Category Archives: Lowndes County Commission

1 change order, 2 grants, 3 rezonings, 1 KLVB appointment @ LCC 2014-04-07

A non-competitive no-RFP un-explained change order, this time for Val Del Road, on the agenda for the Lowndes County Commission. Would you like to know why county staff doesn’t want to go out for competitive bids before spending your tax money? We can guess it’s about that shoulder paving they just approved $949,493.85 for to Scruggs Company. But why should we have to guess if that’s it and why they need a change order for a million dollar project at the very next Commission meeting?

We’d be able to see why if the board packets were online with the agenda, as happens in many metropolitan areas, such as Leon County, Florida, or Glynn County, Georgia, or Richmond County, Georgia. Our own Lowndes County Board of Education often links board packet items in with its agenda.

While much smaller Glynn County Continue reading →

Videos: Candidates, Landowners, Methane and Solar Power @ SpectraBusters 2014-03-29

Candidates for Lowndes County Commission went on the record ( Mark Wisenbaker and Tom Hochschild both running for District 3, and Norman Bennett and Gretchen Quarterman both running for District 5), plus a statement by County Chairman Bill Slaughter, in addition to essential background information from directly affected landowners in the audience and from the panelists on why the proposed Sabal Trail methane pipeline is bad for property values, is hazardous here and elsewhere, and will be obsolete in a few decades, all at a SpectraBusters panel on the Sabal Trail pipeline at VSU, Saturday 29 March 2014.

The panelists were Continue reading →

Videos: Lake Park annexation dropped and apartment rezoning unpopular @ GLPC 2014-03-31

The annexation request for The Gardens was withdrawn (perhaps because the Lowndes County Commission had already explored options for modifying it or just not annexing it), and the rezoning for the Brookhaven apartments was very unpopular, both for Lake Park, plus a Zoning Ordinance change. The twin Hahira cases to rezone and then annex a lot on the east edge of town sailed through. No city of Valdosta cases this time.

Here’s the agenda, with links to the videos.

Continue reading →

Videos of Day 1 @ LCC-Budget 2014-03-10

It’s a good thing the county held these first-ever (as far as I know) comprehensive budget sessions. Here are videos of the first day. Most of the departments are asking for more money, due to increased population and increased demand for services during a period of economic downturn. Something needs to be done, and these sessions are one step in getting to doing something.

Here’s the agenda.

Sheriff Prine @ LCC-Budget 2014-03-10

Lowndes County Sheriff Prine talked about Administration, the Jail, the Commissary, and Enforcement at the first day of Budget Presentations to the Lowndes County Commission, 10 March 2014. Like most other county-funded departments, he asked for more personnel. The long squeeze of the economic downturn needs to be addressed somehow. These videos show how the Sheriff proposes to address them.

Continue reading →

Hahira twins and three each Lake Park and Lowndes County @ GLPC 2014-03-31

The twin Hahira cases are to rezone and then annex a lot on the east edge of town. No city of Valdosta cases this time, but three each for Lowndes County and Lake Park. One of the Lake Park cases is a Zoning Ordinance change.

Here’s the agenda, which arrived as a PDF of an image, which I have OCRed into HTML.

Greater Lowndes Planning Commission

Lowndes County City of Valdosta City of Dasher City of Hahira City of Lake Park

REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING

AGENDA

Lowndes County South Health District Administrative Office
325 West Savannah Avenue

Monday, March 31, 2014* 5:30 P.M. * Public Hearing

Continue reading →

Whom do you serve? A question for local government

A question asked about big oil and Mobile is just as relevant to every local and state government along the proposed Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline, and Transco and Florida Southeast Connection, too. A couple of local elected officials and several candidates did make public statements Saturday (stay tuned), so maybe we’re starting to get some answers to this question in Lowndes County, Georgia. Some other locations have already been getting answers.

Brad Nolen wrote for New American Journal 28 March 2014, How Big Oil Controls Local Governments: Whom Do You Serve? Thoughts on Local Government and Dirty Industries,

Now, it should go without saying that the purpose of councils, commissions and public office in general is to represent the varied interests of the citizens, and hopefully through consensus- seeking achieve some semblance of collective wisdom; and then, if we’re really lucky to apply said wisdom in charting our course toward a Mobile our great grandchildren will be proud to inherit.

Yet, when it came to finding a voice to protect our drinking water from Big Oil, we heard nothing substantive from our local leaders, even though we marched on their doorsteps in boots that are still wet with BP oil.

And now, Continue reading →

How to invite toxic industries to your county

Maybe we should stop inviting toxic industries to Lowndes County. We’ve been doing that with coal ash, PCBs, superfund wastewater, used diapers in recycling, and suing local businesses while not terminating an exclusive franchise with a company that is involved in all of that. Not to mention Sterling Chemical.

Here in Lowndes County we have TVA coal ash and Florida coal ash in our landfill, and the landfill operator spreads the coal ash on roads on the site, which is just uphill from the Withlacoochee River. GA EPD fined that landfill operator $27,500 in January 2013 for accepting PCBs into that same Pecan Row Landfill. The same landfill that accepted 196,500 gallons of wastewater from the Seven Out Superfund site in Waycross, GA.

A landfill that is in an aquifer recharge zone. Continue reading →

District 3 down to two candidates for Lowndes County Commission

The southern District 3 for Lowndes County Commission is down to only two candidates, one Democrat and one Republican, so there will be no primary races and Tom Hochschild (D) and Mark Wisenbaker (R) will face each other in the general election in November. Retiring candidate Don Thieme (D) throws his support behind Hochschild. District 3 is mostly the south half of the county, but it also wraps around Valdosta to incorporate Remerton and VSU. See detail map or PDF of district 1,2,3 as found on lowndescounty.com.

And Crawford Powell has withdrawn from the race for House District 174, so that leaves only two candidates there, too: Jessie Smith (D) and John L. Corbett (R), with no primary races, to face each other in November.

Continue reading →

Videos: Mostly Paving and Bridges @ LCC 2014-03-24

Yesterday morning they discussed a turnkey government website service. And an annexation request by the City of Hahira. And they may actually be serious about coming into the 21st century with online county services.

Turns out the road resurfacing of four roads is actually mostly from a GDOT LMIG grant, but the other three, shoulder paving on Val Del Road and Boring Pond Road and a bridge replacement on Cat Creek Road are all from SPLOST VII funds. Plus some trucks for Animal Control and tablets for the Fire Department, an alcohol license, and some alphabet-soup agreements, one of which turned out to be for a grant for a victim advocate position in the Solicitor General’s office.

Here’s the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, MARCH 24, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Continue reading →