Tag Archives: Knights Creek

Agenda: Budget, Personal Care Home, streets and transit, 2 sewer repairs @ VCC 2024-06-06

Nobody attended the First Hearing of the proposed FY 2025 Valdosta Budget, so Thursday is your last chance, at the Second Hearing, at the Valdosta City Council meeting.

[Agenda: Budget, sewers, Personal Care Home, streets, and transit @ VCC 2024-06-06]
Agenda: Budget, sewers, Personal Care Home, streets, and transit @ VCC 2024-06-06

That budget includes a pending $67 million bond for water and sewer projects, with interest to be paid from the Water and Sewer Revenue Fund.

The agenda also includes a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) for a Personal Care Home, two street resurfacing projects, an amendment to the contract for the on-call transport cars, and two sewer repair projects.

Here is the agenda.

See also the preceding Planning Commission meeting.

AGENDA
REGULAR MEETING OF THE VALDOSTA CITY COUNCIL
5:30 PM Thursday, June 6, 2024
CITY HALL, COUNCIL CHAMBERS

  1. Opening Ceremonies
    1. Call to Order
    2. Invocation
    3. Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag
  2. Minutes Approval
    1. The Minutes from the May 9, 2024 Regular Meeting and the May 15, 2024 Special Called Meeting are forthcoming.
  3. Public Hearings
    1. Public Hearing for the Adoption of the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget. (Second Hearing)
    2. Consideration of an Ordinance for a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) for a Family Personal Care Home in a Single-Family Residential (R-6) Zoning District as requested by Roche Kempson (File No. CU-2024-04). The property is located at 1206 West Magnolia Street. The Planning Commission reviewed this at their May 20, 2024 Regular Meeting and recommended approval subject to four conditions (5-0 Vote).
  4. Ordinances and Resolutions
    1. Consideration of a Resolution authorizing the execution of a Contract with the Georgia Department of Transportation for the Patterson Street Resurfacing and Utility Adjustments Project.
  5. Bids, Contracts, Agreements and Expenditures
    1. Consideration of bids for the resurfacing of streets in the City of Valdosta through the SPLOST VIII Funding and GDOT Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant.
    2. Consideration of a request to amend the Contract with River North Transit, LLC and extend Via On-Demand Transportation Services for the City of Valdosta.
  6. Local Funding and Requests
    1. Consideration of a request to authorize payment for an emergency bypass and sewer repairs on Pebblewood Drive.
    2. Consideration of a request to authorize payment for Phase III final billing for emergency sewer repairs at Knights Creek near the intersection of U. S. Highway 84 and Blanchard Street.
  7. Citizens to be Heard
  8. City Manager’s Report
  9. Council Comments
  10. Adjournment

-jsq

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Videos: Project Viking, Reports, and CWTBH @ LCC Regular 2023-06-13

The Project Viking rezoning included an introduction to the new Public Hearing format: 10 minutes for each side, then 2 minutes of rebuttal. This method is in the draft ULDC changes. Nobody spoke against. The rezoning passed unanimously. So did all the other agenda items.

[Collage @ LCC 13 June 2023]
Collage @ LCC 13 June 2023

Below are links to each LAKE video of each agenda item, with a few notes by Gretchen Quarterman, followed by a LAKE video playlist.

See also:

Continue reading

Packet: Airport Authority appointment, Project Viking rezoning, 2 court, 3 water including a tractor @ LCC 2023-06-13

Update 2023-06-26: Videos, Project Viking, Reports, and CWTBH @ LCC Regular 2023-06-13.

Update 2023-06-16: Draft Proposed Lowndes County Land Development Code changes 2023-06-13.

Lowndes County Utilities did actually get two bids for the Oak Hill Drive Water Main Extension.

But apparently only one quote for the Stone Creek Onsite Well Pump.

[Collage @ LCC Packet 2023-06-13]
Collage @ LCC Packet 2023-06-13

The packet materials are on the LAKE website.

LAKE looks forward to Lowndes County publishing the packet materials on its own website before the meetings, as many other counties larger and smaller already do in Georgia and Florida.

See also the agenda and the LAKE Videos: surprise ULDC update, DUI Court grant, Project Viking @ LCC Work 2023-06-12.

-jsq

Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today!
http://www.l-a-k-e.org/blog/donate

Videos: surprise ULDC update, DUI Court grant, Project Viking @ LCC Work 2023-06-12

Update 2023-06-13: Packet: Airport Authority appointment, Project Viking rezoning, 2 court, 3 water including a tractor @ LCC 2023-06-13.

Once again Lowndes County sprung ULDC changes not on the agenda. They took up more than half of the Work Session yesterday morning.

This time County Manager Paige Dukes asked former County Planner and current consultant Jason Davenport to explain to the Commissioners those changes to the Unified Land Development Code. LAKE has sent in an open records request for those changes.

[Collage @ LCC 12 June 2023]
Collage @ LCC 12 June 2023

Second longest was 7.d. Lowndes County DUI Court FY 24 Grant Award. We don’t know why a judge has to come justify a grant that is working, yet applicants for boards do not have to show up before they are appointed.

The mysterious Project Viking conservation rezoning got two minutes.

The water main and well raise interesting questions about who is paying. The county got a local deal on the LAS tractor.

They vote this evening at 5:30 PM.

