Tag Archives: Law

All the rest of you are new –Sidney Blanton on SPLOST @ LCC 2013-10-22

A citizen expressed concerns about lack of transparency in SPLOST,
at the

Lowndes County Commission Regular Session 2013-10-22.

Video.
He remarked that Commissioner Joyce Evans was the only one he knew,
all the rest were new.

He said he would also talk to the Valdosta City Council that Thursday.
(Later I told him they had

cancelled that meeting due to lack of agenda items; he did speak
at the following Valdosta City Council meeting.)
He said he wanted the city to say the Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant was their first priority, and he attested that when he used to crop
tobacco on that site it was underwater then when it flooded.

He especially didn’t like that the county didn’t list what projects
it was going to fund with SPLOST.
I agree with him about that part.

Here’s

the video: Continue reading →

Help the citizens of Lowndes County –Carol Singletary on Sabal Trail pipeline @ LCC 2013-10-22

A plea for help was at least partially heard by the Lowndes County Commission
at their

Regular Session 2013-10-22.

Video.
A landowner in the path of the proposed Sabal Trail Transmission pipeline
reminded the Commissioners of their own

mission statement,
mentioned the
Spectra pipeline meeting at Wiregrass Tech 16 Oct 2013,
said the letter the pipeline company sent her cited

Georgia law about eminent domain,
and urged Commissioners to

contact FERC.
She said:

You have a way to help the citizens of Lowndes County. … If you go
on record saying you don’t have any impact, where does that leave
us?

Commissioner John Page

asked her to remain after the meeting so he could “gather some more information from her”.
See

separate post.

Here’s

the video: Continue reading →

Keep the pipeline fox out of your henhouse! –Don Brotherton

LTE in the VDT yesterday,

scan by Michael Noll. And you can also rescind. -jsq

Say no to Sabal

I have been contacted by Sabal Trail Transmission for the permission
to survey our property for the proposed natural gas pipeline in
Lowndes County Aﬁer receiving several letters from Sabal and now
having received the “scary” certiﬁed letter, my answer is
still the same. No. We already have one gas pipeline on our property
and having two will not be twice the fun.

Sabal is in the very early stages of gathering information to get a
permit from FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission). They can
only gather this information from surveys. If property owners allow
them to survey It is the same as letting the fox in the hen house.
They will have the information they need to obtain the permit.

Keep the fox out of your hen house! If you haven’t already said yes,
just say no!

Don Brotherton

Valdosta

Here’s a sample letter

to deny permission to Sabal Trail Transmission.

And even if you already signed, you can resind permission.
Here’s a sample letter

to deny permission to Sabal Trail Transmission.

No Runoff in Hahira: plurality will win

The Hahira rule is plurality, not 50% plus 1.

According to email to Gretchen from John Hallman with the Georgia Secretary of State,
containing a forward from Jonathan Sumner, Hahira City Manager,
originally copied to all the Hahira candidates, Mayor and Council,
and many city employees on 25 October 2013:

Subject: No Runoff after General Election

Mayor, Councilmembers, Candidates,

In response to a question submitted to our City Attorney and myself
earlier today by Supervisor of Elections Deb Cox, we have determined
that a runoff after the November general election is not allowed
under our current or even the old Charter (except in the extreme
unlikelihood of a tie). The original 1912 charter stated,

Continue reading →

SpectraBusters against the Sabal Trail pipeline

Pipeline opposition got

written up in the Albany Herald.
You haven’t seen many pipeline posts here in the LAKE blog lately
because

SpectraBusters
has its own blog now.

Other recent developments include

Florida PSC tentatively approved pipeline,
Gertrude Dickinson’s

stream of opposition from Sumter County Florida,
and

schedule of Open House meetings in December required by FERC
among the

FERC filings about the Sabal Trail pipeline
and

how to file a comment or become an intervenor with FERC.

Remember

Spectra will be haunting the Lowndes County Commission Work Session 9 December 2013.

And if you want to see where Spectra’s gas comes from,
come see

Gasland II at VSU 7PM Thursday 7 Nobemver 2013.

