Tag Archives: Roy Copeland chairman

Industrial Authority meets tonight @ VLCIA 2012-07-17

According to their website:

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority's Regular Monthly Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, July 17, 2012, 5:30 PM at the Industrial Authority Conference Room, 2110 N. Patterson Street.

Here's the (content-free) agenda:

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
Agenda
Tuesday, June 19, 2012 5:30 p.m.
Industrial Authority Conference Room
2110 N. Patterson Street

General Business

  • Call to Order
  • Invocation
  • Welcome Guests

Minutes

  • Regular Meeting, May 22, 2012
  • Executive Session, May 22, 2012

Financial

  • Review Compiled Balance Sheet and Income Statements for May 2012

Executive Director's Report-Andrea Schruijer

Public Relations & Marketing Update-Meghan Duke

Existing Industry/Project Report-Allan Ricketts

Business/Industrial Park Update- Allan Ricketts

Attorney Report

Citizens to Be Heard

Adjourn General Session into Executive Session

Adjourn Executive Session into General Session

Adjourn General Meeting

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Ahead of schedule, under budget, and same officers again: Video Playlist @ VLCIA 2012-06-19

The Industrial Authority board at their 19 June 2012 meeting decided to renominate the same officers for another term at the 19 June 2012 Industrial Authority meeting. All their business park projects are ahead of schedule and under budget, although it seems odd to be cutting down trees to detain water. They’re under budget for the entire year, and next year’s budget is less than that for the the fiscal year just being completed. They have hired a website contractor, and they’ve already made extensive changes to their Valdosta Prospector website. The 100% VSEB native grass landscaping project is underway.

They meet again tonight.

Here’s the agenda. A few notes below on a few specific videos from last month’s meeting.

Here’s a video playlist:

Video Playlist
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland chairman, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett, Andrea Schruijer Executive Director, J. Stephen Gupton Attorney, Tom Davis CPA, Allan Ricketts Project ManagerS. Meghan Duke Public Relations & Marketing Manager, Lu Williams, Operations Manager,
Videos by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 June 2012.

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Valdosta-Lowndes Prospector website @ VLCIA 2012-06-19

Lots of interesting detail; room for improvement in marketing and high level presentation: Valdosta-Lowndes Prospector website.

S. Meghan Duke gave a lengthy presentation of the GIS website Valdosta-Lowndes Prospector, at the 19 June 2012 VLCIA meeting. Chairman Roy Copeland wanted to know (5:21) whether it showed at the top the industrial parks VLCIA has spent so much time and effort developing, maybe by age, size, in alphabetical order? She indicated you could do all those things, but they didn’t necessarily crop up without somebody selecting filters that caused them to crop up. However they are featured properties, and whenever they are updated, updates show up. Project Manager Allan Ricketts said he’d heard good reactions so far. Executive Director Andrea Schruijer said they could feature parks or whatever through facebook and twitter, too. And yes, they have a floodplain overlay, among many other overlays.

Here’s the video:

Continue reading

Video Playlist @ VLCIA 2012-05-22

The first 100% VSEB contract, local industry expansion, new prospects, a bank lost a bond, and new Georgia sunshine laws require attention. Here are videos of the entire 22 May 2012 meeting of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) board. Here’s the agenda.

Guests included a camera crew from VSU, one of whom was Cameron Copeland, Chairman Roy Copeland’s son.

CPA Tom Davis said the county told him revenues were flat, so VLCIA would get about the same amount as last year. Tom Call asked if revenues would catch up over 6 months or 8 months. Call said they would eventually.

Tom Call reported for the budget committee and said expenses were projected to be down for the coming year, plus the budget would be more specific about where revenues were being spent.

Meghan Duke reported they had gotten an article in the newspaper, and they had held an OSHA training meeting at Wiregrass Tech. They plan to hold further courses and will send out a survey about that. She also expected updates to the land-searching Valdosta Prospector website to be ready in a few weeks. She and Andrea Schruijer had selected 3 finalists out of 10 proposals to redo the VLCIA website. Her only stated criterion for picking one was

“I just have to go with my gut.”

Website completion had been scheduled for September, but had been deferred. Roy Copeland wanted to know when. Continue reading

New Georgia sunshine laws explained by VLCIA lawyer @ VLCIA 2012-05-22

New Georgia sunshine law explained by VLCIA attorney J. Stephen Gupton. Some highlights include:

  • Open meetings now include any time a quorum discusses business,
  • even if there was no scheduled meeting.
  • Committees now fall under open meetings.
  • Executive sessions have specific requirements.
  • Increased penalties from $500 to $100 for violating open meetings, plus potential criminal penalties up to $2,500.
  • A custodian of records needs to be appointed so people will know who is responsbile for satisfying open records requests.

