Tag Archives: Scott James

Videos: Mayor announces first trash trap, committees for ARPA funds @ VCC 2022-05-19

Update 2022-06-23:

Videos: Process for non-profit applications for ARPA funds 2022-05-27.

Update 2022-06-21:

Valdosta Watergoat installed in Sugar Creek 2022-06-21.

Council Sonny Vickers was
welcomed back warmly
after abscence due to illness (I welcomed him before the meeting).
Later, he
thanked staff and council for their assistance.

[Collage]

Collage

Mayor Scott James added two council members each as observers to each of the
ARPA fund disbursment committees, for
non-profits
and for
for-profit businesses.

After

Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman asked for action about trash,
Council Andy Gibbs and Mayor James vied for who would get to announce
what the city had already done.
Mayor James in Council Comments

announced the city had ordered Continue reading →

Okefenokee resolution, Planning Commission, Airport, Sewer system, Road renaming moratorium @ VCC 2021-11-11

With a packed agenda, the Valdosta City Council
passed eight resolutions,
approved five bids or purchases,
and appointed people to four boards,
yet the longest discussion was after all that.

[Mayor, Howard, Gibbs, WWTP, Manager & Tooley, Suwannee Riverkeeper]

Mayor, Howard, Gibbs, WWTP, Manager & Tooley, Suwannee Riverkeeper

Perhaps the most far-reaching item
was one of the briefest, presented by Mayor Scott James Matheson:

3.f. Resolution in Opposition to a proposed strip mine near the Okefenokee Swamp,
opposing the proposed Twin Pines Minerals (TPM) strip mine or any others within ten miles of the Swamp,
asking the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reverse its abdication of oversight,
asking GA-EPD for a moratorium on all mining permits until effects are settled of the recent court overruling of 2020 Clean Water Act changes,
as well as to reject the TPM permits, or at least to review those applications as thoroughly as the Army Corps would, and
asking the Georgia legislature to prevent such strip mines near the Swamp or any blackwater rivers in the Suwannee River Basin. Continue reading →

Cities and Lowndes County settle service delivery dispute @ LCC 2020-01-08

Update 2020-01-10: Not quite settled. Valdosta still has to agree to it.

These must be golden words indeed, to have been worth the hundreds of thousands of legal fees expended over them:

  1. In regards to water and sewer services:

    The Parties’ current water and sewer service areas are delineated on
    the service area maps attached to the DCA Forms for water and sewer
    services approved herewith.

    All existing intergovernmental agreements of the Parties regarding
    the provision of water and sewer services shall remain in effect.

    Any request for an extraterritorial extension shall be negotiated by
    the requesting Party and the affected Party. Approval of the
    affected Party shall not be unreasonably withheld.

The wording is
“based on trust,” said Commissioner Clay Griner.
“Where’s the document?” responded Commissioner Mark Wisenbaker?
“It’s on your ipad,”
clarified Chair Bill Slaughter.

As the County Clerk proceeded to hand out paper copies, Griner elaborated:

And it’s all based on trust.
It’s us trusting, the County Commission trusting the City Council,
whichever municipality it is, to do the right thing.
The city council has to trust the County Commission to do the right thing.
And the citizens to trust all of us to sit down and do the right thing.

After the county didn’t put anything for the citizens to see on the county website
about this Wednesday morning meeting until Continue reading →

Video of Gretchen on Scott James radio show 2014-05-01

Lowndes County as the Jewel of the South, and how to get there,
was the topic on drive-time radio Thursday.



Local policy issues include what would happen to us if we got
20 inches of rain like Pensacola just did?
The county needs to be appropriately staffed and prepared for emergencies.
The Army Corps of Engineers study on flooding
will be presented at the next

Valdosta City Council Work Session (5:30 PM May 6th at City Hall)
with a public presentation afterwards (6:30 PM at City Hall Annex).
Gretchen added that

Ashley Tye
will be giving a Lowndes County Emergency Management
Continuity of Business Workshop 5:30-6:30 PM 5 May 2014
at the Lowndes County Administrative Building, 327 North Ashley Street, Valdosta.

Radio host Scott James noted,

In case nobody picked up on it, I just
quizzed Gretchen and she is involved.
She answered both very well.

Gretchen added that having things online for people who can’t
go to the meetings because they’re at work
would be very useful in getting more people engaged.
Scott James advocated livestreaming videos of meetings,
“or at least recorded and played back”.
Gretchen recounted an anecdote about wishing she could have
heard the recent Valdosta City Council meeting livestreamed.

Here’s

the video: Continue reading →

Grading policy convenient timing for charter school vote —Barbara Stratton

Received Monday on

Media flap over Lowndes grading. -jsq

I found the controversy over the Lowndes Grading Policy convenient


timing for last week’s House vote on HR 1162 for a GA Constitutional
Amendment to allow the state to establish Charter Schools with no
oversight by local boards of education. HR 1162 failed the necessary
2/3 vote on 02/08/12. However,it was approved to be reconsidered on
02/09/12 so it has not gone away. Our 3 South GA republican
representatives all voted in favor of HR 1162. (No surprises there,
but we will remember in November.) Meanwhile part of the reason HR
1162 failed was the state Democratic Caucus undercut the House vote
by requesting Democrats deny HR 1162 in favor of their version HR
1335, which they say goes further in allowing state officials to
over ride local school board denials of special schools.

Obviously CUEE is not the only party interested in undermining and
over riding local school board authority. However, I suspect CUEE
had a hand in the phone campaign asking Lowndes school parents to
call Rep. Shaw if they were in favor of HR 1162 because we all know
that is one of their tactics. The message did not say to call if
they were against it. CUEE is definitely still very much in the mix
for discrediting local school board authority and our elected
officials are evidently in their corner.

-Barbara Stratton

School grading controversy successfully stirred

I don’t usually promote anonymous blog comments, but here’s one
received Monday on

Media flap over Lowndes grading. -jsq

The reporter didn’t call it “new”, Troy Davis did when he sent it to
all the teachers. Maybe you should talk with some teachers who are
deeply against the policy before you start ranting. And to correlate
this with consolidation is ridiculous, you’re just stretching for
controversy.

-Amy

Dr. Smith enumerated several other things which he alleged that reporter
misrepresented; see above link.


And Dr. Troy Davis

set the record straight yesterday in the VDT.

I’d be happy to talk to teachers, pro or con. Send ’em over!

“Stretching for controversy”? Around here you have to duck to avoid controversy.
You know, like the VDT saying it won’t publish any more stories about school
consolidation….

I see the VDT is not ducking this one, though, rather helping stir it up.
In yesterday’s story, the VDT announced mission accomplished:

The new grading policy for grades third through eighth released by the
Lowndes County school system in January has stirred controversy locally
and even nationally.

It wasn’t the grading policy that stirred controversy, it was Scott James, Fox News,
the VDT, the AJC, the SMN, etc.
And that “controversy” will make it easier the next time “unification”
rears its ugly head.

-jsq