Tag Archives: T-SPLOST

Public comment form on T-SPLOST Roundtable

Received today on T-SPLOST meeting in Waycross today. -jsq
The SGRC website has been updated to correct the error for the public comment form. Thank you for letting us know and helping to spread the word about these public meetings.

-Southern Georgia Regional Commission

The correction has this new link to the form. The form says:
Public Comment Form
Southern Georgia Regional Transportation Roundtable
and asks for your name, address, phone, email, and your comments. I bet you could email that information if you don’t want to print out the form and write on it. The public notice about the regional T-SPLOST meetings said:
Comments are being accepted by email at chull@sgrc.us, by fax at 229-333-5212, or by mailing them to SGRC, ATTN: SG RTR, 327 W Savannah Ave., Valdosta, GA 31601.

For more information please call Corey Hull at 229-333-5277.

-jsq

T-SPLOST meeting in Waycross today

Update 12:30 8 September 2011: SGRC provided a fixed link to the public comment form.

The first SGRC public meeting about the T-SPLOST Draft Constrained Investment List is today in Waycross:


View Larger Map
Wednesday, September 7, 2011; 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.; at the Southern Georgia Regional Commission Waycross Office; 1725 South Georgia Parkway West, Waycross, Georgia; presentation will begin at 6:30 p.m.
If you live near Waycross, you may want to compare your local projects in the Draft Constrained Investment List with the previous unconstrained list to see what’s still in there and if there are any 50% cost increases like the Old US 41 North widening.

The VLMPO SGRC web page includes a link to a Public Comment Form but as you can see that link gets “page cannot be found”. Doubtless that’s an accident, given that VLMPO is and SGRC are among the most devoted to transparency of local governmental organizations.

Fixed now, with this new link to the public comment form.

I’d like to point out VLMPO SGRC does T-SPLOST administration, but is not responsible for the content of the project lists; those come from your local governments and are selected by the T-SPLOST regional committee and the Georgia Department of Transportation.

Here’s the PDF public meeting notice received 30 August from VLMPO SGRC along with the cover letter already published. HTML version is appended below.

-jsq Continue reading →

T-SPLOST public meetings coming up in a few weeks

The public meetings for Transportation Sales Tax Project List are coming up in a few weeks. The one in Lowndes County is:
Monday, September 19, 2011; 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.; at the Valdosta City Hall Annex; 300 North Lee Street, Valdosta, Georgia; presentation will begin at 10:30 a.m.
There’s a meeting in Fitzgerald later that same day, and an earlier meeting in Waycross on Wednesdday, September 7th.

If you’re interested in saying something about the 50% increase in the Old US 41 North widening project or about some of the other projects still on the constrained list, this would be the place to do it. You can also send in written comments. Here’s contact information.

-jsq

50% increase for Old US 41 North widening: now $12 million T-SPLOST

In addition to the Draft Constrained List for T-SPLOST draft constrained list of T-SPLOST projects, which doesn’t even include dollar estimates, this longer report contains details for each project. And the cost to widen Old US 41 North from North Valdosta Road to Union Road has gone up from the previous estimate in June of $8 million to $12 million in August, for a 50% increase! I wonder if the County Commissioners know about this rapid cost inflation.
PreviousCurrentDifferenceIncrease%
PE $650,000 $800,000 $150,000 23%
ROW $850,000 $1,200,000 $350,000 41%
CST $6,500,000 $10,000,000 $3,500,000 54%
Total $8,000,000 $12,000,000 $4,000,000 50%
Curious how when the components went up by odd amounts, the total went up by exactly 50%. It’s almost like the total was increased and then the components were arranged to add up to that.

Also curious how the biggest increase, percentage (54%) and total ($3,500,000) is for construction. I could see how Rights of Way (ROW) acquisition costs might go up because people might not want this boondoggle in their front yards, but why was it so hard to estimate construction costs the first time?

And curious how that construction increase is a bit more than Continue reading →

T-SPLOST Public Meetings Set —SGRC

Received yesterday. -jsq
For Immediate Release For More Information Contact:
August 25, 2011Corey Hull, 229-333-5277

Public Meetings Set for Transportation Sales Tax Project List

The Southern Georgia Regional Transportation Roundtable has set a series of public meetings to review the Draft Constrained Investment List for the following counties, representing the Special District for a proposed transportation sales and use tax: Atkinson, Bacon, Ben Hill, Berrien, Brantley, Brooks, Charlton, Clinch, Coffee, Cook, Echols, Irwin, Lanier, Lowndes, Pierce, Tift, Turner, and Ware.

In 2010, Governor Sonny Perdue signed into law the Transportation Investment Act of 2010, a law prescribing a regional sales tax referendum for transportation projects. Jay Roberts, State Representative from District 154-Ocilla, and Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, said “This law gives

Continue reading →

Atlanta’s T-SPLOST

Atlanta at least included some public transport in its T-SPLOST list, although most of its list will more likely make problems worse for pedestrians.

Ariel Hart wrote for the AJC 15 August 2011, Regional transportation list approved

If the projects are built, in just over a decade passengers could be riding trains from Atlanta to Cobb County or to Emory University, or traveling new, swifter ramps through the Ga. 400/I-285 interchange, or finding countless arterial roads wider and less clogged, from Henry County to Cherokee County and all points in between.
New swifter ramps! Countless arterial roads less clogged! Well, except by pedestrians trying to scurry through the faster traffic.

