The Lowndes County Commission plans to vote tomorrow evening
to privatize waste disposal in the unincorporated areas of the county,
after numerous discussions at meetings the public were unaware of,
without any public hearings, and regardless of whether the people want it.
County Manager Joe Pritchard talked about “a long, long process” they’d been through, including at the Commissioners’ retreat.
You remember,
-
the
retreat at an undisclosed location back in March.
- That was after they discussed solid waste disposal at their backroom closed meeting 24 May 2011.
- Then they cancelled their 21 May 2012 Work Session and instead held an unscheduled 4 June meeting in which according to the VDT they decided that waste disposal site cards would be for six months, instead of the former 12 months.
- Then in June Pritchard announced that decision.
Although I don’t recall it being there last night when I picked up the agenda, the RFP is now linked into the county’s front web page (copy on the LAKE website).
At this morning’s meeting, Kevin Beals, Lowndes County Development Reviewer, addressed the Commissioners and said,
We’ve got a tremendous response from the solid waste community.
He said nothing about any response from the rest of the community, such as you and me, or the numerous users of the current county waste disposal sites.
He proceeded to go through a spreadsheet of the 20 or so questions from the RFP.
Waste disposal railroad by County Commission Part 2 of 2:
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 8 October 2012.
Beals noted in addition to spelling out what they wanted, the county also asked for the respondants to come up with their own proposals. That was probably a good idea, but where are any of these proposals so we the taxpaying and waste-disposal-card-buying public can see them?
Well, I guess you can talk about it in the public hearing. Oh, wait! There is no public hearing! And Citizens Wishing to be Heard is after they vote tomorrow.
Maybe if enough people show up and sign up to speak against this, perhaps the Commissioners will actually listen to the people. Here are email addresses for all the Commissioners.
-jsq
Short Link: