidates Reception provides an opportunity for Chamber members to meet and hear from candidates running in the Nov. 8 general election. All Chamber members and guests are invited to attend this event at the Rainwater Conference Center. There is no cost to Chamber members to attend.Here’s the link to RSVP or if you need directions.
Here’s a list of who qualifed to run. As you can see, most local incumbents are running unopposed. Maybe they’ll show up anyway, and there are at least a few contested positions (Valdosta Mayor and Council At Large, Hahira Council 3, Dasher Post 3, and Lake Park Council At Large. This being an odd year, there are no county-wide posts up for election, but the municipal elections affect everyone around here, even people like me who do not live in any of the cities. Whether at this event or elsewhere, you may want to ask the candidates their platforms and positions on local issues.
Usually there’s also an AAUW Lowndes County Political Forum; I don’t know what’s up with that this year. Usually it’s immediately after the Chamber thing, and the AAUW Forum is open to all.
-jsq