Tag Archives: MSA

Videos: Dollar General rezoning tabled, Troupville Nature Park land purchased @ LCC 2022-12-13

Update 2023-01-10: Public Notice: Rezoning REZ-2022-20, GA 122 @ Skipper Bridge Road for a Dollar General 2023-01-08.

Update 2022-12-22: Videos: Lowndes County buys land from Helen Tapp for Troupville Nature Park and River Camp 2022-12-13.

The Lowndes County Commission tabled the rezoning for a Dollar General on GA 122 at Skipper Bridge Road until January 24, 2023, because they were a day short on required notice.

A dozen or more people in opposition were visible.

Turns out the county did send the correspondence about that before I asked for it in this meeting, and within the statutory three days for answering a Georgia open records request. All the letters returned were in opposition.

[Collage @ LCC 13 December 2022]
Collage @ LCC 13 December 2022

They made the historic purchase for Troupville Nature Camp and River Park, of Land Between the Rivers at the Little River Confluence with the Withlacoochee River. And Chairman Bill Slaughter called seller Helen Tapp up to say a few words.

Apparently they are also modest, since some of them did not seem to like compliments about that purchase.

They reappointed Franklin Bailey to the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC).

Everything else passed unanimously.

In Citizens Wishing to be Heard, Kelly Saxon asked for assistance for the homeless, John S. Quarterman complimented the Commission on purchasing the Troupville land, and Blake Robinson said there may not be many young people who come to these meetings, but they do appreciate the local government work the Commissioners are doing.

Below are links to each LAKE video of each agenda item, with a few notes by Gretchen Quarterman, followed by a LAKE video playlist. See also the Continue reading →

Videos: Dollar General rezoning legally must be tabled, Troupville land purchase is for a park @ LCC 2022-12-12

Update 2022-12-18: Correspondence: Proposed Rezoning on GA 122 at Skipper Bridge Road 2022-12-12.

County Manager Paige Dukes said they are legally required to table the rezoning for a Dollar General, because they were a day late on getting notices out, although she twice blamed that on the Valdosta Daily Times.

[Collage @ LCC 12 December 2022]
Collage @ LCC 12 December 2022

County Chairman Bill Slaughter said the applicant had requested tabling, and he recommended the second meeting in January (January 24, 2023). Commissioner Demarcus Marshall wanted to know why. The Chairman said, “It works out for two of the parties involved, the county and the developer.” (Nevermind the people.) Commissioner Scottie Orenstein said “I’m not in favor of tabling something only to give the developer more time… If he has true intentions on meeting with the community and having a meeting with them, a town hall, something a little more official, then I’m OK with that. But not to just give them more time.” The Chairman disagreed, “Well, I don’t think time is going to resolve anything in this particular situation.” Plus regarding the applicant, “We’re here to give them the courtesy if they make a request through that application process.”

Commissioner Mark Wisenbaker wanted clarified that the main issue was the date issue. Alleged County Attorney G. Walter Elliott reminded them they have to vote to table (the Chairman cannot just unilaterally table).

Commissioner Demarcus Marshall wanted to know if the Planning Commission knew about the timing issue. Continue reading →

Packet: Dollar General may be tabled @ LCC 2022-12-12

Update 2022-12-12: Videos: Dollar General rezoning legally must be tabled, Troupville land purchase is for a park @ LCC 2022-12-12.

Update 2022-12-12: Lowndes County to purchase land for Troupville Nature Park and River Camp @ LCC 2022-12-13.

Update 2022-12-10: Fixed my number dyslexia in the dates.

Lowndes County Chairman Bill Slaughter tells me the applicant for the Dollar General at GA 122 & Skipper Bridge Road (REZ-2022-20 Teramore Development) has requested tabling until a later meeting. Bill says he intends to table it until the second January 2023 meeting. So that’s January 25 24, 2023. He asked me to tell people that.

If I were you, I would show up this Tuesday, December 12 13th, anyway, so they see you are watching. Also, the agenda has not yet changed, and the item has not yet been tabled.

[Second meeting in January 2023]
Second meeting in January 2023

In any case, keep them letters, telephone calls, and petition signatures going in. Ask them to hold the public hearing and then just vote to deny it instead of tabling it.

For anyone tuning in late, here’s why: https://wwals.net/?p=60348

The board packet, received in response to a LAKE open records request, is on the LAKE website. The county did not send letters from citizens to Commissioners or staff about the Dollar General rezoning, even though those were specifically part of the request.

See also the agenda.

-jsq

Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today!

Agenda: Sprawl on Skipper Bridge Road and Purchase of Land Between the Rivers @ LCC 2022-12-12

Update 2022-12-09: Packet: Dollar General may be tabled @ LCC 2022-12-12.

Most of the budget dollar items on the Lowndes County Commission agenda are recurring, but the Purchase of Between the Rivers, L.L.C. Property for incorporation into the proposed Troupville Nature Park is one-time.

The most contentious item, REZ-2022-20 Teramore Development, LLC, ~3 acres at Hwy 122 & Skipper Bridge (Part of 0067 051), E-A to C-C, Well and Septic, for a Dollar General store in an agricultural and forestry Character Area, has no dollar value attached in the agenda, even though the potential costs to the county are large.

[Dollar General sprawl and Land Between the Rivers park]
Dollar General sprawl and Land Between the Rivers park

Cost What
$356,405.55Storage Area Network Replacement
$181,424.00 2023 ACCG Workers’ Compensation Insurance Renewal
$121,500.00Purchase of Between the Rivers, L.L.C. Property
$36,266.00Approval of Solicitor General’s VAWA Continuation Grant Application for 2023
$22,894.96MyGov Intergovernmental Agreement
$718,490.51Total

Here is the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2022, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2022, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

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Why people don’t speak up: they owe their soul to the company store

Some of our elected officials wonder few people ever speak up around here. It’s simple: they owe their soul to the company store. If you don’t go along, you don’t get business.

