Category Archives: Transportation

Videos, Work Session @ LCC 2012 04 23

Here are videos of the entire ten and a half minute 23 April 2012 Work Session of the Lowndes County Commission. As you can see, these videos time at 1:01, 0:33, 0:44, 1:07, 1:45, 1:40, 0:33, 2:59, and 0:10, and that’s with a camera that stops and starts almost instantaneously. Those times add up to 10 minutes and 32 seconds. Is that adequate discussion for the county’s business?

A former member of the Courthouse Preservation Commission, has moved, and the Chairman said Mike somebody was a good one to appoint as a replacement. No Commissioners asked any questions. They didn’t ask many questions on anything else, either. On 8a. Abandonment of unopened ROW on Walker Avenue (off of US 41 S) in Twin Lakes area, Commissioner Crawford Powell had a question, but it was only where the engineer was in the map.

Finance Director Stephanie Black said the county sent out an RFP for banking services to local banks. Three responded, and one was incomplete. The two complete bids were Regions Bank and SunTrust. Regions will waive charges with $6M balance; SunTrust will waive charges $2.8M balance.

On the FDIC charge, Regions will charge .135 per thousand dollars; SunTrust is waiving that.

She said that was currently about $3500 or $4500 per month. Commissioner Powell asked who they were currently using. Answer: Regions. There’s more in the video, and there was a written report the Commissioners were looking at.

Apparently the county’s own water isn’t good enough for Commissioners and staff, Continue reading →

VLMPO seeks comments for Transportation Project List

Received today. -jsq

Please find attached a press release to announcing a public comment period for the Draft Transportation Improvement Program for the Valdosta-Lowndes Metropolitan Planning Organization.

Corey Hull, AICP
MPO Coordinator
Valdosta-Lowndes MPO

A copy is on the LAKE website. Here is an excerpt:

The Transportation Improvement Program, or TIP, is the short-range plan approved by the VLMPO Policy Committee that allows federal funds to be spent on various transportation projects in the region. The projects are selected from the 2035 Transportation Plan that was adopted in September 2010. Projects in this year’s draft TIP include: the construction of an overpass on West Hill Avenue, the widening of Forrest Street, from Park Avenue to Bemiss Road, and the purchase of right-of-way at several I-75 interchanges ahead of future construction activities.

VLMPO will be accepting comments by phone, email, or fax all the month of May.

The VLMPO staff will also host an Open House on May 22, 2012 from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Southern Georgia Regional Commission office located at 327 W. Savannah Ave. in Valdosta. Hull says, “VLMPO staff will be on hand to answer questions from the public about their transportation concerns. The open house format allows people to quickly get their questions answered without having to sit through a long meeting.”

Transparency by a local government agency!

-jsq

 

More alcohol licenses, another road abandonment, and an RFP for Banking Services @ LCC 2012 04 23

Also an appointment to a Courthouse Preservation Committee and a subdivision infrastructure acceptance.

Here’s the agenda:

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, APRIL 23, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Four minute work session @ LCC 2012 04 09

As I walked in the door, a couple minutes late due to construction on the hospital parking lot, Commissioner Crawford Powell said,

John, you’re late!

They were milling about and looked like they were about to start. But no, they had started early and Chairman Paulk told me the meeting had lasted four minutes because there hadn’t been much to say. So there are no videos of this morning’s Lowndes County Commission Work Session.

I remarked that it had seemed like a fairly complicated agenda, but he didn’t think so.

I asked him about this mysterious item:

7.b. Request from LCSO — GOHS Grant #2013-TEN-0077-00 & #2013-GA-0040-00

He said it is about some equipment to automate Sheriff’s deputies checking license plates against databases. I told him I had assumed they had already been doing that. He said they could do it by hand, but they’d get really tired trying to do as many as this device could do.

Presumably it’s similar to the Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) described by Doug Nurse in the AJC 20 March 2009, New police license plate scanner eyes criminals.

Alpharetta Police Officer John Allen said that a few weeks after the system became went online last August, he was driving home after a shift when the system alerted him that he had passed a stolen car. He wheeled around, and after a chase, arrested the thief.

“I never even saw the tag myself,” Allen said. “I would have just kept going. It catches things I would be unable to see.”

While I don’t know that I’m in favor of ALPR, it’s common enough elsewhere that I was actually surprised the famously drug-interdicting LCSO wasn’t already using it.

To the Chairman’s credit, as soon as I asked about the LOST meeting with the mayors, he said it was at 9:30 in the room next door, and the public was invited. I took videos of that LOST meeting, and they will appear soon.

-jsq

Alcohol, development, and a tank? @ LCC 2012-04-09,10

A somewhat complicated agenda at Lowndes County Commission Monday morning (Work Session) and Tuesday evening (voting Regular Session): adoption of infrastructure for Laurelbrooke Subdivision Phase II, four public hearings (a rezoning, a road abandonment, a beer and wine license, and a liquor license). And these cryptic items:
7.a. Seminole Circle Property
7.b. Request from LCSO — GOHS Grant #2013-TEN-0077-00 & #2013-GA-0040-00
Your guess is as good as mine about the Seminole Circle Property. If the Commission wanted we the public to know, they would have told us.

Update 2012 05 06: fixed the date in the title.

However, I believe that 7.b. alphabet soup translates as Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) — Governor’s Office of Highway Safety (GOHS). The TEN in the grant numbers makes me wonder if those grants are related to GOHS’s Georgia Traffic Enforcement Networks:

The Governor’s Office of Highway Safety in cooperation with state and local law enforcement agencies has organized regional Traffic Enforcement Networks around the State of Georgia. There are currently sixteen regional traffic enforcement networks servicing all 159 counties in Georgia. The regional networks are open to all sworn law enforcement officers and prosecutors and are designed to enhance traffic enforcement activities through networking, training and legislation. The networks serve as a catalyst for traffic enforcement officers to voice their concerns and share ideas with their counterparts from other agencies in their region. Guest speakers and panelists have included state and municipal court judges, prosecutors, legislators, MADD representatives, Public Service Commission, and ALS judges.
LCSO participates in this TEN:
Southern Regional Traffic Enforcement Network (SRTEN) Counties included: Atkinson, Lowndes, Berrien, Brooks, Clinch, Coffee, Cook, Echols, Irwin, Lanier, Ben Hill and Tift.
Or maybe they’re just buying another tank. Or will the Commission require that “surrounding counties could be persuaded to contribute” financially like they did when refusing an emergency vehicle grant?

I’m guessing the Commissioners won’t like me guessing what they’re up to. But, you know, if they told us, for example by putting board packet details online with the agendas, we wouldn’t have to guess.

Here’s the agenda.

-jsq

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, APRIL 9, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Videos @ LCC 2012 03 27

Here are videos of the entire 27 March 2012 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission (LCC). The audio feed is coming directly from the Commission’s own audio system. We don’t know why County Manager Joe Pritchard is frequently barely audible, nor why the microphone at the audience podium sometimes seems hardly to be working, nor why Commissioners ask people in the audience to speak when there is no microphone pointing at the audience.

Some of these videos have already been blogged:

Here’s a playlist:


Videos
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 March 2012.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

-jsq

Bicycles noted in appointment to VLMPO Citizens Advisory Committee @ LCC 2012 03 27

Lowndes County cares about bicycles? That’s news!

The Lowndes County Commission appointed Edward Rawls, retired professional engineer and Blake Waagner, owner of Valdosta Bike Center to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Metropolitan Planning Organization (VLMPO) Citizens Advisory Committee. Commissioner Crawford Powell surprisingly said:

I think the perspective from the bicycle group would be interesting on the MPO.
Interesting development!

Also, the Commission continued the tradition which I believe was started by Commissioner Joyce Evans of attempting to get all applicants for appointed boards to introduce themselves. I think that’s a good thing.

Here’s the video:


Bicycles noted in appointment to VLMPO Citizens Advisory Committee
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 March 2012.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

-jsq

Austin solar sunflowers

What does a city with clean industry and clean energy do to attract more of it? One such city planted a solar sunflower array along its main interstate corridor.

Ariel Schwartz wrote for Inhabitant.com 17 August 2009, Solar Sunflower Field Energizes Austin, Texas

A retail lot in Austin, Texas recently sprouted a stunning field of solar sunflowers that soak up the sun’s rays to provide shade while generating a steady stream of renewable energy. Designed by public art team Harries/Heder, the installation consists of 15 flower-like solar photovoltaic panels located on a pedestrian and bike path between the village of Mueller and Austin’s highway I-35. According to Harries/Heder, the flowers are “an icon for the sustainable, LEED certified Mueller Development and a highly visible metaphor for the energy conscious City of Austin.”


View Larger Map

Are these solar sunflowers practically profitable? Perhaps:

In addition to providing shade for walkers and bikers, the solar flowers collect energy during the day to power the installation’s blue LED lights at night. Leftover power is sent to the grid to offset the cost of maintaining the installation.
But practicality of this particular field of solar flowers is not the point.

This is the point: Continue reading →

County quantifies some infrastructure payback times @ LCC 2012 03 31

Water and sewer take decades for return on investment, and roads and bridges probably aren’t any better. That’s worth remembering whenever solar, busses, or trains come up.

David Rodock wrote for the VDT Sunday, Commission wraps up annual retreat: Utility payments, road projects and waste disposal discussed

The cost of one mile of construction for water takes 23 years for a return on the initial investment; sewer takes 21.3 years.

The VDT didn’t specify the similar return times for road paving or bridge construction, but it’s a safe bet they’re at least as long. The farther water or sewer lines or roads or bridges are from population centers, the more they cost both directly in installation and indirectly in trips for fire and sheriff vehicles, and especially school busses. The county commissioned a report on that several years ago, as Gretchen reminded them last year. In the particular rezoning case on Cat Creek they were discussing then (Nottinghil), they made a decision to table which seems to have caused the developer never to come back with that particular sprawl plan. I congratulated the Commissioners at that time, and I congratulate them again on not promoting sprawl.

Sprawl costs the county, payback takes years, and longer the farther out it goes. What if we did something different? More on that later.

-jsq

 

 

Alcohol ordinance and license plus two road abandonments @ LCC 2012 02 13-14

What does a Community Corrections Director do? What is the proposed modification to the alcohol ordinance? We don’t know, because the county doesn’t post the details of agenda items, just cryptic shorthand that may mean something to Commissioners or staff, but that means nothing to the public.

At this morning’s work session and tomorrow evening’s regular session, the Lowndes County Commission has a brief but eventful agenda, including a modification to the alcohol ordinance, an alcohol license, a DHS grant a GDOT grant for a road project on Davidson Road (presumably related to the new Moody AFB gate), two road abandonments, and this interesting item:

6.h. Request from Superior Court to establish salary of the Community Corrections Director
Your guess is as good as mine.

Here’s the agenda.

-jsq

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading →