Category Archives: Lowndes County Commission

Locals weigh in on presidential debate on WCTV

Who would understand base politics better than Jack Kingston?


Jack Kingston's green tongue
“I think for base politics, the red meat Democrats, the red meat Republicans, they like to see a good squabble and they saw one.”

Kingston,

who lapped up Moody Air Force Base with his green tongue.
He left out the rest of Lowndes County, so he’s barely local anymore.
But two others on WCTV last night are local.

Eames Yates wrote for WCTV yesterday,

Emotions of Local Politicians and Voters Run High After Debate,


Laverne Gaskins
Laverne Lewis Gaskins is with Obama For America. She said “it was a
decisive victory for President Obama. I think he was clear in his
message. He was able to articulate the future that he has for
America.”

Congressman Kingston said “I really think it was a tie. I would like
to say that Romney won, but I have to say I think Obama won on some
questions.”

That’s Jack-speak for he would like to say that, but he can’t, because
he knows it’s not true.
Laverne was more straightforward. So was Gretchen:

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Candidates Forum today @ HBA 2012-10-18

Candidates Forum, 7-9PM today 18 October 2012, at the



Rainwater Conference Center,
1 Meeting Place, Valdosta, GA,
organized by the



Home Builders Association of South Georgia
and

NewsTalk105.9 WVGA,
moderated by Chris Beckham.

This thing is astonishingly poorly advertised,
unless you happen to follow one of the organizing organizations.
It’s not in the VDT calendar,
it’s not on

the conference center’s calendar,
and people keep asking when and where is it.
Now you know.




Here are

videos (from three different cameras) of all the candidate presentations
of the
2 October 2012 Meet the Candidates event at VSU.
Tonight, if I understand correctly from there being a moderator, they debate.
Presumably all the same candidates will be there:

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Valdosta: 3rd poorest city

Valdosta #3! Followed by Albany #4! In poorest cities in the country.
What can we do about that?

Michael B. Sauter, Alexander E.M. Hess and Samuel Weigley, 24/7 Wall St.,
wrote for NBC News 14 October 2012,

America’s richest and poorest cities,



3. Valdosta, Ga.

  • Median household income: $32,446
  • Population: 140,599 (87th lowest)
  • Unemployment rate: 9.2 percent(140th highest)
  • Percent households below poverty line: 27.6 percent (ninth highest)

From 2007 to 2011, the unemployment rate in Valdosta increased by
130 percent, from 4 percent of workers to 9.2 percent. The number of
employed workers declined by more than 6,000 during that time. Those
jobs remaining often pay a lower salary. Last year, nearly 17
percent of the work force was employed in the generally low-paying
retail industry, the sixth highest percentage of all metro areas. In
2007, just 11.3 percent of the labor force worked in retail.
Valdosta, however, has an improving and active housing market. Home
prices rose nearly 12 percent between 2007 and 2011. Despite these
positives, 14.4 percent of housing units were vacant last year,
higher than the national vacancy rate of 13.1 percent. Also, 15.3
percent of homes were worth less than $50,000 versus 8.8 percent
nationwide.

The study is actually for “U.S. metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs”
and this population is not just for Valdosta, it’s for the

Valdosta MSA,
which includes Brooks, Echols, Lanier, and Lowndes Counties.

Look who’s next on the list:

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See Gretchen Quarterman on the radio


Gretchen Quarterman on Chris Beckham's radio show 11 October 2012
“I think people would be more interested in government if they could see it going on,”
said

Gretchen Quarterman,
candidate for Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission,
on the Chris Beckham drive-time radio show
11 October 2012,

105.9, WVGA.
Here’s

video of that interview,
followed by some excerpts.

A few excerpts:

Our county government does a lot of stuff really great…
but one of the things they don’t do very well
don’t advertise themselves;
not very transparent;
they don’t say what a great job they’re doing;
so I thought we could improve in that area.

The County Commission a couple of years ago had

two different studies commissioned
about growth and planning, and one of them was…

Sprawl to ruin, by Prof. Dorfman

growth close to existing services.
The county already has an urban service area, like how far the
water line goes, how far the sewer line goes.
And that growth should be infilled, and not expand outside of that area,
because that saves resources in terms of how far you have to send the
sheriff, how far the school bus has to go.
And they also gave an average house price, what it costs in terms of
property taxes to support the services that are sent to them, to a development.

So I would say close in to existing services is the way to go.

We need to actively seek out manufacturing jobs,

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Video Playlist @ LCC 2012-10-09



The big item at Tuesday’s Lowndes County Commission Regular Session
was, same as

at Monday’s Work Session,
the waste management railroad,

terminating in a decision.
Other topics included citizen Karen Noll speaking

against the charter school amendment.

Here’s

the agenda
with links to the videos and a few notes, or links to separate posts.
Apologies for the poor sound on the first videos;
we didn’t have the usual camera.
Of course, if the Commission did its own videoing and posting, that problem
would be unlikely to occur.




  1. Call to Order
  2. Invocation
  3. Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag

  4. Minutes for Approval

    1. Work Session — September 24, 2012
    2. Regular Session — September 25, 2012



  5. Public Hearing — REZ-2012-15 Glenn O’Neal,     Pecan Plantation Rd. & US Hwy 84 W E-A to C-H, County
    Water & Septic, ~4.5 acres
  6. For Consideration


    1. Bevel Creek Lift Station Pump Repair
    2. Alapaha Waterline size Increase

    3. Beer License — Naylor’s Pantry — 8777 E. Hwy 135
    4. Refunding Revenue Bonds

    5. Solid Waste Management Request for Proposal
  7. Reports




    1. Community Planning Month Proclamation


      Plus recognition of two planners from Moody AFB.