SpectraBusters: We ain’t afraid a no pipeline!

-jsq

Proactively make mental health a priority –Joyce Weaver Johnson

Blogged with permission from

Joyce’s facebook page. -jsq

Ok, I rarely do this but after reading something on FB earlier, I
just have to because I feel SO strongly about it! I have been a
social worker for 28 years. Of the 28 years, I have spent almost 15
years in the mental health field. When I started with community
mental health services, I was told the patient was the #1 priority
and QUALITY of service was most important.

Through the years MH
services have been significantly cut with treatment facilities for
youth closing, mental health hospitals closing and HMOs refusing to
pay for more and more outpatient services. Now the #1 priority is
BILLING and treating the paperwork not the patient is most
important.

When treatment facilities and hospitals were closed, we
were told Continue reading →

30 Club Candidate Forum @ 30Club 2013-10-21

The candidates were almost unanimous on

SPLOST VII and

how to prevent JK situations,
but more varied on other questions.

Roy Copeland, billed as “Valdosta attorney”
(but perhaps known better to LAKE readers as VLCIA board member and former Chairman)
was the moderator,
assisted by
Valdosta Fire Chief and

Thirty Club member

J.D. Rice.
They took questions from the audience and recognized their host,

Pastor Floyd Rose of Serenity Church.
You may wonder as I do why city council candidates were answering
about graduation rates.

Matthew Woody wrote for the VDT 21 October 2013,

‘Let the games begin’.
Here’s the list of
qualified candidates.
As usual, nobody showed up from the smaller cities, although at least one Valdosta candidate,
Richard Miller,
spoke up for the smaller cities about SPLOST.

Valdosta City Council District 2

Continue reading →

Citizens for solar power; GA leg. not so much

Utility backers in the Georgia legislature tried scare tactics
to stop HB 657
(or anything else) from requiring more solar power from Georgia Power.
Still no solar tax, said citizens in

Savannah,

Columbus,

Gainesville,

Athens,
and now Atlanta.

Walter C. Jones wrote for the Florida Times-Union 31 October 2013,

Outlook for solar bill isn’t bright in Georgia.

Not sure why

this picture of me illustrates this story on facebook
(I wasn’t at the hearing in Atlanta),
but hey, why not.

Claudia Collier with Green Georgia drove from Savannah to speak at
the hearing.

“This bill will give us direct choice in where our electricity
comes from,” she said.

Rep. Mike Dudgeon, R-Johns Creek, pointed to the amount of solar
generation the Public Service Commission ordered Georgia Power to
acquire this year.

“It looks like the PSC is already managing the
situation,” he said.

As

Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning and Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers
well know, Continue reading →

Videos: Special bid review meeting @ VLCIA 2013-10-29

With
a bare quorum of 3 out of 5, VLCIA
Chair Mary Gooding

said they had finally purchased their own office space
and would henceforth pay neither lease nor rent
using our tax dollars.
I’d like to congratulate them for a thorough public bid review.

Project Manager Allan Ricketts reviewed the project
including the bids on “the second document in front of you”
that the taxpaying public didn’t get to see.
He did summarize the bids, and they even showed them
on a slide:

$273,595	Cauthan
$232,445	Kellerman
$274,900	Quillian Powell
$262,557	Taylor
$244,000	True North

A board member wanted to know if the bids were all local.
Ricketts said they were.

Mr. Matt Hart, with IPG, project manager on the project,
clarified Continue reading →

Meeting with EPA about Seven Out Superfund Site in Waycross 24 Nov 2013

Facebook event by Joan Martin McNeal:

When: Thursday, November 14, 2013 6:30pm

Where:

City Hall, 477 Pendleton St., Waycross, GA

Will we get help Or will it be just another story? EPA Meeting
Scheduled for Thursday, November 14 at 6:30 PM Waycross City Hall to
give us an update on Seven Out Superfund Site. They will also have
on hand the Georgia Dept of Health. PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDAR NOW!

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