Tag Archives: Regular Session

Make available packets Commisioners see? —Gretchen Quarterman @ LCC 2013-01-08

Gretchen Quarterman thanked and congratulated Commission members at the 8 January 2013 Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.

Then she reminded them she ran on a platform of transparency, and she asked them to make Commission packets available to the public, and move CWTBH to the beginning of the meeting so citizens can comment before the commissioners vote.

Here’s the video:

Make available packets Commisioners see? —Gretchen Quarterman
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 8 January 2013.

-jsq

$30,000 saved by library furloughs, $millions for building construction —Idelle Dear @ LCC 2013-01-08

Idelle Dear noted we’re up to 12 library furlough days, and reported a flaw in that picture to the 8 January 2013 Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.

I looked across the street and there are millions of dollars being spent on the construction of the hospital, construction of the VSU Health Sciences building. And yet what is happening, because this is a mandatory furlough for all employees, is that people who are employed by the South Georgia Regional Library, most of whom are minimum wage, work part time, rely on the income: they are going to lose out….

We’d heard about these state-mandated furlough closings at a library board meeting. Idelle Dear spelled out some of the consequences, and made some telling comparisons.

Something is wrong with this picture, and I realize there are different kinds of money, but something is wrong with this picture if we can spend millions and millions of dollars on construction of these buildings and yet shut down the library and the employees who are in low income are going to be affected.

She said she wasn’t sure most people even knew about all this. And she heard somebody had said most people have Internet at home, but

Continue reading →

Stripe some roads! —Former Commissioner Richard Lee @ LCC 2013-01-08

The ghost of Commissions Past, in the form of former Commissioner Richard Lee, pointed his finger at the Commission and staff at the 8 January 2013 Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.

Richard Lee congratulated the current Commissioners on being willing to serve. He pointed at Commissioner Joyce Evans as having been to this rodeo before. He said they could trust County Manager Joe Pritchard. And he asked them to find money to stripe roads.
So if y’all can find some coins, and Mr. Prichard has a real knack for doing that, we’d appreciate it up in my end of the county.

That’s curious, since Mr. Pritchard can’t seem to to keep the solid waste collection stations open, or for to keep libraries open, or even for a bus for 4-H without children doing much of the heavy lifting.

But Mr. Lee is confident Mr. Pritchard can find funds to stripe roads in Mr. Lee’s neighborhood!

Here’s the video:

Continue reading →

A clock for Citizens Wishing to Be Heard! @ LCC 2013-01-08

The Lowndes County Commission has deployed a clock! Where people can see it. Even the speaker in Citizens Wishing to Be Heard can see it! Congratulations to new Chairman Bill Slaughter and new Commissioners Demarcus Marshall and John Page.

Clock, Citizens Wishing to Be Heard, Lowndes County Commission, Georgia
The clock above County Manager Joe Pritchard, Chairman Bill Slaughter, Commissioners Joyce Evans, John Page, Richard Raines, Demarcus Marshall, Crawford Powell.

This is a welcome change from when former Chairman Ashley Paulk stopped Jessica Bryan Hughes at 4 minutes 39 seconds on 24 May 2011 and cut me off at 4 1/2 minutes on 28 June 2011, both times less than five minutes according to the LAKE video camera.

Speaking of five minutes, that’s the time limit set by the Commission in its own Policies and Procedures for Citizens Wishing to be Heard:

6. Each speaker’s time to speak shall be limited to five minutes.

Maybe the Commission would like to follow its own ordinance?

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Valdosta City Council meetings cancelled @ VCC 2013-01-10

And now a word from award-winning Valdosta City Clerk Teresa Bolden. -jsq

Good morning — I wanted to let you know that the Work Session scheduled for January 8th and the Council Meeting scheduled for January 10th have both been cancelled due to the lack of items on the Agenda. Our next Regular Council Meeting will be held on January 24th.

Zero owed in 2010; why $8.9 million owed now on county palace? @ LCC 2012-12-11

If Lowndes County owed $0 (zero dollars) on the county palace in November 2010, why are we paying on $8,965,000 in bonds for it in December 2012? If that palace was “100% Paid by SPLOST” in 2010, why in 2012 is the county pledging our property tax dollars to pay those bonds?

Zero balance on the county palace?

In November 2010:

$22,380,000
Judicial Building Cost

$6,728,000
Administrative Building Cost

100%
Paid by SPLOST

$0
Balance Owed

So says a double-page flyer about “the Lowndes County Judicial & Administrative Complex” Flyer from November 2010 produced by the Valdosta Daily Times for Lowndes County in 2010 and signed “Highest regards, Joe Pritchard, County Manager”. There’s no dateline, but it invites the public to a dedication of the Complex “on Friday, November 12, 2010.”

Preliminary Official Statement Dated November 20, 2012 from Morgan Keegan about the $8,965,000 in Refunding Revenue Bonds (Lowndes County Judicial/Administration Complex) Series 2012, which says this:

The Bonds are payable solely from payments to be made by Lowndes County, Georgia (the “County”) pursuant to an Intergovernmental Contract, dated as of December 1, 2012 (the “Contract”), between the Issuer and the County. Under the Contract, the County has agreed to levy and collect an annual tax on all taxable property located within the County as may be necessary to produce in each year revenues which are sufficient to make the payments required by the Contract.

So which is it? Continue reading →

Videos @ LCC 2012-12-11

Moody and the Chamber won, rural residents got wasted, and taxpayers still didn't get to see a single thing the Lowndes County Commission voted on last night in 45 minutes (very long for them) in front of the biggest audience I've ever seen there.

They appointed John "Mac" McCall to ZBOA. They revised the alcohol ordinance with some unspecified "changes to the fee schedule", and added another alcohol restriction to the Lake Park rezoning before approving it.

They approved the solid waste ordinance and granted a waste collection monopoly to a company from New York City despite all known public input being against it. Two more people spoke against it in Citizens Wishing to Be Heard.

Gretchen Quarterman recommended adding all the appointed Boards and Authorities to the county's calendar.

Commissioners accepted applicant's withdrawal of the rezoning request near Moody AFB and tabled indefinitely the related zoning code amendment. They approved rezoning for the Naylor Dollar General.

Commission approved four Decorative Lighting Special Tax Districts (forgetting it was supposed to be a public hearing), and a refund for one that wasn't.

Danny Weeks got approved a new netclock and new phones for the 911 center, and he and his staff got an award. The library railroad continues, the bonds renegotation was approved with about $2 million savings and some legal questions, the Annex has asbestos but they'll deal with it, and after Friday's demolition ceremony there will be a going-away reception for Chairman Paulk, and Bill Slaughter will be the new Chairman.

You missed all that and more at yesterday's Commission meeting.

Here's a video playlist of the Regular Session, followed by the agenda with the videos linked into it.

Update 2014-04-09: Fixed embedded video link.

Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 11 December 2012.

For reference here are the videos of yesterday morning's Work Session. And here is the agenda with links to the videos and some notes.

Continue reading →

Why did the county use bonds and not GEFA? @ LCC 2012-12-11

Regarding the refinancing the county is bragging about to save a million dollars, and that they're going to vote on tonight at 5:30 PM, a memory ping reminded me that Hahira got a GEFA loan for $431,777 a water well this August, at zero percent interest during construction, and then 1% during the 20 year repayment period. Is the county's bond deal better than that?

GEFA is the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority, and it's not just Hahira that has gotten water project loans through GEFA. According to GEFA PR of 13 May 2011, GEFA Approves Environmental Infrastructure Projects Totaling $60.7 Million for Seven Georgia Communities, just this year others included "Cobb, Cook and Newton Counties; Cusseta-Chattahoochee County; and the cities of College Park, Ludowici and Valdosta."

