The latest update (16 July 2012) is online for the community calendar produced by Jane F. Osborn who organizes the Valdosta Civic Roundtable. She wrote:
…the calendar is not produced for civic roundtable, it is just a project of mine for the many counties that lost a source of information when 2-1-1 was discontinued.
LAKE will attempt to remember to update new ones in this web page as Miss Jane sends them. We hope you, dear readers, will remind us if we don't.
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Yes, there is a Plan B for T-SPLOST. Two of them, actually, and they are in agreement on several major points.
David Pendered wrote for the Saporta Report yesterday, Called to produce their Plan B, groups detail their alternatives to proposed 1 percent transportation sales tax
Two organized opponents of the proposed 1 percent transportation sales tax said Thursday they are baffled by the allegation by tax advocates that the opponents have not offered an alternative to the tax.
The Sierra Club issued its alternative in writing in April, and members of the Atlanta Tea Party have voiced a consistent set of alternatives since October.
“We have common ground on this issue. There some things we don’t agree on, but we agree that this tax has got to be stopped,” said Debbie Dooley, a co-founder of the Atlanta Tea Party.
Both the Atlanta Tea Party and Sierra Club responded Thursday to a request from SaportaReport.com to provide their alternatives to the referendum. The request came after the campaign for the sales tax challenged them Wednesday to release their solution to relieve traffic congestion, in lieu of the transportation sales tax.
The article includes details of each of their responses, plus this handy list.
Continue readingIf you're unemployed, you may not be able to afford a car: then how do you get to work even if you can find a job? As our own Industrial Authority's Community Assessment of last October said, we need public transportation to promote business by getting employees to jobs. T-SPLOST doesn't do that: it would widen more roads and build no public transportation.
Peter S. Goodman wrote for Huffington Post today, Unemployment Problem Includes Public Transportation That Separates Poor From Jobs
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — In the two months since he lost his job
driving a delivery truck for a door company, Lebron Stinson has absorbed a bitter geography lesson about this riverfront city: The jobs are in one place, he is in another, and the bus does not bridge the divide.
Stinson lives downtown, where many of the factories that once employed willing hands have been converted into chic eateries. The majority of jobs are out in the suburbs, in the strip malls, office parks and chain restaurants that stretch eastward. Most of this sprawl lies beyond reach of the public bus system, and Stinson cannot afford a car.
The report Janus Economic did for VLCIA 11 October 2011, Community & Economic Assessment: Lowndes County says:
There is a plan for a public transportation system in Valdosta-Lowndes County but it currently lacks funding for implementation. Under current budget constraints it will be difficult to implement such a project, but businesses in the industrial parks and outlying areas may want to implement a limited transportation system if they discover that employee attendance is an issue.
That would be the plan for $7.5 million for a four line bus system that got cut first pass from the T-SPLOST project list, while widening a few miles of Old US 41 North got raised from $8 million to $12 million and is still in the final list.
T-SPLOST would promote more sprawl of exactly the kind we don't need. Let's not do that.
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Closing one end of a dirt road to stop speeders: it turns out the county can do that, after all! And it’s a popular thing to do.
One spoke against, but changed to be for. Three others spoke for. The agenda item at the 26 June 2012 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission was
7. Public Hearing: Abandonment of a Portion of Brinson Drive
John L. Lewis who lives in Lanier County but owns property at 4718 Brinson Road spoke against closing Brinson Drive. County Engineer Mike Fletcher clarified that they weren’t closing the whole road; they were abandoning a portion of it near Pikes Pond Road, making Brinson a dead end to stop speeding through traffic. Lewis seemed mollified. 
Richard Rigby spoke for the closing of Brinson Road, saying it was the greatest thing the Commission had done in the last ten years, other than keeping Haunted House Road open. 
Amanda Parker spoke for closing Brinson Drive; she lives on Oak Hill Drive at the end of Brinson and almost got run over that morning. 
Loretta Steed spoke for closing Brinson Drive; she lives on Pikes Pond Road near one end of Brinson. She said she had been against the closing until she learned from Rigby that the county was keeping Haunted House Road open. Instead she wanted to know how it would be closed so as to stop the speeders from getting on it. Chairman Paulk said a culvert would be removed. 
Commissioners voted unanimously to close one end of Brinson Drive. Three years ago in a similar situation, the county insisted on paving Quarterman Road instead. Quarterman Road, which, unlike Brinson Drive, doesn’t even go anywhere. Paving resulted in speeders and drag racers through a residential neighborhood. As resident Carolyn Selby put it:
You designed a mile and a half straight-away, and they have come. Welcome to the Quarterman Road Drag Strip!
The county continues to insist speed humps are out of the question. It’s good to hear Commissioners have become concerned about safety somewhere in the county.
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My op-ed in the VDT today. -jsq
Our high schools and college graduates mostly have to go somewhereContinue readingelse, because jobs here are few and many of them don’t pay enough for a decent living. Should we not care enough about our families and our community to come up with strategies that grow existing businesses and attract new ones that will employ local people?
We need discussions and strategies that involve the whole community,
going beyond just the usual planning professionals, to include all groups and individuals with information or opinions, whether they got here generations ago or last week: for fairness and for freedom.
Sometimes we see local strategy. Winn Roberson organized Drive Away CCA. Ashley Paulk verified there was no business case for a biomass plant in Lowndes County after many people successfully opposed it. School “unification” opponents, out-financed 10 to 1, still defeated that referendum 4 to 1.