As Tennessee Ernie Ford sang in that old Merle Travis song:

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store

Continue reading →

Valdosta MSA does OK in nationwide ranking

Valdosta #51 of 379! Closest MSAs as green on the map are Auburn-Opelika #37, Atlanta #41, Charleston #11, and Nashville, TN at #14.

Highest weighted components are for growth in jobs, wages, and salaries, so apparently there has been some improvement in those areas. Here are the rank components from the PDF report, plus the corresponding scores from www.best-cities.org:

Rank Job Growth Wage Growth Short-Term
Job Growth		 High-Tech
GDP
Growth		 High-Tech
GDP
LQ		 Number of
High-Tech
Industries
Change 2012 2013 2007-12 2011-12 2006-11 2010-11 7/2012- 7/2013 2007-12 2011-12 2012 with LQ≥1 2012
50 101 51 128 33 73 133 84 15 4 76 13
Score 97.36 100.68 102.32 97.65 109.89% 129.20 119.63 0.56 6.0
The five job growth components are weighted 1/7th each, and the four high-tech components are weighted half as much, 1/14th each. The first four scores appear to be relative to 100 for the entire U.S. Where exactly Milliken Institute got their data is not clear, especially for these: Continue reading →

Valdosta Vimeo

I've been nagging Valdosta for years about putting some of their cable TV station content on the web. Turns out they are already doing some of that, which is a step towards acting like a modern metropolitan area. Received Wednesday via Tim Carroll; I added the links and the [clarification].

From: Sementha Mathews
Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2013 11:48 AM
To: Tim Carroll
Subject: RE: "The rest of the story"

Councilman Carroll,

Thank you for the recent phone call. As a result, I will research the Austin, Tx media practices to see if they can be implemented in any way here at Metro 17. We used to include a council wrap segment in each show, and I'll ask Shemeeka [Johnson, Valdosta Channel 17 Media Coordinator] why we took that out. But we can easily add that back in.

City of Austin posts Continue reading →

Leon County Florida trouble ticket system

Report a Problem or Request a Service Why do citizens have to nag our local governments to find out what's going on even about cleaning up sewage all over their back yards and under their houses? How about if our governments deploy issue tracking systems? Here's an example of how that works.

As previously mentioned, Leon County, Florida, lets anyone Report a Problem or Request a Service through their web page. Find My Service Request Then you can find your service request and track a problem using a ticket number.

This is not rocket science. Thousands of businesses have been using such issue tracking systems (also known as trouble ticket systems) for many years. There is off-the-shelf software to implement them. Beyond the obvious advantages to the citizens of being able to tell what's going on with their issues, such systems also greatly aid local governments by

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Valdosta housing prices still dropping —Forbes

House prices in the Valdosta Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) continue to drop, and housing sales are still half what they were in 2007, says Forbes. Why do we need to build more subdivisions now?

Morgan Brennan wrote for Forbes yesterday, Cities Where Home Prices Are Still Getting Hammered,

In 2007 when the housing bubble first began to burst across the Sun Belt, Valdosta, like other Georgia cities, seemed somewhat immune. “We didn’t see decreases in our market until around 2009,” says Missy Sherwood, an associate broker for Coldwell Banker Premier Real Estate in Valdosta, a metropolitan area of 140,000 about halfway between Atlanta and Orlando. Once the housing downturn did take root in the area, though, prices began a 13% downward march, as the jobs market contracted, the foreclosure rate ballooned and buyer demand waned.

Today Valdosta homes are still losing value: prices dropped 7% from October 2011 through September 2012 and they are projected to shed another 4% over the next 12 months. The area has an unemployment rate of 8.3% — higher than the national 7.9% average. Scheduled defense spending cuts wrapped in the looming fiscal cliff could have a negative impact on the local economy as well. “We still have more houses on the market than buyers right now. It’s definitely a buyer’s market,” concedes Sherwood, even as she clings to hopes that the market will begin to balance itself out in 2013.

Valdosta is one of four Georgia metro areas

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Valdosta: 3rd poorest city

Valdosta #3! Followed by Albany #4! In poorest cities in the country. What can we do about that?

Michael B. Sauter, Alexander E.M. Hess and Samuel Weigley, 24/7 Wall St., wrote for NBC News 14 October 2012, America’s richest and poorest cities,

3. Valdosta, Ga.
  • Median household income: $32,446
  • Population: 140,599 (87th lowest)
  • Unemployment rate: 9.2 percent(140th highest)
  • Percent households below poverty line: 27.6 percent (ninth highest)

From 2007 to 2011, the unemployment rate in Valdosta increased by 130 percent, from 4 percent of workers to 9.2 percent. The number of employed workers declined by more than 6,000 during that time. Those jobs remaining often pay a lower salary. Last year, nearly 17 percent of the work force was employed in the generally low-paying retail industry, the sixth highest percentage of all metro areas. In 2007, just 11.3 percent of the labor force worked in retail. Valdosta, however, has an improving and active housing market. Home prices rose nearly 12 percent between 2007 and 2011. Despite these positives, 14.4 percent of housing units were vacant last year, higher than the national vacancy rate of 13.1 percent. Also, 15.3 percent of homes were worth less than $50,000 versus 8.8 percent nationwide.

The study is actually for “U.S. metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs” and this population is not just for Valdosta, it’s for the Valdosta MSA, which includes Brooks, Echols, Lanier, and Lowndes Counties.

Look who’s next on the list:

Continue reading →