{"id":155,"date":"2013-01-30T15:40:20","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T20:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/no-choice-on-trash-representatives-from-lowndes-county.html"},"modified":"2013-06-01T09:45:44","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T13:45:44","slug":"no-choice-on-trash-representatives-from-lowndes-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/no-choice-on-trash-representatives-from-lowndes-county.html","title":{"rendered":"No choice on trash —”representatives from Lowndes County”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe VDT went deep under the Lowndes County government’s anonymous cover\r\nfor an interview with “representatives” who\r\nconfirmed that unincorporated residents have no choice\r\nfor trash collection other than\r\n\r\nthe monopoly the Commission granted<\/a>\r\nto a company from New York City.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nJason Schaefer wrote on the front page of the VDT today,\r\n\r\nCounty trash ordinance goes into effect Friday:\r\nVDT has Q&A with county leadership about new law, burning<\/a>,\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nVDT:<\/strong>\r\nLowndes County has said residents aren’t required to sign a\r\nservice contract with Advanced Disposal. What other services are\r\nthere in the area, and do they include Deep South Sanitation in\r\nValdosta?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nLC:<\/strong>\r\n\u201cAccording to the solid waste ordinance, Advanced Disposal\r\nwill be the only residential hauler licensed to serve unincorporated\r\nLowndes County. There’s been some confusion about trash collection\r\nservice in the city. This ordinance is just for unincorporated\r\nLowndes County, not for any of the cities.\u201d\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nMaybe these were the same “representatives” who sent\r\n\r\nan unsigned letter<\/a>\r\nsaying there were 5,000 residents of unincorporated parts of\r\nLowndes County who didn’t already have curbside service, and they\r\nhave one choice now: the one-and-only\r\ncounty-appointed purveyor of waste bins.\r\nWhat could possibly go wrong?\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n

\r\nVDT: What about dumping trash by the side of the road?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nLC: \u201cLowndes County Code Enforcement successfully prosecutes\r\ncases on a monthly basis in the Magistrate Court for illegal\r\nroadside dumping. In addition, there are many proactive citizens\r\nthat will call in with tag numbers when they see other citizens\r\nthrow trash from their vehicles.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\u201cWhile this may seem like an option people can get away with,\r\nmore times than not, these cases are prosecuted successfully.\r\nViolators are fined. The amount of the fine is determined case by\r\ncase by the magistrate. In some cases, where dumping can be so\r\nsignificant that the case is handled by state court, those fines can\r\nbe thousands of dollars.\u201d\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nOh, really?\r\nI’ve never heard of any prosecution of any of the people who already dump\r\nso much trash (from letters to mattresses and tires) that I had to put\r\nup fences and gates to keep them out.\r\nAnd this problem affects those of you in the cities, too:\r\nI hear business owners complaining that people come dump stuff\r\nin their dumpsters and their parking lots.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe one named “representative” in the article is:\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nVDT: County Manager Joe Pritchard said the ordinance operates under\r\na state statute that \u201cempowers commissioners to adopt\r\nordinances governing the unincorporated area for the purpose of\r\nprotecting the public health, safety and welfare.\u201d What is\r\nthat specific statute?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nLC: \u201cIt’s in the solid waste ordinance linked on the county’s\r\nwebsite, Article 1, Section 1.2.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThe VDT then quotes from the passages cited in\r\n\r\nthat ordinance<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIs Pritchard also the “representative” otherwise quoted?\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nWhy didn’t the VDT get a quote from the\r\nLowndes County Public Information Officer,\r\nwho is identified as Paige Dukes by\r\n\r\nthe County’s website front page<\/a>,\r\nby\r\n\r\nthe VDT,<\/a>\r\nand by\r\nWCTV?<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nWhere are the Commissioners on this decision:\r\nthey’re responsible for ignoring the county’s\r\nresponsibilities to protect public health, safety, and well-being,\r\nand granting a monopoly instead, without ever holding a public hearing.\r\nSure, it may be legal according to the statutes cited in the ordinance\r\nto which Mr. Pritchard referred the VDT (I am not a lawyer).\r\nBut does it actually protect the environment\r\nor the health, safety, and well-being of the public?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIf this ordinance was such a good decision, why is the county government\r\nhiding behind the VDT?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n-jsq\r\n<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The VDT went deep under the Lowndes County government’s anonymous cover for an interview with “representatives” who confirmed that unincorporated residents have no choice for trash collection other than the monopoly the Commission granted to a company from New York City. Jason Schaefer wrote on the front page of the VDT today, County trash ordinance […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[40,14,16,8,2,41,19,20,88,21,22,32,73,478,53,3,479,133],"tags":[8717,8704,8706,8771,8701,8699,8718,8709,136,8702,8710,12,7,8734,656,8711,8712,8715,8731,694,8772,8725,8700,8773,6,8742,693],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-economy","category-environment","category-georgia","category-government","category-health-care","category-history","category-law","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-planning","category-politics","category-pollution","category-safety","category-solid-waste","category-sustainability","category-transparency","category-trash","category-vdt","tag-community","tag-economy","tag-environment","tag-ga-dnr","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-health-care","tag-history","tag-joe-pritchard","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-paige-dukes","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-pollution","tag-safety","tag-smoke","tag-solid-waste","tag-sustainability","tag-transparency","tag-trash","tag-valdosta","tag-vdt","tag-well-being"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-2v","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3743,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions\/3743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}