LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JULY 25, 2016, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2016, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
As expected from the previous morning, they appointed
Chairman Bill Slaughter to the
South Georgia Community Service Board, after he got that board to change the time of its meetings to be different from this Commission’s time.
Video.
A Commissioner after the vote appointing Chairman Slaughter
asked what this board did.
Chairman’s answer: mostly behavioral health,
and they used to hold their meetings the same time as the Lowndes meetings,
but they have moved them to Adel at 1PM presumably also on Tuesday.
Video.
For quite a bit more background, see
the LAKE video from the previous morning’s Work Session.
Chairman asked for timeline.
Ashley Tye said federal year starts October 1st, so Valdosta would like to have
and agreement ready to sign before then.
Also they could come back at a later time, but could lose out on the federal
funding match.
Chairman asked for timeline to get agreement ready by then.
Tye said agreement with USGS would be with Valdosta,
and he would check back with them for a more firm date,
and would probably be best to decide at next Lowndes County Commission meeting.
Commissioner Demarcus Marshall asked confirmation that waiting until the
next meeting would work.
Answer: tabling until next meeting would work.
And that’s what they did.
Videos: 3 appointments, 1 well public hearing, Withlacoochee River Flood Map
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, July 12, 2016.
They vote Tuesday 5:30 PM.
Monday morning at the Work Session,
after some resistance from a Commissioner, surprisingly Chairman Bill Slaughter
argued for
paying the $40,000 to match Valdosta on the LiDAR flood maps
to prevent loss of life and property damage.
He even said “folks that live in our cities are Lowndes County Citizens as well.”
Emergency Management Director Ashley Tye
answered questions the Commissioners didn’t think to ask about Continue reading →
For an authority that gets 1.25 mil of your property tax dollars,
the Commissioners didn’t even know who was wanting to be reappointed,
none of them asked what happened during a year when one of them
was apparently serving on that board without a formal appointment,
not all of the Commissioners were present even voted,
and none of the candidates for any of the board appointments even shhowed up, much less spoke.
The Lowndes County Commission at its June 28th 2016 Regular Session also
unanimously adopted the budget for what the Chairman repeatedly called
“the physical year”, despite only perfunctory public hearings in advance,
and no draft budget available on their website for the public to see.
After they approved the budget to spend the money
(and according to County Manager Joe Pritchard after earlier that same morning the Tourism Authority approved their budget),
the Lowndes County Commissioners
unanimously approved a hotel/motel tax rate increase.
Odd order, eh?
for the city to approve a similar amount,
adding up to matching what USGS is willing to supply.
It was Valdosta’s idea in the first place, and maybe this
interactive flood map for a small part of the Withlacoochee River through Valdosta will help prevent, or at least provide early warning for,
the types of
road closings and other floodings that happened in 2009.