The city of Valdosta was approved for a CWSRF loan of $18,500,000 to finance phase two of the Mud Creek Water Pollution Control Plant project, which includes increasing capacity from 3.2 million gallons per day (GPD) to 5.7 million GPD, and additional improvements and modifications to the facility. Valdosta will also design a new solids treatment system. The city of Valdosta will pay 3 percent interest on the 20-year loan for $18,500,000.

So why is the County of Lowndes having to float bonds? And are bonds on the commercial bond market really a better financial deal for the county?

For that matter, where's the public notice with agenda of the 4PM meeting today of the Lowndes County Public Facilities Authority?

-jsq

Chamber of Commerce vs. County Commission Re: Moody AFB @ LCC 2012-12-11

Received today (yes, I’m a Chamber member). -jsq

From: “Tim Jones, Chairman of the Board ” <chamber@valdostachamber.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:47:01 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Alert: Chamber needs your help to protect Moody!

Dear Chamber Member,

Our Chamber recognizes the $448 million economic impact Moody Air Force Base has on our regional economy each year. We meet with Air Force officials at the Pentagon annually and ask them, “What else can our community do to protect MAFB from the next BRAC?” The answer, every year: prevent encroachment, and the best way to do that is by protecting the Military Activity Zone (MAZ).

Today (Tuesday, Dec. 11) at the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners meeting there are two agenda items that could put Moody at risk.

Spot zoning for a proposed densely settled subdivision in the MAZ is an invitation to other developments and inherently sets a precedent. It’s a very slippery slope. How will the County tell the next one “no”?

The second agenda item would change the zoning ordinance to allow even more densely settled neighborhoods in the MAZ.

One of the reasons we’ve been able to keep MAFB here

for more than 70 years is because MAFB can be utilized for a number of types of missions, largely because of the protected activity zone. Both agenda items, if passed, could increase encroachment into the MAZ and could very well limit MAFB’s future mission possibilities.

Another Georgia community (Warner Robins) is actually using taxpayer dollars to buy back residential properties in their military activity zones as a result of their failure to prevent encroachment.

The Planning Commission voted unanimously to deny this subdivision, and to deny the proposed changes to the MAZ that would allow more dense residential development. The County Commission should vote to deny, too.

The Chamber’s GAC Executive Committee voted unanimously to oppose actions that allow encroachment and weaken the MAZ. The Chamber encourages our members to contact our County Commission members to let them know how you feel about protecting MAFB. The Chamber encourages our members to attend the County Commission meeting at the Dec. 11 meeting at 5:30 p.m. at the Administation Building.

Please respond to this email to share your thoughts.

Sincerely,
Tim Jones, Chairman of the Board
Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce

I added the links above. All that Tim Jones said, plus Crawford Powell’s discovery that the proposed subdivision would be a fire code violation, plus according to Forbes Valdosta MSA housing prices are still dropping, so do we even need any more housing, anyway?

-jsq

Dollar General or not? @ LCC 2012-12-10

Is Naylor maybe going to get a Dollar General or something else, if the unnamed applicant or applicants get their rezoning with or without conditions? None of that is clear from yesterday morning’s Lowndes County Commission Work Session for agenda item 7.c. REZ-2012-19 Naylor Dollar General, US Hwy 84 East, E-A to C-G, Well & Septic, ~2 acres.

County Planner Jason Davenport said:

The applicants have mentioned trying to do a Dollar General at this site. We believe that’s what they’re going to do, but however whatever uses are allowed in C-G would of course be allowed if it is approved without any conditions.

He said they had the recommendations from the TRC and the Planning Commission, but he didn’t say what they were. The Planning Commission recommended for, apparently with the understanding that it was for a Dollar General. Davenport said there had been no further input since the Planning Commission meeting.

The Commission could have staff submit written reports that go in the agenda and minutes, like the Library Board does, and then put those online as PDF or HTML linked to an HTML agenda, like Glynn County and Richmond County do, and we wouldn’t have to guess the names of applicants or the details of rezoning requests.

Here’s the video:

Dollar General or not?
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 10 December 2012.

-jsq