Tag Archives: Tax Commissioner

Videos: Bandit film, air conditioning, insolvent taxes, Fender Road Improvement Project, VLPRA @ LCC 2021-06-08

Just before
adjournment,
County Manager Paige Dukes said the Bandit film continued filming downtown.
She answered Commissioners Demarcus Marshall and Mark Wisenbaker
saying the new millage letters were going out, with the exemption
for the new fire tax,
At the June 8, 2021, Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.

Everything passed unanimously.


[Chairman, Finance, Attorney, Griner, Manager, Audience]

Chairman, Finance, Attorney, Griner, Manager, Audience

The

Minutes record the County Manager also said in
Reports:

Mrs. Dukes stated staff will
be meeting with our Southern Marketing Coordinator, with the Georgia Department of Agriculture, Beth
Meeks next week regarding a Farmer of the Year recognition. Additionally, Mrs. Dukes mentioned
State Court Judge, John Edwards, was notified that Judge Melton has sent the last order extending
the emergency order for the courts through June 30th. Lastly, Mrs. Dukes commended Mr. Tye’s
leadership in providing a renewal of our ‘storm ready’ designation in Lowndes County; Mrs. Dukes
asked Mr. Tye to give the commission an update. Chairman Slaughter stated this would not have
happened without the partnerships with emergency management and thanked Mr. Tye for his efforts
and dedication.

See also
the LAKE videos of the preceding morning’s Work Session,
and
the agenda and the board packet.

Below are links to each LAKE video of each agenda item,
followed by a LAKE video playlist. Continue reading →

Videos: air conditioning, Insolvent taxes, Fender Road Improvement Project, VLPRA @ LCC 2021-06-07

Air conditioning, a quit claim, and, by far the longest, those incorrect tax assessment notices were the big items
at the most recent Lowndes County, Georgia, Commission Work Session, June 7, 2021.

[Manager and Chairman, Demarcus Marshall, Engineer]

Manager and Chairman, Demarcus Marshall, Engineer

See
previous post
for the agenda and the board packet.

Below are links to each LAKE video of each agenda item,
followed by a LAKE video playlist.

Continue reading →

Insolvent taxes, Fender Road Improvement Project, air conditioning, VLPRA @ LCC 2021-06-07

The agenda for tomorrow morning’s Work Session and voting Tuesday evening doesn’t actually list the $437,823.30 insolvent tax writeoff as “BUDGET IMPACT”
but it seems like it must affect the budget of Lowndes County, Georgia.

What would you guess would be the biggest insolvency for business closed,
things moved somewhere else, etc.?
Mobile homes? Paving? Real Estate?

Cost What
$618,767.14 Fender Road Improvement Project
$437,823.30 Insolvent List – Tax Commissioner
$28,842.00 Agreement for HVAC Service for Additional Lowndes County Buildings
$1,085,432.44 Total

Nope.

[Insolvent tax writeoffs, Fender Road Improvement]

Insolvent tax writeoffs, Fender Road Improvement

On page 21, Personal Property, GANDER MOUNTAIN COMPANIES has three lines
of base + interest + Penalty + FIFA and in one case they actually paid the base tax.
So the nets for each of the three lines add up as
$16,917.55 + $82,256.20 + $74,203.57 = $173,377.32.
That’s just shy of 40% of the $437,823.30 total.
Maybe big box stores are more of a risk than the county and cities
have been taking into account. Continue reading →

Packet: Clyattstone Road rezoning yet again, Decorative lighting, Transportation, Alcohol, Taxes, Law, Cybersecurity, Pandemic @ LCC 2021-01-25

After discussion Monday morning, on Tuesday evening the Lowndes County Commission will approve spending $2 million tax dollars, mostly in $1.6 million on

Lake Park Bellville Road, including relocating water and sewer lines.
There’s another $90,000 on
Hightower Road and Cooper Road NE, Right of Way Purchases.

Cost What
$1,655,975.00 Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) Contract Item Agreement/Memorandum of Understanding Lake Park Bellville Road
$280,193.75 FY 2020 Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grant Application
$90,670.31 Approval of Hightower Road and Cooper Road NE, Right of Way Purchases
$29,400.00 Cybersecurity Maturity Tier 1
$12,500.00 Agreement with SGRC to Develop 2021 Lowndes County Comprehensive Plan Update
$20,000.00 FY 2020 Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Grant (to be fully reimbursed)
$2,068,739.06 Total

REZ-2020-20 Ballyntyne 6712 Clyattstone Road
is back yet again, this time probably to be improved.
The agenda sheet says no cost for that rezoning,
but remember last time we added up more than $3 million the county
has already spent on Clyattstone Road and water and sewer infrastructure.

