Tag Archives: Valdosta

Manhole overflows –City of Valdosta



Maybe that SPLOST money will build that force main and stop this.
Meanwhile, they don’t call it Sugar Creek for nothing.
And Twomile Branch flows into Sugar Creek, which flows into the Withlacoochee
River, which flows into the Suwannee River through Florida into the Gulf of Mexico.
Today we’ll probably see stories from Florida about river water warnings.

Winnie Wright wrote for WCTV 18 March 2014,

National Flood Preparedness Week Comes to Valdosta, Along With The Rain,

It’s pretty ironic that National Flood Preparedness Week has come
right alongside 5 inches of rain in South Georgia, but for residents
of Valdosta who remember the flood of 2009, that much rain can be a
real problem if you don’t have flood insurance.

“Many people don’t realize that flood is not covered in their
homeowners policy. It’s important to know what is and isn’t covered
in your homeowners policy”, says Christi Marsh, a State Farm Agent
based in Valdosta.

Winnie Wright reports homeowner Carrie Eager found flood insurance preferable
to evacuating by boat like before.

Continue reading →

VLCIA high noon last week @ VLCIA 2014-03-13



An Industrial Authority board member resigned to run for an office
he qualifed for the previous day, at a meeting that had apparently
been rescheduled the day before he qualified.
OK, who’s going to replace him, and when and by whom will that be decided?
Oh, and that rescheduling means there’s no VLCIA meeting today.

The Industrial Authority rescheduled its March meeting for Thursday
last week at noon, and at that meeting,

according to the VDT, VLCIA board member Norman Bennett said:

“I am announcing that at the end of the day today, I will
resign from the Industrial Authority,”

Puzzled by that, I called the Board of Elections to ask if they
had told him there was some conflict of interest.
They said no, they had read about it in the newspaper like
everybody else.

I asked when he qualified to run for District 5.
Answer: March 12th, which was the day before he resigned
from VLCIA at its rescheduled board meeting.

When was that meeting rescheduled?
Their website gives no clue.
But their facebook page notice of the new meeting
is dated
March 11 at 3:15pm.

What do all those dates mean? Probably nothing, since local appointed
and elected boards reschedule on whims around here.
But it’s a curious series of coincidences:

More interesting is:
when and by whom will a new board member be appointed to the Industrial Authority?

Here’s

the agenda.
Maybe some year we’ll get to see

their minutes.
It’s been more than two years since Roy Copeland said he’d try to make that
happen.
He’s no longer Chairman (although he did get reappointed to the board),
and another board member has just resigned.
You know, that

VDT editorial I’m fond of quoting was actually about
the Industrial Authority’s minutes:

When officials act like they have something to hide, they often do….

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority

Thursday, March 13, 2014 12:00 p.m.

Industrial Authority Conference Room

2110 N. Patterson Street

Agenda


General Business

  • Call to Order
  • Invocation
  • Welcome Guests

Minutes

  • Regular Meeting, February 18, 2014

Financial

  • Review Compiled Balance Sheet and Income Statements for February 2014

Public Relations & Marketing Update-Meghan Duke

  • Public Relations Opportunities
    • International Trade Representatives
    • County Commission Presentation
  • Marketing Opportunities
    • Marketing Materials
    • ValdostaLowndesProspector Mobile Site
    • South Georgia Classic

Project Report-Allan Ricketts

  • Project Maroon

Existing Industry-Allan Ricketts

  • Existing Industry Visits
  • Existing Industry Expansion Projects
    • Project Wire
    • Project Treadway
    • JHS-14
  • Community Business and Industry Partnership

Executive Director’s Report- Andrea Schruijer

  • Business Development Opportunities
    • Georgia Quail Hunt February 2013
    • March Regional Marketing Trip to Consultants
    • Recruitment activities
    • International Representative Visit South Joint Regional Development Authority
    • Staff Planning Session
    • Board Planning Session
    • Met with Department of Agriculture to discuss regional food processing activity

Attorney Report


Citizens to Be Heard


Adjourn General Meeting Into Executive Session


Adjourn Executive Session into General Meeting


Adjourn General Meeting


Mission of the Valdosta Lowndes County Industrial Authority

“Create an environment to attract new industry and promote the growth of existing industry to drive job
creation and capital investment.”

-jsq

Crazy Qualifying Season Finally Completed

Update 31 March 2014:
Withdrawals of Thomas Sims and Don Thieme from Lowndes County Commission District 3 and of
Crawford Powell from House 174. See also
school board election.



Additional entries in County Commission Districts 3 and 5,
plus a swap and a withdrawal,
continued the
musical chairs in local qualifying.
Plus three out of four County Commission seats up for election
will actually be decided in May, not November.
And one state House seat and the state Senate race are hotly contested.

The three County Commission seats that will be decided May 20th are: Continue reading →

Government 101 deadline extended by City of Valdosta

Remember, you don’t have to live in Valdosta to apply!
Plus now high school seniors can apply (with conditions; see below).

City of Valdosta PR today,

Deadline for Government 101 Extended,



The deadline to apply for the 5th annual Government 101 Citizens
Orientation Program has been extended to March 21.

