Here’s a map of the Azalea City Trail, which is the path of (Saturday 12 May 2012) sponsored by Valdosta Bike Co-op.
Oddly, the City of Valdosta doesn’t seem to have such a map anywhere on its web pages, nor does the Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Authority (VLPRA).
-jsq
Here are videos of the entire approximately eight minute 7 May 2012 Work Session of the Lowndes County Commission. They vote in Regular Session tonight at 5:30PM. Here’s the agenda.
See other post about “5. Appointments – Lowndes County Development Authority”.
Two weeks ago they decided to hold a public hearing about abandoning part of the Right of Way of old US 41 South, 
but this time it’s on the agenda as a Resolution, and it appears part of the request has been withdrawn, and some people would be left landlocked with no access to a public road, so it seems the Resolution will be to table at least part of it to an undetermined future date. Yet the County Engineer seemed to reccomend going ahead with the rest of the abandonment. Where’s the public hearing?
Two rezonings had no comments. The third, just north of Hahira, got opposition at the Planning Commission; see the other post on that.
A developer wants, according to County Planner Jason Davenport, a letter from the Commission so it can more readily get tax credits from the federal government. He didn’t say what the tax credits would be for. For a concrete front yard? Or for solar on the roof? It will be interesting to see how the anti-grant Commissioners vote on this one, when it’s a developer who benefits.
It sounds like the county wants to award a contract to Continue reading
Valdosta Bike Coop has sprouted a blog. And it's doing a bike ride this weekend.
On Saturday, May 12, 2012 the Valdosta Bike Co-op will host its first community ride on the Azalea City Trail. The ride will begin at the start of the trail near Vallotton Park and will finish at the end of the trail near the Craig Center. This will be a family-friendly ride and will keep a reasonable pace. The ride will begin at 1 PM following a brief bike safety lesson.
The ride will begin with a proclamation by a local leader of the City of Valdosta appointed by Mayor John Gayle. The proclamation will officially declare May as National Bike Month in the City of Valdosta. Riders will then follow the nearly 3 mile trail through beautiful Central Valdosta.
The goal of this ride is to promote the use of the bike and pedestrian trail as well as to promote National Bike Month. The members of the Valdosta Bike Co-op would like to invite the entire community to join us in the fun, healthy, and safe community ride.
-jsq
PS: Owed to Matt Portwood.
Here are videos of the entire 11:11 minute 24 April 2012 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission. They time at 0:57 (before call to order; doesn’t count), 0:42 (mostly dead air), 0:33 (invocation and pledge: not business), 0:29, 0:37, 0:40, 0:10, 0:46, 1:09, 0:46, 0:53, 1:22, 2:08, 1:30, and 0:08: eleven minutes and eleven seconds total. And that’s including the invocation and pledge and the two citizens who spoke (3:38 for those last two). It would seem a good guess that the Commissioners and staff discussed more in the previous morning’s work session, but not really; you can see for yourself.
In the Regular Session (here’s the agenda) they appointed [“mumble”, said County Manager Joe Pritchard] to the Courthouse Preservation Committee. They approved a beer, wine, and liquor license for Southern Landing Restaurant. The liquor license for Rio Grande Bar & Grill was withdrawn. The adopted the infrastructure for Jimmy Rodgers Way. They decided to hold a public hearing next meeting for unopened ROW off US 41 South. They decided to switch banking from Regions Bank to SunTrust. They accepted bids for water and coffee service for county buildings; (apparently the county’s own water that its citizens drink isn’t good enough for Commissioners and staff).
A Commissioner asked a question! Before they accepted a bid for mowing Bemiss Road, Joyce Evans wanted an explanation of the timeframe of the cutting of the grass. Public Works Director Robin English wanted to know work time or response time? County Manager Joe Pritchard and somebody else simultaneously said “response time”. Hm, how did they know that? In what open meeting was that question previously raised? Also, Pritchard demonstrated he could speak into the microphone and be heard when he wanted to. English clarified the response times quoted by the bidders, and Evans moved to go with the low bidder, which the Commissioners approved, unanimously as usual.
Two citizens spoke:
See those two separate posts for details.
Here’s a video playlist for the entire Regular Session:
Videos, Regular Session
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 24 April 2012.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
-jsq
Here are videos of the entire ten and a half minute 23 April 2012 Work Session of the Lowndes County Commission. As you can see, these videos time at 1:01, 0:33, 0:44, 1:07, 1:45, 1:40, 0:33, 2:59, and 0:10, and that’s with a camera that stops and starts almost instantaneously. Those times add up to 10 minutes and 32 seconds. Is that adequate discussion for the county’s business?
A former member of the Courthouse Preservation Commission, has moved, and the Chairman said Mike somebody was a good one to appoint as a replacement. 
No Commissioners asked any questions. They didn’t ask many questions on anything else, either. On 8a. Abandonment of unopened ROW on Walker Avenue (off of US 41 S) in Twin Lakes area, Commissioner Crawford Powell had a question, but it was only where the engineer was in the map.
Finance Director Stephanie Black said the county sent out an 
RFP for banking services to local banks. Three responded, and one was incomplete. The two complete bids were Regions Bank and SunTrust. Regions will waive charges with $6M balance; SunTrust will waive charges $2.8M balance.
On the FDIC charge, Regions will charge .135 per thousand dollars; SunTrust is waiving that.
