Tag Archives: Association of County Commissioners of Georgia

Videos: Tourism Authority appointments, rezonings, water repairs, hurricane damage @ LCC Regular 2024-12-10

At their December 10, 2024, Regular Session, the Lowndes County Commission reappointed Rick Williams to the 5.a. Valdosta Lowndes County Conference Center and Tourism Authority, and appointed Amanda Peacock to replace Michael Smith (who was recently elected to join the Lowndes County Commission in 2025)

[Collage @ LCC 10 December 2024]
Collage @ LCC 10 December 2024

There was quite a bit of opposition to 6.a. REZ-2024-18 LSO Invest, 3910 Old US 41 N, ~0.93ac, R-21 to C-C. Previously, GLPC recommended Denial 7:1. Lowndes County Commissioner Scottie Orenstein recused himself. The other County Commissioners unanimously approved this rezoning. Disgruntled citizens filed out, with grumbling and finger pointing at a certain Commissioner.

The applicant withdrew 6.c. REZ-2024-20 Wilson Estate, 5917 Thunder Bowl Rd., ~1.7ac, E-A to R-1.

The Lowndes County Commissioners unanimously approved everything else.

Not on the agenda: Continue reading

Packet: Tourism Authority appointments, rezonings, water repairs, hurricane damage @ LCC 2024-12-09

Update 2025-01-14: Videos: Tourism Authority appointments, rezonings, water repairs, hurricane damage @ LCC Regular 2024-12-10.

The board packet for the Lowndes County Commission meetings of December 9 and 10, 2024, received in response to a LAKE open records request, is on the LAKE website.

[Collage, Packet @ LCC 2024-12-09]
Collage, Packet @ LCC 2024-12-09

See also the agenda and the LAKE videos of the December 9 Work Session.

Plus the packet and LAKE videos of the preceding Planning Commission Meeting.

-jsq

Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today!
http://www.l-a-k-e.org/blog/donate

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Videos: Tourism Authority appointments, rezonings, water repairs, hurricane damage @ LCC Work 2024-12-09

Update 2024-12-23: Packet: Tourism Authority appointments, rezonings, water repairs, hurricane damage @ LCC 2024-12-09.

Almost an hour might be a record for the Lowndes County Commission Work Session yesterday morning.

Part of that was three Special Recognitions and a twelve-minute Special Report – Ashley Tye and FEMA Deputy Director, none of them on the agenda.

[Collage @ LCC 9 December 2024]
Collage @ LCC 9 December 2024

The longest actual agenda item was 6.a. REZ-2024-18 LSO Invest, 3910 Old US 41 N, ~0.93ac, R-21 to C-C at three and a half minutes. Remember the Planning Commission voted 7-1 to recommend denial, and I hear the underlying applicant is a County Commissioner.

Then the $3,068,176.54 TSPLOST project, 8.a. PI# 0016279 TIA-07 Coleman Road NW Paving and Drainage Improvements Bids, at three minutes.

All others took less than two minutes each.

They vote tonight at 5:30 PM.

Below are LAKE videos of each agenda item (or Special Recognition), with a few notes by Gretchen Quarterman, followed by a LAKE video playlist.

See also the agenda. Continue reading

Agenda: Tourism Authority appointments, rezonings, water repairs, hurricane damage @ LCC 2024-12-09

The Lowndes County Commission be busy Monday morning at their Work Session and Tuesday evening at their voting Regular Session.

[Collage @ LCC 2024-12-09]
Collage @ LCC 2024-12-09

It will be interesting to see what they do with REZ-2024-18 LSO Invest, 3910 Old US 41 N, since the Planning Commission voted 7-1 to recommend denial, and I hear the underlying applicant is a County Commissioner.

They will vote on two members for the Valdosta Lowndes County Conference Center and Tourism Authority, one reappointment, and one to replace Michael Smith, who was elected to the Lowndes County Commission.

They will also be voting on close to $5 million, most of it in one paving project, of Coleman Road NW, that one using TSPLOST funds.

The other big ticket items are hurricane damage repair, new motor graders, and several kinds of insurance. Continue reading

Videos: Hurricane assistance, Golf carts, mental health, wetland credits, regional transit, Lift Station and Fire Station Access Roads, 2 TIA Road Bids @ LCC Regular 2023-09-26

Andrew Toussaint gave a report about the Small Business Administration and EMA Director Ashley Tye gave reports on hurricane assistance and local disaster group COAD, in this Lowndes County Commission Regular Session of September 26, 2023. Because of those reports and a second recognition of Leadership Lowndes (they showed up late), the meeting took 49 minutes.

[Collage @ LCC 26 September 2023]
Collage @ LCC 26 September 2023

Like the previous morning, Commissioners were unusually chatty.

Commissioner Scottie Orenstein had some questions and comments about 5.a. Quiet Pines Golf Course Ezgo Golf Cart Lease Agreement. and 5.b. Mental Health Model Resolution for ACCG. Commissioners Clay Griner, Demarcus Marshall, County Manager Paige Dukes, and Chairman Bill Slaughter discussed which statehouse bills the mental health resolution mentions, and that it does not support any particular current bill, specifically not HB 520. They passed the resolution unanimously. Continue reading

Packet: Golf carts, mental health, wetland credits, regional transit, Lift Station and Fire Station Access Roads, 2 TIA Road Bids @ LCC 2023-09-25

Update 2023-09-10: Videos: Hurricane assistance, Golf carts, mental health, wetland credits, regional transit, Lift Station and Fire Station Access Roads, 2 TIA Road Bids @ LCC Regular 2023-09-26

It turns out the board packet for today’s Lowndes County Commission meeting contained little or nothing beyond the one-page agenda sheets for the four Bid items.

