Tag Archives: Moody AFB

Videos: COVID 19 briefing by Lowndes Health and GA-DPH 2020-03-12

Update 2020-03-13:
Presentation Slides and
More information on the DPH website.

Dr. William R. Grow, Director, Georgia’s South Health District,
said he had never seen anything like this in his 40 year medical career.
Handwashing is the single best prevention for the novel coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease it causes.

Crowd

Status at this meeting,
9AM Thursday March 12, 2020,
was one case from South Georgia Medical Center (SGMC) tested positive when
he went to a Florida hospital,
SGMC is scrubbing itself, and
Moody Air Force Base had one positive case of the virus.

There is no GA DPH recommendation yet on large meetings other than if you’re ill stay home.
The Mayor of Savannah has postponed St. Patrick’s Day,
and Ireland, Chicago, and Boson have cancelled theirs.
So far Azalea Festival in Valdosta says it will go on, with multiple hand-washing stations.

Here are the main parts of the meeting, which was
at South Health HQ on Savannah Ave. in Valdosta, Georgia.

Since that meeting, Continue reading →

Videos: SPLOST VIII, Grassy Pond Sewer, and Hospital Authority funding @ LCC 2019-07-23

Five and a half minutes of the
Regular Session fifteen minutes was on

the county guaranteeing refinancing Hospital Authority debt,
due to County Manager Joe Pritchard reciting what’s in the agreement,
and Hospital Authority CEO Bill Forbes
speaking, and Chairman Bill Slaughter thanking him.
The agreement is in the board packet on the LAKE website from a LAKE open records request.

Citizen

Michelle Williams of Hahira asked for a spay and neuter ordinance,
noting Macon and Dalton have those already.
County Clerk Paige Dukes

praised Michelle Williams and other volunteers.

Second at almost two minutes was Continue reading →

Videos: Leadershp Lowndes, KLVB, ZBOA, Library board, three rezonings @ LCC 2019-07-09

Twenty-two minutes, quite long for the Lowndes County Commission,
with four minutes on the

ZBOA appointment with a split vote,
and most of the rest on the three rezonings,
with five and a half minutes on

6a. REZ-2019-09 Mark Courson, 5761 Long Pond Rd. R-1 to R-10.

The Chairman held forth about Leadership Lowndes

at the end of the meeting.
It’s like he’s not running again and is getting the most out of his time up there.

Commissioner Clay Griner was not present.

Below are Continue reading →

Special Called Meeting to approve SPLOST VIII Projects @ LCC 2019-07-31

You got a notice about this meeting two days in advance,
if you signed up for the county’s alerts, which is twice as long as they usually do.

Special Called Meeting,

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

A special called meeting will be held to adopt the amended SPLOST VIII Agreement.

Date:
July 31, 2019

Time:
8:30 AM

Location:
Board of Commissioners

Administration Building

Address:
327 N. Ashley Street

2nd Floor

Valdosta, GA 31601

Lowndes Project List

PDF

Here is Lowndes County’s SPLOST VIII Project List.
The biggest items are water and sewer at $23 million
and sports at $13,274,912,
followed by the historic Courthouse at $12 million.
Note nothing about Continue reading →

Board Packet @ LCC 2019-07-22

For the first time ever, the county returned the complete board packet before the Lowndes County Commission voted on it!
This was in response to an open records request sent Wednesday,
so the statutory three days were actually up Monday morning.
They emailed the packet Monday afternoon about 5PM.

Google Map annotated by LAKE to show the quit claimed part of Reed Road in magenta (this map was not part of the board packet).

All the dirt part of Reed Road, back from the old Skipper Bridge over the Withlacoochee River,
to the entrance to Pine Grove Middle School, is what is being abandoned.
It is possible to decipher this from the quit claims in the board packet for
yesterday morning’s Lowndes County Commission Work Session and tonight’s Regular Session.

All the SPLOST VIII Project Lists, for the county and the five cities, are included; see below.

Everything the county sent, plus images of each page,
is on the LAKE website.
LAKE looks forward to the county putting all these packet documents
on the county’s own website, along with the agenda and agenda sheets.

SPLOST VIII Project Lists

Valdosta Project List

PDF

Hahira Project List

PDF

Remerton Project List

PDF

Dasher Project List

PDF

Lake Park Project List

PDF

Videos: SPLOST VIII, Grassy Pond Sewer, and Hospital Authority funding @ LCC 2019-07-23 2019-07-22

The whole Work Session took eleven minutes,
of which three were about

the county guaranteeing refinancing Hospital Authority debt.
They vote tonight at 5:30 PM; Gretchen will be there with the LAKE video camera.
Update 2019-07-23:< Obtained in response to an open records request from LAKE, board packet is on the LAKE website.

