{"id":15465,"date":"2016-01-18T11:51:09","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T16:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=15465"},"modified":"2016-01-18T12:03:16","modified_gmt":"2016-01-18T17:03:16","slug":"video-project-max-rezoning-public-hearing-lcc-2016-01-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/video-project-max-rezoning-public-hearing-lcc-2016-01-12.html","title":{"rendered":"Video: Project Max rezoning public hearing @ LCC 2016-01-12"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe secretive Project Max container company\r\nbetter not be like when the Industrial Authority bragged about a prospect that would bring in 300 clean jobs and it turned out to be\r\n\r\na private prison<\/a>,\r\nwhich fortunately (after much public opposition) never happened.\r\nAt last Tuesday’s Lowndes County Commissioner Regular Session<\/a>, nearby landowner Mike Paine said he is afraid of many things, because it’s a rush job\r\nand nobody has told him anything concrete.\r\nThe Industrial Authority, now called the Development Authority, says we should\r\ntrust them.\r\nIt would help if they wouldn’t say things like no emissions but steam,\r\nwhen burning natural gas produces CO2,\r\nand if they would admit that methane often leaks, and then it’s a far worse\r\ngreenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.\r\n

\r\n\r\n5.a. REZ-2016-01 Project Max, Rocky Ford Rd, E-A to M-2 123 acres<\/a>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nVideo.<\/a>\r\nAbout the public hearing for rezoning from Estate Agricultural (E-A) to heavy-duty manufacturing (M-2) for the\r\nhush-hush Project Max, the big-fish container manufacturing plant proposed for Rocky Ford Road,\r\nnext to the protected watershed of Mud Swamp and near Valdosta Airport,\r\nsee\r\n\r\n separate post<\/a> for what little the public (or the Planning Commission) is allowed to know.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nCitizen Mike Paine said he owned a little over 20 acres in one tract about a mile and a half from the proposed rezoning; presumably that’s \r\nParcel 0060 002<\/a> farther south on Rocky Ford Road, also on the east side of the road backing up against Mud Swamp, like the subject property.\r\nHe said he was opposed to the rezoning for two reasons:\r\n

    \r\n
  1. \r\n“I’m afraid there has not enough time to look into this, “for example, I got a letter on New Year’s Eve, which was a Friday… [actually a notice of a certified letter]. It was too late to go to the post office to get the letter… so I got the letter on Monday, looked at it, and had no idea what was going on; absolutely no idea.\r\nMy family has owned property out there for 140 years,\r\nand I’m afraid of pollution, I’m afraid of increased traffic, I’m afraid of a lot of things\r\nthat’s going to spoil a lot of property that’s just sitting there.”\r\n
  2. \r\n“When you have to make a big decision about money, those of us who work for a living, we can’t just go down and buy a car, or we want to buy an automobile or whatever, we have to think about it;\r\nwe have to see if we can get\r\nfinancing and things like this.\r\nIn my opinion this thing was just thrown on people.\r\nAnd we have a stake out there.\r\nIt was thrown on us without anybody knowing it. It’s just scary.\r\nThere was one person at the meeting last Tuesday night who said\r\ndo we trust these people, do we know who they are?\r\nAnd we don’t!\r\nTo close, just think about what Ronald Reagan said:\r\ntrust, but be sure to verify.”\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

    \r\nThe previous Tuesday’s meeting was the\r\n\r\nSpecial Called meeting of the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC)<\/a>,\r\nat which\r\nCommissioner Ted Raker said it would be a whole lot easier to make\r\nthese kinds of decisions if the Planning Commission wasn’t being\r\nasked to just “trust us”. He said even if the\r\nCommissioners had to sign confidentiality agreements, the whole\r\nprocess would run a lot smoother.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

    \r\nSpeaking\r\nfor the rezoning\r\n at the Lowndes County Commission Regular Session\r\n was Andrea Schruijer, Executive Director of the \r\nDevelopment Authority, who basically repeated the same things she said at the\r\n\r\nprevious Tuesday’s GLPC Special Called Meeting<\/a>,\r\nand\r\n\r\nCounty Planner Jason Davenport repeated at the Monday morning Lowndes County Commission Work Session<\/a>,\r\nthat it was a rush request to try to land a container company.\r\nShe didn’t really explain why that business’s demands (I-75, rail, natural gas for boilers, yet clean air) outweighed local landowners’ need to know.\r\nShe claimed again many jobs paying more than average and no particulate emissions.\r\n

