{"id":1396,"date":"2011-10-14T07:57:14","date_gmt":"2011-10-14T11:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/videos-of-lowndes-county-your-top-50-answered-lunch-and-learn.html"},"modified":"2011-10-14T07:57:14","modified_gmt":"2011-10-14T11:57:14","slug":"videos-of-lowndes-county-your-top-50-answered-lunch-and-learn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/videos-of-lowndes-county-your-top-50-answered-lunch-and-learn.html","title":{"rendered":"Videos of Lowndes County “Your Top 50 Answered” Lunch and Learn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/a>\nThe latest Lowndes County Lunch and Learn\nwas yesterday, with County Clerk Paige Dukes\nanswering the top 50 questions the county receives.\nCode Red! Road paving! Tax Assessment! CHIP grants!\nSome of these things affect all of you, and many of them could help you specifically.\nGretchen was there and videoed most of it, as well as asking some followup questions.\n

\nAmong other surprising answers was that the new Commission districts\nas shown on the maps on the county website have still not been approved by the Department of Justice.\nAll of the Commissioners and several of the staff travelled to Atlanta\na few weeks ago to tweak the lines.\nPaige assured us that tweaking would be completed in time for next year’s Commission elections.\n

\nPaige noted\nCarmella Braswell is the go-to person for many questions\nabout what to do if you want to sink a will or put up a building.\nShe addressed\n\nthe CHIP grant in question 3,<\/a> in the second video below,\nnoting\n\nCarolyn Selby’s comments at a previous Commission meeting:<\/a>\n\n\n

\n\n<\/a>\nThe county cannot use taxpayer funds for an individual project like this,\nhowever, the Commissioners have approved for the past several years\nan annual CHIP application, which is a grant program from the\nDepartment of Community Affairs, and there are funds available for\ndownpayment assistance, which is what most citizens use the program for,\nas well as rehabilitation.\nAnd you can again go through Ms. Braswell to figure out how to apply for that.\n

\nCurrently, we have a waiting list, the program’s been so successful.\nBut I think since its inception we have helped over 70 families with down payment\nassistance.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nAnd as Ms. Carolyn Selby … was here and stated …\nthis is taking someone who is a renter, and making a taxpayer out of them.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThere seemed to be resistance to divulging the list of roads to be paved, or even the list of criteria for how a road gets or stays on the list.\nPaige noted most people ask only about their specific road.\n

\nDid you know Lowndes County has the only elected Board of Tax Assessors in Lowndes County?\nThat’s an example of one of many areas of local government\nthat is outside the purview of the Board of Commissioners, although\nthey may get questions about it anyway.\n

\nPaige recommended signing up early for the County’s\n\nCode Red\nemergency alert system<\/a>,\ninstead of waiting until a storm is already here,\nbecause it can take a day to get on.\nFor general emergency preparedness, she said the state has provided\ncomprehensive recommendations in\nready.ga.gov<\/a>.\n

\nHere’s\n\nPart 1 of 2:<\/a>\n

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