Category Archives: Transparency

Bids $1.4 million, insurance $1 million, and $0.4 million lease plus two Appointments @ LCC 2020-01-13

A million dollars for Paving – Quail Hollow Acres Subdivision and $0.4 million for Bid for a 3,000 Gallon Tanker for the Fire Department. Another million for 2020 Stop Loss Insurance Coverage through Symetra Life Ins. Company. A quarter million to relocate utilities at I-75 Exit 2 will be paid by GDOT. And a million in income for a Lease Agreement with the State Properties Commission for the Division of Family & Children Services (DFACS).

[Page 60]
Page 60

Molly Deese wants to be reappointed to the Valdosta Lowndes County Conference Center and Tourism Authority. Incumbents almost always get reappointed if they say they want to, and the chances of them not reappointing the Vice President and General Manager of Wild Adventures is pretty slim. Ditto Dr. Frances Brown on the Lowndes County Board of Health.

They’re setting the Special Assessment interest rate “for all paving and utilityassessments that are not paid off within the initial 90-day phase. Unpaid assessments revert to installment agreements which are to be paid over a period of up to ten years.” New rate: 6.75% for 2020, down from 7.50% for 2019.

They’re setting qualifying fees to run for office, primary or general election: Continue reading →

Videos: End-of-calendar-year wrapup and Remerton SPLOST Resolution @ LCC 2019-12-09

Remerton can’t use SPLOST VI funds for an office building, since the old mill building intended for that has been torn down. That was the longest item in the Lowndes County Commission Work Seesion of December 9, 2019: 7. Reports – County Manager – Remerton SPLOST Resolution.

Then Commissioner Clay Griner moved to go into Executive Session to discuss personnel. Chairman Bill Slaughter reminded him the Commission has only one employee. Griner agreed, and they went into Executive Session. The one employee is the County Manager.

They breezed through everything else their last meeting of calendar year 2019.

Below are LAKE videos of each agenda item, followed by a LAKE video playlist. See also the Continue reading →

Packet: End-of-calendar-year wrapup @ LCC 2019-12-09

In its last meeting of calendar year 2019, the Lowndes County Commission had many items to wrap up, as you can see in the board packet, on the LAKE website. We don’t know why the county sent this packet in black and white.

LAKE videos of the Work Session and Regular Session will follow.

[WRPDO Site Map]
WRPDO Site Map

LAKE sent an open records request Continue reading →

Videos: MIDS bus system, roof cleaning, truck bypass, new lift station generator @ LCC 2019-11-12

Longest at four and a half minutes on November 12, 2019, was 6.e. Grant Re-Application for the Rural (5311)Transportation Program, in other words, the MIDS on-demand bus system; follow the link for more notes, including a question about where have the county funds for this been coming from.


Commissioner Demarcus Marshall about the MIDS bus system.

Let’s hope the Arglass project doesn’t turn out like the James Road project a decade ago, with massive road paving and road and utilities rerouting, and nothing else, given that the county just approved a grant and VLDA match of more than a million dollars for road repaving for Arglass.

The truck bypass through downtown Valdosta had some discussion about when the bypass would happen and why the county is passing an ordinance now.

Um, it’s actually a generator for emergency management that took two minutes. 6.j. Hart Road Lift Station Pump took half a minute.

And another big item at three minutes: Continue reading →

Five Public Hearings; Ten For Consideration, and Troupville River Camp @ LCC 2019-12-09

A very full agenda for the last Lowndes County Commission meetings of calendar year 2019, plus an unscheduled item to be raised Tuesday in Citizens Wishing to Be Heard: the WWALS Troupville River Camp project.

[Dignitaries at Confluence]
Dignitaries at Little River Confluence with Withlacochee River, 2019-06-15,
including Lowndes County Chairman Bill Slaughter

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2019, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2019, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

Videos: Grants and bids, Law, Transportation, Water, and Roof Cleaning @ LCC 2019-11-11

The longest item at yesterday morning’s Work Session was the unscheduled 8. Reports County Manager – Recognition of Fire Safety. The whole thing took less than nine minutes. They vote tonight at 5:30 PM.