Below are LAKE videos of each agenda item, with a few notes by Gretchen Quarterman, followed by a LAKE video playlist.

See also the agenda. LAKE will publish the board packet after the county sends it to us in response to the LAKE open records request. Continue reading

Packet: Airport Authority appointment, Project Viking rezoning, 2 court, 3 water including a tractor @ LCC 2023-06-12

Update 2023-06-13: Videos: surprise ULDC update, DUI Court grant, Project Viking @ LCC Work 2023-06-12.

Tuesday evening after the Monday morning Work Session, the Lowndes County Commission will decide whether to reappoint the incumbent Anthony Payton to the Airport Authority (as it usually does), or to apoing David Westberry.

Also on the agenda are two court grant cash matches, three water projects including a tractor for the county sewer system Land Application Site (LAS), and Project Viking.

[Airport, Courts, Water, and Project Viking by Knights Creek @ LCC]
Airport, Courts, Water, and Project Viking by Knights Creek @ LCC

The wetlands of the Project Viking rezoning are next to Knights Creek in the Alapaha River Basin. The agenda does not seem to mention who this rezoning is for, but according to the Tax Assessors maps it’s BASSFORD N L JR. Those maps show the acreage as 80.0, not 69. I don’t know why the discrepency.

It appears that none of the water projects went out for bids. Two of them are for private wells.

Cost What
$96,095.22Kubota M6-141 Tractor
$64,095.00Stone Creek Onsite Well Pump
$30,750.00 Oak Hill Drive Water Main Extension
$19,509.00Lowndes County DUI Court FY 24 Grant Award
$8,857.00 Lowndes County Juvenile Accountability Court (LCJAC) FY24 Budget & Grant Award
$219,306.22Total

Here is the agenda.

See also the LAKE Videos: Five Valdosta rezonings, one Lowndes County, Lake Park Case pulled @ GLPC 2023-05-22.

LAKE does not have the board packet for this County Commission meeting, because I forgot to file an open records request before today. However, the Project Viking board packet materials from the Planning Commission will probably mostly be re-used for the County Commission meeting.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JUNE 12, 2023, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 2023, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

  1. Call to Order
  2. Invocation
  3. Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
  4. Minutes for Approval
    1. Work Session – May 8, 2023, Regular Session – May 9, 2023, & Budget Work Session – May 31, 2023
  5. Appointment
    1. Valdosta-Lowndes County Airport Authority

      Documents:Valdosta Lowndes County Airport Authority Appointment.pdf

  6. Public Hearing
    1. REZ-2023-07 Project Viking, ~69 acres, Hunt Road, M-2 & CON to M-2 & CON, City Utilities

      Documents:REZ-2023-07 Project Viking.pdf

  7. For Consideration
    1. Oak Hill Drive Water Main Extension

      Documents:Oak Hill Drive Water Main Extension.pdf

    2. Stone Creek Onsite Well Pump

      Documents:Stone Creek Onsite Well Pump.pdf

    3. Kubota M6-141 Tractor

      Documents:Kubota M6-141 Tractor.pdf

    4. Lowndes County DUI Court FY 24 Grant Award

      Documents:Lowndes County DUI Court FY 24 Grant Award.pdf

    5. Lowndes County Juvenile Accountability Court (LCJAC) FY24 Budget & Grant Award

      Documents:Lowndes County Juvenile Accountability Court FY24 Budget Grant Award.pdf

  8. Reports – County Manager
  9. Citizens Wishing to be Heard-Please State Your Name and Address
  10. Adjournment

-jsq

Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today!
http://www.l-a-k-e.org/blog/donate

Development Authority sells land for solar arrays

Next to ERCO Worldwide, one of the few tenants in VLCIA’s “eight industrial parks”, SolAmerica is buying land for a solar farm that will take up most of the rest of the Perimeter East Business Park.

Site Layout, East of Valdosta
Site Layout submitted by SolAmerica to VLCIA in 14 November 2017 meeting.

Jason A. Smith, VDT, 15 November 2017, Solar arrays planned for land,

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Development Authority voted Tuesday to approve the sale of 27.42 acres for $137,100 to be used for solar arrays.

Continue reading

Valdosta sewage into Alapaha River watershed three times in February 2015

Valdosta didn’t mention it and the Florida Department of Health doesn’t seem to know it, 300x219 Knights Creek in Valdosta, in Knights Creek, Valdosta, Georgia, by USGS Streamer, for WWALS.net, 28 February 2015 but Knights Creek is in the Alapaha River watershed. Valdosta spilled sewage into it twice in February. Plus that 16 February spill into Dukes Bay Canal also ends up in the Alapaha River. But never you mind, Valdosta also spilled into the Withlacoochee River through the usual Sugar Creek. Somehow I don’t think all these spills are not Valdosta’s fault. Seems like it’s time for Valdosta to finish fixing its wastewater problem. And since the most recent spills were due to rainfall directly on Valdosta, the levee proposed by the Army Corps of Engineers on Sugar Creek at the Withlacoochee River wouldn’t help, nor would it help at any time for spills directly into the Withlacoochee River at GA 133, nor for Dukes Bay Canal nor Knights Creek, which flow into the Alapaha River.

News Release, Florida Department of Health (FDH), 27 February 2015, Florida Department of Health Advises of Possible Wastewater Contamination, Continue reading