Category Archives: Lake Park

Videos of Lowndes County and the mayors @ LOST 2012 04 09

Here are videos of the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) talks yesterday morning between Lowndes County and the local cities (Valdosta, Hahira, Remerton, Dasher, and Lake Park. Not really negotiations, these were more an exchange of views. The county’s position is the same as Chairman Ashley Paulk told me after the county’s four minute work session earlier that morning: the county could claim 72% of LOST based on cost of services delivered to the whole county, but the county’s offer is to stick with the 58% share from 2002. The cities all would like a bigger share.

The venue was the county’s meeting room next to Commission Chambers. There was no sound feed available in there, so sound is variable.

First County Manager Joe Pritchard explained the state-mandated procedures and Lowndes County’s position, both of which were spelled out in a three page paper. Basically, the county wants to stick to the percentages negotiated in 2002, although by the county’s reckoning it could ask for a much higher percentage.

None of the cities had a written position paper. Valdosta Mayor John Gayle noted Valdosta had grown more than the county as a whole. County Chairman Ashley Paulk responded that the city couldn’t grow without the county growing. The Mayor said nontheless most growth was in Valdosta. The Chairman asked whether that was growth in households? The Mayor said he didn’t know the answer to that right now. The Chairman remarked that according to his reading of the census, it was mostly not in households.

Hahira Mayor Wayne Bullard Continue reading →

Lowndes County position on LOST negotiations @ LCC 2012 04 09

Lowndes County Clerk Paige Dukes handed out this document, Lowndes County’s Report for Initial LOST Negotiations: April 9, 2012, at that first LOST meeting yesterday. When I spoke to her later, I mentioned that I thought it was the very model of how to write such a document: clear, complete, pithy, and easily understandable. She did not have a readily-accessible electronic copy, so I’ve posted these scanned images on the LAKE website.

The document includes a summary of the negotiation procedure (60 days to negotiate, after which it goes to mediation, then Superior Court “baseball arbitration”), plus how and how much LOST can reduce property taxes.

The rest of the document is the county’s position, which includes that the county provides services such as sheriff, courts, public health, and animal control that benefit the entire county, and the county could claim 72% of LOST. However, the county is only asking for the same 58% as negotiated in 2002.

A few things I did not know include that the dedicated millage for Parks and Rec (VLPRA 1.5mil) and the Industrial Authority (VLCIA 1 mil) come out of county property taxes, not out of any city property taxes. Also VLCIA’s millage started since 2002, before which VLCIA was funded out of hotel-motel taxes, including Valdosta hotel-motel taxes.

I also remarked to Paige Dukes that I wished the cities had prepared similar position statements. She said they may be depending on LOST negotiating documents by the Georgia Municipal Association (GMA), and that there were similar documents by the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia (ACCG), both which you can find linked in on the LAKE website.

The ACCG guidelines include this interesting passage:

Continue reading →

Shadowy LOST talks tomorrow morning among all the local elected governments @ LOST 2012 04 09

It’s great that the local cities and the county government think they can negotiate how to share Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) money this time without spending a lot of money suing each other like they did back in 2002. It’s not so great that they’re doing it at an unannounced time and place.

Kay Harris wrote Saturday in the VDT, LOST talks set to begin: County, cities to meet Monday,

As required by state law, Lowndes County issued a letter to the mayors of all the municipalities in the county, requesting they attend a renegotiation meeting Monday, April 9 to discuss LOST (local option sales tax) distributions.
“This has to be done and approved by the end of the year in order to stay in place, so we have to start the process now,” said Commission Chairman Ashley Paulk.

Well, that’s interesting. When is this meeting? Ah, the time of day wasn’t included in the article.

There’s a clue in David Rodock’s 31 March 2012 writeup about the Commission retreat, Continue reading →

Lowndes County and Valdosta history: origins of the old boys

If we want good clean industry for jobs for local people, we need good clean local government, too. Why do our local government bodies hide when they discuss public goods like waste disposal, try to avoid stating public positions on issues, and fail to publish minutes of elected bodies?

