{"id":930,"date":"2012-04-10T16:16:13","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T20:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/videos-of-lowndes-county-and-the-mayors-lost-2012-04-09.html"},"modified":"2012-04-10T16:16:13","modified_gmt":"2012-04-10T20:16:13","slug":"videos-of-lowndes-county-and-the-mayors-lost-2012-04-09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/videos-of-lowndes-county-and-the-mayors-lost-2012-04-09.html","title":{"rendered":"Videos of Lowndes County and the mayors @ LOST 2012 04 09"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/a>\nHere are videos of the\n\nLocal Option Sales Tax (LOST) talks yesterday morning<\/a>\nbetween Lowndes County and the local cities (Valdosta, Hahira, Remerton, Dasher, and Lake Park.\nNot really negotiations, these were more an exchange of views.\nThe county’s position is the same as Chairman Ashley Paulk told me after\nthe county’s\n\nfour minute work session<\/a> earlier that morning:\nthe county could claim 72% of LOST based on cost of services delivered\nto the whole county,\nbut the county’s offer is to stick with the 58% share from 2002.\nThe cities all would like a bigger share.\n

\nThe venue was the county’s meeting room next to Commission Chambers.\nThere was no sound feed available in there, so sound is variable.\n

\nFirst\n\nCounty Manager Joe Pritchard explained<\/a>\n\n<\/a>\nthe state-mandated procedures\nand\nLowndes County’s position,\nboth of which were spelled out in a\n\nthree page paper.<\/a>\nBasically, the county wants to stick to the percentages negotiated in 2002,\nalthough by the county’s reckoning it could ask for a much higher percentage.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nNone of the cities had a written position paper.\n\nValdosta Mayor John Gayle<\/a> noted Valdosta had grown more than the\ncounty as a whole.\nCounty Chairman Ashley Paulk responded that the city couldn’t grow\nwithout the county growing.\nThe Mayor said nontheless most growth was in Valdosta.\nThe Chairman asked whether that was growth in households?\nThe Mayor said he didn’t know the answer to that right now.\nThe Chairman remarked that according to his reading of the census,\nit was mostly not in households.\n

\n\nHahira Mayor Wayne Bullard<\/a>\n\n\n\n<\/a>\nsaid Hahira had grown 26% in the past decade, and that was in households.\nPlus Hahira provides several services of benefit to county,\nsuch as housing EMS for the north of the county,\nwhich costs Hahira $3,000 a year, while costs have gone up across the board.\n

\n\n<\/a>\n\nLake Park Mayor Ben Futch<\/a> passed out a map and remarked,\n“I could go on and on”.\nHe indicated a number of things inside Lake Park City limits that\nbenefit the county as a whole, and also complained that the VDT\nsometimes identifies meth labs as being in Lake Park when they’re outside\nthe city limits.\nI believe he said he thought Lake Park should get 0.67% of LOST funds\n(the 2002 Lake Park share is 0.48%).\n

\n\n<\/a>\nThe person from<\/strike> Mayor G.R. Holton of\n\nDasher<\/a> (sorry; I have misplaced the name)<\/strike>\nnoted that Dasher had voted to remain a city, and had added\na zoning code and other things since then.\nDasher now has a population of 912, and depends 65% on LOST for\nservices for that population.\nDasher contracts mostly with the county for services, and also\nwith some private contractors.\nIt also decided not to seek industry, rather to serve as a bedroom\ncommunity.\nNonethless, Dasher would like to provide water and sewer, but cannot\nwithout additional funding.\n

\n\n<\/a>\n\nProbation Officer Jessica Freeman<\/a>, who also does planning and zoning\nfor Remerton (which is unique in being completely landlocked by Valdosta), remarked that Remerton would like to add an ion exchange\nsystem for its water supply, and, like the other cities, could use more funding.\n

\n\n<\/a>\n\nChairman Paulk asked for further comments.<\/a>\nHearing none, he said that the county has an offer out there,\nand agreed with Mayor Bullard’s point that until the economy\nin general improved, there was not going to be more money to go around\nout of this pie.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nBen Futch had a question as to whether the county’s proposal was 72%.\nCounty Manager Joe Pritchard clarified that it was to keep the\ncounty’s share at 58%, and the cities could divide up the rest\nhowever they liked.\nFutch wanted to know where the sheet of percentages he was looking at came from.\nHahira City Manager Jonathan Sumner said he got it from the\n\nGeorgia Municipal Association (GMA).<\/a>\nJessica Freeman wanted to know if the 2002 settlement was agreed to\nby the county and the cities, or did it go to court, and was it\nbased primarily on population. Joe Pritchard said he had not seen it before.\n\n<\/a>\nIt sounds like the same percentages that were\n\nin the VDT<\/a>\nthat I used for\n\nthis pie chart.<\/a>\n

\nThe VDT\n\ngot a few comments from the cities after the meeting.<\/a>\n

\nHere’s\n\na video playlist:<\/a>\n

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