Videos: Under budget but low tax collection, Nature Nate ahead, PO Box Woes @ VLCIA 2016-09-20

Authority under budget, Nature Nate’s ahead of schedule, USPS contentious, manufacturing week, and WWALS water trails: all packed into a brief meeting last Tuesday of the Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority.

CPA Tom Davis said the Development Authority is under budget but tax collection is also slow, with no new funds expected until January.

Existing Industry Coordinator Stan Crance announced that Nature Nate’s is beyond projections, now up to 25 jobs and $3 million capital investment and needs more parking. They’d also like to move their postal mail delivery from a downtown post office box to a local mailbox. But Nature Nate’s is the only tenant of Miller Business Park, and USPS requires central box units for any business park. This would require modifying the roundabout “just in case any other businesses were to locate out there”. Some Development Authority board members found this USPS requirement to be a contentious situation, “worse than stupid”, and “sue ’em”.

Executive Director Andrea Schruijer said they were going to do a proclamation of manufacturing week, with mandatory VLCIA attendance. Plus a potential infrastructure presentation by local cities and county.

Attorney J. Stephen Gupton said they’d met with the Tax Assessors.

One citizen spoke at the end, John S. Quarterman, president of WWALS Watershed Coalition, about water trails, especially that the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail is coming along, and could the Authority write a letter of support like the one for the Alapaha River Water Trail.

See also the agenda.

Here’s a LAKE video playlist:


Videos: Under budget but low tax collection, Nature Nate ahead, PO Box Woes
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority (VLCIA),
Tom Call Chairman, Roy Copeland, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett, Terri Lupo, Andrea Schruijer, Executive Director, J. Stephen Gupton, Attorney, Tom Davis, CPA, Stan Crance, Existing Industry Coordinator,Lu Williams, Operations Manager, Meghan Schunhoff, Marketing and Research Manager,
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 20 September 2016.

-jsq

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