Tag Archives: Valdosta

Primary election tomorrow, 22 July 2014

From County Commissioner to Georgia School Superintendent and U.S. Senate, you can vote in the primary election tomorrow, if you haven’t already voted. If I forgot any runoffs, please let me know.

Lowndes County Commission District 5

Nonpartisan Runoff:

Continue reading →

Precinct budget finger-pointing @ LCC Millage 2014-07-16

It’s still not clear why the Board of Elections couldn’t afford to keep precincts open, instead of closing more of them every year. But after several days of finger pointing this week, it looks like there will be funding to keep all the current precincts open. That’s good news, but if the fix was so easy, why was there ever a problem?

Oldest first, here’s a timeline of highlights.

Back on 10 March 2014, Deb Cox spoke to the Lowndes County Commission about the Board of Elections budget. I just listened to that video again. She did ask for more money for poll workers, and there were comments about how early voting wasn’t revenue-neutral. But I don’t see that she asked for money to keep precincts open, or ever mentioned precincts closing.

27 June 2014 I happened to see Continue reading →

Sparsely attended millage hearing @ LCC Millage 2014-07-16

To raise or not to raise, that is the millage question, and what to spend it on, but not many people showed up to ask.

This 6PM Wednesday 16 July 2014 millage hearing was one of the most lively, juding by his report, from which you can see that VDT political reporter Matthew Woody’s report on both hearings of last Wednesday, and that’s not saying much. In this evening hearing, Dennis Marks spoke for res publica, the rule of the public, for the public good. The other three commenters seemed to be against the millage increase.

One more milllage hearing (8:30AM) and an adoption meeting (9AM), both Wednesday 23 July 2014. Continue reading →

Appointments to KLVB & Health, County Extension, Alapaha water treatment, Riverside Road, Bemiss Landing Subdivision @ LCC 2014-07-21

And an EMPG grant award application. As usual, no clue who the board applicants are. However, Nick Hinson’s term on KLVB is up this year, so I predict he’ll be reappointed.

Here’s who was on the Health Board at the end of 2012. One of their members, Mary Margaret Richardson, is also on the hospital board. Here are videos of the Board of Health 30 May 2013 meeting. The Board of Health meets again 7:30 AM Tuesday 22 July 2014.

Here’s the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JULY 21, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JULY 22, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Videos: Half Nelson Hill and rezoning to Agricultural @ GLPC 2014-06-30

Only two cases, both Lowndes County. Johnny White withdrew his request to rezone to agricultural. GLPC tabled REZ-2014-13 Nelson Hill. And Vice Chair Diondra Nichols is moving to Las Vegas. She’s a county appointee, so expect to see an appointment on an upcoming Lowndes County Commission agenda.

Here’s the agenda. The date on the GLPC agenda for the following Lowndes County Commission Regular Session was wrong; should be 8 July 2014 (see the videos of that LCC meeting). That incorrect date confused GLPC Chair Johnny Ball, as well.

Here are links to the videos of the 30 June 2013 meeting of the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC), followed by a playlist. Continue reading →

Videos: Courthouse Preservation Committee Hearing #1 @ Courthouse 2014-06-09

SCAD or VSU? Historical Society or Public Defender? Business incubator or state offices? Outside and inside. These and other ideas were brought up in the first of three Courthouse Preservation Committee meetings, 9 June 2014.

Baha Zeidan and Varian Brown wanted a business incubator. Judge Ellerbee said the way the courthouse got into a mess in the first place was people wanting to use it for many things in addition to courtrooms, and he suggested not going the same route again. Pat Sullivan suggested bringing in SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) and having them design the building before renting it as a local campus. Stanley Cox seconded that. Sullivan even volunteered his oldest downtown Valdosta building, home of ClientTell, for planning meetings. Gretchen Quarterman said to be sure Valdosta Farm Days, Juneteenth, and all the other courthouse lawn events still can happen in conjunction with whatever happens inside, G. Norman Bennett said it would be a natural location for the Historical Society. Glenn Gregory told stories of historic preservation and suggested VSU, state offices, or the Public Defender, plus he noted there’s another courthouse by the same architect, in Abbeville, GA. They even let somebody speak who hadn’t signed up: Valdosta Mayor John Gayle, who cautioned that the longer it sits, the more it deteriorates.

