Tag Archives: subdivisions

Videos: End-of-calendar-year wrapup and Remerton SPLOST Resolution @ LCC 2019-12-09

Remerton can’t use SPLOST VI funds for an office building, since the old mill building intended for that has been torn down. That was the longest item in the Lowndes County Commission Work Seesion of December 9, 2019: 7. Reports – County Manager – Remerton SPLOST Resolution.

Then Commissioner Clay Griner moved to go into Executive Session to discuss personnel. Chairman Bill Slaughter reminded him the Commission has only one employee. Griner agreed, and they went into Executive Session. The one employee is the County Manager.

They breezed through everything else their last meeting of calendar year 2019.

Below are LAKE videos of each agenda item, followed by a LAKE video playlist. See also the Continue reading →

Packet: End-of-calendar-year wrapup @ LCC 2019-12-09

In its last meeting of calendar year 2019, the Lowndes County Commission had many items to wrap up, as you can see in the board packet, on the LAKE website. We don’t know why the county sent this packet in black and white.

LAKE videos of the Work Session and Regular Session will follow.

WRPDO Site Map

LAKE sent an open records request Continue reading →

Videos: MIDS bus system, roof cleaning, truck bypass, new lift station generator @ LCC 2019-11-12

Longest at four and a half minutes on November 12, 2019, was 6.e. Grant Re-Application for the Rural (5311)Transportation Program, in other words, the MIDS on-demand bus system; follow the link for more notes, including a question about where have the county funds for this been coming from.

Commissioner Demarcus Marshall about the MIDS bus system.

Let’s hope the Arglass project doesn’t turn out like the James Road project a decade ago, with massive road paving and road and utilities rerouting, and nothing else, given that the county just approved a grant and VLDA match of more than a million dollars for road repaving for Arglass.

The truck bypass through downtown Valdosta had some discussion about when the bypass would happen and why the county is passing an ordinance now.

Um, it’s actually a generator for emergency management that took two minutes. 6.j. Hart Road Lift Station Pump took half a minute.

And another big item at three minutes: Continue reading →

Videos: Grants and bids, Law, Transportation, Water, and Roof Cleaning @ LCC 2019-11-11

The longest item at yesterday morning’s Work Session was the unscheduled 8. Reports County Manager – Recognition of Fire Safety. The whole thing took less than nine minutes. They vote tonight at 5:30 PM.

Second longest was the Solicitor General combining the two items on Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) and Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

Third longest was 7.a.Judicial and Administrative Complex Roof Cleaning

Below are Continue reading →

Grants and bids, Law, Transportation, Water, and Roof Cleaning @ LCC 2019-11-11

In a session of house-cleaning (including literally), Lowndes County is updating its Revision of the County Occupation Tax Ordinance,

with detailed definitions and tax classifications for every occupation in the county.

The mysterious Joint Ordinance the Planning Commission keeps cryptically alluding to turns out to be about revising the charter of the Planning Commission to add Remerton, to note Lowndes County now handles GLPC’s budget, and other updates.

The county is applying for a Georgia Department of Transportation Local Maintenance & Improvement Grant (LMIG) for resurfacing roads, many of them in subdivisions.

2020 LMIG Project Report

And a GDOT grant for the MIDS on-call bus system.

The county is approving Approval of the Submittal Resolution for the CDBG-EIP Grant Application for Street Paving and Drainage Improvements to Support the Arglass Project, with $750,000 to come from CDBG-EIP funds, and the remainder of $325,591 from the Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority. The county also has A Resolution to Support Eliminating Through Tractor Trailer Truck Traffic Downtown Valdosta. And it is fixing a misfiling of the deed for Chitty Park by transfering it to VLPRA for VLPRA to then transfer back to Lowndes County.

Sewage will be aided by a new Hart Road Lift Station Pump, and safety by Bids for a New Generator for 911.

