Tag Archives: Government

Exclusive Franchise for Solid Waste Collection Services @ LCC 2012-12-11

Why did the Lowndes County Commission make this exclusive franchise with a Florida or Alabama or New York company and then sue a local Lowndes County company after the VDT reported the previous spring that any contract would be non-exclusive and wouldn’t put anybody out of business?

Here, obtained by LAKE through an open records request, is the contract with ADS of Middle Georgia, LLC. The the agenda item for the 11 December 2012 Commission meeting at which this contract was approved says ADS of Central Alabama, Inc. The contract says ADS is “a Florida corporation”, and we know ADS is owned by Highstar Capital of New York City. Once again, why is granting a cheap monopoly to an out-of-state company more important than either letting local companies compete for the service or having the county continue to provide a public service directly to its taxpayers and citizens?

The termination clause I pointed out to the Commission after an ADS executive made excuses for nonperformance is Paragraph 18 of the contract:

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Three appointments, a rezoning, and 2 wastewater but no solid waste @ LCC 2013-06-10

No names for appointments (KLVB, VLCCCTA, ZBOA), and nothing on the agenda about solid waste collection or the public hearing they didn’t hold or why they picked Veolia’s highest bid or ADS buying more companies when its spokesman said that wasn’t forseen or how much the Commission forsees waste collection fees going up or suing a local company at the Lowndes County Commission. Wasterwater is on the agenda twice, which is good after that sewer spill into the Withlacoochee River, but nothing about a five-year action plan. Let’s listen to what the preacher Commissioners pray about: that’s usually a clue to what’s on their minds, even if they proceed to do the opposite.

Here’s the agenda.

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Tina Anderson new President of Wiregrass Georgia Technical College

From Moultrie to Valdosta, Dr. Tina Anderson unanimously appointed new Wiregrass Tech President.

Wiregrass Tech PR of 6 June 2013, Commissioner Jackson Appoints Dr. Tina Anderson to be the Next President of Wiregrass Georgia Technical College

Atlanta — Commissioner Ron Jackson today informed the state board that oversees the Technical College System of Georgia that Dr. Tina Anderson, who is currently the president of Moultrie Technical College, is his choice to become the next president of Wiregrass Georgia Technical College in Valdosta.

Board Member Ben Copeland of Valdosta made the motion to approve the appointment of Anderson to the position, and the full board voted unanimously in favor of the selection. The announcement and vote were made during the board’s monthly meeting at the TCSG headquarters in Atlanta.

Anderson will move into her new position at Wiregrass Georgia Technical College on July 1. She will replace Dr. Ray Perren, who left the college in May to become president of another TCSG college, Lanier Technical College in Oakwood, Georgia.

Jackson told the board members Continue reading →

ADS revolving door with local and state government

Not paid enough as an elected official? Apply to Advanced Disposal for a job! Then you can run for the statehouse, win, and sponsor legislation about waste collection! Oh, look: there’s Steve Edwards again.

CummingHome.com updated 25 September 2011 a press release originally published 20 September 2009, Former Mayor Joins the Advanced Disposal Atlanta Marketing Team,

Advanced Disposal Services, Inc., a regional provider of integrated solid waste and recycling collection, transfer, and disposal services, is pleased to announce the hiring of Brett Harrell as the Municipal Marketing & Government Affairs Representative for the Metro-Atlanta area.

Mr. Harrell brings a multitude of experience to his new position having spent time as former Mayor of the City of Snellville where he administered the city’s solid waste and recycling program serving Continue reading →

Videos of morning of budget discussion @ LCC 2013-06-05

Here’s a video playlist of Wednesday morning’s Lowndes County Commission Budget Discussion Meeting.


Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 5 June 2013.

They broke for lunch shortly before noon, and Gretchen had another appointment, so the video ends there, although the Commission apparently continued te discussion in the afternoon. Hm, if they had real discussion at their other meetings, they wouldn’t have to save it up for long marathon sessions like this….

-jsq

San Onofre nuke closing for good –Socal Edison

A big victory today for anti-nuke and pro-solar activists: the leaky San Onofre nukes will stay closed for good! Cost to close them? Between between $450 million and $650. This is after SoCal Edison and 20% owner San Diego Gas & Electric “more than $780 million replacing the steam generators several years ago, which ratepayers are now repaying.” The new Plant Vogtle nukes are already about a billion dollars over and 19 months behind: let’s stop them now before Georgia Power and Southern Company waste any more of our money on them.

PR from SoCal Edison today, Southern California Edison Announces Plans to Retire San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station,

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Budget hearing public notices @ LCC 2013-06-05

Yesterday’s County Commission meeting was billed as a Budget Discussion Meeting, and apparently it was not a public hearing on the county’s budget, because state law requires such a hearing to be advertised in the newspaper or published as a news story, a week in advance. This is different from public notice for other Commission meetings: for budget hearings the notice has to be not just sent to the newspaper: it has to be published, and not in the legal notices section, and it has to appear at least a week before the hearing. It’s also illegal to refuse to provide a copy of the submitted draft budget to the public or the news media:

O.C.G.A. 36-81-5.(d) On the day that the proposed budget is submitted to the governing authority for consideration, a copy of the budget shall be placed in a public location which is convenient to the residents of the unit of local government. The governing authority shall make every effort to provide convenient access to the residents during reasonable business hours so as to accord every opportunity to the public to review the budget prior to adoption by the governing authority. A copy of the budget shall also be made available, upon request, to the news media.

LAKE is a news medium, according to federal law.

Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts has Georgia Law on Local Government Budgets: Continue reading →

Birds stop cleanup work at closed Hanford plutonium plant

Birds nested using radioactive mud from WW II-era nuclear bomb production plant, stopping attempts to clean up some of the worst leaking atomic waste, much of which is liquid in leaking tanks near the Columbia River. We have nuclear plants leaking radioactive tritium next to the Chattahoochee and Altamaha Rivers, and radiation is detectible in the Savannah River near Plant Vogtle. How many radioactive solar panels or windmills have you heard of?

Annette Cary wrote for the Tri-City Herald yesterday, Birds at Hanford vit plant spread contaminated waste,

Work stopped Wednesday morning at parts of the Hanford vitrification plant after radioactive contamination was detected under a bird’s nest, according to Bechtel National.

The contamination is suspected of coming from mud used for the nest, which may have belonged to a swallow, said Bechtel spokesman Todd Nelson. Only a small amount of contaminated soil was found, and the contamination was at a low level.

Should workers believe that?

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How much will trash collection rates go up in Lowndes County? @ LCC 2012-10-09

Speaking of Veolia winning its high bid for garbage collection, here’s a clue to how much more its rates may go up.

Remember ADS Veolia was bought hardly a month later by ADS, owned by Highstar Capital of New York City? Look at ADS’s bid for Proposal D: $18.39.

That’s $220.68 a year. Which is even higher than Wakulla County, Florida’s $196 a year, which Gretchen warned us all about more than a year ago. And more than double the $100 a year for the former county waste collection sites.

Want to guess how much ADS’s monthly rates will rise? Maybe Continue reading →

Budget Discussion Meeting 8:30 AM Wednesday @ LCC 2013-06-05

Popped up since 3PM today on the Lowndes County Commission online calendar:

Budget Discussion Meeting (6/5/2013)

On June 5, 2013, at 8:30 a.m., the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will meet for a budget discussion, in the Executive Conference Room on the 3rd Floor of the Lowndes County Administration Building. For more information, please contact the Office of the County Clerk at 229-671-2400.
That’s tomorrow morning, the morning after the Georgia Supreme Court decision about LOST was expected today.

-jsq