Tag Archives: Law

Lowndes County can’t make a monopoly –Judge Harry J. Altman on DSS in VDT

Maybe filing the lawsuit in the first place was “premature”,
to use Chairman Bill Slaughter’s word in the VDT yesterday
about a possible appeal.
Commissioner Demarcus Marshall
had the common courtesy on WCTV to

apologize to DSS for the

unnecessary lawsuit.
How much did the Commission spend on that waste of time and effort?

Editor Kay Harris wrote on the front page of the Valdosta Daily Times yesterday,

Company wins fight to stay in business:
Deep South wins case brought by County,



Southern Circuit Judge Harry J. Altman issued a ruling Monday in the
civil action filed by Lowndes County against Deep South Sanitation,
LLC to enjoin Deep South from continuing its garbage business.
Advanced Disposal Services was later added as an intervenor
plaintiff in the case against Deep South as well.

In the ruling, Altman denied the County’s request for an injunction
to put Deep South out of business. The order addresses the County’s
ordinance passed in 2012, saying that to “simultaneously
invoke an exclusive franchise agreement with one company would, in
effect … permit Lowndes County to construct a monopoly while
simultaneously putting pre-existing companies out of
business.”

Well, it appears the judge thought it was

about right or wrong.

The county Chairman’s view now? Continue reading →

DSS on WCTV

The WCTV reporter interviewed Lowndes County Commissioner
Demarcus Marshall at yesterday’s

Chamber of Commerce Legislative Lunch
because Chairman Bill Slaughter was not there.

Winnie Anne Wright wrote yesterday for WCTV,

Deep South Sanitation Will Continue Work In Lowndes County,
quoted Cary Scarborough about winning
the lawsuit the Lowndes County Commission brought against his
company,
and then:



He has invested quite a bit of money in his only truck that you can
see here. Despite all of the litigation, he is proud to be born and
raised in Lowndes County.

One of the Commision’s newest representatives, Demarcus Marshall,
says he hopes the County and private businesses will be able to
negotiate out of court, if an issue like this comes about again.

“I commend him for his efforts. Commend his family. And I just
really apologize to them that they had to undergo this. And I hope
that in the future, don’t be afraid to do any business here in
Lowndes County”, says Marshall.

Residents of Lowndes County will now be able to choose between Deep
South Sanitation and Advanced Disposal, as well as any other
sanitation service for their trash collection.

-jsq

Tybee Island will not scan tourist license plates

Maybe Lowndes County could also welcome tourists instead of using
them as a ticketing revenue stream
that’s costing us $200,000 to process.
And maybe both Lowndes County and Valdosta could put their

agenda packets online like tiny
(population 3,067) Tybee Island does.

Jim Galloway wrote for the AJC today,

Your daily jolt: Tybee Island nixes license plate surveillance,



Tybee Island has decided that the National Security Agency isn’t a model worth following. On Monday, The coastal city’s council retracted its approval of a pair of license plate scanners intended to greet tourists. From

the Savannah Morning News:

Citing mostly negative feedback from the public and concerns over how the information from the scanners would translate to a tourism study being conducted by a local professor, the council instead voted to purchase a higher quality model of the current hose-like vehicle counter the city has stretched over U.S. 80.

Meanwhile,
the Lowndes County Sheriff’s office last year was Continue reading →

Local company trashed County Commission lawsuit



According to

Deep South Sanitation’s facebook page today,
DSS won

the court case brought against them by the Lowndes County Commission.

So how much money did the

alleged County Attorney
spend sueing a local company to benefit ADS investors in New York City?
The County Commission was very concerned recently about

how much the Sheriff and the Coroner spent
(which
the Sheriff
and

the Coroner
ably rebutted).
Why isn’t the Commission as concerned about spending money on a
completely unnecessary lawsuit that they started?
Why do they let that same attorney

set prices for purchase orders?



That

exclusive franchise with ADS: not so exclusive anymore, is it?

Will ADS sue the county, as many people rumored was the Commission’s
greatest fear?

Will the county now have to pay DSS’s attorney fees?
As a taxpayer I don’t like the idea of wasting more of my tax dollars
on that lawsuit, so maybe they could take it out of the fees or
salaries of whoever recommended and approved that lawsuit.



Maybe somebody down at the county should

“check our work”.

-jsq

Maybe county should check its work about other budgets @ LCC 2013-11-14



Who’s responsible for the recent partiality in budget reports?
The newspaper, or its source of information, namely the county government
at its secretive retreat on the Chairman’s private property that even the VDT reporter had trouble finding?

