Category Archives: Lake Park

ZBOA meets today (April 2) @ ZBOA 2013-04-02

The Lowndes Valdosta Zoning Board of Appeals meets today (Tuesday April 2) at 2:30pm in the Valdosta City Hall Annex Multi Purpose Room.

ZBOA Meeting

ZBOA Meeting

There are two Lowndes County cases in Lake Park.

LOWNDES COUNTY CASES:

2. VAR-2013-03 — Roger Budd Jr. (1000 Lakes Blvd. Lake Park) Variance to ULDC Chapter 5.04.09 (E) as it pertains to the design standards for permanent off-site signs on State maintained road.

3. VAR–2013-04 — Ben Futch (5443 Danieli Drive North, Lake Park) Variance to ULDC Chapter 5.02.01 (D)(8) and 5.02.01 (D)(9) as they pertain to the minimum building setbacks and maximum floor area of an accessory structure.

and one city of Valdosta case.

CITY OF VALDOSTA CASES:

4. APP-2013-01 — Wesley Foundation (1601 N. Patterson St.) Variance to LDR Section 214-1 as it pertains to the minimum setbacks for the R-10 zoning district.

Full agenda available at : http://www.valdostacity.com/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=6106

ZBOA doesn’t often have observers so come and see your government working for you.

-gretchen

Speakupaustin: a major MSA and local government transparency

The

Austin reporting program is in addition to
the posting a City Council agenda more than a week in advance


(here’s the 28 Feb 2013 agenda already on 16 Feb 2013)
and
including the entire board packets

with working papers and other backup documentation
with the minutes.
Austin

televises and webcasts its meetings live,
with close captioning and transcripts online.
They don’t limit the number of citizens who can speak,
or the subjects they can speak on, and they televise and webcast
all of them as well.
Plus citizens can speak on specific agenda issues,
and Austin

has an online forum for citizen suggestions on which citizens can vote
on the ones they like.

Is there still back-door politics in Austin? For sure.
But you can see a lot more of what is going on in Austin
than they can about the local governments here,
and citizens have a lot more input.

If Valdosta and Lowndes County
(and Hahira and Lake Park and Dasher and Remerton)
want to be treated like a major MSA,
they might consider following Austin’s lead.
Instead of decreasing citizen input by exiling
all citizen speakers to the end of a meeting and limiting the number
who can speak, while not even putting board packets online,
consider continually increasing local government
transparency and citizen input.

-jsq

Planning Commission yesterday: did you know? @ GLPC 2013-01-28

Did you see an agenda or an announcement that the Greater Lowndes
Planning Commission (GLPC) was meeting yesterday?

Agenda @ GLPC 2013-01-28
Nor did LAKE.
Matt Martin, Valdosta City Planner, usually sends an agenda to
Gretchen, but there were no Valdosta items on this agenda,
so he apparently didn’t even get one.
And the county still doesn’t publish GLPC agendas,
so if there was an item on there that affected you, how could you know?
Does that seem right to you?

On the agenda were three Lowndes County rezoning items,
all involving C-H (Highway Commercial),
and one Lake Park rezoning case, going to
R-P (Residential/Professional).
Here’s a summary of the cases.
You know, if I can do this in a couple of minutes by
typing it in from a photograph that Gretchen took, Lowndes County could
do it in a second by pressing Export to PDF.
Now that there’s a new Chairman, maybe he’ll say they should do that.

Lowndes County,

Final action

Tuesday 12 Feb 2013 		4. REZ-2012-20 Corbett

US 41 South and Newsome Road, Valdosta

Request to rezone ~5 acres from E-A (Estate Agriculture) to
C-H (Highway Commercial)
5. REZ-2013-01 Barrentine

102 Davis Road East, Valdosta

Request to rezone 1.2 acres from
C-H (Highway Commercial)
to
R-1 (Low Density Residential)
6. REZ-2013-02 Interstate Land Management

Briarwood Road along I-75, Valdosta

Request to rezone 4.87 acres from
R-1 (Low Density Residential)
to
C-H (Highway Commercial)
Lake Park,

Final Action

Tuesday 5 Feb 2013 		LP-12-2012-01 Karen K. Nolan and Blanche C. Bush

105 Broadway Street, Lake Park

Request to rezone 0.46 acres from
R-15 (Single Family Residential)
to
R-P (Residential/Professional)

-jsq

Work Session Minutes @ LCC 2011-01-10

Ordinance or policy?
That question comes up for at least two items,



Special assessment
and

Speed control devices,
in the

minutes of the 10 January 2011 Work Session
of the Lowndes County Commission.
-jsq

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

MINUTES

WORK SESSION

Monday, January 10, 2011

Continue reading →

What people are interested in having their pennies spent on —Gretchen Quarterman

Received yesterday on

Allocate resources in a yearly budget? -jsq

As I was out campaigning, it was interesting what people are


interested in having their pennies spent on. Many want better
sidewalks and safer places to ride their bikes. One Valdosta police
officer particularly commented on the dangerous bike riding
conditions (especially on North Oak Extension). Many in the
un-incorporated areas want increased fire protection and it seems
that everyone better drainage (and I don't mean simply open ditches
for rain water) and still others would like to see some soccer
fields.

It seems like we should be able to do some prioritizations and then
save up for these things. I guess that will be up to the new
commission chairman and members and they will have to figure out how
to move forward without a SPLOST immediately in 2014.

Personally, I'd like to see a public accounting of how the previous
SPLOSTS were spent. And not in big categories, but the actual
details… But that's just me.

