Tag Archives: Regular Session

Juvenile Justice, TIA Old US 41, Two Oaks at Bemiss, Hazard Mitigation @ LCC 2020-05-12

Update 2020-06-05: Lowndes County video has appeared, revealing several things not in the minutes.

Update 2020-05-23: Packet: Juvenile Justice, TIA Old US 41, Two Oaks at Bemiss, Hazard Mitigation @ LCC 2020-05-12. There are no videos.

The lightest agenda for Tuesday’s Lowndes County Commission Regular Session that I’ve seen in a while will be voted on Tuesday in the Commission Chambers with masks. No teleconference. Presumably the County will be videoing and putting that on YouTube, as they usually do with Regular Sessions. There is no Work Session.

Also less expensive than most Commission meetings:

Cost		What
$330,854	CJCC Funding	FY 2021 Juvenile Justice Incentive Grant Application Regular Session DATE OF MEETING: May 12, 2020
$20,000.00	FEMA	Lowndes County Hazard Mitigation Request for Proposal Regular Session DATE OF MEETING: May 12, 2020
$350,854	Total

Even on the least expensive item this time, Lowndes County Hazard Mitigation Request for Proposal, “Lowndes County recently requested pricing proposals from qualified contractors…” The RFP is on the county’s website.

Unlike the more expensive stream monitoring project of last month’s meeting, for which there was no RFP and no bids.

This item has no cost cited, but will cost the taxpayers for road maintenance in the future: Adopt Resolution accepting Infrastructure for Two Oaks at Bemiss.

Case Point (Two Oaks at Bemiss)
Map: Lowndes County Tax Assessors

All the agenda sheet says for where is “located on Case Point, off Old Pine Road.” I’m guessing that includes Continue reading →

Packet: Stream monitoring, trash franchises, wetlands credits, force main, quit claims, paving, and Accountability Court @ LCC 2020-04-28

Apparently there was no legal public notice and no recording of the April teleconference meeting with the dial-in code changed less than three hours before, with $6,913,575.06 in taxpayers’ money being decided.

Photo: Pine Grove Road Collection Center

For that Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission, at which everything was approved unanimously except the one split vote on the single-source no-bid stream monitoring contract, LAKE sent an open records request for “the teleconference audio recording and the log of teleconference attendees (who dialed in, by name, or, if name is not known, by telephone number) for the April 28, 2020, Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.”

The response from the County Clerk was:

The April 28th telephone meeting was not recorded other than the minutes that were taken. Further, the program used does not record a phone log for the option utilized for this meeting. This being case, there are no records responsive to your request. I do expect the next meeting to be held in the Commission Chambers with social distancing requirements observed. This being the case, citizens will have an opportunity to attend in person which is a much better format for everyone.

Well, that’s a matter of opinion. Do you think it’s better to have to wear a mask to the Commission Chambers and risk getting infected, than to listen on the phone?

The Valdosta City Council had their meeting this Thursday on facebook live. The Madison, Florida, BOCC has been doing theirs on gotomeeting. It’s curious how the most populous county in the region can’t manage a teleconference or video meeting.

LAKE received the full board packet two days after the meeting, at 5:07 PM on Thursday, April 30, 2020, in response to an open records request. It’s on the LAKE website. We look forward to Lowndes County putting its full packet on its website along with the agenda and one-page agenda sheets per item. Many other counties in Georgia and Florida have been doing this for years.

When will the Lowndes County Commission catch up with the 21st century?

April-28-2020-Commission-Meeting-Packet

By far the biggest item was the $6,545,729.00 Coleman Road Force Main Replacement. The county apparently saved a bunch of money by removing many amounts from the bid for the county to do directly.

Amount Removed from Bid

Curious how they didn’t do that for the sole-source no-bid $45,120.00 Professional Services for Sampling, Monitoring and Reporting of Impaired Streams. More on that in another blog post.

The county bid everything else that could be bid, including the $228,400.95 Continue reading →

Teleconference: Stream monitoring, trash franchises, wetlands credits, force main, quit claims, paving, and Accountability Court @ LCC 2020-04-28

Update 2020-05-10: Lowndes County, GA, Stream Monitoring and Stormwater Permit 2020-04-28.

Update 2020-05-09: Board packet.

