Tag Archives: Ashley Paulk

Videos: Runner Ernie Andrus, Brookwood again, 3 board appointments, 2 road abandoments, Comp Plan Update, Budget Adoption @ LCC 2016-06-28

For an authority that gets 1.25 mil of your property tax dollars, the Commissioners didn’t even know who was wanting to be reappointed, none of them asked what happened during a year when one of them was apparently serving on that board without a formal appointment, not all of the Commissioners were present even voted, and none of the candidates for any of the board appointments even shhowed up, much less spoke. The Lowndes County Commission at its June 28th 2016 Regular Session also unanimously adopted the budget for what the Chairman repeatedly called “the physical year”, despite only perfunctory public hearings in advance, and no draft budget available on their website for the public to see. After they approved the budget to spend the money (and according to County Manager Joe Pritchard after earlier that same morning the Tourism Authority approved their budget), the Lowndes County Commissioners unanimously approved a hotel/motel tax rate increase. Odd order, eh?

About the 1.25 mil property tax Parks and Rec Authority, the Chairman finally got around to saying Continue reading →

Video: Brookwood Place reappears @ LCC 2016-06-27

Not on the agenda for Monday morning’s Work Session, but added back for Tuesday evening’s Regular Session, the Brookwood Place Subdivision tabled two weeks ago popped up in Reports. Where is it? Who owns it? How did they get it? Who’s the developer? No, really, who’s the developer?

8. Reports – County Manager – the reappearance of Brookwood water
8. Reports - County Manager - the reappearance of Brookwood water

Video. County Manager Joe Pritchard said he was bringing back the trust indenture for “the Brookwood Place subdivision off of Mt. Zion.” He can’t have meant Mt. Zion Road, which is in the southwest part of the county, not near the Valdosta City limits, Continue reading →

Videos: Brookwood reappears, 3 board appointments, 2 road abandoments, Comp Plan Update, Budget Adoption @ LCC 2016-06-27

County Planner Jason Davenport said at Monday morning’s Work Session that the Comprehensive Plan Update should be a Public Hearing, so it needs to be listed as such for Tuesday evening’s Regular Session. I guess that is more than 24 hours notice, but did they send a notice to the newspaper? How were people to know, and why was this left to the day before when this schedule has been known for months to all the local planners?

Not on the agenda, the Brookwood Place Subdivision tabled two weeks ago popped up in Reports.

The county has had a board member listed for VLPRA for a year after his term actually expired.

Plus a special Continue reading →

3 board appointments, 2 road abandoments, Comp Plan Update, Budget Adoption @ LCC 2016-06-27

Sheriff or VLPRA? Invisible budget, visible Comp Plan Update, 1 road abandonment + apparently another, and sewage not getting sprayed. All Monday morning 8:30 AM at the Lowndes County Commission Work Session.

The LAS Pump Control Panel is for the sewage spray field, aka Land Application Site: cost $18,500. Lowndes County does not have a wastewater treatment plant, just an LAS, east of Moody Air Force Base’s Grassy Pond west of I-75 and Lake Park.

The Update for the 2016 Greater Lowndes Comprehensive Plan has gone through quite a process of community input, thanks to SGRC.

Can’t say the same for the Adoption of Fiscal Year 2017 Budget, for which the county had a budget meeting with less than 24 hours notice, followed by two budget hearings that those who attended say lasted fifteen minutes each with six slides presented. And the most recent budget document on the county’s website is from 2016.

There’s only one road abandonment listed as such on the agenda (a Portion of Beaver Lane), but Continue reading →

Nydia Tisdale wins First Amendment Award for her Citizen Journalism, Fighting for the Right to Record

Update 2015-08-07: corrections by Nydia, including a timeline.

Only a bit more than three years since the pictured incident, Nydia Tisdale gets some of the recognition she deserves.

Georgia Woman Wins First Amendment Award for her Citizen Journalism, Fighting for the Right to Record,

Georgia citizen journalist Nydia Tisdale is in the news again but this time, the story doesn’t involve her getting thrown out of a public meeting or arrested in a pumpkin patch.

Tisdale is being honored by Georgia’s First Amendment Foundation for her work in making public meetings available to the citizens of her community and for her dedication to keeping government open for everyone’s participation.

After getting thrown out of the Cumming City Council for videoing in April 2012, Nydia got Continue reading →

Videos: Special bid review meeting @ VLCIA 2013-10-29

With a bare quorum of 3 out of 5, VLCIA Chair Mary Gooding said they had finally purchased their own office space and would henceforth pay neither lease nor rent using our tax dollars. I’d like to congratulate them for a thorough public bid review.

Project Manager Allan Ricketts reviewed the project including the bids on “the second document in front of you” that the taxpaying public didn’t get to see. He did summarize the bids, and they even showed them on a slide:

$273,595Cauthan
$232,445Kellerman
$274,900Quillian Powell
$262,557Taylor
$244,000True North

Bids

A board member wanted to know if the bids were all local. Ricketts said they were.

Mr. Matt Hart, with IPG, project manager on the project, clarified Continue reading →

Special bid review meeting @ VLCIA 2013-10-29

The Industrial Authority’s new office is urgent enough for a special called meeting. Inquiring reporter Gretchen is going to see what the fuss is about.

Maybe it’s just because this office search has had more episodes than Star Wars. Before Roy Copeland was appointed to the VLCIA board, they were considering buying the old Board of Elections site from him. Now he’s even been Chairman twice and given that up, and they still don’t have a new office. Or maybe it’s something to do with who owns 103 Roosevelt Drive.

Interestingly, HG Pinnacle Properties, Inc. also owns the much larger surrounding lot, 2318 N Patterson Street, on which a Valdosta Electric trailer has been parked across from the hospital for so long it shows up on Google Maps.

On VLCIA’s website and facebook page (although oddly not in their current news page:

There will be a Special Called Meeting of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority 12 noon Tuesday, October 29, 2013 at the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Offices.

The purpose of this meeting is to review bids regarding the renovation and construction of 103 Roosevelt Drive.

-jsq

County lost LOST; now has 120 days to negotiate with cities

So all our tax money the county spent on the alleged county attorney arguing before the state Supreme Court was wasted. The remaining law seems to say by 120 days from Monday the cities and the county need to come to an agreement.

Kay Harris wrote for the VDT yesterday, Lowndes LOST in limbo: Supreme Court tosses key amendment,

In a ruling issued Monday, Oct. 7, the Supreme Court of Georgia declared a 2010 amendment to the Local Option Sales Tax Act unconstitutional, reasoning that the amendment would delegate a legislative function of allocating tax proceeds to the judicial branch of government, a violation of the Separation of Powers clause of the Georgia Constitution.

For Lowndes County, the ruling effectively renders the lawsuit moot that was filed by the five cities against the county in September 2012.

The Supreme Court’s ruling came in the case of Turner County vs. the City of Ashburn over a dispute in splitting the proceeds from the one cent sales tax, the same issue in the Lowndes lawsuit. By declaring the portion unconstitutional that would allow a judge to decide how to allocate the tax dollars between the entities, the issue is now in limbo for several counties in Georgia.

You may recall that former Chairman Ashley Paulk wasn’t interested in discussing proposals from the cities, and said from before the LOST negotiations began that he expected it to go to arbitration.

This was the same Chairman Ashley Paulk who put SPLOST VII on the ballot a year early and lost it. I wonder how much input County Manager Joe Pritchard had into these two losing decisions?

At least SPLOST VI hasn’t expired yet and there’s time for the voters to go again on SPLOST VII in November.

What happens now with LOST? Continue reading →

Decently and in order? Prayers do not match Commission behavior @ LCC 2013-09-10

The invocation didn’t match what the Commission did at the Lowndes County Commission Regular Session 10 September 2013, or at many another session, for that matter.

The invocation included this:

…we can gather here and not have to face the fear arrest or threat. That we can express our opinions openly.

I guess Minister Commissioner John Page hasn’t heard of Ashley Paulk’s Greatest Hits which include a not-so-veiled threat of arrest right there in that same chamber Continue reading →

Ashley Paulk’s Guardian Bank sues Hahira

Hahira declared a moratorium on water and sewer taps in a subdivision financed by Guardian Bank, apparently in hopes of getting the bank to do something about a drainage problem there. Instead, the bank is suing Hahira, echoing a lawsuit the county is pursuing about a contract let when the bank’s Chairman was Lowndes County Chairman.

According to Stuart Taylor in the VDT Friday, Guardian Bank’s chairman said, perhaps using the royal “we”:

“We’re a little disappointed with Hahira,” said Ashley Paulk, Chairman of the Board of Directors for Guardian Bank. “We’ve actually helped them build up their tax base up there…Over the years, we’ve encouraged builders to be up there.”

Me, I think Hahira should have Continue reading →