This was mostly an ordinary Lowndes County Commission Work Session,
except for a few items, perhaps most notably this one:
9.b. Entrance Gate at Davidson and Roberts RoadsMore about that later.
Here’s the agenda.
Here’s the playlist for the entire meeting:
Videos of 9 Jan 2012 LCC Work Session
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 9 January 2012.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
-jsq
I’ve made these same comments before. It’s just part of the attitude thatis popular with some elected & appointed officials “We’ve been chosen. Now go away & don’t ask any questions about what we are doing until it’s time to vote again.” I don’t think all the individuals share the attitude, but some do & over time it has become standard procedure. Hopefully, as more citizens pay attention & ask for more insight procedure will adjust. There is a reason for open meetings & sunshine laws & it’s not so citizens can listen to or read about decisions based on information they are not allowed to hear or observe.
-Barbara Stratton
Requesting such a hearing before January 24 would give the opportunity to have all this information presented and for questions to be asked and answered.Except that’s not the way it works around here. Public hearing locally means the chairman or mayor or whoever says “Who wants to speak for?” and maybe somebody speaks. And then “Who wants to speak against?” and maybe somebody speaks. It doesn’t mean that the Commission or the Council or the Authority presents anything for the public to consider.
Witness the
hearing the Lowndes County Commission
held in December on the documents related to the Comprehensive Plan.
The only reason the public knew anything about what was in those documents
was that Gretchen got them from somewhere else after the Commission
refused to supply them in response to an open records request.
The Commission never distributed any of the relevant documents
to the public.
Only one citizen spoke, perhaps because nobody else knew what
to speak about.
Almost none of the local municipalities or boards or authorities routinely present to the public the information that is in the packets they see before the discuss or vote. There are rare exceptions, such as the VLMPO and other organizations or projects administered by the Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC). SGRC is a state agency, not a local agency. Why does Lowndes County and all its municipalities and boards avoid transparency?
Why can’t you, the public, see what’s in a rezoning request before Continue reading
and a budget adjustment to the ankle monitoring system,
among many other items on the agenda for the Lowndes County Commission.
The Commission will vote Tuesday on its meeting schedule and
its budget calendar.
This morning’s meeting is the Work Session; no voting during that,
but maybe some information that won’t get mentioned Tuesday.
They can change their meeting schedule at any time. Did you know they had a special called meeting December 1st? They didn’t mention that during their 12-13 Dec meetings; there’s no agenda for it on their web pages; and this agenda doesn’t say what it was for.
Here’s the agenda.
Continue readingLOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JANUARY 9, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
I really support this idea. Initially, I was concerned about it, becauseI know that things like the SCRAM bracelet and the ignition interlock devices are very expensive to install and maintain, especially if you consider the costs involved with probation fees. $213.00/month may not sound like a lot of money to some people, but it is a king’s ransom to others (saying $7.00/day makes it seem more manageable). Still, allowing non-violent offenders the opportunity to work and rehabilitate themselves outside of a prison is a big step forward in the philosophy of crime and punishment in this county, in my opinion.
-Jessica B. Hughes
Tuesday the Lowndes County Commission approved ankle bracelet monitoring
for nonviolent jail inmates so they can serve the rest of their time
outside the jail, putting them in a better environment and
decreasing expenses at the Sheriff’s office.
This sounds like a good idea.
I have not expressed an opinion because,
as Barbara Stratton pointed out,
the public doesn’t really know what was in the proposal County Commissioners
got in their agenda packet.
However, I would like to compliment Commissioner Joyce Evans about trying to do
something about nonviolent prisoners.
Summarizing the ankle monitoring discussion of Monday morning, County Manager Joe Pritchard Tuesday evening asked the Lowndes County Commission to approve continued work by county staff with the Sheriff’s office in implementing an ankle monitoring system to move some inmates out of the county jail.
Commissioner Richard Raines gave the credit to Commissioner Joyce Evans for both proposing a drug court and for proposing ankle monitoring.
Commissioner Evans declined comment but did make the motion, seconded by Commissioner Powell, and approved unanimously.
The VDT had a little more information in David Rodock’s Wednesday story: Continue reading
Tuesday the Lowndes County Commission finally held
the missing public hearing about the Comprehensive Plan,
and it was pretty painless:
only one citizen spoke, and she spoke for.
If they’d held it two months ago like all the local cities did,
they wouldn’t now be risking not getting state or federal grants
because they may not be certified.
They still didn’t
distribute the draft STWP and ROA before the hearing
as the state requires them to do,
so they could still be in trouble with the state.
However, at least they
reset their timeline and held the hearing.
That’s a step towards transparency as defined by
the state guidelines the county already agreed in writing to follow.
Commissioners had as much to say as they did at the Work Session Monday morning: nothing.
The one citizen, Gretchen Quarterman, said:
Continue readingI’ve been over this document pretty thoroughly with Jason, and I still have some questions outstanding which I’m sure that they’ll get resolved. He’s been super helpful.
The one thing I talked to Mr. Raines about and I would encourage the other Commissioners to consider is that in section 4.5.1, at least that’s what I have it on my document. Investigate
Answering part of
Barbara Stratton’s questions,
the audio access was part of
the award the Commission gave LAKE
for blogging questions like yours.
You may know it as
a bill of attainder.
When the commission moved to the palace, we tried sitting in several locations and found that the front couple of rows, near the edges have the best sound. When we were banished to the back corner, we found the audio on the recordings was nearly inaudible. Perhaps our readers and listeners noticed that too.
When we mentioned the poor audio quality to
Aaron Kostyu, Director of Technology,
he informed us of the possibility of a direct microphone feed in the “media nook” (to the right of the door as you go in) to a properly equipped camera. He even showed Gretchen a camera that had the proper features.
A bit of shopping later, we purchased a Canon HFR21 that appears to have many of the features needed for effective recording of these meetings.
Because the “media nook” speaker output had never been used before Monday, Continue reading
These videos are fantastic & I love the sequential playlist. How didyou get permission to connect to the county microphones? Thanks to both of you, John & Gretchen, we citizens who can’t make all the numerous meetings have excellent access to view the proceedings. I need info on the new camera please.
I have a question. Since all meetings are open to the public & all information is accessible by open record requests why do the various entities have a habit of not publically answering questions related to money amounts publically? Very often I have noticed all local government entities share a habit of referring money & budget amounts and/or bid questions to the packets each member has in front of them instead of vocalizing them. Since the public attendees do not have access to this information I feel we are selectively being left out of the process. Citizens should not have to process & fund open record requests for information that should be part of the public meeting. Since you have more experience with local entities can you explain this practise?
-Barbara Stratton
Here are videos for the entire Lowndes County Commission
Regular Session of Tuesday 13 December 2011.
Gretchen took these using a new camera with fast stop-start,
high zoom, and taking audio input directly from the county’s own
microphones.
How do you like it?
See also the previously-posted agenda and the videos of Monday morning’s Work Session.
Here’s the playlist:
Videos for Lowndes County Commission 13 December 2011
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 13 December 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
-jsq