-Gretchen Quarterman

-jsq

Allocate resources in a yearly budget?

Received today on

SPLOST VII lost. -jsq

After reading this post, a question came to mind. Have we the
citizens of Lowndes County


actually been encouraging our elected
officials to be fiscally irresponsible with public funds by allowing
SPLOST to continue? if elected officials had to allocate resources
in a yearly budget, we may actually encourage our officials to
allocate resources towards public projects that would be desirable
by the public rather than a priority in pthe minds of our elected
officials.

-Bill Grow

Congratulations Dexter Sharper, Demarcus Marshall, Chris Prine, and Justin Cabral!



Congratulations to Valdosta’s new state rep for District 177
Dexter Sharper who won by 67% to 33% over opponent Glenn Gregory,
who fought a spirited and clean campaign.
I look forward to Representative Sharper

meeting with the governor
and working for our community without compromise under the gold dome in Atlanta.

I’ll come back to the other statehouse races in a separate post.
Ditto the other statewide races.
Meanwhile, congratulations to some local winners below.



Congratulations new Lowndes County Commissioner for District 4
Demarcus Marshall, winning 64.91% to 35.09%
after spirited debate and much agreement
with opponent John Gates.
I look forward to Commissioner Marshall

grappling with education, jobs, tourism, and personnel
down at the county palace.




Congratulations on re-election, Lowndes County Sheriff Chris Prine!
Challenger J.D. Yeager fought a good fight, but the voters said
63.53% to 36.47% they did not
want to go back to the previous administration.
I look forward to Sheriff Prine continuing to protect the safety of
all the citizens of Lowndes County, including those in the cities.



Congratulations Solicitor General Justin Cabral on retaining your post
51.56% to 48.44%!
Very honorable mention to challenger Jason Cain,
who canvassed himself pretty close to winning.

Congratulations Joyce Evans

Continue reading →

SPLOST VII lost



Speaking of

transparency,
Lowndes County voters defeated SPLOST VII 18,864 to 17,923 (51.28% to 48.72%).

Kay Harris in the VDT today quoted Ashley Paulk with this reason:

The defeat came as a surprise to Mayor John Gayle but not to Lowndes
County Commission Chairman Ashley Paulk, who said he warned the
mayors of the five municipalities that if they continued to argue
over

LOST, the local option sales tax, that voters would turn
against SPLOST in retaliation.

“I told them at the beginning if they didn’t stop arguing over
a few percent of the LOST and refused to leave the numbers as is by
taking the county’s offer, that taxpayers were going to turn against
the SPLOST,” said Paulk.

“Voters are disenchanted with the way their local governments
have gotten greedy and they’re tired of the arguments over money.
They voted SPLOST down because they don’t trust us with their tax
dollars, and it’s a real shame.”

I would agree
bickering over the
LOST pie was one of the reasons
SPLOST lost, and add to that the opaque back-room processes by which
the SPLOST VII projects were selected.
While the library needs updated and expanded facilities,

the lack of documented decision process
for the architect

and lack of adequate explanation for that
probably didn’t help, either,
nor did
the county’s puzzling lumping of the library in with Parks and Rec.

which they later tried to clarify.
Perhaps the voters are

tired of seeing transparency be a constant source of tension.
And I’m using the library as just one example. I could equally cite the
project for a farmers market under the overpass, which I think is a bad idea
because the farmers market already has a fabulous location at the historic
Lowndes County Courthouse, and so far as I know none of the vendors who sell there
were even asked if they wanted a new location, much less the public who buy there.

At the public-not-invited
SPLOST VII kickoff speeches
the last speaker said they were not there

Continue reading →

15,006 Voted in Lowndes County Georgia by 27 Oct 2012

15,006 people have voted in Lowndes County Georgia
in the first two weeks of early voting, including Saturday:


Daily and 15,006 Total voting in Lowndes County Georgia by 27 October 2012

Date Daily Total
Monday October 15 1,636 1,636
Tuesday October 16 1,225 2,861
Wednesday October 17 956 3,817
Thursday October 18 643 4,460
Friday October 19 1,433 5,893
Tuesday October 23 1,449 9,173
Wednesday October 24 1,363 10,536
Thursday October 25 1,408 11,944
Friday October 26 1,783 13,727
Saturday October 27 1,279 15,003
Data courtesy of Lowndes County Board of Elections.

You can still vote

during extended voting hours this week at the Board of Elections,
or on that great election day, November 6th,
at your precinct.


Several recent elections here have been decided by less than 100 votes.
Your vote counts!

-jsq

Voted in Lowndes County Georgia by 25 Oct 2012

There was a dropoff in the first week of early voting,
but it picked back up last Friday and this week.
Daily and Total voting in Lowndes County Georgia by 25 October 2012:


Daily and Total voting in Lowndes County Georgia by 25 October 2012

Date Daily Total
October 15, 2012 1636 1636
October 16, 2012 1225 2861
October 17, 2012 956 3817
October 18, 2012 643 4460
October 19, 2012 1433 5893
October 23, 2012 1449 9173
October 24, 2012 1363 10536
October 25, 2012 1408 11944
Data courtesy of Tiffany Linkswiler, Lowndes County Board of Elections.

Somewhere around 20-25% of registered voters have already voted.
But there are plenty more voters out there.
You can still vote

today, Saturday, during extended voting hours next week,
or on that great election day, November 6th.


Several recent elections here have been decided by less than 100 votes.
Your vote counts!

-jsq