Given dozens of questions submitted by citizens and every opportunity, Commissioners asked only four perfunctory questions after Spectra Energy’s Sabal Trail pipeline sales pitch. Chairman Bill Slaughter repeatedly let multiple Spectra reps speak from the audience without having them come to the podium, or even identify themselves before they spoke. They were pointed at by the chief Spectra speaker when he named them, but they did not stand up or raise their hand at the time, so it was quite hard to tell which was which. The Chairman never allows that sort of behavior from local citizens. Why is he granting extra courtesies to a company from Houston that wants to exercise eminent domain on local citizens’ lands? Who does the Lowndes County Commission represent?

At least WALB and WCTV let a landowner speak: that’s more than the County Commission did.

Nottinghill is back yet again. A Commissioner did ask staff whether it was really ready, and it isn’t, but no Commissioners asked any such probing questions of the Spectra reps.

The three beer licenses, a liquor license, the contracts, and the bids were glossed over in almost as perfunctory a manner. There were some questions from Commissioners about costs to the county government. But there were none from Commissioners about costs to landowners from gashing a pipeline through their property.

Given that there’s a settlement for back pay for some county employees, it appears that the employees maybe had to sue to get paid.

Staff did express concern about “customer service” for a decorative special tax lighting district, but none about service to the landowners of the county whose land Spectra proposes to run through, or for that matter to the taxpayers of the county to whom the Commission and staff cannot be bothered to show what they’re voting on before they vote.

Here’s the agenda plus links to the videos and a few notes.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED-AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2013, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2013, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street — 2^nd Floor

1. Order 4. Minutes for Approval 5. VLMPO Appointments

   Video.

2. Invocation

   Only in the Regular Session, Tuesday at 5:30 PM.

3. Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag

   Only in the Regular Session, Tuesday at 5:30 PM.

4. Minutes for Approval
   1. Work Session — November 11, 2013
   2. Regular Session — November 12, 2013
5. Appointment
   1. MPO Citizens Advisory Committee (2)

      Video. County Manager Joe Pritchard said “you have the dossier on two individuals” Todd Smoot and Michael Frost. We the citizens know nothing about them.

6. Public Hearings
   1. REZ-2013-11 Nottinghill, Orr Rd R-A to R-21

      Video. County Planner Jason Davenport said “staff has laid out for you background information”, etc. and staff recommended approval.

      Commissioner Crawford Powell pointed out that there was still some question of the land being purchased by applicant, and not all the signatures were yet ready.

      Davenport said some were word of mouth, others were power of attorney, etc. So yes, there was some question.

   2. Decorative Special Tax Lighting District — Windstone Subdivision (Orr Rd)

      Video. County Planner Jason Davenport said “of course” there would be conditions about timing (presumably referring to those imposed by Commissioners last month on all such special tax lighting districts), but he referred to wanting to move this one along because of “courtesy for customer service”. Curious how the county government isn’t so interested in customer service for its taxpayers.

   3. Beer and Wine License, Twin Lakes Ventures, LLC 6.d. Liquor License, Big Al's

      Video.

   4. Liquor License — Big Al’s — 4991 HWY 41 S. Lake Park
7. For Consideration
   1. Approval of the 2014 Commission Meeting Schedule

      Video. Commissioner Joyce Evans spoke up about this, yet she asked not a single question of Spectra Energy about the proposed Sabal Trail pipeline.

   2. 2014 Public Defender Services Contract & 2014 Operating Contract

      Video. Commissioner John Page wanted to know more detail on costs. County Manager Joe Pritchard didn’t have it, but said he would get it.

   3. Land Application Site (LAS) Bar Screen Replacement

      Video. Commissioner John Page wanted to know whether this was SPLOST or operational budget.

      Answer from Utilities Director Mike Allen: regular budget.

      

      Video. Commissioner Crawford Powell had some construction timing questions.

      Answer: actual construction time about 120 days.

   4. Budget Calendar FY 2014-2015

      Video. Finance Director Stephanie Black didn’t have a firm schedule, merely guidelines, but she reminded Commissioners they had to adopt a budget by June 30th.

   5. Beer and Wine License, Parnish Corporation 7.f. Jay Brahamani

      Video. Finance Director Stephanie Black read the boilerplate about change of ownership.

   6. Beer and Wine License — Jay Brahamani, LLC — 2601 Madison HWY

      Finance Director Stephanie Black read the boilerplate about change of ownership.

   7. Back Pay for 9-1-1 Center Employees

      Video. What’s this about parties to the agreement, and “settlement”? Did the employees sue?

      Commissioner Demarcus Marshall also wanted some clarification, given that he thought they had approved it last meeting. County Manager Joe Pritchard said this decision was for publication of the settlement.

   8. Second State Court Judge — Resolution & Act

      Video. It’s a resolution to request the Georgia General Assembly to pass a law. Remember that next time the Commission tries to claim it’s powerless because something is a state or federal matter.

8. Bids
   1. Repair of Damaged F150- LCSO

      Video. Finance Director Stephanie Black read a bunch of bids, which is good: at least she did that much. But why can’t the county be bothered to publish that information on its website?

   2. Repair of Damaged Fire Tanker- LCFR

      Video. Finance Director Stephanie Black read only one bid.

      One Commissioner wanted to know if no other bidders were interested. She said no others had bid.

9. Reports-County Manager

   County Manager Joe Pritchard’s only report was to cut to Spectra’s pipeline sales pitch.

10. Citizens Wishing to be Heard Please State Name And Address

    Only in the Regular Session, Tuesday at 5:30 PM.

11. Reports-County Manager 11. Sabal Trail

    Video. Spectra Rep. Brian Fahrenthold repeatedly said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) “dictates” pipeline decisions, but neglected to mention that FERC’s pre-filing and filing processes are largely intended to get input from affected parties, including local citizens and local governments. The cowed County Commission in this very same meeting discussed sending a proposed law to the state legislature, so it’s not powerless before state and national authorities when it feels like acting. Why doesn’t our local government want to act on behalf of local citizens?

    Sabal Trail says companies with many jobs are a strain

    Video. So I guess the Industrial Authority might as well close up shop.

    The QA on Spectra’s slide certainly didn’t stand for Quality Assurance, and it apparently didn’t stand for Questions and Answers, either, since all we got was one question from each of four Commissioners (Commissioner Joyce Evans didn’t even ask one), and canned answers from Spectra. We could have skipped this whole meeting and gone to Spectra’s own dog and pony show on the 16^th and learned just as much: nothing we didn’t know before.

Here’s a video playlist:

Spectra Sales Pitch, Nothing about Nottinghill, etc.
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 9 December 2013.

-jsq

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