Lowndes County Commissioners and staff are meeting for two days to discuss strategy, as they do every year.
They didn’t post an agenda on lowndescounty.com, but Gretchen photographed the one they had at Chairman Bill Slaughter’s pond house, so here it is:
Lowndes County
Georgia
lowndescounty.com
Annual Planning Meeting
6926 Simpson Road ~ Hahira
February 7-8
8:30 a.m.
Agenda
Audit Continue reading
Update 2019-03-04: WWALS videos.
At least some elected officials from at least Lowndes County and Valdosta will be gathering Monday on neutral ground to discuss tax revenue allocation. Apparently this is a public meeting which anyone can attend.
In its usual laconic manner, this is all the county says in its online calendar:
SDS Meeting
Date: February 4, 2019
Time: 5:00 PM
Location: Valdosta- Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Authority Offices
Address: 1901 North Forrest Street
Valdosta, GA 31601
Google Street View,
VLPRA, 1901 N. Forrest Street, Valdosta, GA 31601
A usually reliable source says this meeting is for voting Council and Commissioners, and the Mayor and Chairman were not invited. I don’t know if elected members of Council would only be from Valdosta, or also from Remerton, Lake Park, Hahira, and Dasher. If a quorum of any Council or Commissioners for any of these elected bodies is present, Georgia law requires it to be an open meeting which the public may attend. I can’t imagine the county would have posted it publicly if it wasn’t.
The offices of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Authority (VLPRA) are neutral ground, because Continue reading
All the rezonings on the GLPC agenda for tonight are in Lowndes County. The two on Madison Highway appear to be coincidence. REZ-2019-01 Jerry Stoker is apparently for one or both of the two Stoker Development LLC parcels on Old Pine Road. This is part of the general development of what Lowndes County staff refer to as “Central Lowndes County”, as in their preferred development area.
Map:
Lowndes County Tax Assessors,
Parcels 0145B 042 and 0145B 043, Old Pine Road.
Greater Lowndes Planning Commission
Continue reading
Lowndes County City of Valdosta City of Dasher City of Hahira City of Lake Park
REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING
AGENDA
Monday, January 28, 2019 * 5:30 P.M. * Public Hearing
Lowndes County South Health District Administrative Office
325 West Savannah Avenue
The Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC) picked a new Chair and Vice-Chair at their November 2018 meeting. They meet again this evening.
3. CU-2018-13 Scintilla Charter Academy 2171 East Park Avenue,
Photo: Gretchen Quarterman, of New GLPC Chair Vicky Rountree.
Their longest item was 3. CU-2018-13 Scintilla Charter Academy‘s request to expand from an Elementary School to add a Middle School. GLPC recommended approval unanimously, as they did for all other such items.
Below are Continue reading
They vote 5:30 PM this evening on what they discussed this morning. Longest at two minutes was 5 g. Abandonment of McLeod Road, followed by 5 i. Speed Zone Ordinance (apparently something was not right at exit 2), and then at just under a minute: 6 a. Paving on Parker Road and Simpson Road. Will Scruggs or Reames get the $2 million-plus contract for paving? (Hint: Reames is the low bidder.)
Oops, sorry: the unscripted 7. Reports – County Manager actually came in second at 1 minute and 44 seconds.
Finally, after 9. Adjournment, there was a reminder of some mystery swearing in at 5PM.
Below are links to each LAKE video of each agenda item, followed by a LAKE video playlist. See also Continue reading
Due to Monday being Martin Luther King Jr. Day, both the Work Session and the Regular Session will be on Tuesday, January 22, 2019, at 8:30 AM and 5:30 PM. Last time they approved paying for right of way on Simpson Road. This time they’re approving Paving on Parker Road and Simpson Road. Why does Simpson Road get this exception to their decade-long custom of never paying for road right of way? Will Scruggs or Reames get the $2 million-plus contract for paving? (Hint: Reames is the low bidder.)
Simpson Road in Lowndes County Tax Assessor Maps.
Meanwhile, the county apparently borrowed money for paving, and is tinkering the Special Assessment Rate for 2019 from 6.5% to 7.5%.
Hm, the county “currently receives $32,770 annually” Continue reading
They added two items to the agenda they didn’t even mention in the previous morning’s Work Session: purchase of some real estate on Davidson Road near Moody Air Force Base, and “just compensation” for right of way on Simpson Road.
Wait a minute! For ten years we’ve been told the county no longer buys rights of way: if you want your road paved, you have to donate the right of way. So why this exception? And why sneak it in like this?
Will Kamisha Martin get paid for right of way if the county paves Black Road? Will Rev. Berlinda Hart Love get paid for right of way if the county paves Williams School Road? They were the two citizens who were heard.
Not on the agenda were Continue reading
Longest Monday morning was Chief Ranger Stephen Spradley’s Georgia Forestry report, a copy of which, scanned by Gretchen, is on the LAKE website.
Second longest was Chairman Bill Slaughter’s comments, in which he listed four upcoming events: Continue reading
Be sure that if you are at all successful in opposing a pipeline you will get infiltrators, whether FBI or private security. Be prepared to deal with it, whether by checking backgrounds, or comparing lists, or by some other methods.
One of the most effective methods appears to be exposing what the pipeline company and their hired hands are up to, as The Intercept_ did about infiltrators at Standing Rock, using leaks from private security firm TigerSwan, which was hired by pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) to “protect” its Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). THE INFILTRATOR: How an Undercover Oil Industry Mercenary Tricked Pipeline Opponents Into Believing He Was One of Them, Alleen Brown, The Intercept_, 30 December 2018,
Joel McCollough, far right, at a climate march launch event in Chicago hosted by Food and Water Watch in April 2017. Photo: Courtesy of Gloria Araya, in
The Intercept_.
What he’s certain of is that the glimmer of opportunity he saw at the beginning of the pipeline fight was extinguished when The Intercept published more than 100 TigerSwan situation reports leaked by a former operative, revealing the security firm’s extensive surveillance efforts, coordination with law enforcement, and comparisons of water protectors to jihadi fighters. …
He remembers thinking at one time, “If they watch their p’s and q’s, they will be the standard. They’ll be the company that everybody’s gonna use.” The former contractor laughed. “That didn’t happen.”
DAPL is a petroleum products pipeline, but we heard some of the same Continue reading
It’s the end of an era at the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), excuse me, the Development Authority, now that Roy Copeland declined to be reappointed. To his joint-appointment position, Valdosta appointed Aneesha Johnson, and the Lowndes County Commission may confirm Tuesday.
DuPont Valdosta Plant Names Johnson New Plant Manager,
Valdosta Today, 29 June 2015.
In Monday morning’s Work Session, they will also consider abandoning the end of Reed Road (presumably the part that runs down to the Withlacoochee River), and ending the hay lease (presumably on the county’s Land Application Site). Chief Ranger Stephen Spradley of Georgia Forestry will say a few words. They vote Tuesday at 5:30 PM.
Here’s the agenda.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
Continue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2018, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 2018, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor