Tag Archives: ADS

Videos: Litigation Executive Session, Lighting Ordinance, Drainage, Well, Trash, Software, Trucks @ LCC 2018-03-26

An Executive Session for pending or potential litigation: are they going to sue Deep South Sanitation again? Some of them sure seem to want to find any excuse not to re-approve DSS’s franchise, which was the longest item at three minutes.

Second longest was two minutes for the Bid for Mini Excavator for the Utilities Department. Slow morning at the County Commission.

Below are links to each LAKE video with a very few notes, followed by a LAKE video playlist. See also agenda. They vote this evening at 5:30 PM. Continue reading →

Lighting Ordinance, Drainage, Well, Trash, Software, Trucks @ LCC 2018-02-26

The Street Lighting Ordinance on the agenda for this morning and tomorrow evening is not among those on the County Ordinances web page. How are we to “Know the Laws”, as the link from the county’s front page says, when unknown ordinances keep popping up? Ah, it’s currently a resolution and they want to make it an ordinance.

Lighting-ordinance-agenda-sheet-0001,

The agenda sheet says “For reference, copies of maps Continue reading →

Videos: Building too close and trash disposal staging @ ZBOA 2018-02-06

They approved both contentious cases, but not unanimously.

Joshua Stevens of Wendover Road, according to pictures submitted by neighbor Franklin J. Richards II, built a building eight inches from another building. “Staff Recommendation: Find inconsistent with the Variance Fteview Criteria and deny the requests.”

Eight inches and ten inches

ZBOA Chairman Allan Strickland was not present, so Mac McCall chaired. However, for this first case he recused himself, and Gretchen Quarterman chaired. Staff Tracy Tolley suggested tabling to get more information. Nathaniel Brantley moved to approve citing Continue reading →

ZBOA Packet 2018-02-06

Two cases, both contentious because neighbors blew them in for code violations. Joshua Stevens of Wendover Road, according to pictures submitted by neighbor Franklin J. Richards II, built a building eight inches from another building. “Staff Recommendation: Find inconsistent with the Variance Fteview Criteria and deny the requests.”

Deep South Sanitation (DSS) of Tucker Road apparently has been using a neighboring lot as a staging area for trash trucks without permit approval, and there’s a complaint by Steve Edwards of Evergreen Landfill. If I’m not mistaken, Evergreen Landfill is owned by Advanced Disposal Services (ADS), and this would appear to be the same Steve Edwards who has repeatedly spoken for ADS. Probably many readers recall, Lowndes County sued DSS on behalf of ADS all the way to the Georgia Supreme Court before finally coming up with a Solid Waste Ordinance that allows two trash collection services to co-exist in Lowndes County. Staff recommend Continue reading →

No coal ash on a dozen years of DSSWA agendas (but Brooks County Landfill)

In agendas for the governmental group which supposedly has oversight of the landfill in Lowndes County, Georgia, there is no mention at all of coal or coal ash. Thanks to Julia Shewchuck of SGRC, those agendas for the Deep South Solid Waste Authority (DSSWA) are on the LAKE website.

[April 18, 2007 Agenda] Back in 2006 the proposed Brooks County Landfill is on the the proposed April 19, 2006 agenda, and the June 21, 2006 agenda said there was a public hearing June 29, 2006. An update was on the October 18, 2016 agenda.

2007 starts with one meeting with no mention of the landfill, but the April 18, 2007 meeting has “5. Discussion of Onyx/Langdale Proposed Land Swap”. I don’t see any further mention of the Brooks County landfill after that, and apparently it never happened.

Curiously, these mentions of the Brooks County Landfill on the DSSWA agenda are all months after these VDT stories: Continue reading →

Videos: regional T-SPLOST tabled, Trash disposal renewals, another lift station pump, Dasher Streets @ LCC 2017-03-28

They tabled T-SPLOST until their next meeting because they got a complaint from the Chamber about process, and also from others. Remember, even if it gets on the ballot, it can still be voted down again, like in 2012.

Meanwhile, John Stephen, VDT, 7 April 2017, T-SPLOST headed for referendum,

Even though the Lowndes County Commission delayed a vote on the regional T-SPLOST at its last meeting due to local confusion on the one-penny sales tax, enough counties in the area now support the tax (10 out of 18 were needed) to move it forward to a public vote even without the commission’s approval.

In the coming weeks, a regional roundtable of government representatives will determine Continue reading →

Videos: Trash disposal renewals, regional T-SPLOST, another lift station pump, Dasher Streets @ LCC 2017-03-27

More than four minutes yesterday morning on Residential Solid Waste Franchise Renewal: maybe it’s still contentious because they still don’t have a good model. Maybe not everybody wants to have their trash picked up at the end of their driveway like they lived in town. They vote tonight at 5:30 PM, and they agreed add an agenda item amending the ordinance to change insurance requirement from $5 million to $1 million. As of this writing at 8AM, they have not yet changed their online agenda. We’ll see how it eventually changes from the agenda already blogged.

They spent more than three minutes on Regional T-SPLOST; follow the link for details. Another Lift Station Pump lift station pump needs replacing And Dasher wants the county to maintain a couple of dirt streets.

Below are links to each LAKE video, with a few notes, followed by a video playlist. See also the agenda. Continue reading →

Trash disposal renewals, regional T-SPLOST, another lift station pump, Dasher Streets @ LCC 2017-03-27

Regional T-SPLOST is on the agenda this morning. Back in 2012 we all voted down a statewide T-SPLOST (Transportation Special Sales Tax).

As we learned at the February Lowndes County Commission Planning Session Day 2, on 28 February 2017 in Waycross there was a “public hearing” about a possible regional T-SPLOST. When I asked SGRC about that, they sent the Waycross agenda, saying “This is not a public meeting and was not advertised as such, however it is open to the public.” Apparently something happened at that meeting, since T-SPLOST is on the Lowndes County Commission agenda now, with this in the attached document:

HISTORY, FACTS AND ISSUES: According to House Bill 170, counties within a Regional Commission District have the option to institute a Regional T-SPLOST. The Georgia Department of Transportation is requesting action to be taken by April 1, 2017, either in favor of or opposed to a Regional T-SPLOSI’. If ten (10) of the eighteen (18) regional counties fail to get support for a Regional T-SPLOST, then individual counties can initiate an independent T-SPLOST’.

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After Lowndes County spent unknown hundreds of thousands of dollars suing Continue reading →

Four board appointments, animal tethering, bus, trash, homeland security, mutual aid, and housing @ LCC 2016-03-21

Work Session 8:30 AM this morning, and Tuesday evening finally voting on the Animal Services Ordinance including tethering, and (who knew about this?) appointing Christina Bennett to the Animal Control Board.

Renewing the annual Section 5311 Rural Transportation Program Capital Contract for the MIDS bus service is on the agenda, as is appointing three people to the Valdosta Lowndes County Metropolitan Planning Organization (VLMPO) out of these four: Ronald Skrine, Tammy Greenway, Floyd Rose, Bob Wilburs. As usual, how were people supposed to know? And where are the applications of those named? Continue reading →

Videos: Hasty waste meeting @ LCC Waste 2015-03-16

See the LAKE video below, the WALB story by Colter Anstaett including interviews with Cary Scarborough of Deep South Sanitation and Steve Edwards of Advanced Disposal Services. The county actually posted the resulting Solid Waste Ordinance on their County Ordinances web page (although I don’t see the updated franchise agreement anywhere), and they even posted the results of that meeting. Neither the county’s results summary nor WALB mentioned Commissioner Marshall’s question about recycling glass nor Chairman Slaughter’s response that glass can be disposed of as ordinary trash, which means they’re not going to recycle it.

Here’s the paper agenda from the meeting and the county’s results summary: Continue reading →