    2. Employee Health Fair



    Chairman Ashley Paulk interjected not on the agenda




    • some comments about recently deceased former VSU president Hugh C. Bailey,

    • and noted the fire chief had a new fire truck, which was parked outside.
  8. Citizens Wishing to be Heard Please State Name And Address





    • Karen Noll spoke against the charter school amendment,
      saying it would implement taxation without representation Karen Noll @ LCC 2012-10-09 and would take more tax dollars from our public schools to give twice as much money to special charter school students.


    • Ken Klanicki never actually even approached the podium.
      After being asked by the chairman to come to the podium or leave the room,
      he wandered to the back of the room and was escorted out by a deputy sheriff.
      He called me by name as he left, but I have no idea what he was trying to
      accomplish.
      He called me later, but when I asked him that, he had no explanation.

Here’s

a video playlist.
It shifts from the first camera (good video, poor sound) to the second camera (video with no closeups, good sound) in the middle, when I arrived with the second camera.
The rest of the first camera videos are tacked onto the end.
Next time we’ll attempt to have the good camera.


Video Playlist

Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 9 October 2012.

-jsq

 

Charter school amendment: taxation without representation —Karen Noll @ LCC 2012-10-09

Karen Noll spoke to the Lowndes County Commission Tuesday
about the charter school amendment,
saying it would implement taxation without representation

Karen Noll @ LCC 2012-10-09
and would take more tax dollars from our public schools
to give twice as much money to special charter school students.

When you’re talking about my kids in the schools
and you’re going to take their money
and ship it to somebody else’s family and then there’s no accountability,
that’s just unacceptable.

Here’s

the video.

-jsq

“I don’t think it could get any easier” –Richard Raines on solid waste @ LCC 2012-10-09 @ LCC 2012-10-09

Tuesday the Lowndes County Commission voted to abolish
the current rural waste collection centers and to contract with Veolia
for waste pickup like in urban areas.
This decision on an essentially rural matter
was made by three urban Commissioners without any public
hearing on their current RFP.

Before deciding,

County Manager Joe Pritchard gave the history of the county's
waste management railroad.
A curiously redacted history.



As y'all know, in FY 04 and 05,
operating costs of the solid waste program was approximately
$1.1 million increasing at a rate of approximately 10% a year.
As a result the at-that-time recently passed service delivery
[…] act of General Assembly, the county and the cities of Lowndes County
were forced to come to an agreement on the delivery of the vasrious services.
As a result of that, solid waste came to be funded strictly on a user fee basis.

I'm guessing he's referring to HB 489, the

Local government service delivery strategy agreement of 1997.
As we learned from Richard Raines Monday,

it's not clear HB 489 precluded a special tax district for waste disposal
similar to the special tax lighting districts the county often sets up
for streetlights in subdivisions.
I've seen no indication the county ever seriously looked into that.

In April and May of 2008 the county advertised and conducted a series
of eight public meetings in which we were asked by Commission
to gather input from the public regarding the various options that
were available.
During those meetings it was obvious that there was not one clear
option that was chosen by the public.

Obvious to whom?
For that matter,

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WCTV on LCC Chair Candidates


Greg Gullberg at the Lowndes County Palace
Greg Gullberg wrote for WCTV today,

Lowndes County Commission Chair Candidates Polar Opposites,

The Chairman of a County Commission can have great impact on the
lives of residents. And in one local county, the candidates couldn’t
be more different.

She wants to make it easier to see what the Commission is doing;
he worries ordinances make it too difficult for business.


Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes County Chairwoman

Bill Slaughter for Lowndes County Chairman


Gretchen Quarterman speaking to the Lowndes County Commission

WCTV using LAKE video
Here’s
the WCTV video,
which appears to start with outtakes from LAKE videos of Commission meetings.
LAKE videos that were taken by… Gretchen Quarterman.
The one of her speaking to the Commission? Camera on a tripod.


-jsq

Waste disposal discussions with Richard Raines —Gretchen Quarterman @ LCC 2012-10-09


Gretchen Quarterman
Waste disposal issues in Lowndes County are more complex than one might think,
and transparent processes could help citizens understand these stewardship
issues, while helping the local government do its job.

Commissioner Raines called me yesterday evening after I had left him
a voice mail and an e-mail letting him know that I had some
questions.

I was particularly curious about the proposals

in column “F” which asked for:

Contractor(s) agrees to provide an independent proposal option to
address residential solid waste, bulky item, yard waste and
recyclable materials collection, transportation and disposal,
collection center management and related customer service, records,
billing and payment processing services for unincorporated Lowndes
County residents.

Proposal “F” Pricing —

Residential solid waste, bulky item, yard waste and recyclable
materials collection, transportation and disposal, collection
center management and related customer service, records, billing
and payment processing services.

$______________ per month/subscriber

This was an opportunity for the vendors to provide some option that
the county had not asked for but used their expertise in waste
disposal and offer a creative solution.


Lowndes County Solid Waste RFP Summary Sheet October 9, 2012

The prices in column “F” ranged from $8.33 to $19.95 to “Negotiate”.

Commissioner Raines briefly explained what had been submitted by
each vendor and it became clear that there was not a creative
winning solution proposed there. In fact, submitting a “Negotiate
Rates and Program” is clearly a failure.

We then went on to discuss at length the whole solid waste disposal
history, problems, options, and so on. Commissioner Raines stressed
his focus

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Videos: Water, water, water, waste! and planning? @ LCC 2012-10-08


The big news
was the
waste disposal railroad, but the Lowndes County Commission also
heard about three water issues (one a rezoning), plus a beer
license, revenue bonds, community planning month, and a health fair
at its Work Session this morning.

Here’s the
agenda, with links to the videos and a few notes, or links to
separate posts.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF
COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd
Floor

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