Citizens who are considering a career or public service role in
local government, or who just want an inside look at the services
provided by the city departments, are encouraged to enroll. The
program will meet on six consecutive Mondays, from 5:30 to 8:30
p.m., beginning April 7, 2014, in various facilities of the city.



A maximum of 25 people will be selected for the class from citizens
who submit a completed application by the March 21 deadline and pass
the required background checks. This year the program has been
modified to include up to five high school seniors who have a parent
or legal guardian also enrolled in the program.

Citizens may pick up an application at Valdosta City Hall, at the
city’s Customer Service Center, or may download the application form
at Continue reading →

Lowndes County Democratic Party opposes the Sabal Trail Methane Pipeline –Gretchen Quarterman @ FERC 2014-03-04



Gretchen Quarterman stood up for local landowners, the economy,
and the environment,
by reading the statement against the pipeline recently
approved by the Lowndes County Democratic Party, of which she is the chair,
at the

Valdosta FERC Scoping Meeting 4 March 2014.

Here’s

the video:



Lowndes County Democratic Party opposes the Sabal Trail Methane Pipeline –Gretchen Quarterman

Sabal Trail Methane Pipeline,

Scoping Meeting, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC),

Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 4 March 2014.

Here’s the text she was reading:

Lowndes County Democratic Committee Opposes Sabal Trail Methane Pipeline Continue reading →

Sierra Club Chapters Oppose Sabal Trail Gas Pipeline –read by Danielle Jordan @ FERC 2014-03-04



Danielle Jordan, VSU student and president of Students Against
Violating the Environment, stood up for local landowners and
the environment against Spectra’s Sabal Trail pipeline
at the

Valdosta FERC Scoping Meeting 4 March 2014,
by reading a statement against the pipeline by the
Sierra Club chapters of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.



Here’s the text she was reading:

TRI-STATE SIERRA CLUB CHAPTERS OPPOSE GAS PIPELINE:
Statement of the Georgia, Florida, and Alabama Sierra Club
Chapters Opposing the Sabal Trail Pipeline.

Here’s

the video:



Sierra Club Chapters Oppose Sabal Trail Gas Pipeline –read by Danielle Jordan

Sabal Trail Methane Pipeline,

Scoping Meeting, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC),

Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 4 March 2014.

-jsq

Corporate power comes home –Jim Parker

Letter to the Editor in the Valdosta Daily Times yesterday.
-jsq



How is it that one foreign corporation,
that has just come into existence to do this project,
can have greater power than all of the thousands of citizens affected,
and their elected governments?

No, I’m not talking about the Keystone XL pipeline, but he issues are the same.
This one wants to run a 36-inch gas pipeline through a number of states and counties,
including Lowndes, affecting thousands of landowners.
It’s known as Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC, and is the
unholy offspring of Spectra Energy Corp. and NextEra Energy.



How can one foreign corporation (they’re from out of state),
have so much power vis-avis the thousands of landowners and
citizens of Lowndes County, that the citizens must give up a hundred-foot-wide
swath of their land, along with the depreciation of their
property values, not to mention their personal safety, and allow
this pipeline to come through?
The gas is not even for use in Lowndes County, or even the State
of Georgia.

However, the general feeling is we have to give in to the
corporation’s demands.
County Commission Chairman Bill Slaughter is quoted as saying,

“There’s nothing we can do.”



Does anyone else see the problem here? Continue reading →

Videos @ LCC 2014-03-10



An unexpected concern about

limiting someone’s ability to expand his business
was expressed by
Lame Duck Commissioner Richard Raines, the same who
made the motion for the exclusive franchise for trash collection by
ADS, and who apparently (in executive session so we don’t know for sure)
voted twice to sue local business Deep South Sanitation.
They spent five or six minutes on

an annexation request by Lake Park that was not on the agenda,
even though they received it last week.
They vote tonight at 5:30 PM,
and don’t forget

the budget hearings continue all day today.

One road in

the Nelson Hill subdivision wasn’t up to snuff and will be omitted
from the adoption of infrastructure; that’s better than the county’s
previous practice for that development of
staff waivers with no public hearings.
Plus four rezonings, one for

a former County Commissioner
and another

for a community well for a development.
And the annual contract renewal for the

MIDS on-call bus system,
plus

a master software service contract.



See

Musical chairs in local qualifying for why John Page is no longer
a Commissioner and they already

removed his picture from the entryway.
There’s more about that in

the previous post with the agenda.
And here’s the agenda again with links to the videos and a few notes.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, MARCH 10, 2014, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 2014, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

4 out of 5 pictures remain @ LCC-Budget 2014-03-10



Somebody took down a Commissioner picture from the
entry way to the Lowndes County Commission Chambers.
Could it be

this one?

He did show up briefly this afternoon to collect his stuff. Continue reading →

Suddenly an agenda! @ LCC-Budget 2014-03-10



You can go to the rest of the budget meeting, which is tomorrow.
Some time after this morning when I looked for it,
today’s

budget meeting
magically appeared on

the calendar
and in

Current Events
on the Lowndes County front page.
It shows most of the day tomorrow also as budget meetings.
And at 5:30PM tomorrow (Tuesday) there’s still the
County Commission Regular Session.

Plus in the middle of all that, the Airport Authority
is having a Board Meeting at the Commission Chambers.

Only a little more than a year ago, Continue reading →