She said that was currently about $3500 or $4500 per month. Commissioner Powell asked who they were currently using. Answer: Regions. There’s more in the video, and there was a written report the Commissioners were looking at.
Apparently the county’s own water isn’t good enough for Commissioners and staff, Continue reading
Received today. -jsq
Please find attached a press release to announcing a public comment period for the Draft Transportation Improvement Program for the Valdosta-Lowndes Metropolitan Planning Organization.
Corey Hull, AICP
MPO Coordinator
Valdosta-Lowndes MPO
A copy is on the LAKE website. Here is an excerpt:
The Transportation Improvement Program, or TIP, is the short-range plan approved by the VLMPO Policy Committee that allows federal funds to be spent on various transportation projects in the region. The projects are selected from the 2035 Transportation Plan that was adopted in September 2010. Projects in this year’s draft TIP include: the construction of an overpass on West Hill Avenue, the widening of Forrest Street, from Park Avenue to Bemiss Road, and the purchase of right-of-way at several I-75 interchanges ahead of future construction activities.
VLMPO will be accepting comments by phone, email, or fax all the month of May.
The VLMPO staff will also host an Open House on May 22, 2012 from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Southern Georgia Regional Commission office located at 327 W. Savannah Ave. in Valdosta. Hull says, “VLMPO staff will be on hand to answer questions from the public about their transportation concerns. The open house format allows people to quickly get their questions answered without having to sit through a long meeting.”
Transparency by a local government agency!
-jsq
As I walked in the door, a couple minutes late due to construction on the hospital parking lot, Commissioner Crawford Powell said,
John, you’re late!
They were milling about and looked like they were about to start. But no, they had started early and Chairman Paulk told me the meeting had lasted four minutes because there hadn’t been much to say. So there are no videos of this morning’s Lowndes County Commission Work Session.
I remarked that it had seemed like a fairly complicated agenda, but he didn’t think so.
I asked him about this mysterious item:
7.b. Request from LCSO — GOHS Grant #2013-TEN-0077-00 & #2013-GA-0040-00
He said it is about some equipment to automate Sheriff’s deputies checking license plates against databases. I told him I had assumed they had already been doing that. He said they could do it by hand, but they’d get really tired trying to do as many as this device could do.
Presumably it’s similar to the Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) described by Doug Nurse in the AJC 20 March 2009, New police license plate scanner eyes criminals.
Alpharetta Police Officer John Allen said that a few weeks after the system became went online last August, he was driving home after a shift when the system alerted him that he had passed a stolen car. He wheeled around, and after a chase, arrested the thief.
“I never even saw the tag myself,” Allen said. “I would have just kept going. It catches things I would be unable to see.”
While I don’t know that I’m in favor of ALPR, it’s common enough elsewhere that I was actually surprised the famously drug-interdicting LCSO wasn’t already using it.
To the Chairman’s credit, as soon as I asked about the LOST meeting with the mayors, he said it was at 9:30 in the room next door, and the public was invited. I took videos of that LOST meeting, and they will appear soon.
-jsq
The Lowndes County Commission appointed
Edward Rawls, retired professional engineer and
Blake Waagner, owner of Valdosta Bike Center
to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Metropolitan Planning Organization (VLMPO)
Citizens Advisory Committee.
Commissioner Crawford Powell surprisingly said:
I think the perspective from the bicycle group would be interesting on the MPO.Interesting development!
Also, the Commission continued the tradition which I believe was started by Commissioner Joyce Evans of attempting to get all applicants for appointed boards to introduce themselves. I think that’s a good thing.
Here’s the video:
Bicycles noted in appointment to VLMPO Citizens Advisory Committee
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 March 2012.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
-jsq
Water and sewer take decades for return on investment, and roads and bridges probably aren’t any better. That’s worth remembering whenever solar, busses, or trains come up.
David Rodock wrote for the VDT Sunday, Commission wraps up annual retreat: Utility payments, road projects and waste disposal discussed
The cost of one mile of construction for water takes 23 years for a return on the initial investment; sewer takes 21.3 years.
The VDT didn’t specify the similar return times for road paving or bridge construction, but it’s a safe bet they’re at least as long. The farther water or sewer lines or roads or bridges are from population centers, the more they cost both directly in installation and indirectly in trips for fire and sheriff vehicles, and especially school busses. The county commissioned a report on that several years ago, as Gretchen reminded them last year. In the particular rezoning case on Cat Creek they were discussing then (Nottinghil), they made a decision to table which seems to have caused the developer never to come back with that particular sprawl plan. I congratulated the Commissioners at that time, and I congratulate them again on not promoting sprawl.
Sprawl costs the county, payback takes years, and longer the farther out it goes. What if we did something different? More on that later.
-jsq
County Manager Mike Fletcher waved around a copy of the revised
contract with Scruggs Company for the new Moody AFB gate,
but said he had not provided it to the Commissioners.
I wonder if they’ll see it before they vote tonight?
He said it was 226 pages long, but most of that was DOT boilerplate,
and only something like 20 pages was the actual county contract.
Seems like they could read that much by tonight.
So could we, the public, if it was somewhere we could see it.
He also didn’t say what happened to the $128,497.05 cost overrun. The Commissioners asked no questions.
Here’s the video:
Commission had not seen Moody AFB gate contract with Scruggs before Work Session @ LCC 2012 01 23
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 23 January 2012.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
-jsq