{"id":1908,"date":"2011-06-14T10:24:34","date_gmt":"2011-06-14T14:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/how-did-lowndes-county-approve-a-contract-with-vlcia-that-could-force-raising-taxes.html"},"modified":"2011-06-14T10:24:34","modified_gmt":"2011-06-14T14:24:34","slug":"how-did-lowndes-county-approve-a-contract-with-vlcia-that-could-force-raising-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/how-did-lowndes-county-approve-a-contract-with-vlcia-that-could-force-raising-taxes.html","title":{"rendered":"How did Lowndes County approve a contract with VLCIA that could force raising taxes?"},"content":{"rendered":"We’ve seen that \nthe inter-governmental contract between Lowndes County and the\nValdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) could force\nthe county to raise taxes to pay for VLCIA’s debts.<\/a>\nHow did the county pass such a thing?\nApparently in a rush, with little review.\n

\nMatt Flumerfelt wrote in the VDT 19 November 2008,\n\nCounty approves bond issue<\/a>:\n

\n\n<\/a>\nLOWNDES COUNTY \u2014 The Lowndes County Commission heard a presentation\nTuesday evening from Glenn Thomson, Alston & Bird LLP regarding a bond\nissue the County has entered into for the purpose of providing needed\nfunding for the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nAfter the presentation, a vote was taken accepting the issue and Lowndes\nCounty Commission Chairman Rod Casey,\n\n<\/a>\nCounty Attorney Walter Elliott and\n\n<\/a>\nCounty Clerk Paige Dukes adjourned to an adjoining chamber to complete\nthe signing of the documents that will enable the Industrial Authority\nto negotiate for the acquisition of property pursuant to their mission\nof attracting manufacturing and other businesses to Lowndes County.\n

\nBond Counsel, Glenn Thomson, stated, “Mr. Chairman and Commission, I\nwould like to take this opportunity to thank you for your time and brag\non your staff and consultants. Your staff put this transaction together\nvery quickly. In fact, the underwriter’s counsel remarked that he had\nnever encountered county employees and staff that had worked so diligently\nand that due to their preparedness and hard work, he was able to put his\ninformation together in near record time. Their performance and that of\nCounty Attorney, Walter Elliott, who worked tirelessly on this project\nas well, is a tremendous credit to those responsible for managing the\nbusiness of the county.”\n<\/blockquote>\nWhy was it necessary to put together a guarantee for a $15 million\ndollar bond issue in “near record time”?\n\n\n

\n\n<\/a>\nWhy are so many items approved by the County Commission at the last minute\nin a rush?\nWhy doesn’t county management manage such things better?\n

\nWhere is all this “manufacturing and other business” VLCIA was supposed\nto attract with the property bought with those bond funds?\nWhy do they instead have 577 acres of prime real estate sitting around\nthat we the taxpayers have to pay debts for?\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We’ve seen that the inter-governmental contract between Lowndes County and the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) could force the county to raise taxes to pay for VLCIA’s debts. How did the county pass such a thing? Apparently in a rush, with little review. Matt Flumerfelt wrote in the VDT 19 November 2008, County approves bond […]","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":[14,88,3,178],"tags":[728,424,4385,8704,4384,8699,136,1622,91,8734,3629,4251,4383,656,95,8700,180,8749,624],"class_list":["post-1908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-transparency","category-vlcia","tag-bonds","tag-business","tag-debts","tag-economy","tag-glenn-thomson","tag-government","tag-joe-pritchard","tag-land","tag-lcc","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-management","tag-manufacturing","tag-open-rod-casey","tag-paige-dukes","tag-real-estate","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-industrial-authority","tag-vlcia","tag-walter-elliott"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-uM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1908","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=1908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1908\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}