Tag Archives: Gretchen Quarterman

Agenda: No Nottinghill and no county cases, 1 Hahira, 4 Valdosta @ GLPC 2013-11-25

I guessed wrong:
Nottinghill is not on the agenda.
Yet the County Commission decided at its November meeting to hear
Nottinghill at its 10 December 2013 meeting, which will be without
the Planning Commission ever having discussed this item.
How is that right?
If Planning Commission agendas were made public some days before
the meetings, the public could point out things like this in time
for them to be fixed.

REZ-2013-11 Nottinghill was tabled by GLPC
30 September 2013
and again

28 October 2013.

REZ-2013-11 was also tabled by the Lowndes County Commission

8 October 2013
and

12 November 2013, specifically
until the County Commission’s 10 December 2013 meeting.
So if the Planning Commission doesn’t discuss Nottinghill tonight,
the County Commission can vote on it in December without the
Planning Commission ever having discussed it.

Here’s the agenda for tonight, supplied by an informant about an hour ago.
Will anyone from the county even show up, since without Nottinghill
there are no county cases on the agenda?
Continue reading →

No public agenda for Planning Commission today @ GLPC 2013-11-25

Why so secretive, planning board that recommends on
issues that affect citizens all over Lowndes County?
Where is your agenda for your meeting at 5:30 PM today?
Sure, Gretchen only asked for it today, but why
does LAKE have to wheedle it out of somebody?
Why don’t you or the county publish it so the
public can see?
Do you, the affected public, agree with
Lowndes County Chairman Bill Slaughter that

transparency is not a problem?

We can guess the proposed Nottinghill subdivision will be back,
since it got tabled (again) at GLPC’s

October meeting.

Also probably the

attendance policy, since last time the GLPC Chairman wasn’t there
and only 6 of 11 Commissioners showed up.
But what else?
And why should have to guess what public business a public board
is taking up tonight?
Why do we have this Planning Commission if it doesn’t take its
responsibilities to the citizens of this county seriously enough
to show up or to tell us what it’s doing?

Lowndes County doesn’t even have today’s meeting

on its public calendar.
The City of Valdosta

does;
here’s

Valdosta’s GLPC listing for today: Continue reading →

Great Promise and Leadership at Industrial Authority @ VLCIA 2013-11-19

Really; those are the names of two of the organizations they spoke before:
Great Promise Partnership and Leadership Lowndes.
And what is the mystery Project XX²?

Here’s

the agenda:

Valdosta — Lowndes County Industrial Authority

Tuesday, November 19, 2013 5:30 p.m.

Industrial Authority Conference Room

2110 N. Patterson Street

Continue reading →

Maybe county should check its work about other budgets @ LCC 2013-11-14

Who’s responsible for the recent partiality in budget reports?
The newspaper, or its source of information, namely the county government
at its secretive retreat on the Chairman’s private property that even the VDT reporter had trouble finding?

When

the Coroner
and

the Sheriff
(often

at odds lately)
agree that

the VDT’s version
of

the county government’s remarks about their budgets
was at best partial,
where is the source of that partiality?
Who’s responsible for budgeting for the county, reporter Matthew
or editor Kay Harris or Dean Poling?
Or is it the local government our taxes pay to do that job,
namely the Lowndes County Commission and its staff,
which is managed by County Manager Joe Pritchard?

Maybe somebody down at the county palace should,

as Gretchen suggested recently,
“check our work”.

-jsq

Coroner responds to County Commission about budget @ LCC 2013-11-14

Like

the Sheriff, the Coroner reports
that something’s rotten in the

Lowndes County Commission and staff’s version of his budget.

Dean Poling write for the VDT today,

Coroner responds to county budget issues,

Lowndes County Coroner Bill Watson explained Friday that comments
calling him one of the county budget’s “worst offenders”
did not explain why his office’s expenses change from year to year.

“I have no control over the number of people that dies each
year,” Watson told The Times, “and I have to fund the
transportation for autopsies. Any time there is an autopsy, it costs
my office about $750.”

These costs include Continue reading →

Sheriff responds to County Commission about budget @ LCC 2013-11-14

LTE in the VDT today. -jsq

Sheriff’s Response to “budget woes”

The Sheriff’s Office has received a lot of criticism in the last
several months. It appears to be the fashionable thing these days
and an easy target. Sheriff Prine did not receive an invitation to

the Chairman’s personal property
for a review of the county’s budget
and criticism of the Sheriff’s budget in particular. There are some
facts that have not been reported

by the Valdosta Daily Times,
which may or may not have been provided.

First it should be noted that the Sheriff’s Office general fund
budget was reduced from last year’s budget by $171,306.

This was
before another $130,492 was taken away in August as a result of
shift in

traffic citation processing
responsibilities

to the Clerk’s Office.

A closer look at some of the specific line items targeted for
criticism will show Continue reading →

Videos: Budget, SPLOST, and 2014 Planning @ LCC 2013-11-14

They detailed spending by the Sheriff and the Coroner,
yet never seemed to say how much the Commission itself has spent

sueing a local business.
And what was that executive session about?
Doesn’t

Georgia Open Meetings Law say they have
to say what it’s for?

Here’s

the agenda.
See also

County discusses budget woes:
Sheriff’s department, coroner are ‘worst offenders’,
by Matthew Woody, VDT, 15 November 2013.

Here’s

a video playlist for the entire Lowndes County Commission Retreat Work Session.

Videos: Budget, SPLOST, and 2014 Planning

Retreat Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 14 November 2013.

-jsq

We desperately need your help –Carol Singletary @ VCC 2013-11-07

A local mom said she was one of many landowners being bullied
by a pipeline company and asked for help from local leaders,
at the

7 November 2013 Valdosta City Council Regular Session.

Here’s

Part 1 of 2:

Carol Singletary’s impassioned and reasoned plea
got a response from Mayor John Gayle,
even if it was only Continue reading →

Check our work, esp. about the pipeline –Gretchen Quarterman @ LCC 2013-11-12

Fan of local government Gretchen suggested it
“check our work” before whipsawing citizens in for items
that didn’t happen or failing to schedule a public hearing
even after the Chairman asked for it, plus failing do deliver
what was promised in open records requests,
at the

12 November 2013 Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.
Today she’s checking their work at
their secretive Retreat Work Session.

At the Regular Session she noted that the

Sabal Trail item
that was misscheduled for the previous morning
caused several citizens to take off work to come
in for something that didn’t happen.
(You can find out more about that pipeline
Saturday morning at 10AM at the
SpectraBusters Informational Meeting.

She mentioned the

Green Lane item that the Chairman had asked Continue reading →

Annual Retreat Work Session @ LCC 2013-11-14

It’s 9AM: do you know where your County Commission is?
They’re at Chairman Bill Slaughter’s house, having what
finally got billed as an “Annual Retreat Work Session”.
Why so secretive, Commissioners?

Crawford Powell (District 3), Joyce Evans (District 1), Richard Raines (District 2), Stephanie Black (Finance Director), Joe Pritchard (County Manager), Bill Slaughter (Chairman), Paige Dukes (County Clerk), John Page (District 5), Demarcus Marshall (District 4)

At the start time of 8:30 AM, nobody was observing except
Jody Hall (GLPC) and Gretchen Quarterman (LAKE).
The VDT reporter arrived at 8:59 AM.
Here’s
the agenda,
with picture taken by Gretchen of copy posted on door.
The online copy is not in the usual

agenda page, rather it’s hanging off a special entry in the
calendar.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

Annual Retreat Work Session

November 14, 2013

6926 Simpson Road, Hahira, Georgia