Update 2020-05-02: Gretchen’s notes on each agenda item.

Was this even a public meeting? The Lowndes County Commission approved everything on its agenda yesterday, even though only really perceptive citizens could figure out how to listen to the teleconference. In which they approved everything, with only one split vote, for a $45,120.00 single-source item.

Agenda Versions

At 2:38 PM, less than three hours before the 5:30 PM voting Lowndes County Commission Regular Session, they made this one change to the online agenda:

Old:
“The call in number is 813-769-0500 and the access code is 373-829-614#”

New:
“The call in number is 813-769-0500 and the access code is 584-852-611#”

Can you spot the change? It’s the access code.

I didn’t notice the agenda had changed, so I used the old access code. Which only started a teleconference five minutes late, and then had 18+ minutes of silence.

Gretchen did notice the agenda had changed, but there was no indication of what had changed. She carefully looked to find that different access code. It’s a good bet Gretchen was the only citizen on the conference call, because likely few other people figured that out.

But that didn’t stop the Commissioners from approving everything on the agenda.

The only split vote was for: Continue reading →

Videos: Oak St. Pregnancy Clinic, Val Del Wetherington, Baytree Nijem @ GLPC 2020-02-24

The longest time, almost 16 minutes, was for Pregnancy Support Clinic of Valdosta at 2203 N. Oak St., followed at 14 minutes by REZ-2020-03 Wetherington Property, Val Del Road RA to PD, with 12 minutes for the Jon Nijem rezoning and Planned Development at 406 & 410 Baytree Road, in a relatively short February meeting of the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission.

Below are links to each LAKE video of each agenda item, with a few notes. See also Continue reading →

Videos: Hamm Estates roads, Deannexation, Rezonings, Right of Way, Software, Health Insurance, Repairs, KLVB @ LCC 2020-02-25

The longest regular item at 4 minutes on this voting Regular Session agenda was 6.b. Accept Hamm Estates Dr. into the County Road Inventory. Longer were two Citizens who spoke at the end about Keep Lowndes-Valdosta Beautiful (KLVB).

Here again are the costs found in the agenda sheets for the items, from most expensive down, with links back into the agenda.

Cost	What
$290,000.00	2020 Administrative Services Agreement with Allied Benefit Systems, Inc.
$50,433.00	Bid for Repairs to Knights Academy Road; emergency repairs for Culvert Aprons
$43,245.50	Approval of Clyattstone Rd.-Simpson Ln. ROW Purchases
$24,613.44	Microsoft Server 2019 Data Center License
$11,535.00	Approval of Clyattstone Rd.-Simpson Ln. ROW Acquisition
$419,826.94	Total

The actual cost for the Clyattstone Road-Simpson Lane project is larger; more like $77,696.50 so far, before grading, base, and paving; see the LAKE notes on the preceding morning’s Work Session.

Below are links to each LAKE video of each agenda item, with a few notes. See also Continue reading →

Trash franchises, Stream monitoring, wetlands credits, force main, quit claims, paving, and Accountability Court @ LCC 2020-04-28

Bids or negotiations for everything except the Professional Services for Sampling, Monitoring, and Reporting of Impaired Streams, which is on the agenda for Tuesday as a single proposal from an engineering firm. The agenda sheets are on the LAKE website. We do not yet have the full agenda packet.

This April 28, 2020, Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission will be held by teleconference. There will be Citizens Wishing to Be Heard, but as usual that will be after the Commissioners vote. This is the only County Commission of the many counties I’ve been to in two states that does not let citizens speak either at the beginning of the session or on each agenda item as it comes up.

Citizens wishing to be heard should email County Clerk, Paige Dukes at pdukes@lowndescounty.com or call 229-292-6142 during normal business hours to register to speak. Please register prior to 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 28th. Thank you.

Notice no Work Session is listed on the agenda, and a Commissioner tells me there will be no Work Session, which is marked in the county calendar as Cancelled.