Electrical Demolition Plan

Electrical New Work Plan

Plus Bids for Lowndes County Judicial and Administrative Complex Roof Cleaning.

There are two Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) items, for the Solicitor General and for the District Attorney, and one Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) item for the Solicitor General.

Received 3:48 PM, Friday, November 8, 2019, “The agenda packet for next week’s meetings is attached. The October 21 & 22, 2019, minutes will be available Monday.” That Lowndes County Commission in response to a LAKE open records request is now on the LAKE website.

Here is the agenda. Continue reading →

Help fix land revaluation: come to Farm Bureau –Board of Equalization

Come to the Farm Bureau in two weeks to hear Tax Assessor staff present their updates and provide your input for changes to the rural land revaluation, this time taking into account rivers, aquifer recharge zones, and uniformity. Maybe the Tax Assessors actually don’t want more flooding in Valdosta; both the City of Valdosta and GA-EDP have already shown interest in attending about that point.

At an appeal on my property valuation, the Board of Equalization stopped short of actually ordering the Tax Assessors to redo last year’s rural land revaluation, because staff volunteered Continue reading →

Monday August 10th deadline to appeal tax valuations –VLCoC

Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce members just got a message from Bruce Allred, Government Affairs Council Chairman, saying:

MONDAY IS DEADLINE TO APPEAL PROPERTY TAX ASSESSMENTS!

You can look up your property on the Tax Assessors’ website: www.qpublic.net/ga/lowndes.

That Chamber message includes this useful information: Continue reading →

Videos: Rural revaluation meeting at Farm Bureau 2015-08-04

See for yourself the Tax Assessor response to local landowners, in these LAKE videos of last night’s meeting at Farm Bureau. Do you think there’s a problem? If so, what do you think we should do to fix it?

The attendees appointed Gretchen to take notes. Here are her notes, followed by the videos.

Accessibility is not about access, it’s about geographic location…. That was done by one of our appraisers on staff. —Chief Appraiser Silas Hrobar

Rural and commercial land owners got surprises in the mail in July when they received the updated assessments of their properties. Lowndes County Assessors engaged a contractor last year to help with the reassessments of approximately 10,000 properties. Rural properties were categorized as small (under 20 acres) and large (over 20 acres) but complaints were the same, inconsistent and confusing application of criteria.

On Tuesday evening, Farm Bureau hosted Continue reading →

Rural revaluation meeting at Farm Bureau 2015-08-04

Are Bill Gates and subdivisions really more important than agriculture or rivers or public transportation? Come to Farm Bureau tomorrow evening and find out what’s going on with the rural land revaluation. facebook event.

When: 7PM, Tuesday, 4 August 2015

Where: 3296 Greystone Way, Valdosta, GA, (229) 242-7876

By: Farm Bureau board member Buddy Coleman called this meeting.

What: Compare the Comprehensive Plan to this revaluation here (PDF).

Sprawl: sprawling residential growth is a certain ticket to fiscal ruin (Or at least big tax increases). PDF of the report by UGA Prof. Jeffrey H. Dorfman Lowndes County paid for in 2007, The Local Government Fiscal Impacts of Land Use in Lowndes County.

Who: At least some of the Lowndes County Tax Assessors Continue reading →

Rural tax revaluation: Bill Gates and subdivisions more important than agriculture and public transportation?

Does this rural land revaluation map resemble the Comprehensive Plan Future Development map? Why not? And why were rivers and public transportation not considered either by the Lowndes County Tax Assessors while tracts with road frontage were considered the “highest market area” and land purchases by Bill Gates were considered “benchmark sales” instrumental in pricing large tracts?

This rural land revaluation is yet another vehicle to drive development straight north into the agricultural areas of the county, not even stopping at the Withlacoochee River.

That way lies sprawl, which as Dr. Jeffrey H. Dorfman of UGA has said, “is a certain ticket to fiscal ruin* * Or at least big tax increases.”

The City of Valdosta better watch out! Much of this Continue reading →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange