Tag Archives: LCC

Mickey Tillman recognized @ LCC 2012-06-26

As an unscheduled item at the 26 June 2012 Regular Session, Lowndes County Chairman Ashley Paulk and County Manager Joe Pritchard recognized the many years of service of Mickey Tillman. Here's an excerpt from what Joe Pritchard said:

Mickey was hired in 1975. Lowndes County was referred to as the Commission of Roads and Revenue. and the county had a population of approximately 60,000 people and was served by 150 employees. Today of course Lowndes County serves nearly 110,000 citizens with an employee base of 575. Mickey has been a part of this historical growth and he has been instrumental in the early development of several key services that continue to meet the needs of the citizens today.

Then the Commissioners posed for photographs with Mickey Tillman.

Here's the video:

Mickey Tillman recognized
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 26 June 2012.

-jsq

Started early, no new information, no questions: Second and final budget hearing @ LCC 2012-06-26

Your last chance to hear about the budget for Lowndes County was 26 June 2012, just before the Commission’s Regular Session. It went really fast; even faster than the first budget hearing. And, as you can see, this second hearing started three minutes early: 4:57 Eastern, before the public notice time of 5PM.

Here’s the actual budget. In this second hearing, Finance Director Stephanie Black sped through her slides, so for more explanation see the videos the first budget hearing. This time she did allude to a budget adjustment coming up in the immediately-following Regular Session, but she didn’t say what it was. The second time she mentioned it, she said “We’ve received some information” about a revenue reduction, but she didn’t say what that information was. Commissioners either already knew what it was, or didn’t care, because nobody asked any questions. It’s almost like the Commission doesn’t want us knowing what they’re thinking of doing with our money until they’ve already decided.

See also the previous post about Public Works expenditures.

Here’s a video playlist:

Second and final budget hearing, Lowndes County Commission (LCC), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 26 June 2012
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

-jsq

Public Works Expenditures @ LCC 2012-06-26

Sheriff’s Office $0.35
Public Works (Facilities, Road Maintenance, Road Construction) $0.15
Court Services $0.11
Board of Commissioners and Administration $0.08
Recreation Authority (VLPRA) $0.07
Industrial Authority (VLCIA) $0.06
Other — including outside agency support $0.04
Tax Commissioner $0.03
Board of Assessors $0.03
Ambulance Service $0.02
Other Emergency Services (EMA, Coroner, Emergency Telecommunications) $0.02
Election Services $0.01
Engineering Services $0.01
Contingency $0.01
Animal Control Services $0.01

On the county’s web pages Finance Director Stephanie Black has made available Where does your money go? She narrated that table in the 26 June 2012 Second Budget Hearing. Here it is in plain text on the right. I’ve taken the liberty of sorting it by largest expenditures first.

That order is more or less what she showed in this pie chart, although the categories don’t quite seem to match. In the pie chart, public safety (Sheriff) and court services are lumped together, so they make the biggest slice. In the table, the second biggest category is “Public Works (Facilities, Road Maintenance, Road Construction)”. Hm, so how much do we spend on road construction?

-jsq

Started before scheduled time, unknown potential appointments and budget changes: Video Playlist @ LCC 2012-06-25

Gretchen arrived early, but they started even earlier. That’s right, once again the Lowndes County Commission started a meeting before the advertised time. None of the names of prospective appointees to four different boards were listed in the agenda, and many of them didn’t bother to show up. Nor do we know what’s in the budget amendments.

So we have videos starting in the middle of the appointments.

  • 6.a. Valdosta/Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Authority (VLPRA)
    Nope, they already discussed that before the announced start time, so there’s no video.
  • 6.b. Appointment to Valdosta-Lowndes County Construction Board of Adjustments and Appeals.
    Presumably he stated his name at the beginning of what he said, but that was before the stated meeting start time. And the agenda does not include names of the applicants for appointment to any of the affected boards.
  • 6.c. Keep Lowndes Valdosta Beautiful (KLVB).
    I would like to commend KLVB for listing all its board members and their terms on its own web page.
  • 6.d. Appointments to Lowndes County Library Board.
    If the Library Board has its members listed somewhere online, I can’t find it.
    Nobody showed up to speak. County Manager Joe Pritchard said Edward Rawls and Rabbi Elbaz(?) asked not to be reappointed, and Kay Harris is asking to be reappointed. (They didn’t mention that Harris is also the chairman of the library board and the editor of the VDT.) Names under consideration are [clatter, bang]. It’s impressive the ways Pritchard finds to be unintelligible even with his microphone adjusted correctly.
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TS Debbie and south Georgia extreme drought —Ashley Tye @ LCC 2012-06-25

Lowndes County Emergency Management Agency Director Ashley Tye correctly predicted no tornadoes and quite a bit of rain for when Tropical Storm Debbie made landfall. He also mentioned our chronic drought, and Commissioner Richard Raines was surprised about that.

Raines asked:

What kind of conditions would it take for us, because you and I talked a couple of weeks ago, and I was I was surprised when you said that. I guess there’s a difference between drought and extreme drought. What kind of rain conditions would we need to get out of that, I guess in terms of inches, for the water table….

Tye answered:

For them to officially declare us out of the drought, the latest numbers I’ve seen were about 15 inches over the next 30 days, or over the next 3 months, it would have to be like 25 to 30 inches. So we still need a lot of rain. But every little bit is going to help. With the rain we’ve got recently we’re better off than we were, but we’re still technically classifed as in extreme drought.

Here’s the video:

TS Debbie and south Georgia extreme drought —Ashley Tye
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 25 June 2012.

Readers of this blog know we were already in drought more than a year ago. According to U.S. Drought Monitor, we’ve been in a protracted extreme drought since then. According to USGS, our groundwater levels are all red, as in extremely low. Extremely low as in at historically low levels, as in they’ve hardly ever, if ever, been this low.

-jsq

Video Playlist @ LCC 2012-06-12

Here is a video playlist of the entire 12 June 2012 Lowndes County Commission meeting.

Ashley Paulk prepended a word about Ed Christian, a deputy he hired when he was sheriff, who lost his son recently.

They reappointed Ms. Iverson to the Children and Family Services Board.

Seats of Joseph Stevens, Richard Lee, Steve Gupton were up for appointment on the Public Facilities Authority. Former Commissioner Lee apparently did not want to be reappointed; the other two did. Commissioner Powell wanted to be appointed. Commissioner Raines so moved, Commissioner Evans seconded, and all three Commissioners voted for. Yes, Commissioner Powell voted for himself to be on that board.

Reappointed Cindy Vickery to the South Georgia Community Service Board.

Adopted a speed zone ordinance without giving any clue what is in it. More on that later.

Determination to hold a public hearing to make Brinson Drive a dead end road, so traffic cannot come on or off of Pikes Pond Road.

A Nondisclosure Agreement with JMF Solutions, Inc., turned out to be about providing voice and data to part of the county via a county water tank.

County Clerk Paige Dukes was pleased to have approved a Contract with Municipal Code Corporation which included the second half of the funding she wanted to complete converting ordinances from paper to more legible formats.

Fire Chief Richard Guyton requested permission to apply for a $25,000 grant for emergency equipment which he said would require no matching funds. Commissioner Raines indicated his displeasure Continue reading →

Appointments to four boards, road abandomnent, and community block grant @ LCC 2012-06-25

Budget amendments on the agenda for the Lowndes County Commission Work Session Monday at 8:30 AM 25 June 2012 and Regular Session 5:30 PM Tuesday 26 June 2012. See if you can find some clues to what those amendments might be in the the videos of last week’s budget hearing.

Also this week: appointments to four boards (Parks & Rec, Construction, KLVB, and Library), a public hearing on a road abandonment (Brinson Drive), and the County Manager has something to say about FY 2010 Community Development Block Grant. Plus a bunch of service contracts. Here’s the agenda for tomorrow and Tuesday.

-jsq

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JUNE 25, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
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Ankle monitoring funded, public defender not; VLCIA and VLPRA visible: Video Playlist @ LCC Budget Hearing 2012-06-19

Ankle monitoring is fully funded this coming fiscal year, with a 2% increase, and the Sheriff’s office accounts for 35% of the county’s budget, yet the Public Defender had to beg for more funds. The state-imposed property tax assessment cap has expired, but no increases in the tax digest are yet expected. Sales tax revenues are gradually increasing. The state is fiddling with motor vehicle license fees, and nobody can predict the effect of that. The Industrial Authority and Parks and Rec are now shown in the Lowndes County budget; they and other transfers out account for about 15% of the budget, specifically about 6% VLCIA and 7% VLPRA. All that and more at Tuesday’s budget hearing.

A copy of the actual budget will be up shortly. Meanwhile, here a video playlist for the Lowndes County budget public hearing of 19 June 2012.

Chairman Ashley Paulk was not there. Commissioner Crawford Powell chaired the meeting instead.

Parks and Rec’s 1.25 mil and Industrial Authority’s 1 mil are now shown along with the county’s 7.31 mils of property tax and integrated into the budget charts. They and other transfers out account for about 15% of general fund expenditures.

Finance Director Stephanie Black said

Your CHIP grant was not renewed.

That’s news to me, since I thought the Commission Continue reading →

Lowndes County budget public hearings are on the calendar @ LCC 2012-06-19

According to the online calendar of the Lowndes County Commission:

Budget Public Hearing (6/19/2012)

The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will hold a Public Hearing for the purpose of adopting the FY13 Proposed Budget at 8:30 a.m. in the Commission Chambers, located on the 2nd floor of the Administration Building, 327 N. Ashley St. For questions please call County Clerk, Paige Dukes, at 229-671-2400.

Budget Public Hearing (6/26/2012)

The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will hold a Public Hearing for the purpose of adopting the FY13 Proposed Budget at 5:00 p.m. in the Commission Chambers, located on the 2nd floor of the Administration Building, 327 N. Ashley St. For questions please call County Clerk, Paige Dukes, at 229-671-2400.

-gretchen

Waste disposal again —Joe Pritchard @ LCC 2012-06-12

Why are Commissioners hiding behind Joe Pritchard, instead of discussing trash disposal in open meetings?

At last week’s Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission, County Manager Joe Pritchard repeated part of what he said the previous morning at the Work Session. After the meeting he came up to me to ask whether he had clarified it more. I do appreciate him doing that, and he did clarify where the new cards are on sale, although he omitted any mention of where they had been discussed previously. And it’s true that the previous morning he did not say anything had been decided. Yet the method of paying for waste disposal has changed (for only six months, and not prorated), so somebody decided that, somewhere where the public was not invited.

That six month period conveniently ends just after the current current Commission will be replaced by a new Commission with two additional members and a new Chairman. Those of us who remember former Chairman Rod Casey’s Commission passing a waste collection plan just as he left the Commission may remain sceptical that the Commissioners haven’t already made up their minds to privatize trash collection and socialize the losses onto landowners, who will have to deal with increased illegal dumping.

Sceptical especially when the VDT has reported twice that the Commissioners have already made up their minds, and about the Commissioners discussing trash disposal at three different meetings at which they knew the public would not be present. Remember the VDT report of the Commission’s stealth 4 June meeting:

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