Tag Archives: Valdosta City Council

Speakupaustin: a major MSA and local government transparency

The

Austin reporting program is in addition to
the posting a City Council agenda more than a week in advance


(here’s the 28 Feb 2013 agenda already on 16 Feb 2013)
and
including the entire board packets

with working papers and other backup documentation
with the minutes.
Austin

televises and webcasts its meetings live,
with close captioning and transcripts online.
They don’t limit the number of citizens who can speak,
or the subjects they can speak on, and they televise and webcast
all of them as well.
Plus citizens can speak on specific agenda issues,
and Austin

has an online forum for citizen suggestions on which citizens can vote
on the ones they like.

Is there still back-door politics in Austin? For sure.
But you can see a lot more of what is going on in Austin
than they can about the local governments here,
and citizens have a lot more input.

If Valdosta and Lowndes County
(and Hahira and Lake Park and Dasher and Remerton)
want to be treated like a major MSA,
they might consider following Austin’s lead.
Instead of decreasing citizen input by exiling
all citizen speakers to the end of a meeting and limiting the number
who can speak, while not even putting board packets online,
consider continually increasing local government
transparency and citizen input.

-jsq

Reconsider Chaste trees: try native bottlebrush buckeye


Karan Rawlins
I spoke to Karan Rawlins of the
Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health
(bugwood.org)
at the

SoGa Growing Local & Sustainable Conference
in Tattnall County 26 January 2013 (coming to Lowndes County next year).


A Homeowner s Guide to Preventing the Introduction and Spread of Invasive Plants in Georgia
At the mention of

Chaste Tree, she picked up a copy of
A Homeowner’s Guide to Preventing the Introduction and Spread of Invasive Plants in Georgia,
and turned to page 6, which says:

Continue reading →

Tree Commission offers Chaste trees wholesale


Tree Commission offers Chaste trees wholesale
The Valdosta Tree Commission is offering Chaste trees
“to citizens at wholesale prices with the hopes of planting 100 trees in the city limits”, but this may actually be a bad idea, since this
species is exotic, does not support local insects and birds,
and in Texas has become invasive.

The Tree Commission’s writeup says this tree:

“has no serious pest problems and attract butterflies to the garden.”


Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, by Douglas Tallamy
That first phrase is a red flag after reading

Dr. Douglas Tallamy’s book, Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants.
Local insects mostly cannot eat exotic plants,
and local birds eat local insects, so planting exotic trees
may look good, but is not helpful to native insects and birds.
Yes, Chaste trees may attract some butterflies,
but how many, compared to native trees?
And “no serious pest problems” means not many native insects munching
on the leaves or stems of the tree.

So what to plant instead?
See
next post.

The City of Valdosta posted PR 3 January 2013,

VTC Offers Chaste Trees at Wholesale Prices to Encourage Tree Planting,

Continue reading →

Tourism Board Meeting @ VLCCCTA 2013-01-23



Last week I went to the Rainwater Conference Center to attend the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Conference Center & Tourism Authority Board
Meeting.

I had discovered

the time and date of this meeting by asking at the
information booth at the Conference Center one day when I was there
for another event.

I arrived slightly before the 8:00 appointed time and was greated
warmly by

Councilman Tim Carroll
and

Conference Center Director Tim Riddle.


Being the Conference Center, they served a hot breakfast
(other morning boards have fruits and sweets but this was something
that you might get up for).

As 8:00 came there was apparently not a quorum, so calls went out to
missing

members to see if one more could be attacted. At 8:15 it was
clear that there would be no additional members coming so no formal
meeting was held, no votes were taken but an informal review of the
agenda was performed:

Continue reading →

How to get fast Internet service —Susan Crawford

Susan Crawford has a plan

for getting us fast Internet access for jobs, community, education,
and health care.



Susan Crawford wrote for Wired 2 October 2012,

We Can’t All Be in Google’s Kansas: A Plan for Winning the Bandwidth
Race,
about how the incumbent telephone and cable companies that provide
our Internet access aren’t going to help:

They have no incentive to do so. Because they never enter one
another’s territories, they don’t face the competition that might
spur such expansion.

Instead, incumbent internet access providers such as Comcast and
Time Warner (for wired access) and AT&T and Verizon (for
complementary wireless access) are in “harvesting” mode.
They’re raising average revenue per user through special pricing for
planned “specialized services” and usage-based billing,
which allows the incumbents to constrain demand. The ecosystem these
companies have built is never under stress, because consumers do
their best to avoid heavy charges for using more data than they’re
supposed to. Where users have no expectation of abundance, there’s
no need to build fiber on the wired side of the business or build
small cells fed by fiber on the wireless side.