Second longest was the Solicitor General combining the two items on Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) and Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

Third longest was 7.a.Judicial and Administrative Complex Roof Cleaning

Below are Continue reading →

Videos: River Gauges, Roads, Alcohol, and Fire @ LCC 2019-10-22

The longest items at last month’s voting Regular Session were 3 minutes on 5.b. 2020 Census Resolution (due to discussion about the new initially online methods), two minutes on 5.l. Tax Assessment for the Lowndes County School District Bonds (it’s about debt service on ESPLOST), and 1:44 on 5.k. Industrial Authority Bond Issue and Funding (it’s complicated).

The 5.a. FY2020 USGS Joint Funding Agreement, which adds county funding for the Skipper Bridge Withlacoochee River USGS Gauge to the Hahira Little River Gauge the county has been funding since 2009, breezed through.

Below are Continue reading →

Grants and bids, Law, Transportation, Water, and Roof Cleaning @ LCC 2019-11-11

In a session of house-cleaning (including literally), Lowndes County is updating its Revision of the County Occupation Tax Ordinance,

with detailed definitions and tax classifications for every occupation in the county.

The mysterious Joint Ordinance the Planning Commission keeps cryptically alluding to turns out to be about revising the charter of the Planning Commission to add Remerton, to note Lowndes County now handles GLPC’s budget, and other updates.

The county is applying for a Georgia Department of Transportation Local Maintenance & Improvement Grant (LMIG) for resurfacing roads, many of them in subdivisions.

[2020 LMIG Project Report]
2020 LMIG Project Report

And a GDOT grant for the MIDS on-call bus system.

The county is approving Approval of the Submittal Resolution for the CDBG-EIP Grant Application for Street Paving and Drainage Improvements to Support the Arglass Project, with $750,000 to come from CDBG-EIP funds, and the remainder of $325,591 from the Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority. The county also has A Resolution to Support Eliminating Through Tractor Trailer Truck Traffic Downtown Valdosta. And it is fixing a misfiling of the deed for Chitty Park by transfering it to VLPRA for VLPRA to then transfer back to Lowndes County.

Sewage will be aided by a new Hart Road Lift Station Pump, and safety by Bids for a New Generator for 911.

[Electrical Demolition Plan]
Electrical Demolition Plan

[Electrical New Work Plan]
Electrical New Work Plan

Plus Bids for Lowndes County Judicial and Administrative Complex Roof Cleaning.

There are two Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) items, for the Solicitor General and for the District Attorney, and one Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) item for the Solicitor General.

Received 3:48 PM, Friday, November 8, 2019, “The agenda packet for next week’s meetings is attached. The October 21 & 22, 2019, minutes will be available Monday.” That Lowndes County Commission in response to a LAKE open records request is now on the LAKE website.

Here is the agenda. Continue reading →

Videos: Developer opposes his own application @ GLPC 2019-10-28

Well, I’ve never seen this before, in a dozen years of watching this Planning Commission: an applicant opposing his own annexation request.

[Applicant against annexation, HA-2019-06 Ben House, 6670 Brookridge Drive, Hahira]
Applicant against annexation, HA-2019-06 Ben House, 6670 Brookridge Drive, Hahira

I asked the applicant afterwards, and he said Continue reading →

4 Hahira, 2 Valdosta, 1 Remerton @ GLPC 2019-10-28

Three of the four Hahira cases before the Planning Commission tomorrow (Monday) evening are for one parcel, 0048 044 at 6670 Brookridge Drive.

[Parcel 0048 044]
Parcel 0048 044

The applicant, Ben House (presumably for the owner of record, DB Land Development LLC), wants to rezone from R-21 (county) to R-10 (city), get approval for a residential Planned Development, and get it annexed into the City of Hahira. Given that it is right next to an existing development on Tillman Street South, that seems pretty reasonable.

The other Hahira case is for Continue reading →