The county is considering
an
insurance plan
(
Section 125 or cafeteria or flexible benefit),
presumably related to the
health plan
they’re also considering.
They may
abandon Green Lane.
The only family living on Green Lane appears to be
Alphonso Simmons Jr.
Here’s the agenda.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
According to Deep South Sanitation, their next court date is
Monday 25 November 2013 at 9:30 AM, presumably at the
Lowndes County Judicial Complex, 327 N. Ashley Street, Valdosta, GA 31601.
The longer you drag this out, Lowndes County, the more
good press DSS gets out of it.
DSS reports 25 new customers for the fourth quarter,
providing $125 to Lake Park Elementary School.
Oh yes, the alleged county attorney spending our tax dollars to sue Deep South Sanitation was the attorney for many of the cities that sued about LOST and just lost before the Georgia Supreme Court, resulting in many cities and counties scurrying around to make rapid agreements, including Lowndes County and Valdosta.
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Yes we’ll take the 2002 percentages offered by Lowndes County, voted the the Valdosta City Council this morning at a Special Called Meeting.
The vote result is from Council Tim Carroll, who says they will revisit the percentages after the Georgia legislature does whatever it’s going to do about LOST in January. Here’s the notice of the meeting on Valdosta’s website:
Notice of a Special Called City Council Meeting
Posted Date: 10/16/2013The Valdosta City Council has scheduled a Special Called City Council Meeting for Thursday, October 17, 2013 at 8:00 a.m. at City Hall, 216 East Central Avenue, Council Chambers. The purpose of this Special Called Council Meeting is to discuss the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST).
For more information, please contact Teresa S. Bolden, City Clerk, at 259-3503 or tbolden@valdostacity.com.
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Spectra Energy subsidiary Sabal Trail Transmission held
a landowner one-on-one at Wiregrass Tech last night.
Matthew Woody of the VDT was there, as was one Valdosta City Council
member, one Lowndes County Commissioner, and at least two county staff,
plus some landowners (“might as well get something out of this”,
several said at the food bar), one of whom was a match for Andrea Grover.
Matthew Woody, VDT:
Continue reading
In a highly irregular 4 to 1 vote with the Chairman voting,
the Lowndes County Commission voted to stick with
58% for the county, 42% for the cities from
LOST,
the same as the county’s
original position
from
April 2012.
No real agenda was posted by the county, so below I’ve made one up to match the videos.
and immediate adjourn to executive session for attorney-client privileges.
County Manager Joe Pritchard shooed the Commissioners, the alleged County Attorney, the County Clerk, the Finance Director, and one or two other staff into the back room.
Reconvene into open session
Chairman Bill Slaughter divulged the purpose of the meeting so they could vote on it. The decision was 58% of SPLOST for the county and 42% for the cities, to be divided among the cities as they see fit. The vote was 4 to 1. Which is rather odd, since you can clearly hear Chairman Bill Slaughter voting ” aye” and raising his hand. Continue reading
Gretchen reports LOST was the topic at today’s special called meeting of the Lowndes County Commission. And yes, they went into executive session. Rumor has it that it’s not 120 days to come to an agreement, rather this week is the deadline. That’s what seems to be happening over in Hall County.
Sarah Mueller wrote for Gainesville Times today, Hall commissioners to consider new local option sales tax certificate,
Hall County Administrator Randy Knighton said the special called commission meeting today at 4 p.m. at the Hall County Government Center in Gainesville was in response to a suggestion from the Association County Commissioners of Georgia. ACCG has talked with the Department of Revenue and the Georgia Attorney General’s Office.
“(ACCG) has advised us that each county who has been engaged in the LOST arbitration proceedings submit a new LOST certificate to the Revenue Department this week,” Knighton said.
Knighton declined Monday to say Continue reading
Could that pending litigation be the county’s lawsuit against Deep South Sanitation about that exclusive franchise that benefits ADS investors in New York City? Will they go straight into executive session?
