Since we posted the
Reapportionment maps
obtained Tuesday evening,
the county has posted PDF versions
of this same information on their own website.
Copies are
on the LAKE website and appended
below.
I’ve added HTML tables of the statistics.
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Here are
the new County Commission District maps
that the Commission
just agreed on tonight for reapportionment due to the new census
and population changes in the county.
These are the districts that will be used for next year’s County Commission elections.
These documents were obtained by John S. Quarterman for LAKE from County Manager Joe Pritchard by asking the County Commission during Citizens Wishing to Be Heard at their Regular Session of 13 December 2011.
I made a little list of requests, and the County Manager fulfilled all of them. I’m convinced this demonstrates that Joe Pritchard is indeed typecast as Santa Claus.
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County Manager Joe Pritchard briefly described
agenda item
8.a. Ankle Monitoring SystemHe said it would permit jail inmates to serve some of their time outside the jail. He mentioned early discussions with Commissioners Joyce Evans and Richard Raines, and said it started related to drug court, but the idea had expanded. He recommended the board approve the County Manager working with the judges to organize the monitoring.
Chairman (and former Sheriff) Ashley Paulk remarked that this could lower the jail population. He seemed to be in favor of it.
Sheriff Chris Prine had some concerns that were hard to hear, but seemed to be related to budget.
Pritchard indicated that everybody realized the program was an experiment, and everyone would work with the Sheriff to avoid any unnecessary impact.
Commissioner Raines also reassured the Sheriff along the same lines.
They vote on it tonight, 5:30 PM.
Here’s the video:
8.a. Ankle Monitoring System –Joe Pritchard @ LCC 12 December 2011
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 December 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
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The Commission started early, and they were already into agenda item
7.a. REZ-2011-16 South Beach Commercial, US Hwy 41 South R-10 & TLA to C-G, ~1.7 acreswhen this video started. Then they moved right into
7.b. Lowndes County – Greater Lowndes 2030 Comprehensive Plan Updates — Resolution to TransmitAs you can see, County Planner Jason Davenport had little to say about that (mostly that this draft isn’t the final version; they’ll revise it some time next year after they hear back from the state), and the Commissioners even less (they said nothing), at Monday morning’s Work Session. Tonight at 5:30 PM they vote on sending these materials to the state. If you want to know what’s in these documents, see Gretchen’s writeups The actual documents are on the LAKE web site. LAKE obtained them from elsewhere after the county refused to honor an open records request. The Chairman told Gretchen yesterday that those versions were “close enough” to what they’re going to vote on tonight.
Here’s the video:
Comprehensive Plan @ LCC Work Session, 12 December 2011
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 December 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
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Videos from Monday morning’s Work Session of the Lowndes County Commission
are
here.
The
previously-skipped hearing related to the Comprehensive Plan
is on
the agenda
for tonight’s Regular Session, 5:30 PM at the county palace,
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor.
These videos of Monday morning’s work session start some way into the agenda, because they started about five minutes early. Here are the videos.
Videos of LCC Work Session, 12 December 2011
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 December 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
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6. Resolution – Reapportionmentwhich I’m guessing has to do with changes in population in County Commission districts. Maybe they’ll say at the Work Session Monday morning.
And these interesting items:
8.f. Lowndes County Fire Rescue Standard Operating Procedures .br> 8.g. Animal Welfare Standard Operating ProceduresI wonder if those procedures are available for citizens to see?
Plus a rezoning, a road abandonment, a beer and wine license, and quite a few other items for the last meeting of the year. Given they haven’t met since 7 November 2011, more than a month ago, I guess that’s not surprising.
Here’s the agenda:
Continue reading
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2011, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2011, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
I repeatedly apologized to County Planner Jason Davenport
about an earlier misunderstanding about the
“public hearing” agenda item, which the Chairman stated was not really
a public hearing and for which no citizens were allowed to speak:
7.b. Greater Lowndes 2030 Comprehensive Plan Updates – Lowndes County Report of Accomplishments (ROA) and Short Term Work Program (STWP)Then I said:
Transparent government is totally what my heart is about. And I think that people trust the government more when we can see the business done in public. And I really appreciate when you do things in public and you ask questions in the work sessions so everybody can hear.The VDT’s version was:
The lone citizen to be heard, Gretchen Quarterman, thanked commissioners for their observance of open government and apologized to County Planner Jason Davenport for things she said to him prior to the meeting, due to a “misunderstanding,” she said.
After the meeting adjourned, Chairman Ashley Paulk apologized to me in public Continue reading
According to the NYTimes yesterday, Treasury Auctions Set for This Week
The following tax-exempt fixed-income issues are scheduled for pricing this week:-gretchen…
ONE DAY DURING THE WEEK
…
Hospital Authority of Valdosta and Lowndes County, Ga., $148.5 million of revenue anticipation certificates. Morgan Keegan
Five citizens spoke up at the
7 November 2011 Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.
Some got answers, some got excuses, and some got fingerpointing.
And one illustrated how the Commission doesn’t follow its own rules.
George Boston Rhynes asked about
Open record requests and jail deaths
and got the same excuses he’s heard elsewhere:
nobody seems to be responsible for supplying information to the public
about what’s going on in the Lowndes County Jail.
John Robinson asked about
Contracts on the south side
related to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and to
Title III Section 3 of the HUD program
and got a clarification from the Chairman that the county has no
Title III projects.
John S. Quarterman asked the Commission to
video meetings like the Lowndes Board of Education does,
and got a slightly different excuse this time than the many previous times he’s made similar requests.
Matt Portwood
asked the Commission or the individual Commissioners to state a position
on school consolidation
and was told they weren’t going to.
The VDT printed that much the next morning, the morning of the election
with the referendum on school consolidation.
They did not print Chairman Paulk’s allusion to
his already-known support for FVCS in opposing consolidation,
but LAKE published a video with that on Election Day, and you can
see it here.
Tony Daniels wanted to know
How can we pursue happiness when we don’t even have a job?
and had several recommendations for how the various local elected and
appointed bodies could go about getting us more jobs.
He also illustrated that the Commissions ordinance on Citizens Wishing
to Be Heard is, as we’ve discovered on many previous occasions,
merely guidelines at the whim of the Chairman.
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George Rhynes’ video of the last two citizens speaking at the
7 November 2011 County Commission meeting has
interesting closeups on the county staff while
the Chairman was answering Matt Portwood.
Then at 1:35 Tony Daniels answered the request for “any other business”
by walking up to the podium and talking.
He cited life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness from the Declaration of Independence:
How can we pursue happiness when we don’t even have a job? I believe the city and county and Industrial Authority and the Chamber of Commerce need to work more together to create an atmosphere of trying to bring more industry inside the city. We have highways coming through Valdosta. I hope to see in the near future that the county and the city and the Industrial Authority and the Chamber of Commerce work like brothers and sisters. Because you know and I know that you are elected by the people of the people and for the people, and I’d like to see that…. Because we need more entrepeneurs, we need to see all governments in this area promote that….I suspect the Chairman was asking the Commissioners whether they had any other business, but he wasn’t clear about that. I think what Tony Daniels had to say was important, and citizens should be able to say they have other business. However, since he had not signed up to speak before the meeting started, he was in violation of Rule #1 from the Commission’s hastilly adopted Policies and Procedures for Citizens Wishing to Be Heard:: Continue reading