Meet the Candidates 2019,
organized by the Valdosta Lowndes Chamber of Commerce:
no questions from the audience, but Gretchen Quarterman videoed for LAKE
the few minutes each candidate for Valdosta Mayor, City Council, or Valdosta Board of Education held forth.
Plus
seven minutes about SPLOST, the Special Local Option Sales Tax,
the only thing voters in the unincorporated parts of Lowndes County get to vote on this election season.
Below are links to each LAKE video Gretchen took,
followed by a LAKE video playlist.
Most people missed a chance to ask whatever they wanted of the Valdosta City Council,
without time limits or fear of ejection from the room.
This town hall, hosted by Council members Andy Gibbs and Eric Howard,
apparently was not announced on Valdosta’s own website nor in the Valdosta Daily Times.
But Gretchen Quarterman was there for LAKE and videoed it, and provided the notes below.
The few people who did attend were interested enough to take an hour and a half of their time to participate in the community and local government.
Lowndes County Commissioner Scottie Orenstein was there, and occasionally answered,
as did Valdosta City Council Tim Carroll.
City Council Sonny Vickers was also there.
Sidewalks were a major topic.
Gretchen wondered why every street doesn’t have one.
Instead, the city thinks it will improve
traffic on Bemiss Road by making it wider.
Naturally, Taxes in County and City and property values were a major topic.
Valdosta City Council Sandra Tooley said she thought sidewalks make property values go up, so why should the county get any of that tax money when the city paid to put the sidewalks in?
Others misunderstood that, and more discussion ensued.
People remain confused about how SPLOST works between city and county.
Back on transportation, a final speaker spelled out how Valdosta is not bicycle-friendly,
so children can’t ride bicycles to school, students to VSU, employees to work, or people to see friends, because it is not safe. Same for Lowndes County: not safe for this healthy, family-friendly activity and transportation method.
Andy Gibbs said this is one of the topics being gathered into the Parks and Rec. Master Plan, currently in progress.
Below are links to each LAKE video, followed by a LAKE video playlist.
Continue reading →
The Lowndes County Commission spent nine minutes yesterday morning discussing spending $124,454 and borrowing $1,734,000.
They vote this evening at 5:30 PM.
Finance Director Stephanie Black said due to the
Property Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights,
if the tax digest (total assessed property value in the county)
goes up, the county has to reduce the millage (tax per $1,000 of property value),
or announce the difference as a tax increase and hold three public hearings,
so they’re rolling back the millage rate slightly: 0.126 mills,
down from 11.064 for 2018 to 10.938 for 2019.
That’s Georgia Senate Bill 177, Act 431, signed April 30, 1999, effective January 1, 2000.
Here is the millage resolution they adopted half an hour later,
in the
board packet, which LAKE only received after this millage meeting and after the Commission voted on this millage change:
She showed some quite informative slides, which for unknown reasons do not
seem to be on
the Finance Department’s web page.
For example, she had a nice summary slide of the five chunks of sales tax these days:
4 cents to the State of Georgia,
1 cent to Local Option Sales Tax (LOST),
split between county and its cities for property tax reduction,
1 cent to Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST), split between county and its cities for capital improvements,
1 cent to Educational Special Local Option Sales Tax (E-SPLOST),
split between the county and city school systems for capital improvements
1 cent to Transportation Special Local Option Sales Tax (T-SPLOST),
regionally approved, and split between the county and its cities for transportation capital improvements.
Billed on the lowndescounty.com calendar as
Millage Meeting,
5PM, Tuesday, 27 August 2019, in Commission Chambers before the voting Regular Session,
as usual almost nobody attended, and nobody from the public spoke.
Lowering the Millage Rate
Millage Meeting, Lowndes County Commission (LCC Millage),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, August 27, 2019.
-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!
You got a notice about this meeting two days in advance,
if you signed up for the county’s alerts, which is twice as long as they usually do.
Special Called Meeting,
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
A special called meeting will be held to adopt the amended SPLOST VIII Agreement.
Date:
July 31, 2019
Time:
8:30 AM
Location:
Board of Commissioners
Administration Building
Address:
327 N. Ashley Street
2nd Floor
Valdosta, GA 31601
Here is Lowndes County’s SPLOST VIII Project List.
The biggest items are water and sewer at $23 million
and sports at $13,274,912,
followed by the historic Courthouse at $12 million.