Why, in the second decade of the 21st century, do we continue with a failed traffic model from the middle of the 20th century? Seems to me traffic safety should be pertinent and should include pedestrians. and instead of more unsafe roads making life unpleasant and unsafe for communities, we could go for roads that serve communities.

-jsq

T-SPLOST projects as of 15 August 2011

Here’s what’s still on the agenda for T-SPLOST funding for our T-SPLOST region: Constrained Draft Project Listing, Southern Georgia Most of Lowndes County’s boondoggle road widening projects seem to have been bounced off the list. This one is still on there: $8 million to widen old US 41 North.

Some of the other projects may also be boondoggles for all I know, but at least all the ones to widen roads right to the north edge of the county and thus drive development all the way into agricultural and forest areas are gone. Here’s the list: Continue reading →

Lowndes County has transparency issues —John S. Quarterman @ LCC 28 June 2011

No unfinished drafts will be published while Ashley Paulk is chairman, or so he told us.

I asked him how he recommended citizens provide input to the budget process? He said at every meeting.

So I said I wondered why the county attorney seemed to be overbudget. No response.

Then I got to my main point, which was that the county seems to have a number of transparency issues, such as the missing ordinances he’d just heard about, or Vince Schneider’s Foxborough McDonald’s issues, or the animal shelter issues, or the T-SPLOST list that the Commission approved on the basis of a one page list of one-liner with no details that turns out to include things like $10 million to widen New Bethel Road to Lanier County.

I said I would like to compare the county’s submissions for T-SPLOST funding to the county’s Thoroughfare Plan and the Comprehensive Plan; if I could find those plans online. The Chairman said my five minutes were up. I said “Alrighty” and moseyed back to my seat. As you can see for yourself, it was actually 4 and a half minutes.

-jsq

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

VLMPO meets 12 July 2011 —Corey Hull

Corey Hull of VLMPO sent this 27 June 2011. The TIA item is about T-SPLOST, and there is opportunity for citizen participation. -jsq
Good Afternoon,

The Valdosta-Lowndes Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Committee will be holding its next regular meeting on July 12, 2011 at 1:30 p.m. at the SGRC office (address below). Please find attached the agenda.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at chull@sgrc.us or at 229-333-5277.

Corey Hull, AICP
MPO Coordinator
Valdosta-Lowndes MPO
327 W. Savannah Ave.
Valdosta, GA 31601
Visit our Facebook Site!
229.333.5277
229.300.0922 (c)
229.333.5312 (f)
chull@sgrc.us
www.sgrc.us/transportation

That agenda is appended. -jsq Continue reading →

Lowndes County budget hearing today 5PM

That’s 5PM, before the usual 5:30 PM Lowndes County Commission regular session time, at 327 North Ashley Street. The county has published a public notice about this second hearing. It’s not clear they did that for the first budget hearing, which was last week. And the budget doesn’t include the T-SPLOST boondoggles Lowndes County is requesting.

VDT opined 23 June 2011, What We Think: Surviving, not thriving:

Lowndes County Commissioners held a budget hearing Tuesday to discuss the 2011-2012 fiscal year with citizens, only to have no citizens appear. The budget will be finalized at a public hearing Tuesday, June 28, prior to the regular commission meeting.

With all of the attention paid lately to officials and their expenses, you would think that the opportunity to learn how the county spends citizens’ tax dollars would have been an opportunity not to be missed. But missed it was.

After giving people in Valdosta a hard time for not showing up at their city’s budget hearing, I have to say: mea culpa. I wasn’t there.

However, I would ask: how were we supposed to know about it? Someone from LAKE has been at every regularly-scheduled Lowndes County Commission meeting in the recent past, videoing the whole meetings, and I must have missed the announcement of this recent budget hearing, which is also not on the county’s website calendar.

The VDT continues:

Maybe it’s because there’s nothing new about the county’s budget. It’s the same as it has been for several years — flat.

No increases in revenue are projected. No new positions, merit raises, cost of living increases, or significant purchases, again. Caps on assessments, the continuing lull in construction, and slow sales mean no new revenue is coming in. What is projected is enough to make ends meet, but there are no frills, no luxury items, not this year.

Oh, there are luxury items, they’re just not in the budget, because the county is asking we the taxpayers to pay through the proposed new T-SPLOST tax for That’s $24 million in new taxes they’re requesting for unnecessary road projects that will promote sprawl into far north Lowndes County and into Lanier County. Sprawl that will end up costing Lowndes County more than it can bring in in taxes from the sprawling developments.

And Lowndes County has tacked onto the end a request for $7.5 million for a bus system. Which would you rather have? A bus system that would promote the entire county’s economy, or five lanes on New Bethel to add to Lanier County sprawl?

Fortunately, T-SPLOST does publicize its hearings, the next of which will be 6 July 2011 in Nashville, Georgia.

The VDT concludes;

But for Lowndes to thrive, to make such a possibility come alive, it needs citizens willing to participate in the process. We need creative thinking and we need leaders willing to listen to the possibilities of new ideas.
Hear hear!

Stay tuned for what happens when a citizen tries to get involved in the Lowndes County budget process.

-jsq