[Collage, LCC Packet, 2023-09-25]
Collage, LCC Packet, 2023-09-25

So you actually learn more about those items from the LAKE post with the agenda and bid documents.

In the Minutes for the Work Session of September 11 and for the Regular Session of September 12, about REZ-2023-04 Chase, 6119 Quarterman Road, the LAKE letter is only alluded to as “a report from the opposition” in this passage: Continue reading

Videos: Golf carts, mental health, wetland credits, regional transit, Lift Station and Fire Station Access Roads, 2 TIA Road Bids @ LCC Work 2023-09-25

Update 2023-09-26: Packet: Golf carts, mental health, wetland credits, regional transit, Lift Station and Fire Station Access Roads, 2 TIA Road Bids @ LCC 2023-09-25.

Lowndes County Commissioners were unusually chatty in yesterday morning’s Work Session, about 5.b. Mental Health Model Resolution for ACCG, in which they sounded like prison reform advocates.

[Collage @ LCC 25 September 2023]
Collage @ LCC 25 September 2023

Also about 6.a. Grove Point Lift Station Access Road, 5.c. Purchase of Wetland Credits for Shiloh Road Bridge Project, and 5.a. Quiet Pines Golf Course Ezgo Golf Cart Lease Agreement.

They had no questions about the almost $4 million dollar item, 6.b. TIA 2023-05 Briggston Road Grading, Drainage, Base, and Paving Bids, which leads to Wild Adventures.

See below for more notes on those items, with the LAKE videos of each agenda item, followed by a LAKE video playlist.

See also the agenda and bid documents.

We have not yet received a response to the LAKE open records request for the board packet.

Sure, I only sent that request Sunday. But it is stil mysterious why Lowndes County does not put its board packets on its own website, like many counties smaller and larger in Georgia and Florida have been doing for years. Continue reading

Agenda: Golf carts, mental health, wetland credits, regional transit, Lift Station and Fire Station Access Roads, 2 TIA Road Bids @ LCC 2023-09-25

Update 2023-09-26: Videos: Golf carts, mental health, wetland credits, regional transit, Lift Station and Fire Station Access Roads, 2 TIA Road Bids @ LCC Work 2023-09-25.

This week the Lowndes County Commission proposes to authorize spending $4.5 million on road projects, plus golf carts for the Quiet Pine Golf Course at Moody AFB that the county now operates.

[Collage @ LCC Agenda 2023-09-25]
Collage @ LCC Agenda 2023-09-25

The biggest project at almost four million dollars is TIA 2023-05 Briggston Road Grading, Drainage, Base, and Paving Bids, leading from Madison Highway to Old Clyattville Road, where you will find Wild Adventures.

Cost What
$3,892,229.54TIA 2023-05 Briggston Road Grading, Drainage, Base, and Paving Bids
$240,119.00Fire Rescue Station 10 Pavement Resurfacing Bids
$222,377.49Grove Point Lift Station Access Road
$194,166.66NC-TIA 2023-01 Rocky Hill Church Road Grading, Drainage, Base, and Paving Bids
$85,440.00Purchase of Wetland Credits for Shiloh Road Bridge Project
$50,160.00Quiet Pines Golf Course Ezgo Golf Cart Lease Agreement
$4,684,492.69Total

Perhaps a longer search would find information on the county website about the Purchase of Wetland Credits for Shiloh Road Bridge Project. At least we can say what it is a bridge (or box culvert) over: Big Creek, which runs into Franks Creek, which ends up in the Little River.

[Shiloh Road Bridge in WLRWT]
Shiloh Road Bridge in the WWALS map of the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail (WLRWT).

However, the Lowndes County Finance Department has a Bids web page that leads to specifics on each bid, including for the Grove Point Lift Station, Briggston Road, Rocky Hill Church Road, and Fire Rescue Station 10 projects. Three of them include a location map and engineering drawings. The exception is for Fire Station 10, but its Bid Documents do reveal the location of that fire station: 2981 US Hwy 84 East, Valdosta, Georgia.

Copies of all these documents and images of their pages are on the LAKE website.

We do not have a copy of the board packet, because I forgot to send the open records request.

Although it is still mysterious why the board packet is not on the county’s webiste where they have an option “packet” that only produces the agenda and an agenda sheet for each item.

Here is the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2023, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2023, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

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Hunter rezoning, insurance, objections to rejection of Beasley rezoning @ LCC Regular 2022-07-26

Last month at the Lowndes County Commission, the Hunter rezoning acreage was finally resolved, the rejected Beasley rezoning came back in Citizens Wishing to Be Heard, and the Alapaha Plantation water filtration system still doesn’t work after a year.

[Hunter, Insurance, CWTBH]
Hunter, Insurance, CWTBH

Even the property owners didn’t know whether 6.a. REZ-2022-13 Hunter Property was for rezoning 2 or 7 acres. Commissioner Mark Wisenbaker resolved the issue by Continue reading

Videos: Seven minutes, mostly insurance @ LCC Work 2022-07-25

Update 2022-08-25: Videos: Hunter rezoning, insurance, objections to rejection of Beasley rezoning @ LCC Regular 2022-07-26.

This morning the Lowndes County Commission spent 3 minutes discussing insurance, mostly about defensive driving to get rates down. And 2 minutes discussing the previously-tabled 6.a. REZ-2022-13 Hunter Property, which seems to be really for 2 acres, not 7 acres. Rezoning notice signs are posted on both adjacent roads. The whole meeting took seven minutes.

[Library, rezoning, insurance, seven minutes]
Library, rezoning, insurance, seven minutes

They vote 5:30 PM Tuesday evening, July 26, 2022.

Below are links to each LAKE video of each agenda item of this morning’s meeting, with a few notes by Gretchen Quarterman, followed by a LAKE video playlist. See also the Continue reading