Note nothing about Continue reading →
For the first time ever, the county returned the complete board packet before the Lowndes County Commission voted on it!
This was in response to an open records request sent Wednesday,
so the statutory three days were actually up Monday morning.
They emailed the packet Monday afternoon about 5PM.
Google Map annotated by LAKE to show the quit claimed part of Reed Road in magenta (this map was not part of the board packet).
All the dirt part of Reed Road, back from the old Skipper Bridge over the Withlacoochee River,
to the entrance to Pine Grove Middle School, is what is being abandoned.
It is possible to decipher this from the quit claims in the board packet for
yesterday morning’s Lowndes County Commission Work Session and tonight’s Regular Session.
All the SPLOST VIII Project Lists, for the county and the five cities, are included; see below.
Everything the county sent, plus images of each page,
is on the LAKE website.
LAKE looks forward to the county putting all these packet documents
on the county’s own website, along with the agenda and agenda sheets.
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!
The whole Work Session took eleven minutes,
of which three were about
the county guaranteeing refinancing Hospital Authority debt.
They vote tonight at 5:30 PM; Gretchen will be there with the LAKE video camera.
Update 2019-07-23:< Obtained in response to an open records request from LAKE, board packet is on the LAKE website.
Second longest yesterday morning at a minute and a half was the
SPLOST VIII Agreement, for which it seems the list is already finished,
finalized at a “public” meeting between the county and the five cities,
which was not announced to the public.
Most of the bids for the
Grassy Pond Sewer Connection
were not in the board packet, we discovered due to a question by a Commissioner.
The
Abandonment of Portion of Reed Road
is the bit to the Withlacoochee River,
which they county says was “unopened”, which is a strange
way to describe the old dirt road that used to cross the river on a bridge.
On July 8, 2019, Lowndes County met with the cities of Valdosta, Hahira, Lake
Park, Remerton and Dasher to officially call for SPLOST VIII. As a result,
the attached SPLOST VIII Agreement
between Lowndes County and the cities has been prepared for consideration. Once approved by Lowndes
County, the agreement will be forwarded to the cities for consideration during a public meeting.
Will when and where for that upcoming “public meeting” be announced in advance?
Where is “the attached SPLOST VIII Agreement”?
Wednesday morning at 9:35 AM,
I sent the county a Georgia Open Records Act (GORA) request for the board packet
for this week’s Lowndes County Commission meetings.
By a very generous interpretation of the three business days GORA permits to
respond to such a request, time’s up this morning at 9:35 AM.
So far, the county has not even acknowledged receipt of the request.
![[Survey plat: Revised County RoW for Howell Lane]](http://www.l-a-k-e.org/govt/loco/2019-09-23--lcc-packet/September-23--24-2019-Agenda-Packet-0017.jpg)
![[Project Budget]](http://www.l-a-k-e.org/govt/loco/2019-09-23--lcc-packet/September-23--24-2019-Agenda-Packet-0026.jpg)
![[A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING THE 2019 AD VALOREM TAX MILLAGES FOR LOWNDES COUNTY]](http://www.l-a-k-e.org/govt/loco/2019-08-26--lcc-packet/August-26--27-Meeting-Packet-0015.jpg)
![[Lowndes Project List]](http://www.l-a-k-e.org/govt/loco/2019-07-22--lcc-packet/Agenda-Packet-72219-and-72319-0080.jpg)
![[Google Map annotated by LAKE]](http://www.l-a-k-e.org/govt/loco/2019-07-22--lcc-packet/reed-road.jpg)
![[Valdosta Project List]](http://www.l-a-k-e.org/govt/loco/2019-07-22--lcc-packet/Agenda-Packet-72219-and-72319-0081.jpg)
![[Hahira Project List]](http://www.l-a-k-e.org/govt/loco/2019-07-22--lcc-packet/Agenda-Packet-72219-and-72319-0082.jpg)
![[Remerton Project List]](http://www.l-a-k-e.org/govt/loco/2019-07-22--lcc-packet/Agenda-Packet-72219-and-72319-0083.jpg)
![[Dasher Project List]](http://www.l-a-k-e.org/govt/loco/2019-07-22--lcc-packet/Agenda-Packet-72219-and-72319-0084.jpg)
![[Lake Park Project List]](http://www.l-a-k-e.org/govt/loco/2019-07-22--lcc-packet/Agenda-Packet-72219-and-72319-0085.jpg)