The least expensive item with dollars listed is
FY 2020 Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Grant, because it will be fully reimbursed.

Also inexpensive and probably cost-effective is
Agreement with SGRC to Develop 2021 Lowndes County Comprehensive Plan Update.

[Subdivisions in northwest Lowndes County, GA]

Subdivisions in northwest Lowndes County, GA

Listed at no cost to the county is
Addition to Basic Decorative Street Lighting District – Creekside West, Ph. 6 & 7 and Val Del Villas,
which includes maps of subdivisions in northwest Lowndes County,
allowing you to see the extent of sprawl so far in that direction.

The board packet is on the LAKE website, received Friday in response to a LAKE open records request.


http://www.l-a-k-e.org/govt/loco/2021-01-25–lcc-packet/

We look forward to board packets being on the county’s own website along with

the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JANUARY 25, 2021, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2021, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

VSU Democrats Candidate Forum 2016-09-12



All candidates were invited; most of the Democratic ones came and spoke;
most of the Republicans did not.

Here are links to each LAKE video of each candidate, followed by a video playlist. Continue reading →

Help fix land revaluation: come to Farm Bureau –Board of Equalization

Come to the Farm Bureau in two weeks to hear
Tax Assessor staff present their updates and provide your input

Contents
for changes to the
rural land revaluation, this time taking into account rivers, aquifer recharge zones, and uniformity.
Maybe the Tax Assessors actually don’t want more flooding in Valdosta;
both the City of Valdosta and GA-EDP have already shown interest in attending
about that point.

At an appeal on my property valuation,
the Board of Equalization stopped short of actually ordering the Tax Assessors to redo last year’s rural land revaluation, because staff volunteered Continue reading →

Monday August 10th deadline to appeal tax valuations –VLCoC

Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce members just got a message from
Bruce Allred, Government Affairs Council Chairman,
saying:


MONDAY IS DEADLINE TO APPEAL PROPERTY TAX ASSESSMENTS!

You can look up your property on the Tax Assessors’ website:
www.qpublic.net/ga/lowndes.


See also the

LAKE Videos: Rural revaluation meeting at Farm Bureau 2015-08-04.

That Chamber message includes this useful information: Continue reading →

Videos: Rural revaluation meeting at Farm Bureau 2015-08-04



See for yourself the Tax Assessor response to local landowners, in these
LAKE videos of

last night’s meeting at Farm Bureau.
Do you think there’s a problem?
If so, what do you think we should do to fix it?

The attendees appointed Gretchen to take notes. Here are her notes,
followed by the videos.

Accessibility is not about access, it’s about geographic location…. That was done by one of our appraisers on staff. —Chief Appraiser Silas Hrobar

Rural and commercial land owners got surprises in the mail in July
when they received the updated assessments of their properties.
Lowndes County Assessors engaged a contractor last year to help with
the reassessments of approximately 10,000 properties. Rural
properties were categorized as small (under 20 acres) and large
(over 20 acres) but complaints were the same, inconsistent and
confusing application of criteria.

On Tuesday evening, Farm Bureau hosted Continue reading →

Rural revaluation meeting at Farm Bureau 2015-08-04

Are Bill Gates and subdivisions really more important than agriculture
or rivers or public transportation?


Come to Farm Bureau tomorrow evening
and find out what’s
going on with the rural land revaluation. facebook event.

When: 7PM, Tuesday, 4 August 2015

Where: 3296 Greystone Way, Valdosta, GA, (229) 242-7876

By: Farm Bureau board member Buddy Coleman called this meeting.

What: Compare the Comprehensive Plan to this revaluation here (PDF).

Sprawl: sprawling residential growth is a certain ticket to fiscal ruin (Or at least big tax increases).
PDF of the report by UGA Prof. Jeffrey H. Dorfman Lowndes County paid for in 2007,

The Local Government Fiscal Impacts of Land Use in
Lowndes County.

Who: At least some of the

Lowndes County Tax Assessors Continue reading →

Videos: Day 2 of Budget Hearings @ LCC Budget 2015-03-04



Maybe Georgia should fund mental health facilities instead of

local jails having to act as mental hospitals.
On a positive note,

Agriculture is an $81M industry in Lowndes County.
Law, taxes, and education, in the second day which was only in the morning,
of the
three days of
“Budget Hearings” which aren’t really hearings because nobody from the
public can speak and they don’t have a budget to hear yet.
See yesterday for
the agenda.
Here are links to videos of each item with some notes by Gretchen,
followed by a video playlist.
And one more day to go today. Continue reading →