Lots of interesting detail; room for improvement in marketing and high level presentation: Valdosta-Lowndes Prospector website.
S. Meghan Duke gave a lengthy presentation of the GIS website Valdosta-Lowndes Prospector, at the 19 June 2012 VLCIA meeting. Chairman Roy Copeland wanted to know (5:21) whether it showed at the top the industrial parks VLCIA has spent so much time and effort developing, maybe by age, size, in alphabetical order? She indicated you could do all those things, but they didn’t necessarily crop up without somebody selecting filters that caused them to crop up. However they are featured properties, and whenever they are updated, updates show up. Project Manager Allan Ricketts said he’d heard good reactions so far. Executive Director Andrea Schruijer said they could feature parks or whatever through facebook and twitter, too. And yes, they have a floodplain overlay, among many other overlays.
The first 100% VSEB contract, local industry expansion, new prospects,
a bank lost a bond, and new Georgia sunshine laws require attention.
Here are videos of the entire 22 May 2012 meeting
of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) board.
Here’s
the agenda.
Guests included
a camera crew from VSU, one of whom was Cameron Copeland,
Chairman Roy Copeland’s son.
CPA Tom Davis
said the county told him revenues were flat, so VLCIA would get about
the same amount as last year.
Tom Call asked if revenues would catch up over 6 months or 8 months.
Call said they would eventually.
Tom Call reported for the budget committee and said
expenses were projected to be down for the coming year,
plus the budget would be more specific about where revenues
were being spent.
Meghan Duke
reported
they had gotten an article in the newspaper,
and they had held an OSHA training meeting at Wiregrass Tech.
They plan to hold further courses and will send out a survey about that.
She also
expected updates to the land-searching
Valdosta Prospector website
to be ready in a few weeks.
She and Andrea Schruijer had
selected 3 finalists
out of 10 proposals to redo the VLCIA website.
Her only stated criterion for picking one was
New Georgia sunshine laws explained by VLCIA lawyer
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland chairman, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett,
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director, J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Project Manager, Tom Davis, CPA, Lu Williams, Operations Manager, S. Meghan Duke, Public Relations & Marketing Manager,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 May 2012.
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
VLCIA is even posting notices of committee meetings now!
According to their
website,
the Industrial Authority has two meetings today:
Committee Meeting Notice The Nominating Committee for the Valdosta
Lowndes County Industrial Authority will meet Tuesday, June 19,
2012, 1:00 PM at the Industrial Authority Conference Room, 2110 N.
Patterson Street.
The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority’s Regular Monthly
Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, June 19, 2012, 5:30 PM at the
Industrial Authority Conference Room, 2110 N. Patterson Street.
The nominating committee is for officers; they elect new ones annually.
Here’s
the agenda.
It has no content, but at least they post one.
Unlike their minutes.
-jsq
Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
Agenda
Tuesday, June 19, 2012 5:30 p.m.
Industrial Authority Conference Room
2110 N. Patterson Street
Market study advisory panel forming up! Chairman Roy Copeland asked whether “Industrial” in VLCIA’s name is positive or negative for PR? Executive Director Andrea Schruijer made sure to announce a date change for a board meeting a month in advance. All that and much more!
Here are videos of the entire 17 April 2012 regular meeting of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA). Here’s the agenda.
VLCIA Executive Director Andrea Schruijer said they had shown contractor Market Street Services the area so they could go back and start working up data for a market study. In May an advisory panel of 10-13 individuals plus focus groups will meet with Market Street.
I’ll answer: as long as VLCIA includes as “industry” boondoggles like a health-threatening biomass plant and a job-destroying private prison, why yes, “industrial” reflects negatively on VLCIA. But a mere name change through a D.B.A. won’t fix that problem. Only a change in behavior will fix that problem. Changes such as doing some due diligence so they know when a private prison company is playing them along by saying they’re the primary site. Changes such as weighing the community’s health when considering potential jobs. And especially changes such as listening to people outside the VLCIA and Chamber bubble when others do useful and important research. The community can be an asset for VLCIA, providing research and contacts VLCIA either does not have the resources to do or might not think of to do, if VLCIA will listen to the community.
Videos Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland chairman, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett, Tom Davis CPA, Allan Ricketts Project Manager, S. Meghan Duke Public Relations & Marketing Manager, Lu Williams Operations Manager, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 17 April 2012. Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
Notice: The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Regular Meeting has been rescheduled for the month of May. The meeting date will be Tuesday, May 22, 2011, 5:30 P.M. in the Industrial Authority Conference Room.
That’s at 2110 N. Patterson Street, Valdosta, GA.
Their facebook page has a new logo on it (shown on the right above). Also this snazzy cover image:
Both the new logo and the cover image are legible (unlike their old swoosh logo, still on their website, and seen to the right here). And the cover image has useful information, like what VLCIA is about and how to reach them!
However, I note that of those
3 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT VALDOSTA BUSINESS
Major Transportation Network
Competitive Incentives
Pro-Business Attitude
none of them is clean solar energy or fast Internet access. (Also, why are they SHOUTING?)
Here’s the agenda, which is back to their old content-free style. They don’t even say what the executive session is for. (Is it legal for them not to say?)
-jsq
Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Agenda Tuesday, May 22, 2012 5:30 p.m. Industrial Authority Conference Room 2110 N. Patterson Street
Did you know they had two executive sessions on 23 February 2012, at 10AM and 2:25 PM in addition to their retreat and regular meeting of that same day? If they’re having all these executive sessions, presumably all the material about personnel and real estate that needs to be kept confidential is in there, and the minutes of the regular meetings shouldn’t contain anything the public should not see.
The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority will hold a Regular Board Meeting on Tuesday, April 17, 2012 at 5:30pm in the Industrial Authority Conference room.
The agenda doesn’t say much. I guess that one time they put a lot of information in it was a one-shot. And if you want to see any old agendas, you’ll need to wait until they finish fixing their website. Or look in the LAKE blog….
Here are videos of the February 2012 Industrial Authority meeting.
Apologies for the poor sound.
The room turned out to have very echoey acoustics, and no placement
of the camera seemed to alleviate that.
Also it’s in three chunks, the first of them quite long.
In the interests of moving along and catching up on posting videos
of recent meetings, we’re going to leave it like that for now.
Here’s
the agenda.
Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland chairman, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett,
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director, J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Project Manager,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 23 February 2012.
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
Well, sort of.
The links in the flash thing at the top do work again,
so you can get to detailed pages.
Well, some of them: Staff & Board works, but Meeting Schedule does not.
This description still applies:
It was also pointed out that meeting agendas and minutes were still
available on the crashed website, but were intermixed with coding
language.
The latest agenda is available.
I thank VLCIA again for that, as I did both in Citizens to Be Heard
and after the meeting Tuesday.
Doubtless VLCIA staff are doing what they can.
As an organizational issue, I wonder
if the electricity was out for a week at the VLCIA office
would the Industrial Authority do this:
Continue reading →
at the 19 June 2012 VLCIA meeting. Chairman Roy Copeland wanted to know (5:21) whether it showed at the top the industrial parks VLCIA has spent so much time and effort developing, maybe by age, size, in alphabetical order? She indicated you could do all those things, but they didn’t necessarily crop up without somebody selecting filters that caused them to crop up. However they are featured properties, and whenever they are updated, updates show up. Project Manager Allan Ricketts said he’d heard good reactions so far. Executive Director Andrea Schruijer said they could feature parks or whatever through facebook and twitter, too. And yes, they have a floodplain overlay, among many other overlays.