How do we go beyond opposing things and move on to sustainable strategies that build clean industry?
The Industrial Authority focus group meeting I attended Wednesday was refreshing, because their consultants asked the opinions of people some
of whom previously had to picket outside. The previous day, VLCIA Chairman Roy Copeland said this strategic planning process was a long time coming. I agree, and while nobody can say what will come of it at this point, I hope it does produce a real Economic Development Strategy.
Building on the Valdosta City Council’s annual consideration of affordable housing,
The latest update (20 February 2012) is online for the community calendar produced by Jane F. Osborn who organizes the Valdosta Civic Roundtable. She wrote:
…the calendar is not produced for civic roundtable, it is just a project of mine for the many counties that lost a source of information when 2-1-1 was discontinued.
LAKE will attempt to remember to update new ones in this web page as Miss Jane sends them. We hope you, dear readers, will remind us if we don’t.
-jsq
Received 1 June 2012 about the 22 May 2012 VLMPO Open House at SGRC. 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.” -jsq
I attended the transportation plan open house on the day that anyone could come from early morning until 7:00 PM and when I went at 5, I was only thesixth person who had been there all day. Corey Hull showed me and four other people the plan, answered our questions, explained the difference between this long term plan and the TSPLOST and there was a discussion about how one might go about becoming a bus services provider in the area. The amount of money allocated to the city of Valdosta for transportation is not an amount that is near what a bus system would cost, so there still will have to be other funds available to make that possible. Even though our group brought the attendance for the day up to 10 citizens, it was a huge improvement over the last open house, when NO ONE showed. Corey Hull was very helpful and had a lot of information that probably would have been fascinating to others if they had attended, but once again there was virtually no input.
-Jane F. Osborn, MSSW
Valdosta, GA
229-630-0924
According to
projects submitted for T-SPLOST,
a bus system would cost about $7.5 million (startup and a few years run-time),
but that got cut first pass, while $12 million for widening one road
is still in the T-SPLOST list.
I’m told that public transportation is not an issue around here.
If people think it is, maybe they should show up at meetings
like the one SGRC organized about the other transportation plan
and say they want a bus system.
-jsq
Why are Commissioners hiding behind Joe Pritchard, instead of discussing trash disposal in open meetings?
At last week’s Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission, County Manager Joe Pritchard repeated part of what he said the previous morning at the Work Session. After the meeting he came up to me to ask whether he had clarified it more. I do appreciate him doing that, and he did clarify where the new cards are on sale, although he omitted any mention of where they had been discussed previously. And it’s true that the previous morning he did not say anything had been decided. Yet the method of paying for waste disposal has changed (for only six months, and not prorated), so somebody decided that, somewhere where the public was not invited.
That six month period conveniently ends just after the current current Commission will be replaced by a new Commission with two additional members and a new Chairman. Those of us who remember former Chairman Rod Casey’s Commission passing a waste collection plan just as he left the Commission may remain sceptical that the Commissioners haven’t already made up their minds to privatize trash collection and socialize the losses onto landowners, who will have to deal with increased illegal dumping.
Sceptical especially when the VDT has reported twice that the Commissioners have already made up their minds, and about the Commissioners discussing trash disposal at three different meetings at which they knew the public would not be present. Remember the VDT report of the Commission’s stealth 4 June meeting:
Continue reading 
It's Valdosta Farm Days this morning, 9AM to 1PM, at the historic Lowndes County Courthouse. Local food, community, and economy. Y'all come!
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How can a man with health care financial troubles make a living with a shop he’s had for decades when some of the neighbors complain about a rezoning that is now required? A controversial case that raised issues ranging from wetlands to public safety to Moody Air Force Base jets flying out of Valdosta Airport made its way through two appointed boards to a Solomonic rezoning decision by the elected Lowndes County Commission. Nobody wanted to deny a man a living, but many people wanted to limit potential commercial uses of the subject property. The Commissioners attempted to take all that into account, yet failed to incorporate two major considerations raised by neighbors, mentioning one of them only to disparage it. Even that isn’t the end of it, since it may head back to the Zoning Board of Appeals for a buffer variance. Here are videos of REZ-2012-09 Copeland at the Lowndes County Commission.
It had been to the Planning Commission for a recommendation on rezoning, it had been to the Zoning Board of Appeals for a buffer variance, Monday morning it had been to the County Commission Work Session at which we learned a bit more, and Tuesday evening it went to the Lowndes County Commission Regular Session for a vote on rezoning.
At the 8:30 AM Monday Work Session, County Planner Jason Davenport had several updates since Commissioners had received their packets the previous week.
Davenport summarized that he thought there were three camps:
He said one possibility would be for he and the county attorney to meet with the opposition attorney to try to work out some conditions.
The agenda item was
6. Public Hearings – REZ-2012-09 Copeland, 3258 & 3264 Loch Laurel Rd, R-A & R-1 to C-C, well & septic, ~5 acres
Here’s a list of every citizen speaking for, at any of GLPC, ZBOA, or County Commission: John A. Copeland (the applicant), Kevin Copeland (applicant’s son), Nancy Hobby, Charles Miles, Fuller Sorrell, Alan Davis, Robert Roffe, and Norman Bush, plus a petition for.
Here’s a list of every citizen speaking against, at any of GLPC, ZBOA, or County Commission: Bill Nijem (attorney for several neighbors), Jimmy Hiers, Gail Hiers, Greta Vargas, and Patty Haynes.