Second longest yesterday morning at a minute and a half was the

SPLOST VIII Agreement, for which it seems the list is already finished,
finalized at a “public” meeting between the county and the five cities,
which was not announced to the public.

Most of the bids for the

Grassy Pond Sewer Connection
were not in the board packet, we discovered due to a question by a Commissioner.
The

Abandonment of Portion of Reed Road
is the bit to the Withlacoochee River,
which they county says was “unopened”, which is a strange
way to describe the old dirt road that used to cross the river on a bridge.

Below are Continue reading →

SPLOST VIII, Grassy Pond Sewer, and Hospital Authority funding @ LCC 2019-07-22

Not on Lowndes County’s online calendar, the county already met with the five cities about SPLOST VIII:

On July 8, 2019, Lowndes County met with the cities of Valdosta, Hahira, Lake
Park, Remerton and Dasher to officially call for SPLOST VIII. As a result,
the attached SPLOST VIII Agreement
between Lowndes County and the cities has been prepared for consideration. Once approved by Lowndes
County, the agreement will be forwarded to the cities for consideration during a public meeting.

Lowndes County on the previous SPLOST.

Will when and where for that upcoming “public meeting” be announced in advance?
Where is “the attached SPLOST VIII Agreement”?
Wednesday morning at 9:35 AM,
I sent the county a Georgia Open Records Act (GORA) request for the board packet
for this week’s Lowndes County Commission meetings.
By a very generous interpretation of the three business days GORA permits to
respond to such a request, time’s up this morning at 9:35 AM.
So far, the county has not even acknowledged receipt of the request.

The
Hospital Authority,
over whom the county has so little authority it has to Continue reading →

Videos: Appointments to KLVB, ZBOA, Library board, three rezonings @ LCC 2019-07-08

Yesterday morning’s Work Session took eleven minutes.
They vote this evening.

The three rezoning cases took the longest, simply due to time for Planning Technician Molly Stevenson to read them out.
Only one Commissioner had one questions on one of them.
Longest at 2 and a half minutes was
6c. REZ-2019-11 Stewart, 4151 Stewart Circle R-1 to C-H
which is for establishing a new metal working business with rail access.
Second at almost two minutes was

6a. REZ-2019-09 Mark Courson, 5761 Long Pond Rd. R-1 to R-10,
which was for subdividing into two lots; this one had the quesion.
Third at a minute and a half was

6b. REZ-2019-10 Ballard, Madison Hwy E-A to C-C and R-A
for a boat repair service and a single residence.

None of the appointment candidates appeared.
Surprisingly there were questions on two appointments, to Continue reading →

Appointments to KLVB, ZBOA, Library board, three rezonings @ LCC 2019-07-08

Update 2019-07-09: Videos.

On

the Lowndes County Commission agenda
for Monday and Tuesday, appointments to three boards, three rezonings,
and a mystery agreement.

They have no candidates to replace Malinda Taylor
on the
Lowndes County Library Board.
Paul Alvarado and John McCall want to be reappointed
to the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals.
Gregory Powell apparently does not want to be reappointed,
and Victoria O’Steen and Kelisa Brown have applied for
Keep Lowndes Valdosta Beautiful (KLVB).

Area map

The

rezoning cases are three from
the preceding Planning Commission meeting; GLPC unanimously recommended approval of all three.

The mystery
Agreement with Cornerstone
is, according to the agenda sheet, a $96,000 ($8,000 / month) item:

As a part of Lowndes County’s ongoing support of Moody Air Force Base, the
services of Cornerstone Government Affairs, Inc. are being recommended. In addition to assistance with
matters related to the Department of Defense, Continue reading →

Videos: 2 appointments, Tower, GDOT Utilities, various agreements @ LCC Regular 2019-05-28

Animal welfare was the topic of the one
Citizen wished to be Heard: Ed Barr, a former VSU faculty member,
who said he spoke for a group of people
who want a better-designed animal shelter,
with better accessibility, as in closer to a residential area,
or maybe redesigned like

Miss Kitty Feline Sanctuary in Thomasville;
he never said quite what features that meant.

The Regular Session was double-booked at the same time as the
Planning Commission, so Gretchen went to the Planning Commission.
The county’s own video was not available yesterday,
but it appeared after I inquired.

They appointed Continue reading →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange