Tag Archives: Law

Valdosta writes to legislature against HB 170 transportation tax grab

Valdosta City Council Tim Carroll
sent a message Saturday with an attached letter from
City Manager Larry Hanson to the sponsor of

HB 170, strongly opposing that stealth tax hike.
This is in addition to

the resolution the Valdosta City Council passed against HB 170.

Carroll’s cover letter:

All,

Attached is a message Mr. Hanson prepared and sent to Rep. [Jay] Roberts
regarding the proposed State Transportation Funding legislation or
HB 170. Rep. Roberts is the lead sponsor of this bill.

As many of you have already heard, the Valdosta City Council adopted
a resolution Continue reading →

Valdosta resolution against GA HB 170 sales-to-excise transportation tax switch

While the Lowndes County Commission has no position,
the City of Valdosta already voted to oppose the legislature’s

HB 170 proposed stealth tax hike that would convert a local sales
tax into a state excise tax, forcing local governments to raise
property taxes.

Valdosta PR

Resolution to Oppose the State of Georgia’s Transportation Funding Act of 2015,

Click here to view the Resolution to Oppose the State of Georgia’s
Transportation Funding Act of 2015.

Click here to view the Local Sales Taxes Collected on Motor Fuel
Sales by county.

The Valdosta Mayor and City Council unanimously approved Continue reading →

Videos: 3 rezonings, boat ramp, bridge, utilities, new public defender @ LCC 2015-02-09

The only rezoning to get much time was the
Devine Subdivision at Tillman Crossing,
at this morning’s Work Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
Maps were displayed for that and
REZ-2015-01 Gramercy 2
and
REZ-2015-03 Scurry Property,
but the board packet is still not on the county’s website.
I filed an open records request, asking for them to be emailed,
and got a telephone callback saying they were ready for pickup,
which means I won’t get them until tomorrow, and you may not
see them until after tomorrow evening’s voting Regular Session.

Tuesday evening there will be Continue reading →

HB 59 to waive sovereign immunity in certain cases

Sue the state? You’ll lose, because of sovereign immunity,
unless HB 59 passes.
Then you might be able to sue GA-DNR for circumventing permiting
in allowing construction on the Georgia Coast, or if it
should approve a compressor station in Albany, or if it
should issue any other permits for the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline.

State agencies such as the Department of Natural Resources (GA-DNR),

can use “letters of permission” to do things like make alterations to
Georgia’s coast, and anyone suing to stop it runs up against sovereign immunity
unless the issuing agency has expressly waived it.
Now that may change with

HB 59,
“State tort claims; waiver of sovereign immunity for declatory judgment or injunctive relief; provide”.
It has six co-sponsors, including

Jay Powell, District 171, Camilla, Mitchell County, GA.

Here’s the key part: Continue reading →

HB 170 to convert fuel sales tax to excise tax at local government expense @ LCC 2015-02-05

HB 170 is a stealth tax raise by the state that would force
county and city governments to vote for higher local taxes.
The Transportation Funding Act of 2015 is bad news
according to every city councillor and county commissioner I’ve heard from.

Harrison Tillman estimated about
$335,000 reduction in taxes to the county
and a $12.6 million overall loss in revenue
in his presentation

yesterday morning to the Lowndes County Commission Annual Planning Meeting.
Commissioner Demarcus Marshall and Chairman Bill Slaughter went to Atlanta to talk
to the proposers of this bill, with little effect.

Here’s
ACCG’s HB 170 writeup Tillman used,
and Continue reading →

Partial packet items! @ LCC 2015-02-09

This agenda includes links to the Commission Agenda Item form for each item!

That’s not all yet, since it does not link to the numerous maps
and other materials for each of the three rezoning items, for example.
But it’s progress!
And the meeting dates also now appear.
Good show!
Also the name of the engineering firm is in the document for
Professional Surveying and Engineering Services for Naylor Boat Ramp.

Proposals are also in this agenda for
Preliminary Engineering Services for Exit 22 and 29 Utility Relocations,
Professional Surveying and Engineering Services for Naylor Boat Ramp,
and
Proposal for Bridge Foundation Investigation for Morven Road Bridge Replacement,
plus a
2015 Public Defender Services Contract & 2015 Operating Contract.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2015, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2015, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

Illegal trash dumping @ LCC 2015-02-05

I’m shocked, shocked, to discover there’s illegal dumping going on in Lowndes County!
County staff assured us all two yeas ago that wouldn’t be a problem,
while telling us all we had no choice about waste disposal.
Yet today at the county’s retreat they showed this map of
illegal dumping locations throughout the county.

(If the county published Continue reading →

Videos: Mike Allen, Anti-Tethering, Budget, Surplus, Abandonment, Evidence, Workers Comp, Manhole @ LCC 2015-01-27

The room was packed as

the Chairman commented on

Dr. Amanda Hall’s proposal
for an

anti-tethering ordinance,
as did
four citizens
(realtor Alan Canup,
veterinarian Jeff Creamer,
LCDP Chairman Tom Hochschild,
and
Carol Kellerman),
plus

Chairman Slaughter again.
Citizen

Frenchie DePasture
commented on trash,
at Tuesday evening’s Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
Mike Allen, Utilities Director until last Friday,
got an offer he couldn’t refuse from Hilton Head, South Carolina
and

a presentation from County Manager Joe Pritchard.
Finance Director Stephanie Black

read from the agenda
about

a budget award (or

passing grade) received by Lowndes County for the ninth year in a row,
as one of 1400 awardees this year.

No rezonings, but Continue reading →

Videos: Anti-Tethering, Budget, Surplus, Abandonment, Evidence, Workers Comp, Manhole @ LCC 2015-01-26

Mike Allen, former Utilities Director,

no longer works for the county as of last Friday, according to
County Manager Joe Pritchard.

Dr. Amanda Hall
proposed an

anti-tethering ordinance.
Both at yesterday morning’s Work Session of the Lowndes County Commission.

Lowndes County won

an award for its budget as “a policy document, a financial plan, an operations guide and a communications device.”

All good except: as a communications device?
They’d probably have to publish drafts of it before they passed it for
that to be true.
Unless they mean as in a public telling, not a public hearing.
They won last year, too,

along with 45 other winners in Georgia,
including Valdosta.
Award, or passing grade?
They’ll

present it tonight
at the Regular Session.

No rezonings, but

surplus computing devices,
abandonment of

Deloach Road E (CR 95),
more on the
never-ending juvenile justice Evidence Based Associates topic,

Workers Compensation Insurance Renewal,
and

sewer gasses corrode manhole covers. I wonder how much gases
corrode pipelines?

See the agenda.
Videos are linked below, followed by a video playlist.

Continue reading →

TVA needs to listen to former chair S. David Friedman about solar power

Will you bet on the blinkered money-only policies of the current
TVA Chair, or the accurate clean solar future predictions of former
TVA Chair S. David Friedman?

Seven years ago S. David Friedman wrote:

“As a substitute for oil, coal, and nuclear energy, the sun can
replace the three poisons with inexhaustible fuel.”

The former TVA Chairman wrote that in 2007 his boook

Winning Our Energy Independence: An Energy Insider Shows How,
which also says (page 4):

There are breakthroughs in new technology that promise to make
the cost of solar power as low as that of coal, nuclear, and oil.
Almost simultaneously in South Africa and the Silicon Valley in the
United States, companies are building huge new solar factories to manufacture
a paper-thin solar coating that can generate electricity that could
actually lower our electric bills.
These breakthroughs promise solar power at 75 percent less than today’s price. Continue reading →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange