If the regional transportation roundtable does not agree on a list
to present to the voters by October 15th of 2011,
then each jurisdiction in this region must match their
Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant … at a rate of 50%.
That’s
Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant Program (LMIG).
So if they get $100,000 from LMIG they’ll have to match that with $50,000.
This will affect smaller communities the most, since they use the
most LMIG funds proportionally.
And the most likely way to raise the funds to match is to raise property taxes.
So what if there is a list on the ballot but the voters vote it down?
Continue reading →
The 75% pot of T-SPLOST funds is what the project lists recently
submitted by Lowndes County
and the City of Valdosta are about,
according to
Corey Hull, continuing his presentation on T-SPLOST at the Lowndes County
Democratic Party (LCDP) meeting.
Those are projects of regional significance
that the local jurisdictions want the voters to actually
vote on that project.
The other 25% goes to local jurisdictions, like this:
Corey Hull of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Metropolitan Planning Organization (VLMPO)
explains T-SPLOST (HB 277) and the Transportation Investment Act of 2010
at the monthly meeting of the Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP),
Gretchen Quarterman (Chair), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Video by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
The plan identifies
$35 billion to meet the needs in Georgia today.
However, $72 billion are needed to meet the transportation
needs to sustain Georgia’s economy into the future.
Of course, that’s according to the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT),
which notoriously is not interested in trains or other mass transit:
if it’s not a road or a road bridge, forget it.
Continuing:
And $1 billion is needed here in Lowndes County.
Lowndes County’s transportation plan through the
Metropolitan Planning Organization
has about a billion dollars in projects.
What about county voters, and what about the combined budget?
Q: “What is the county’s view on consolidation?”
A: CUEE Chairman Leroy Butler answered:
“We did no poll of individuals in the county,
so we don’t have any; anything we say would be speculation.”
Remember,
only one of CUEE’s board is from the county outside the City of Valdosta,
and nobody outside Valdosta gets to vote in the referendum.
They don’t know what the county thinks, and they don’t care,
because legally they don’t have to:
if Valdosta votes to give up their school system, the Lowndes County
school board has no choice but to pick up the pieces.
Kick-off meeting, Community Unification for Educational Excellence, Inc., CUEE.
They’re for consolidation of the Valdosta and Lowndes County School Systems.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
http://lake.typepad.com/on-the-lake-front/cuee/
T-SPLOST is a ten-year one-cent sales tax,
organized in twelve regional taxing districts,
through committees composed of county chairs and city mayors,
plus an executive committee with some of them plus 3 people from the
legislature, which funnels transportation funding requests to GDOT,
which picks, and then sends to a referendum in 2012.
Got all that?
No?
Well, Corey explains it much better than I do.
The Georgia legislature passed what was then known as House bill 277
called
Transportation Investment Act of 2010….
It created or proposed a one percent sales tax for transportation purposes
throughout the state of Georgia.
It creates
twelve special transportation taxing districts
that are based on the boundaries of the regional commissions.
And that is where the connection with the regional commission stops.
They are not the same body….
Come hear Chairman Ashley Paulk and MPO Director Cory Hull give
us information about T-SPLOST. The special local option tax for
Transportation.
Ashley Paulk is Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission.
Corey Hull is Coordinator for the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Metropolitan Planning Organization (VLMPO).
Norman Bennett, VLCIA board member and former chairman of the Lowndes County Commmission,
asked Corey Hull:
Can you explain that again for me about the penalties if the voters don’t pass the tax?
If the county’s got a project, then they’ve got to put up ten percent
or whatever the percentage is?
What’s this about yet another sales tax decided on by
regional transportation boards and GDOT?
Corey Hull of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Metropolitan Planning Organization
(VLMPO)
explained T-SPLOST
at the regular monthly meeting,
Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA).
Georgia HB 277, which was passed by the legislature and signed into law
last year,
calls for a 1% regional sales tax (T-SPLOST) to fund
transportation projects.
After he gave his
goodbye speech,
I
wished him happiness in Myrtle Beach
and thought maybe he’d make a graceful exit.
Nope, he’s still cranking the Edison phonograph on the same old
scratched wax cylinder.
Here he is last week responding to James Wright
and dozens of other people in the same thread
to which I later posted
It’s an opportunity.
In Lofton’s case, he’s still fixated on the losing proposition of biomass fuels.
-jsq
Thanks so much for sharing this and for your continued strong support of our
client’s green renewable energy project. In addition to assisting the
country in reducing our consumption of middle eastern fuel and improving the
environment, this project will provide a much needed economic impact for
landowners of every race, and the Industrial Authority will assist in the
efforts underway to assist local farmers. Google “benefits of biomass
electricity,”
If the regional transportation roundtable does not agree on a list to present to the voters by October 15th of 2011, then each jurisdiction in this region must match their Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant … at a rate of 50%.
![](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Emperor_Norton_proclamation_re._assumption_of_prerogatives_WFHM_SF.JPG")