Map: Coleman Road, VALORGIS

These are the costs of the agenda items, sorted most expensive first:

Continue reading →

Cost	What
$6,545,729.00	5.h. Coleman Road Force Main Replacement
$228,400.95	6.a. LMIG Resurfacing Contract
$48,079.00	5.f. Approval of Clyattstone Road-Simpson Lane ROW Purchases
$45,120.00	5.c. Professional Services for Sampling, Monitoring and Reporting of Impaired Streams
$26,246.11	5.i. Lowndes County Accountability Court Grant Approval and Cash Match
$20,000.00	5.e. Purchase of Wetland Credits for Clyattstone Road – Simpson Lane Paving Project

Videos: Appointment Development Authority, Mutual Aid, Quit Claim White Water Road @ LCC 2020-01-28

The Lowndes County Commission approved all items in four and a quarter minutes, at its Regular Session a month ago, including reappointing Teri Lupo to the Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority. There were no other nominees.

The longest item at less than a minute was 6.a. 2020 Statewide Mutual Aid Agreement. Commissioners had no questions about that or any other item.

Below are LAKE videos for each agenda item, followed by a LAKE video playlist. See also Continue reading →

Val Del Wetherington, Baytree Nijem, Pregnancy Clinic @ GLPC 2020-02-24

Neither of the two Valdosta cases at Monday evening’s Planning Commission Regular Session looks controversial, although you never know. Jon Nijem wants to rezone and then get approval for a Planned Development at 406 & 410 Baytree Road. And Pregnancy Support Clinic of Valdosta wants to rezone for office space at 2203 N. Oak St.

In Lowndes County, yet another Val Del Road subdivision, REZ-2020-03 Wetherington Property, is proposed diagonally northeast across the road from Nelson Hill, which makes even clearer why the county wants to pave Clyattstone Road, going from Val Del Road between those two west to Old US 41 North (see below).

Lowndes County Property Appraiser, Wetherington property, WETHERINGTON FRANK L LIVING TRUST, parcels 0071 055, 056, 056A (not 55A), at 4154 and 4424 Val Del Road.

The subject property is in the watershed of Bay Branch, but apparently Continue reading →

Videos: Verizon Country Club tower, halfway house, and Providence Missionary Baptist Church @ GLPC 2020-01-27

Surprisingly the longest item on this (possibly) longest-ever Planning Commission agenda was 5. CU-2020-01 Verizon Wireless, conditional use cell tower at Country Club, clocking in at almost an hour, accounting for almost a third of the more than three-hour meeting, and getting a denial recommendation on a split vote of 6:3:1.

Second longest at more than forty-two minutes was 6. CU-2020-02 Natalie Bailey, 4019 Forrest Run Circle – Halfway House, resulting in a very unusual unanimous recommendation for denial. The actual decision will be made at the Valdosta City Council meeting tonight.

Usually church requests sail through, but 13. HA-2020-01 Providence Missionary Baptist Church, 707 West Park Street, took more than sixteen minutes, largely to everyhone acting as a committee designing an access ramp which turned out to already be there.

Pete’s Otto had it pretty easy at nine minutes Pete’s Otto was previously at GLPC in January 2017 about establishing its business, and at the Valdosta-Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBOA) in in July 2019 about setbacks.

Below are links to each LAKE video of each agenda item, followed by a LAKE video playlist. See also the GLPC agenda. And the Valdosta City Council agenda for the meeting where they will decide the half-way house and other Valdosta items.

1. Call to Order, Pledge, and Invocation Continue reading →

Half-way house for ex-offenders, Country Club tower, six Appointments @ VCC 2020-02-10

Postponed from last Thursday due to weather, the Valdosta City Council meets tonight, to consider some rather contentious cases from the Planning Commission, and to make a bunch of appointments, plus some bids for equipment.

Photo: Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, CU-2020-02 Natalie Bailey, 4019 Forrest Run Circle – Halfway House @ GLPC 2020-01-27.

This Valdosta City Council bid item is interesting:

4.d) Consideration of bids for a Trailer-Mounted Mobile Televising Unit for the Utilities Department (Bid No. 27-19-20 A).

Maybe with that Valdosta Utilities can see what’s happening with equipment they leave in a park overnight, for example maybe in McKey Park after today’s 200-gallon sewage spill.

Here is the agenda. It says February 6, but the Valdosta calendar entry for today says “RESCHEDULED – Valdosta City Council Meeting, Monday, February 10, 2020 – 5:30pm” See also Continue reading →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange