According to the
online calendar
of the Lowndes County Commission:
Budget Public Hearing (6/19/2012)
The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will hold a Public Hearing
for the purpose of adopting the FY13 Proposed Budget at 8:30 a.m. in
the Commission Chambers, located on the 2nd floor of the Administration
Building, 327 N. Ashley St. For questions please call County Clerk,
Paige Dukes, at 229-671-2400.
Budget Public Hearing (6/26/2012)
The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will hold a Public Hearing
for the purpose of adopting the FY13 Proposed Budget at 5:00 p.m. in
the Commission Chambers, located on the 2nd floor of the Administration
Building, 327 N. Ashley St. For questions please call County Clerk,
Paige Dukes, at 229-671-2400.
Why are Commissioners hiding behind Joe Pritchard, instead of discussing trash disposal in open meetings?
At last week’s Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission, County Manager Joe Pritchard repeated part of what he said the previous morning at the Work Session. After the meeting he came up to me to ask whether he had clarified it more. I do appreciate him doing that, and he did clarify where the new cards are on sale, although he omitted any mention of where they had been discussed previously. And it’s true that the previous morning he did not say anything had been decided. Yet the method of paying for waste disposal has changed (for only six months, and not prorated), so somebody decided that, somewhere where the public was not invited.
That six month period conveniently ends just after the current current Commission will be replaced by a new Commission with two additional members and a new Chairman. Those of us who remember former Chairman Rod Casey’s Commission passing a waste collection plan just as he left the Commission may remain sceptical that the Commissioners haven’t already made up their minds to privatize trash collection and socialize the losses onto landowners, who will have to deal with increased illegal dumping.
Sceptical especially when the VDT has reported twice that the Commissioners have already made up their minds, and about the Commissioners
discussing trash disposal at three different meetings at which they knew the public would not be present. Remember the VDT report of the Commission’s stealth 4 June meeting:
How can a man with health care financial troubles make a living with a shop he’s had for decades when some of the neighbors complain about a rezoning that is now required? A controversial case that raised issues ranging from wetlands to public safety to Moody Air Force Base jets flying out of Valdosta Airport made its way through two appointed boards to a Solomonic rezoning decision by the elected Lowndes County Commission. Nobody wanted to deny a man a living, but many people wanted to limit potential commercial uses of the subject property. The Commissioners attempted to take all that into account, yet failed to incorporate two major considerations raised by neighbors, mentioning one of them only to disparage it. Even that isn’t the end of it, since it may head back to the Zoning Board of Appeals for a buffer variance. Here are videos of REZ-2012-09 Copeland at the Lowndes County Commission.
At the 8:30 AM Monday Work Session, County Planner Jason Davenport had several updates since Commissioners had received their packets the previous week.
An email from a Mr. Bradford in opposition.
Some open records requests to be filled after the work session.
Davenport had met with the applicant, Mr. Copeland, who had provided more materials because he believed there were some accusations about lack of continuous operations in the building.
Davenport summarized that he thought there were three camps:
Those not supporting the case.
Those supporting the case,
Those supporting the case with conditions,
He said one possibility would be for he and the county attorney to meet with the opposition attorney to try to work out some conditions.
He said you can get it as close to him as Quarterman Road.
I can attest to that because I have 3 megabit per second DSL,
due to being just close enough to Bellsouth’s DSL box on Cat Creek Road,
but most of Quarterman Road can’t get DSL due to distance.
There are some other land-line possibilties, involving cables in the ground
or wires on poles.
Then there are wireless possibilities, including EVDO, available from Verizon,
with 750 kilobit per second (0.75 Mbps) wide area access from cell phone towers.
Verizon’s towers could also be used for WIFI antennas,
for up to 8 Mbps Internet access, over a wide scale.
Internet speed and access —John S. Quarterman
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 8 May 2012.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
…Lafayette, Louisiana,
Bowling Green, Kentucky,
Lagrange, Georgia,
and
Thomasville, Georgia.
