Speaking to the Lowndes County Commission on 8 March 2011,
Nolen Cox said businesses produce money and government consumes it,
and he doesn’t like taxes.
Speaking to the Lowndes County Commission on 8 March 2011,
I read from
VLCIA “inter-governmental funding agreement” with Lowndes County,
noting that VLCIA’s own audited annual financial report seems to be out of date,
since it still says VLCIA asks the Lowndes County Commission for its funds.
And I wondered about this part in Note F:
The bonds are secured by an “inter-governmental” funding agreement
between the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority and Lowndes
County, Georgia.
I repeated what I wrote before:
If the Lowndes County government is co-guarantor of VLCIA’s bonds,
how can the Lowndes County Commission say it has no responsibility or
control over what VLCIA does? I am not a CPA, but the term “fiduciary
responsibility” comes to mind.
If I’m reading that right (I am not a CPA), VLCIA took out about $15M
in bonds for which they will pay back a total of about $23.5M. Is that
really $8.5M in debt service, or about 56% of the original principal?
I pointed out that VLCIA seems to have about $8.3 million in cash
Continue reading →
So today we have a report of a tornado at
Poulan (west of Tifton),
tornados in Alabama and west,
and right now the storm is sitting on top of Tallahassee in a circular pattern:
Despite the lack of historic twister activity around New Orleans,
tornado climatology indicates they become much more common due north
into south central Mississippi and expanding northeast and northwest
from northern Alabama across northern Louisiana, southwest Tennessee
and into eastern Arkansas.
As you can see by the map they posted from a recent study,
one pocket of this new tornado alley, nicknamed Dixie Alley,
is in south Georgia.
The article goes on to quote a different study that said:
…Dixie Alley has the highest frequency of long-track F3 to F5 tornadoes,
making it the most active region in the United States. … Based on this
analysis, colloquial tornado alley fails to represent the areas of highest
activity in the United States, indicating that a more comprehensive
analysis of additional tornado alleys in the United States by the NWS
may be needed in the future.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION CANCELLED
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2011, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Call to Order
Invocation
Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
Minutes for Approval
Work Session – February 21, 2011
Regular Session – February 22, 2011
Public Hearings – REZ-2011-02 Cat Creek, 4097 Cat Creek Road, 0144 050, 9.18 ac., ~23 lots, R-21
to R-10
Citizens Wishing to be Heard Please State Name And Address
For Consideration
Smith Northview Services Agreement
Inmate Medical Savings Program
Resolution and Contract for the Hazardous Waste Trust Fund (HWTF)
Reports-County Manager
According to
the Lowndes County Tax Assessor’s Office,
the 9.18 acres at 4097 Cat Creek Road are owned by Narvel R. Briggs
of 243 Park Street, Somerset, NJ 08873
with no sales on that land reported since 1982.
I would guess this is not a big developer, rather a child of the original owner.
So I’ll give you my opinion, like I gave it to the County Commission,
and at the end of this post there’s a chronological list of links to
all the NOAA Weather Radio posts so far.
But first, what do these radios do?
According
to NOAA:
NWR is an “All Hazards” radio network, making it your single source for
comprehensive weather and emergency information. In conjunction with
Federal, State, and Local Emergency Managers and other public officials,
NWR also broadcasts warning and post-event information for all types
of hazards – including natural (such as earthquakes or avalanches),
environmental (such as chemical releases or oil spills), and public safety
(such as AMBER alerts or 911 Telephone outages).
I spoke after
J.L. Clark on 22 Feb 2011.
There is no video, because LAKE had only one camera at that meeting.
From memory, here is the gist of what I said.
I live out on the edge of the county.
I remember when Ashley Paulk moved in next door.
Clark pointed out that nobody said anything when the state effectively
raised property taxes.
He read off a list of other grants the county has accepted,
and asked:
Are you going to return those grants?
I think not.
He brought up a recent earthquake and pointed out those radios
would be quite useful in such a natural disaster.
I ask the Commissioners to think before you act,
and not to react to you-know-what.
The commissioners made no response.
Here’s
the video:
Lowndes County Commission, 22 Feb 2011, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Video by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
We’ve already seen staff present the case for
about 5,000 NOAA Weather Radios at $21.50 each, paid for out of grant money.
They made that case at the 8:30AM 7 Feb 2011 Lowndes County Commission Work Session.
stating Lowndes County had been awarded $107,500.00, in Hazard Mitigation
grant funding for the purchase of 5,000 NOAA weather radios to benefit
all of Lowndes County. Mr. Tye added that Alert Works had presented the
low bid in the amount of $21.50 per radio.
Finally, the Commission had some discussion.
According to the minutes:
Continue reading →
We’ve already heard about NOAA Weather Radios from two different citizens,
Nolen Cox
and Ken Klanicki.
What are they talking about?
As usual, much of the discussion was in the work session
(8:30 AM Monday 7 Feb 2011), available here in two parts.
In
Part 1
staff talks about buying about 5,000 NOAA weather radios
so the citizens can get weather news.
Low bidder would charge $21.50 per radio.
Lowndes County Commission, 7 Feb 2011, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman and John S. Quarterman
for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
In
Part 2, staff notes that the grant would require that
the radios can’t be earmarked, so people could come to the
county office to pick up radios, and staff proposes to have
several community events throughout the community, well-advertised,
for people to pick up radios and staff to answer questions about them.
One of the commissioners notes:
That’s almost $108,000 tax money
what happens to that grant money if, we say you know,
it might not be a good idea […]
what happens to that?
Some people compare LAKE to Wikileaks, so let’s go there.
Julian Assange, like
Wendell Berry,
links the civil rights movement and the environmental movement.
He
then says:
“For the Internet generation this is our challenge and this is our time.
We support a cause that is no more radical a proposition than that the citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state.
The state has asserted its authority by surveilling, monitoring and regimenting all of us, all the while hiding behind cloaks of security and opaqueness.
Surely it was only a matter of time before citizens pushed back and we asserted our rights.”
“the citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state”
sound very familiar to us.
Locally it’s more a matter of elected and appointed bodies ignoring
their chartered responsibilities to
the public good and the general welfare.
Well, many people are also tired of the permit inspection brigade,
but that’s another story.