Tag Archives: Valdosta

New place, new member, new officers, new name? @ VLCIA 2014-07-15

Six years in the making! Finally VLCIA meets in its new office near the hospital. Georgia Power VP Terri Lupo was just appointed to VLCIA by the Lowndes County Commission (without ever showing up and speaking). On this VLCIA agenda is the annually expected officer nominating committee report. Plus “Proposed VLCIA Name Change”. How about SolarTown?

Hm, this move uptown leaves their old building to Sabal Trail and its proposed fracked methane pipeline. Has VLCIA ever developed an opinion on that boondoggle?

Here’s the agenda. Continue reading →

Videos: a few appointees spoke @ LCC 2014-07-08

The Commission awarded no-bid contracts to Lovell Engineering (for Zipperer Road and Boring Pond Road) and ASA Engineering (for Coppage Road). Three of the seven board appointees showed up and spoke: Sam Allen and Penelope Schmidt for Library Board, and and Russell Mast for VLPRA. The Commission appointed all of them unanimously, including no-shows Terri Lupo to VLCIA, Martha Cunningham and Matt Lawrence to Library Board, and Susan Prince to VLPRA. Chairman Bill Slaughter consistently omitted the “Valdosta” from the names of all these boards, even though the reason VLCIA and VLPRA exist is a state law requirement for no overlap between uninincorporated and incorporated area taxation for such services.

There was no public hearing for Whitewater Road because the applicant withdrew it, and half of Nelson Hill was withdrawn while the other half was tabled.

Four of the nine contracts were approved all at once. Mr. Anti-Grant Commissioner Richard Raines actually made the motion to approve the EPMG grant request.

They finally posted an agenda after the Work Session. And they added another item to an amended agenda between the Work Session and the Regular Session.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JULY 7, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JULY 8, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

Here are links to the videos in the order they actually held the meeting. See the videos of the previous morning’s Work Session for more detail on many of these items.

Here’s a video playlist:


Videos: a few appointees spoke
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 8 July 2014.

-jsq

Millage Hearings for Lowndes County

Even though the County Commission already voted on the budget for spending your tax money (and still hasn’t published that budget), it will have public hearings on the millage before final adoption of that number that decides how much tax you pay. While the proposed millage rate is still low compared to other counties it’s curious that while the Lowndes County Board of Education has published at least a summary of its new budget the Lowndes County Commission has not.

According to the county’s online calendar and Current Events (but not its Public Notices nor the VDT’s online public notices), these meetings are scheduled: Continue reading →

Board of Elections listened

One precinct off the list for closing, but what about others? And what’s this about an unannounced change to the date of a publicly-announced meeting of the Board of Elections?

After several people went to the 8 July 2014 Special Called Board of Elections Meeting that I found in the VDT Public Notice listings, and some of them talked to that board and to Lowndes County Commissioners, apparently somebody listened. According to Lowndes County Elections Supervisor Deb Cox to Lowndes County Democratic Party Elections Chair Dennis Marks 13 July 2014:

Mildred Hunter is not being considered for consolidation. Deb

However, she did not say what other precincts might still be slated for consolidation.

Rumor has it that Continue reading →

Precinct consolidation table and Board of Elections 2014-07-22

Still 9 precincts this year like last year, but one of the polling locations has changed (Pine Grove to Trinity), and the precinct boundaries have changed. Yet again the board of elections plans still more fiddling with precincts this year. There was a Special Called Board of Elections meeting yesterday, and a regular meeting is 9AM Tuesday 22 July 2014.

Let’s update last year’s polling place table. Continue reading →

Videos: opaque appointments @ LCC 2014-07-07

Terri Lupo (Georgia Power regional VP) for the Industrial Authority; Martha Cunningham, Sam Allen, Penelope Schmidt, Matt Lawrence for the Library Board, and Dan Deaver, Susan Prince, and Russell Mast (Chairman) for two positions on Parks and Rec. Apparently the public was supposed to guess about the two public hearings (one about the frequently-staff-varianced subdivision Nelson Hill) or the nine contracts, since the county didn’t post an agenda before the meeting. Commissioner Joyce Evans did ask if the applicants would be at the Regular Session Tuesday evening, and was told they would. Will they speak this time, unlike the applicants two weeks ago?

They finally posted an agenda after the meeting.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JULY 7, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JULY 8, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

No agenda for tomorrow morning’s Work Session @ LCC 2014-07-07

The County Commission hasn’t posted an agenda for its own Work Session tomorrow morning, nor for its Regular Session Tuesday evening.

Under Current Events on the county’s website there’s this event posting:

Lowndes County Work Session Meeting (7/7/2014)

Lowndes County Board of Commissioners
327 N. Ashley St – Commission Chambers, 2nd Floor Administration Building
Valdosta, GA
8:30 a.m.

Where the agenda would be on the county’s website, there is none for July 7th or July 8th 2014.

-jsq

Videos: budget, baords, and approvals @ LCC 2014-06-24

None of the appointees spoke, but all were appointed unanimously, and they unanimously approved a landfill expansion item without ever seeing a site plan. Ray Devery and Barry Barr to the Library Board, Sheila Wakeley to the South Georgia Community Service Board, and John Sineath to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Construction Board of Adjustments and Appeals, even though Valdosta’s web page says he’s a city appointee.

They also unanimously approved everything else: a grant for help getting a grant, re-evaluation of all rural agricultural tax assessments, the annual mosquito testing contract with VSU, and the landfill public hearing clarification item about the hearing of the public notice already posted for 17 July 2014.

Here’s the agenda, with some notes, and links to the videos.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JUNE 23, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Videos: second and final budget hearing @ LCC Budget 2014-06-24

The Chairman refusing to publish a draft of the budget before the hearings didn’t get any more people to show up. Only a handful of people where there who didn’t work for the county, and no citizens spoke. I still don’t see the budget on the county’s website, two weeks later. I guess you can look at the LAKE video of Finance Director Stephanie Black’s presentation and hope it has the parts you want to see.

We didn’t know about the first budget hearing on 17 June 2014, but here are videos of the 24 June 2014 budget hearing.

Continue reading →

Lowndes County Sheriff Deputy enforces First Amendment

Lowndes County, an oasis of constitutional rights. Yes, really. Here’s video evidence. This kind of good news could do more to attract businesses here than many things the local powers that be are doing.

Carlos Miller wrote for Photography is Not a Crime 25 June 2014, Georgia Deputy Surprises us all by Respecting Constitution,

It started off with a federal protective service officer pulling up to Jeff Gray in a patrol car for taking pictures from a public sidewalk outside the Moody Air Force Base in Georgia Monday.

Gray told the officer that he was photographing the railroad. But the cop had his doubts and accused him of photographing the entrance to the base — as if it would make any difference within the scopes of the law — and decided to call the local sheriff for backup.

When Gray tried to walk away, the cop informed he was being detained.

When Gray asked for his name and badge number, the cop informed Gray Continue reading →