They use it for
public safety,
education (Wiregrass Tech, VSU),
and
It attracts new industry.
If you want knowledge-based industry,
they’re going to be expecting Internet access not just at work,
but at home, whereever they live.
Valdosta-Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBOA)
had one Lowndes County case at its 5 June 2012 meeting,
VAR-2012-07,
already posted separately.
ZBOA, unlike GLPC, does actually make binding decisions,
but chose not to do so at this meeting for this case.
First they considered two City of Valdosta cases,
APP-2012-06
(Bill Nijem spoke for the applicants)
and
APP-2012-07,
both about signs, one at Academy Sports, and the other at Gander Mountain,
both of which had been tabled at their previous meeting.
ZBOA approved both with conditions.
Here’s
a video playlist.
Audience left to right, with name, appointed by, and date term expires:
Laverne Gaskins, Valdosta, 05/08/12
Gretchen Quarterman, Lowndes County, 05/07/14
Paul Alvarado, Valdosta, 07/01/13
Scott Orenstein, Vice-Chair, Valdosta, 10/11/13
Dr. Willie Houseal, Lowndes County, 05/07/14
Nancy Hobby, Valdosta, 07/01/13
Dave Kirk, Lowndes County, 08/28/13
Not present:
Allan Strickland, Chair, Valdosta, 05/07/14
Video Playlist
Regular Session, Valdosta-Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBOA),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 5 June 2011.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
A controversial case made its way from the Planning Commission for a
rezoning recommendation to the Zoning Board of Appeals for a buffer variance
decision,
all before it reached the Lowndes County Commission for a decision
on the rezoning.
Valdosta-Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBOA)
had one Lowndes County case at its
5 June 2012 meeting,
a buffer variance request,
VAR-2012-07.
Related aspects of this same property had already been heard by
the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC) on 21 May 2012
as the controversial rezoning case REZ-2012-09 Copeland.
ZBOA member Nancy Hobby recused herself from VAR-2012-07.
ZBOA discussed it at great length and eventually
decided to table it.
ZBOA, unlike GLPC, does actually make binding decisions,
but chose not to do so at this meeting for this case.
Presenting the Case
Carmella Braswell, Lowndes County Zoning Administrator,
presented the case,
saying the property owner, John A. Copeland,
wanted a buffer variance for his property at 3258 Loch Laurel Road.
The applicant and four neighbors spoke for the buffer variance,
but one neighbor spoke against, and others had hired locally famous
lawyer Bill Nijem to speak against.
Carmella Braswell noted
that GLPC had moved
its meeting ahead a week,
but staff had managed to meet statutory requirements.
ZBOA wanted to know what they were buffering against.
Answer seemed to be one single-family residence and a pasture.
Ms. Braswell said staff had considered buffering according to
the zoning statutes, and there were for example churches nearby,
plus the existing buffering was mostly on other landowners’
property, and the applicant would be required to plant his own
vegetative buffer, plus staff recommended a six foot privacy fence.
Dave Kirk noted the abuse of the property had been occuring since 1967.
Ms. Braswell said that was unbenownst to county zoning.
Also there was no current business license on the property,
not since 2007.
Gretchen Quarterman asked how long the residents to the north had been there:
before or after 2007.
Ms. Braswell said well before 2007, and they were present at the meeting.
(See Gail Hiers below.)
This difficult and complicated rezoning case went to all three of the Planning Commission, the Zoning Board of Appeals, and the Lowndes County Commission. First, here are videos of REZ-2012-09 Copeland at the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC), 21 May 2012.
Presenting the Rezoning Application
This is case REZ-2012-09 Copeland, 3258 & 3264 Loch Laurel Rd, R-A & R-1 to C-C, well & septic, ~5 acres.
The request is to rezone about 5 acres of the subject property to from Residentidal Agriculture (R-A) and R-1 to Crossroads Commercial Zoning (CC). He noted that Mr. Copeland was not proposing a new use of the property, but:
It’s just he’s had a history of not operating with current zoning.
Davenport said part of that was the fault of the county for not keeping up with what was going on, and part of it was to the credit of the applicant for operating in such a way he hadn’t disturbed his neighbors. And the case itself was very difficult.
It was so challenging it split the staff.
The staff meet as the Technical Review Committee (TRC) about cases before they get to the GLPC. New material before the GLPC, he said, included a new survey.
Ted Raker (GLPC for City of Hahira) had a question:
This survey has changed from what the original packet indicated, and the differences of opinion among the staff was prior to this change?
Davenport said when staff voted they had no survey, but he didn’t think the survey changed their opinions, since what they thought applicant was proposing was pretty much what the survey indicated.
Watersheds are topographic areas where all the rain that falls eventually ends up in a namesake steam, river, lake, or estuary.
These are our local watersheds. Purple is the Little River Watershed, blue is the Withlacoochee Watershed, and Valdosta is where the Little River flows south into the Withlacoochee. Green is the Alapaha watershed, and Tifton is where all three meet. Every drop of rain or used well water or wastewater overflow or pesticide runoff or soapy shower water or clearcut mud that runs downhill into one of these rivers is in their (and our) watersheds.
Becoming greener doesn’t just mean a municipality’s adding a pleasant new park here and there, or planting more trees, although both components may be useful parts of a larger effort. How a town is designed and developed is related to how well it functions, how well it functions is related to how sustainable it really is, and how sustainable it is, is directly related to how it affects its local waters and those who use those same waters downstream.
Compact, mixed-use, well-designed in-town growth can take some of the pressure off of its opposite on the outskirts — or beyond the outskirts — of towns and cities. We know that sprawling growth is generally pretty bad for maintaining environmental quality in a region (air pollution from cars that become necessary in such circumstances, displacement of open land, water pollution from new roads and shopping centers that are begot by such growth patterns).
Appointments to 3 boards, a rezoning, and more: Video Playlist Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 11 June 2012. Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
The Lowndes County Commission continues to make decisions about waste disposal at meetings to which the public is not invited.
County Manager Joe Pritchard said at yesterday morning’s Work Session:
Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, I’d like to give you an update
concerning the sales of the trash cards for use for access to the convenience centers. As we discussed in our retreat as well as in consideration of the budget staff will be having, will have these cards ready by this Friday for sale to the public. Cards will be for a six month period. The cost will be $50 for that six month period. We will not be able to allow those cards to be [interjection from unknown commissioner: “prorated”] as we did the previous ones. This will enable us to complete the process that Commissioners asked us to do concerning evaluation of several RFQs and RFPs that we will be presenting to you in the next weeks or months. This will be available this Friday. A notice will be placed [inaudible].
So apparently waste disposal was decided at the 4 June 2012 stealth meeting or at their April retreat at an undisclosed location. We don’t know where our elected officials made this decision about a matter that directly affects us. Apparently what they’ve decided so far is they’re going to buy time to pick one or more waste disposal pickup contractors (“RFQs and RFPs”) by issuing trash collection center cards for only six months at a time instead of a year at a time. And oh by the way they won’t prorate any time if you don’t happen to buy yours Friday. So the Commission continues to move towards privatizing the profits of trash pickup and socializing the losses onto landowners (who have to pay for fences and gates), onto the general public (who have to pay for law enforcement to catch dumpers), and onto those who can’t afford to pay for private dump fees (who will get stuck with fines instead).
Waste disposal has been decided: when? Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 11 June 2012. Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will hold a Public Hearing for the purpose of adopting the FY13 Proposed Budget at 8:30 a.m. in the Commission Chambers, located on the 2nd floor of the Administration Building, 327 N. Ashley St. For questions please call County Clerk, Paige Dukes, at 229-671-2400.