When

the Coroner
and

the Sheriff
(often

at odds lately)
agree that

the VDT’s version
of

the county government’s remarks about their budgets
was at best partial,
where is the source of that partiality?
Who’s responsible for budgeting for the county, reporter Matthew
or editor Kay Harris or Dean Poling?
Or is it the local government our taxes pay to do that job,
namely the Lowndes County Commission and its staff,
which is managed by County Manager Joe Pritchard?



Maybe somebody down at the county palace should,

as Gretchen suggested recently,
“check our work”.

-jsq

Coroner responds to County Commission about budget @ LCC 2013-11-14



Like

the Sheriff, the Coroner reports
that something’s rotten in the

Lowndes County Commission and staff’s version of his budget.

Dean Poling write for the VDT today,

Coroner responds to county budget issues,

Lowndes County Coroner Bill Watson explained Friday that comments
calling him one of the county budget’s “worst offenders”
did not explain why his office’s expenses change from year to year.

“I have no control over the number of people that dies each
year,” Watson told The Times, “and I have to fund the
transportation for autopsies. Any time there is an autopsy, it costs
my office about $750.”

These costs include Continue reading →

Sheriff responds to County Commission about budget @ LCC 2013-11-14



LTE in the VDT today. -jsq

Sheriff’s Response to “budget woes”

The Sheriff’s Office has received a lot of criticism in the last
several months. It appears to be the fashionable thing these days
and an easy target. Sheriff Prine did not receive an invitation to

the Chairman’s personal property
for a review of the county’s budget
and criticism of the Sheriff’s budget in particular. There are some
facts that have not been reported

by the Valdosta Daily Times,
which may or may not have been provided.

First it should be noted that the Sheriff’s Office general fund
budget was reduced from last year’s budget by $171,306.

This was
before another $130,492 was taken away in August as a result of
shift in

traffic citation processing
responsibilities

to the Clerk’s Office.

A closer look at some of the specific line items targeted for
criticism will show Continue reading →

Commissioners listened about the pipeline @ LCC 2013-10-22

Commissioners at least listened about the proposed Sabal Trail Transmission
pipeline,
at the

Lowndes County Commission Regular Session 2013-10-22.
Now what will they do?



Video.
The Chairman started out reiterating his disclaimer of county responsibility from back in June,
but
at least this time said they’d take a look at it and they understood
what people were going through.
Carol Singletary started to respond, and Slaughter said they would
talk to her in a few minutes.
And they did.

Here’s

Part 1 of 2:



Commissioners listened about the pipeline Part 1 of 2:

Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 October 2013.



Video of after adjournment. See

previous post about how unusual Continue reading →

It was an outright threat –Ronald Kicklighter on Sabal Trail pipeline @ LCC 2013-10-22

A citizen didn’t appreciate a pipeline company’s bullying,
especially when a second pipeline would make his land mostly
useless and hard to sell,
at the

Lowndes County Commission Regular Session 2013-10-22.



Video.
He said he had an existing pipeline less than fifty feet from his back yard,
and this one would be less than sixty feet on the other side,
wiping out the use of much of his property,
including planting trees.
He said he probably couldn’t even sell his property with two pipelines on it.
He asked for help from the Commission.

Commissioner Crawford Powell asked for the name of the road Kicklighter lived on.

Here’s

the video: Continue reading →

This company is awful –Phillip Singletary on Sabal Trail pipeline @ LCC 2013-10-22

A citizen brought up the sordid health and safety record Spectra Energy,
at the

Lowndes County Commission Regular Session 2013-10-22.



Video.
He thanked Commissioner Marshall for coming to the
Spectra pipeline meeting at Wiregrass Tech 16 Oct 2013,
and said that meeting wasn’t very informative.
He asked Commissioners to put themselves in the landowner’s place.

Also to consider that there’s nothing in Georgia that needs a 36″ gas
pipeline, which is actually going to to a power plant in Florida,
coming out of Alabama.
He wondered why it couldn’t run down highway rights of way instead.

He remarked on catastrophic failures, and noted the pipline company,
Spectra, had been fined

a record $15 million for PCB cleanup along another pipeline.


“This company is awful,”

he said.
He noted

a gas explosion of that size pipe could take out two football fields.
He wondered if the pipeline would go through the county’s closed landfill.

He recommended they, as Commissioners or as individuals,

contact FERC.
He asked for them to set up a meeting with Spectra.
They did later

schedule Spectra to speak at their 9 December 2013 Work Session.

Here’s

the video: Continue reading →