If the current internet access providers that dominate the American
telecommunications landscape could get away with it, they’d sell
nothing but specialized services and turn internet access into a
dirt road.

So what is her plan?

Continue reading →

Bird supper tickets on sale

Once a year busloads of people go to Atlanta from Lowndes County and Valdosta
to lobby their legislators with small birds.
It’s curious we only hear about this from Valdosta, not Lowndes County.
-jsq

Bird Supper 2013 Tickets on Sale Now

Posted Date: 1/3/2013




Sementha Mathews, Public Information Officer

Phone: (229) 259-3548

E-mail:

smathews@valdostacity.com

Tickets are on sale for the 2013 Bird Supper, scheduled for
Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013, at the historic Georgia Railroad Depot, in
Atlanta, beginning at 5 p.m. The tradition—over 50 years
old—brings together hundreds of state officials and local
business, professional and government personnel for a dinner of
quail and important conversation.

The event, sponsored by the City of Valdosta and the Lowndes County
Board of Commissioners, allows local professionals the opportunity
to have an impact on the current legislative agenda through
face-to-face conversations with those who will make some very
important decisions impacting our local area and entire state.

Tickets may be purchased

Continue reading →

Valdosta City Council meetings cancelled @ VCC 2013-01-10

And now a word from

award-winning
Valdosta

City Clerk Teresa Bolden. -jsq


Good morning — I wanted to let you know that the Work Session
scheduled
for January 8th
and the Council Meeting scheduled for January 10th
have both been cancelled due to the lack of items on the Agenda. Our
next Regular Council Meeting will be held on January 24th.

Valdosta City Clerk earns international certification

And now for some good local news:
Valdosta City Clerk Teresa Bolden has been recognized by an international
institute.

Valdosta city PR 18 December 2012,

Valdosta City Clerk Teresa Bolden Earns CMC,



City of Valdosta Clerk Teresa Bolden has earned the designation of
Certified Municipal Clerk (CMC), awarded by the International
Institute of Municipal Clerks (IIMC), Inc. IIMC grants the CMC
designation exclusively to municipal clerks who complete the
demanding education requirements and who have a record of
significant contributions to their local government, their community
and state.

“In light of the speed and drastic nature of change these days,
lifelong learning is not only desirable, it is necessary for all in
local government to keep pace with growing demands and changing
needs of the citizens we serve,” said City Manager Larry Hanson.
“Teresa performs her duties with the highest degree of
professionalism and integrity and is a great credit to our city and
to her profession. We are fortunate to benefit from her talent and
ability.”

As an example of Clerk Bolden’s work, here is

baldosta’s apparently complete online list of ordinances.

-jsq

Bainbridge beats Valdosta!


Bainbridge City Hall now hums with solar energy,
Tristan Baurick wrote for Kitsap Sun 2 August 2012:



City Hall’s array of 297 rooftop solar panels is expected to produce
the equivalent of 20 percent of the building’s energy needs,
according to Joe Deets, executive director of Community Energy
Solutions, the Bainbridge nonprofit group that spearheaded the
privately-funded project.

“This is a great day for Bainbridge,” Deets said.

How many solar panels do you see on Valdosta City Hall?
Well, that’s a historic building.
But how about City Hall Annex?
The parking lot?
The

formerly “100% Paid by SPLOST” Lowndes County palace that
we’re now paying almost $9 million in bonds for?
Nope, not a solar panel in sight.

Oh, sorry, that’s

Continue reading →

Additional license fee for Sunday alcohol sales? @ LCC 2012-12-10



Why should businesses have to pay an additional license fee
for Sunday alcohol sales, if the only justification is
to raise money to pay for administering that license?
That was a topic at yesterday morning's

Lowndes County Commission Work Session
for agenda item
6.a.
Revision to the Lowndes County Alcoholic Beverage Ordinance.

Finance Director Stephanie Black mentioned the things

we already heard from the staff,

brown bagging,
social hosts (serving alcohol at private events to underage drinkers),
and the
Sunday package sales.
She said for the

voter-approved Sunday alcohol sales
the license fee would be $250,
plus a requirement for an immigration affidavit.
Commissioner Powell took exception to that additional license fee,
which would be on top of a license fee already necessary for the
rest of the week.
Black and Chairman Paulk defended it as necessary to collect
money to administer the license fee.
Powell wondered if they'd need the money if they didn't
have the license fee.
Paulk said the city of Valdosta charges $1000 for a Sunday license.
Powell said he disagreed with that, too.

Here's

the video:


Additional license fee for Sunday alcohol sales?

Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 10 December 2012.

-jsq