The Regular Session of June 23, 2026, took 39 minutes, largely because a special presentation, an unscheduled report on the 911 center, and five Citizens Wishing to Be Heard.

One of the citizens asked a question about the Alcoholic Beverages Ordinance that he could have read the answer to for himself if the county had published the draft ordinance before the meeting.

Why does the county continue to make more work for itself and everybody else by not publishing its own board packets?

Unsurprisingly, the Lowndes County Commissioners unanimously approved every voting item, including reappointing Raymond Conner to the Lowndes County Division of Family and Children Services (LCDFCS). Commissioner Demarcus Marshall was absent.

Collage: Datacenter, Craig Center, Alcohol Ordinance, DFACS, DUI, Accountability, Juveniles, Camelot Crossing Infrastructure, Email Software @ LCC Regular 2026-06-23

Three citizens spoke about Datacenters: George Fisher about sinkholes, Michael Noll about a datacenter ordinance, and Tetiana Babcock, who wanted to know where the county stands in developing a datacenter ordinance. You may recall that in March she alleged encroachment on her property from the datacenter site, which would be a violation of one of the conditions of the July 2025 rezoning of that potential datacenter site.

This time she asked for a timeline of development of a datacenter ordinance and robust citizen involvement. Which would be refreshing, compared to what we just saw as the usual Lowndes County ordinance public engagement: none. They just slapped the alcoholic beverage ordinance update on the agenda and voted on it, without any public hearing and without even publishing the draft beforehand.

Kelly Saxon spoke about Craig Center warming/cooling center funding.

Mr. Patel wanted to know how the Alcoholic Beverage Ordinances changes would affect established businesses.

If the county had simply published that ordinance before voting on it, they wouldn’t get so many questions, and we wouldn’t see at least one Commissioner trying to explain it on facebook.

As you may know, LAKE published that ordinance as soon as we got it by open records request.

http://www.l-a-k-e.org/blog/?p=25794

The county has finally published it on lowndescounty.com: Continue reading →