Here’s the video:

New Georgia sunshine laws explained by VLCIA lawyer
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland chairman, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett,
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director, J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Project Manager, Tom Davis, CPA, Lu Williams, Operations Manager, S. Meghan Duke, Public Relations & Marketing Manager,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 May 2012.
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

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Industrial Authority today @ VLCIA 2012-06-19

VLCIA is even posting notices of committee meetings now! According to their website, the Industrial Authority has two meetings today:

Committee Meeting Notice The Nominating Committee for the Valdosta Lowndes County Industrial Authority will meet Tuesday, June 19, 2012, 1:00 PM at the Industrial Authority Conference Room, 2110 N. Patterson Street.

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority’s Regular Monthly Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, June 19, 2012, 5:30 PM at the Industrial Authority Conference Room, 2110 N. Patterson Street.

The nominating committee is for officers; they elect new ones annually. Here’s the agenda. It has no content, but at least they post one. Unlike their minutes.

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Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
Agenda
Tuesday, June 19, 2012 5:30 p.m.
Industrial Authority Conference Room
2110 N. Patterson Street
Continue reading

“Industrial”: Positive or Negative? Videos @ VLCIA 2012-04-17

Market study advisory panel forming up! Chairman Roy Copeland asked whether “Industrial” in VLCIA’s name is positive or negative for PR? Executive Director Andrea Schruijer made sure to announce a date change for a board meeting a month in advance. All that and much more!

Here are videos of the entire 17 April 2012 regular meeting of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA). Here’s the agenda.

VLCIA Executive Director Andrea Schruijer said they had shown contractor Market Street Services the area so they could go back and start working up data for a market study. In May an advisory panel of 10-13 individuals plus focus groups will meet with Market Street.

They went to the Industrial Asset Management Council (IAMC) spring forum in Austin, Texas, and they moved their May meeting a week later than usual.

New PR and Marketing person S. Meghan Duke gave an update on her area. Chairman Roy Copeland flustered her by asking whether the word “industrial” in VLCIA’s name reflected positively or negatively? She fell back on saying they were doing a survey towards a unique identity.

I’ll answer: as long as VLCIA includes as “industry” boondoggles like a health-threatening biomass plant and a job-destroying private prison, why yes, “industrial” reflects negatively on VLCIA. But a mere name change through a D.B.A. won’t fix that problem. Only a change in behavior will fix that problem. Changes such as doing some due diligence so they know when a private prison company is playing them along by saying they’re the primary site. Changes such as weighing the community’s health when considering potential jobs. And especially changes such as listening to people outside the VLCIA and Chamber bubble when others do useful and important research. The community can be an asset for VLCIA, providing research and contacts VLCIA either does not have the resources to do or might not think of to do, if VLCIA will listen to the community.

There’s more in the videos. Gretchen took these videos, as Chairman Roy Copeland welcomed guests, “even those with cameras.” Here’s a video playlist:

Videos
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland chairman, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett,
Tom Davis CPA, Allan Ricketts Project Manager,
S. Meghan Duke Public Relations & Marketing Manager, Lu Williams Operations Manager,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 17 April 2012.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

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Industrial Authority board meets Tuesday @ VLCIA 2012 04 17

Industrial Authority board meets about something or other Tuesday; hard to tell what. Maybe this will reveal some sort of strategy:

  • Target Market Study Update

VLCIA’s website is restored enough to say:

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority will hold a Regular Board Meeting on Tuesday, April 17, 2012 at 5:30pm in the Industrial Authority Conference room.
They’ve also posted a notice on their facebook page.

The agenda doesn’t say much. I guess that one time they put a lot of information in it was a one-shot. And if you want to see any old agendas, you’ll need to wait until they finish fixing their website. Or look in the LAKE blog….

Now, let’s see, where are those minutes?

Here’s the agenda.

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Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
Agenda
Tuesday, April 17, 2012 5:30 p.m.
Industrial Authority Conference Room
2110 N. Patterson Street
Continue reading

Videos @ VLCIA 2012 02 23

Here are videos of the February 2012 Industrial Authority meeting. Apologies for the poor sound. The room turned out to have very echoey acoustics, and no placement of the camera seemed to alleviate that. Also it’s in three chunks, the first of them quite long. In the interests of moving along and catching up on posting videos of recent meetings, we’re going to leave it like that for now. Here’s the agenda.

Here’s a playlist:


Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland chairman, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett,
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director, J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Project Manager,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 23 February 2012.
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

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VLCIA website sort of back: organizational questions

The continuing VLCIA website problems raise some organizational questions.

According to the VDT yesterday,

Website technical difficulties were a chief topic of concern at the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Tuesday evening.

Staff expects the website to go back online in less than 24 hours

Well, let’s see:

Well, sort of. The links in the flash thing at the top do work again, so you can get to detailed pages. Well, some of them: Staff & Board works, but Meeting Schedule does not. This description still applies:

It was also pointed out that meeting agendas and minutes were still available on the crashed website, but were intermixed with coding language.
The latest agenda is available. I thank VLCIA again for that, as I did both in Citizens to Be Heard and after the meeting Tuesday.

Doubtless VLCIA staff are doing what they can.

As an organizational issue, I wonder if the electricity was out for a week at the VLCIA office would the Industrial Authority do this: Continue reading