Tag Archives: PFAS

Videos: Community Service Board, Lake Alapaha Well, Jail Expansion, Bicentiennial, Millages, Opioid Litigation, Hightower Road, SPLOST IX, TREES Act, PFAS Groundwater Claims @ LCC Regular 2025-08-25

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They actually increased the Industrial Authority’s millage to 1.1 mil, above its historic rate of 1 mil. This was not discussed in the preceding Budget Hearings, nor I think even in the previous morning’s Work Session. They unanimously approved that and everything else on the agenda.

Chairman Bill Slaughter added an item to the agenda, for 5.j. Appointment – Community Service Board – must be elected official. They appointed Commissioner Demarcus Marshall. You may recall that on May 27, 2025 they appointed Commissioner Joyce Evans to this board. She was absent at that meeting, and has been absent from every Lowndes County Commission meeting since then. Since she has not made public why, I will not say, other than that her absences are not because she does not want to be there.

County Manager Paige Dukes had three staff give reports at the end of this Regular Session:

[Collage @ LCC 26 August 2025]
Collage @ LCC 26 August 2025

Below are Continue reading →

Packet: Millages, Opioid Litigation, Hightower Road, SPLOST IX, TREES Act, PFAS Groundwater Claims @ LCC 2025-08-25

The board packet includes the SPLOST IX Agreement and Project Lists, as well as the agreements for the Opioid and Groundwater Claims and the Hightower Road Quit Claim and a resolution for the TREES Act.

This is for yesterday’s Work Session and this evening’s Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.

[Collage, Packet @ LCC 2025-08-25-26]
Collage, Packet @ LCC 2025-08-25-26

The SPLOST IX Agreement and Project Lists are the same as LAKE already published two weeks ago from a usually reliable source.

The entire board packet, obtained in response to a LAKE open records request, is on the LAKE website, and images of each page are below.

It is still mysterious why Lowndes County does not publish its board packets on its own website, like many counties larger and smaller have done for years in Georgia and Florida.

See also the Continue reading →

Videos: Millages, Opioid Litigation, Hightower Road, SPLOST IX, TREES Act, PFAS Groundwater Claims @ LCC Work 2025-08-25

Only twelve minutes for the Lowndes County Commission to consider millages, taxes, lawsuit claims, and a quit claim, at their Work Session yesterday morning.

Here are LAKE videos of each agenda item, with a few notes by Gretchen Quarterman, followed by a LAKE video playlist.

[Collage @ LCC 25 August 2025]
Collage @ LCC 25 August 2025

See also the agenda.

We don’t have the board packet, because I forgot to send in the open records request until the other day.

It is still mysterious why Lowndes County does not publish its board packets on its own website, like many counties larger and smaller have done for years in Georgia and Florida. Continue reading →

Agenda: Millages, Opioid Litigation, Hightower Road, SPLOST IX, TREES Act, PFAS Groundwater Claims @ LCC 2025-08-25

Update 2025-08-26: Videos: Millages, Opioid Litigation, Hightower Road, SPLOST IX, TREES Act, PFAS Groundwater Claims @ LCC Work 2025-08-25.

Millages and taxes are the top topics for the Lowndes County Commission this week, plus lawsuit settlements for opioids and PFAS, and a road abandonment quit-claim to the Air Force.

  • The property tax millage will be set at the rollback rate of 5.051 mills. That is a reduction of 0.232 mills or about 4.4% from the 5.283 rate of 2024. Your property taxes are a product of valuation and millage, minus various exemptions such as for homestead or conservation easements. Since many valuations went up, your taxes may go up.
  • VLCIA got its rate reduced to 0.823 mills last year, but this year it will be back to 1.00 mill like it always was before for the Valdosta Lowndes County Industrial Authority, aka the Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority (VLDA).
  • Same 1.25 mills as always for the Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Authority (VLCIA).
  • Same as last year: 2.50 mills for the Special District Millage for Fire Services. That’s right, twice VLPRA’s millage, and 2.5 times VLCIA’s millage.

In November you get to vote on the SPLOST IX projects the County Commission is approving this week for the penny Special Local Option Sales Tax. The county has not published that project list, but LAKE already published it more than a week ago:
http://www.l-a-k-e.org/blog/?p=25175

And those of us who are tree farmers may get some tax relief after Hurricane Helene, from the TREES Act Resolution. This is presumably the same ACCG Summary of the TREES ACT as Lowndes County put in its board packet.

Lowndes County may get some money from settlements for lawsuits about opioids and PFAS.

[Agenda: Millages, SPLOST IX, TREES Act, Opioid Litigation, Hightower Road, PFAS Groundwater Claims @ LCC 2025-08-25]
Agenda: Millages, SPLOST IX, TREES Act, Opioid Litigation, Hightower Road, PFAS Groundwater Claims @ LCC 2025-08-25

The Air Force wants the county to quit-claim the right of way for Hightower Road, which the county already abandoned in 2023. Moody Air Force Base is directly south of it, and the Air Force now owns the field north of it. Included in this post are the maps from the May, 2023, board packet from when the county abandoned that stretch of Hightower Road.
http://www.l-a-k-e.org/blog/?p=23550

Here is the agenda.

We don’t have the board packet, because I forgot to send in the open records request until today.

It is still mysterious why Lowndes County does not publish its board packets on its own website, like many counties larger and smaller have done for years in Georgia and Florida.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 2025, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2025, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

Continue reading →