On the county’s online calendar, with nothing on their front page, and nothing in the online VDT public notices. Here’s the county’s PDF and here’s the text:
Lowndes County, Georgia
Board Of Commissioners
SPECIAL CALLED MEETING
A Special Called Meeting of the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will be held on Tuesday, October 15, 2013, at 3:00 p.m. The meeting will be held in Commission Chambers, located on the second floor of the Lowndes County Judicial‐Administrative Complex, 327 North Ashley Street, Valdosta, Georgia. The Special Called Meeting is being held for attorney client communication regarding pending litigation.Office of the County Clerk
K. Paige Dukes
229‐671‐2400
pdukes@lowndescounty.com
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So all our tax money the county spent on the
alleged county attorney
arguing
before the state Supreme Court was wasted.
The remaining law seems to say by 120 days from Monday
the cities and the county need to come to an agreement.
Kay Harris wrote for the VDT yesterday, Lowndes LOST in limbo: Supreme Court tosses key amendment,
In a ruling issued Monday, Oct. 7, the Supreme Court of Georgia declared a 2010 amendment to the Local Option Sales Tax Act unconstitutional, reasoning that the amendment would delegate a legislative function of allocating tax proceeds to the judicial branch of government, a violation of the Separation of Powers clause of the Georgia Constitution.
For Lowndes County, the ruling effectively renders the lawsuit moot that was filed by the five cities against the county in September 2012.
The Supreme Court’s ruling came in the case of Turner County vs. the City of Ashburn over a dispute in splitting the proceeds from the one cent sales tax, the same issue in the Lowndes lawsuit. By declaring the portion unconstitutional that would allow a judge to decide how to allocate the tax dollars between the entities, the issue is now in limbo for several counties in Georgia.
You may recall that
former Chairman Ashley Paulk
wasn’t interested in discussing proposals from the cities,
and said from before
the LOST negotiations began
that he expected it to go to arbitration.
This was the same Chairman Ashley Paulk who put SPLOST VII on the ballot
a year early and
lost it.
I wonder how much input County Manager Joe Pritchard had into these two losing decisions?
At least SPLOST VI hasn’t expired yet and there’s time for the voters to go again on SPLOST VII in November.
What happens now with LOST? Continue reading
Two, four, six, many:
that’s how Lowndes County counts tenants.
It’s great the county is providing space for organizations
that help the needy,
but it’s kind of curious that the county didn’t seem to know
who or how many organizations were using the Leila Ellis building,
and had no lease agreement with them.
Not to mention it took twenty questions from Commissioners to get
staff to admit that lack of contracts,
at Monday morning’s
Lowndes County Commission Work Session.
6.b. Leila Ellis Building-Available Space
Kind of like they have no contract with the alleged county attorney.
Chad McCleod at one point said two organizations are currently in the building, LAMP and Cash Prosperity. He said the County let LAMP use it, and LAMP let Cash Prosperity use it.
In response to a question from Commissioner DeMarcus Marshall, County Manager Joe Pritchard said under normal circumstances any organization would need to come to the Commission to ask for space. They currently have more applicants than space.
Commissioner Crawford Powell wanted to know if the county was going to set up guidelines for who could lease. Pritchard said they could, and they couldn’t lease to a private business.
Commissioner Richard Raines wanted to know if annual leases were the practice of this board. Pritchard, not actually answering the question asked, said “That would be my suggestion.”
JoTaryla Thomas
came up to speak for Continue reading
Six minutes on who will be
Vice Chairman and when,
a ceremonial position, as far as I know.
13 minutes on a parade of organizations that want to rent space in the
Leila Ellis.
They vote tonight at 5:30 PM.
The storm that wasn’t was the subject of Ashley Tye’s report. They tabled Nottinghill like the Planning Commission did. They vote tonight on letting Barrington subdivision sprawl into the county. Did Commissioners ever get that list of roads for striping? Do we have enough evidence yet for juvenile justice? Or will we continue to concentrate on fining people coming off of I-75? All that and a group photo. At least the Work Session yesterday morning had some actual discussion in it for a change.
Here’s the agenda with links to the videos and a few notes.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor