Asking the full Commission and staff in a public meeting wasn’t enough to get an alert on the budget meeting that was held Tuesday:

Lowndes County Budget Meeting (6/17/2014)

Lowndes County Board of Commissioners
327 N. Ashley St – Commission Chambers, 2nd Floor Administration Building
Valdosta, GA
5:30 p.m.

Apparently everyone is really supposed to watch the county’s website every day. They did send email to department heads about that meeting. They could have also sent that to interested parties. But they didn’t. And almost nobody showed up.

There’s another one Tuesday:

Lowndes County Budget Meeting (6/24/2014)

Lowndes County Board of Commissioners
327 N. Ashley St – Commission Chambers, 2nd Floor Administration Building
Valdosta, GA
5:00 p.m.

That’s just before the Regular Session next Tuesday.

Be sure to review the draft budget before you go. Oh, right! You can’t. Because it’s not an official county document until it’s voted on (nevermind what state law says) or if they published it nobody would show up for the Budget Hearings, depending on when you asked the Chairman.

Or maybe your elected county government just doesn’t want your opinion.

Speaking of state law, doesn’t it require a public notice of such a hearing? There’s nothing about either of those Budget Hearings in the Public Notices published through the newspaper of record, the VDT. Well, there’s one for the City of Dasher for a 17 May 2014 budget meeting. But nothing for Budget Hearings for the County of Lowndes.

And what is on the county’s website is even less information than for last year’s budget tellings. Last year they included this:

A copy of the proposed budget is available for public review in the office of the County Clerk.
For questions please call 671-2400.

This year they don’t even offer to let you come look at it. And apparently they don’t want your questions.

-jsq

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