    \r\nCommissioner Demarcus Marshall thanked her, since citizens are always\r\nasking where are the jobs, and it’s the Development Authority’s job to find them,\r\nbut he wanted to know whether no conditions would help them do their job.\r\nShe said she supports both conditions.\r\n

    \r\nThe conditions are in\r\n\r\nthe agenda item from the Work Session<\/a>,\r\nbut the Chairman clarified that Commissioners also had another version\r\nthat had been reworded by the county attorney.\r\n

    \r\nCommissioner Mark Wisenbaker wanted to know, following up on Mr. Paine’s questions, about emissions and traffic.\r\nSchruijer said the only emissions would be steam, with no particulate matter.\r\nShe didn’t mention that if they’re burning methane, that produces carbon dioxide.\r\nShe said the traffic would be\r\n200 employees coming in and out of work, plus some trucks inbound for raw materials,\r\nwith the resulting product going out by rail.\r\n

    \r\nCommissioner Marshall wanted confirmation that the Development Authority would be purchasing the property first. She said yes.\r\n

    \r\nAlso speaking for was\r\nJeff Lovell, Development Authority Engineer, who also said pretty much what he said\r\n\r\nin the GLPC meeting<\/a>, plus “natural gas is one of the cleanest fuels that you can burn” and they would adopt federal standards.\r\nI should hope so, those being the law and all.\r\nHowever, natural gas still\r\nHe said the company liked seeing solar power around about.\r\nAlso they would not use much water beyond\r\n

    \r\nJerome Tucker, 593 Jumping Gulley Road, said he had spent a good part of his life\r\nout there working at Griffin Corporation, and had seen up to 700 people on that access road.\r\nHe said the road infrastructure was much improved now from back then 30 years ago,\r\nso he didn’t see traffic as a problem.\r\nAnd for manufacturing, he sees this company as clean as any could be, “and again, 200 jobs”.\r\nSounds like he knows something about the prospective company,\r\nwhich is conceivable because he’s a former Industrial Authority Chair,\r\nand he’s been to almost every one of their meetings in recent months.\r\n

    \r\nTom Call, 1108 Gornto Road, Chairman of the Development Authority,\r\nonce again (like at the GLPC meeting<\/a>) claimed to represent all citizens of Lowndes County,\r\nand spoke for the project.\r\nHe said in response to Mr. Paine’s comments that he, Tom Call, had verified\r\nthat this prospect would be “a tremendous asset to our community” in jobs and\r\n“corporate synergy”.\r\nTranslation: it could help attract more businesses.\r\nIt’s worth remembering Tom Call was not exactly vocal against the private prison.\r\nSo let’s hope this time he really has verified.\r\n

    \r\nCommissioner Wisenbaker wanted to know timeline for groundbreaking.\r\nCall said the prospect needs to be open and operational 1 October 2017.\r\n

    \r\nChairman Slaughter wanted to know if Call was OK with the rewritten conditions.\r\nHe said if the version he last saw was the final version, yes.\r\nWhy was there any question as to which is the final version?\r\n

    \r\nIt’s also worth remembering the Development Authority\r\nstill goes to a lot of trouble to groom business parks,\r\nincluding paying most of their 1 mil of property taxes to service the bond debt\r\nfor those parks.\r\nYet his biggest fish they’ve had on the line for a long time\r\ndidn’t find any of those business parks acceptable.\r\nMaybe they should change their strategy.\r\nHm, how about put solar panels on those parks,\r\nor sell off some of them and use the proceeds to fund solar panels elsewhere in town.\r\n

    \r\nCommissioner Clay Griner made a motion for approval of the rezoning with only one condition; the one about use restricted to just the stated purpose of the company.\r\nCommissioner Marshall seconded, and they voted for it.\r\n

    \r\nSo it passed with the one condition, which was basically condition 1.\r\nThey did not pass condition 2, which would have made the rezoning effective upon transfer of the property to the Development Authority.\r\nSo now that land is zoned M-2 regardless of who owns it.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

    \r\nHere’s\r\n\r\nthe video:<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

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