Here are links to each video, followed by a playlist. Continue reading →

Videos: Hahira rezoning and annexation, two Valdosta CUP @ GLPC 2014-04-28

Tabled at applicant’s request: the Hahira rezoning and annexation; see also the Lowndes County Commission letter of objection of 22 April 2014. The proponents to establish a recycling center didn’t show up to answer questions, and due to lack of information (noise, hours, odors, vermin, expansion, etc.), GLPC unanimously voted to recommend tabling. GLPC voted to recommend approval with selected conditions for Langdale Ford’s minor automotive repair facility.

Remember, Lowndes County answered an open records request for the agenda 47 hours after this Planning Commission meeting started. Here’s the actual agenda by other means.

Greater Lowndes Planning Commission

Lowndes County City of Valdosta City of Dasher City of Hahira City of Lake Park

REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING

AGENDA

Lowndes County South Health District Administrative Office
325 West Savannah Avenue

Monday, April 28, 2014* 5:30 P.M. * Public Hearing

Here are videos of what GLPC did. Continue reading →

About 90% of U.S. wiretaps are for drug deals

Yet another reason to end the failed War on Drugs: by far most U.S. wiretaps are for that one reason. Sure, a wiretap helped catch a Mexican drug lord. But without the War on Drugs, there would be no drug lords, just like alcohol bootleggers vanished after Prohibition ended.

Brian Anderson wrote for Motherboard 15 July 2014, Almost 90 Percent of All US Wiretaps Listen for Suspected Drug Deals,

Earlier this year, Continue reading →

New place, new member, new officers, new name? @ VLCIA 2014-07-15

Six years in the making! Finally VLCIA meets in its new office near the hospital. Georgia Power VP Terri Lupo was just appointed to VLCIA by the Lowndes County Commission (without ever showing up and speaking). On this VLCIA agenda is the annually expected officer nominating committee report. Plus “Proposed VLCIA Name Change”. How about SolarTown?

Hm, this move uptown leaves their old building to Sabal Trail and its proposed fracked methane pipeline. Has VLCIA ever developed an opinion on that boondoggle?

Here’s the agenda. Continue reading →

Videos: a few appointees spoke @ LCC 2014-07-08

The Commission awarded no-bid contracts to Lovell Engineering (for Zipperer Road and Boring Pond Road) and ASA Engineering (for Coppage Road). Three of the seven board appointees showed up and spoke: Sam Allen and Penelope Schmidt for Library Board, and and Russell Mast for VLPRA. The Commission appointed all of them unanimously, including no-shows Terri Lupo to VLCIA, Martha Cunningham and Matt Lawrence to Library Board, and Susan Prince to VLPRA. Chairman Bill Slaughter consistently omitted the “Valdosta” from the names of all these boards, even though the reason VLCIA and VLPRA exist is a state law requirement for no overlap between uninincorporated and incorporated area taxation for such services.

There was no public hearing for Whitewater Road because the applicant withdrew it, and half of Nelson Hill was withdrawn while the other half was tabled.

Four of the nine contracts were approved all at once. Mr. Anti-Grant Commissioner Richard Raines actually made the motion to approve the EPMG grant request.

They finally posted an agenda after the Work Session. And they added another item to an amended agenda between the Work Session and the Regular Session.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JULY 7, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JULY 8, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

Here are links to the videos in the order they actually held the meeting. See the videos of the previous morning’s Work Session for more detail on many of these items.

Here’s a video playlist:


Videos: a few appointees spoke
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 8 July 2014.

-jsq