A little reading in local histories of the area or talking to people who were involved even a generation or two back indicates that Lowndes County has always been a cliquish sort of place, mostly run by old boys, for reasons that made some sense in the early days (lack of resources, mainly), but doesn’t so much anymore in these days of I-75 and I-10, airport, railroads that still go everywhere, Moody AFB, VSU as a regional university, technical and community colleges, two hospitals and medical industry, TitleTown, Grand Bay WMA, Wild Adventures, and south Georgia sunshine we can export to Atlanta and points north.

Here are a few books about the old days, all available in local libraries and possibly in local bookstores: Continue reading →

Motorcade against CCA, 5PM Tuesday March 6th

Do you want to live in a prison colony? Help us say, CCA Go Away!

Join us 5PM Tuesday March 6th 2012 at the private prison site (Dasher-Johnson Road off US 84 at Inner Perimeter) for a motorcade by Valdosta City Hall to the Industrial Authority offices: for education and against the private prison.

When:	5PM (rush hour) Tuesday March 6^th
How:	Cars, trucks, motorcycles, and bicycles
Who:	Everybody is invited
What:	Oppose the Private Prison
From:	Proposed Private Prison Site US 84 @ Inner Perimeter Road (Staging on Dasher-Johnson Road next to US 84)
By way of:	Valdosta City Hall Valdosta City Council Work Session Honk to say No CCA!
To:	Industrial Authority Office 2110 N. Patterson Street (Patterson at Park Avenue) Bring a sign: No Private Prisons!
Contact:	noprivateprisons@gmail.com Winn Roberson, 229-630-2339, winnroberson@bellsouth.net John S. Quarterman, 229-242-0102, politics@quarterman.org

on the web

View Larger Map

Petition

Winn Roberson read the newspaper Friday (February 24th) and realized the prison site was down the street from him, so the news finally sunk in. This motorcade was his idea to drive the point across to the Industrial Authority: we don’t want a private prison!

John S. Quarterman lives about as far away from the prison site as you can get in Lowndes County, but realizes it will affect everybody for many counties around. So let’s say CCA Go Away!

-jsq

PS: If you can’t come, you can still sign the petition to the Industrial Authority, or write a letter to the editor, or…

How to read Comprehensive Plan documents

I’m always getting a civics lesson, learning more and more about how our local and state governments work. Most recently, I had the opportunity to have explained two documents related to the Lowndes County Comprehensive Plan: the Short Term Work Projects (STWP) and the Report of Accomplishments (ROA). In the spirit of information exchange, I share what I learned with you.

The state of Georgia requires a Comprehensive Plan and collects and approves them through the Department of Community Affairs (DCA). The current plans for all of Georgia are available at the DCA Planning Site.

The current STWP documents that are being reviewed locally are the projects that the local governments and agencies expect to actively work on in the next five years. The ROA documents report on what was done in the past five years: what was completed, or will no longer be pursued. Many municipalities and counties file separate reports. Locally, because there is significant cooperation among the cities and Lowndes County there is one document with all the projects included and a place that indicates which agency is participating in the project. However, their input documents are filed separately, and LAKE has collected them on the LAKE web pages. Also, each local municipality holds its own public hearings.

Reading the STWP and ROA can be a bit tricky but once I understood the format, the process became much easier. The overall topics are prescribed by the state and are in general categories like “Population”, “Economic Development”, “Housing” and “Land Use”. There are sub-categories in each of the ten major categories, like “Secure High-Wage Jobs” and “Address Workforce Adequacy” in the “Economic Development” major category. Then, under each of these items are one or more specific projects that will be done in the next five years to help achieve each goal.

One reason the draft STWP is complex is that it redlines projects that were performed in the previous five years and are now being removed or modified for a variety of reasons. Many projects were completed, some moved from one stage (investigate) to another (implement or market), and still others simply lacked the staff or funding resources to continue being pursued.

The ROA document is in a similar format but the focus of it is to report the status of the STWP for the previous five years. An Explanation Column gives details on the status of each previous project. For example, it says that the “Feed the Elderly Senior Citizen Nutrition Program” has been discontinued because “Budgetary constraints have limited Lowndes County’s role in this supporting action.”.

The STWP and ROA documents are meant to be read as a pair, giving the reader an understanding of where we have been, where we are going and how we are going to get there as a community.

-gretchen

School Consolidation Lost by a Landslide with 14 of 16 precincts reporting

Not this time. Not Now. How about not ever after a 4 to 1 loss?

79.07% No Consolidation with 14 out of 16 precincts. All that is outstanding is provisional ballots and military, which are usually a handful. The percentage of no votes kept going up. Also more people voted on the school consolidation referendum than there were validated signatures on CUEE’s petition.

It looked like a landslide, and it was:

In other news, the mayoral vote almost voted that of four years ago. John W. Gayle will be the new Mayor of Valdosta with 57.3%.

Ben H. Norton retains his Valdosta City Council Seat with 76.56%.

Sunday sales of alcohol in Valdosta won with 52.3%. A similar alcohol referendum won in Lake Park with 65.99%.

It looks like Ben Futch will be the new Mayor of Lake Park with 54.85%.

Sandy Sherrill, Russell H. Lane, Paul Mulkey, and Roanald Carter will apparently be on the Lake Park City Council.

In Dasher, Edwin R. Smith will be City Council P3 and Donald J. Bryan will be P2.

In Hahira, Ralph Clendenin retains his City Council seat.

The school referendum details: Continue reading →

Lunch & Learn: What is Lowndes County Extension —Lake Park Chamber of Commerce

I think you have to be a member of the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce to go to this, but that might be a reason to join.

Lake Park Chamber of Commerce wrote 21 Oct 2011, Lunch & Learn: What is Lowndes County Extension:

Where: Lake Park Civic Center
123 N Essa St.
Lake Park, GA 31636
When: Wed 9 Nov 2011
from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM EST
Don’t miss out on this Lunch & Learn!
The Lowndes County Extension Service is a program dedicated to educating our future workforce and getting the local community involved.

-jsq

The missing Lowndes County public hearing for Comprehensive Plan Updates

Four local governments followed the rules, one appears to have left citizens out of the process.

According to their letters of transmission to the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) Valdosta, Hahira, Remerton, and Lake Park all held public hearings on the Short Term Work Programs and Report of Accomplishment documents.

Here is video of the Valdosta Public Hearing.

The Lowndes County resolution does not say that a public hearing was held. That’s because no public hearing was held, as you can see in the video below.

A public hearing was listed in the agenda of the 11 October 2011 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.

7. Public Hearing
a. REZ-2011-13, Fred’s Dept. Store, 4401 Bemiss Rd., 145c-90a, 2.0 ac., water/sewer, C-H(c) & C- G(c) to C-G
b. Greater Lowndes 2030 Comprehensive Plan Updates – Lowndes County Report of Accomplishments (ROA) and Short Term Work Program (STWP)

However, citizens were not invited to speak for or against the document. In fact, the document was not provided to the citizens for comment and an open records request for the document has not been satisfied by the county. Here is video of items 7a and 7b.

The County’s Resolution to Transmit says in part: Continue reading →

The Comprehensive Plan updates Lowndes County refused to provide

LAKE has obtained the planning revision documents Lowndes County refused, in violation of the law, to return in response to an open records request. Here they are for all to see.

The Standards and Procedures for Local Comprehensive Planning, established by the Georgia Planning Act of 1989, require updates to the Short Term Work Projects (STWP) list and the Report of Accomplishments (ROA) every 5 years. Lowndes County and the cities in Lowndes County have submitted the documents to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA)

An open records request to Lowndes County for the documents was not satisfied. However other government agencies were willing to abide by the Georgia Open Records Law ocga 50-18-70.

The documents are available for review on the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange website for Valdosta, Lake Park, Remerton, Hahira and Lowndes County.

I encourage you to read carefully what our elected officials see as the future of our community.