Tag Archives: VLPRA

Budget, boards, and abandonment @ LCC 2012-06-26

The Lowndes County Commission appointed people to four boards, approved a budget for next fiscal year, made some unspecified changes to this year’s budget, and demonstrated they could both stop speeding traffic on a rural road and put a cap on a construction contract! All this in one meeting, their Regular Session of 26 June 2012.

Here’s the agenda. Here are videos of the previous morning’s Work Session. And here are videos of the 5PM (actually 4:57PM) budget hearing.

Here’s a video playlist:

Budget, boards, and abandonment
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 26 June 2012.

-jsq

Started before scheduled time, unknown potential appointments and budget changes: Video Playlist @ LCC 2012-06-25

Gretchen arrived early, but they started even earlier. That’s right, once again the Lowndes County Commission started a meeting before the advertised time. None of the names of prospective appointees to four different boards were listed in the agenda, and many of them didn’t bother to show up. Nor do we know what’s in the budget amendments.

So we have videos starting in the middle of the appointments.

  • 6.a. Valdosta/Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Authority (VLPRA)
    Nope, they already discussed that before the announced start time, so there’s no video.
  • 6.b. Appointment to Valdosta-Lowndes County Construction Board of Adjustments and Appeals.
    Presumably he stated his name at the beginning of what he said, but that was before the stated meeting start time. And the agenda does not include names of the applicants for appointment to any of the affected boards.
  • 6.c. Keep Lowndes Valdosta Beautiful (KLVB).
    I would like to commend KLVB for listing all its board members and their terms on its own web page.
  • 6.d. Appointments to Lowndes County Library Board.
    If the Library Board has its members listed somewhere online, I can’t find it.
    Nobody showed up to speak. County Manager Joe Pritchard said Edward Rawls and Rabbi Elbaz(?) asked not to be reappointed, and Kay Harris is asking to be reappointed. (They didn’t mention that Harris is also the chairman of the library board and the editor of the VDT.) Names under consideration are [clatter, bang]. It’s impressive the ways Pritchard finds to be unintelligible even with his microphone adjusted correctly.
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Strategies for Lowndes County? —John S. Quarterman

My op-ed in the VDT today. -jsq

Our high schools and college graduates mostly have to go somewhere else, because jobs here are few and many of them don’t pay enough for a decent living. Should we not care enough about our families and our community to come up with strategies that grow existing businesses and attract new ones that will employ local people?

We need discussions and strategies that involve the whole community, going beyond just the usual planning professionals, to include all groups and individuals with information or opinions, whether they got here generations ago or last week: for fairness and for freedom.

Sometimes we see local strategy. Winn Roberson organized Drive Away CCA. Ashley Paulk verified there was no business case for a biomass plant in Lowndes County after many people successfully opposed it. School “unification” opponents, out-financed 10 to 1, still defeated that referendum 4 to 1.

How do we go beyond opposing things and move on to sustainable strategies that build clean industry?

The Industrial Authority focus group meeting I attended Wednesday was refreshing, because their consultants asked the opinions of people some of whom previously had to picket outside. The previous day, VLCIA Chairman Roy Copeland said this strategic planning process was a long time coming. I agree, and while nobody can say what will come of it at this point, I hope it does produce a real Economic Development Strategy.

Building on the Valdosta City Council’s annual consideration of affordable housing,

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Appointments to four boards, road abandomnent, and community block grant @ LCC 2012-06-25

Budget amendments on the agenda for the Lowndes County Commission Work Session Monday at 8:30 AM 25 June 2012 and Regular Session 5:30 PM Tuesday 26 June 2012. See if you can find some clues to what those amendments might be in the the videos of last week’s budget hearing.

Also this week: appointments to four boards (Parks & Rec, Construction, KLVB, and Library), a public hearing on a road abandonment (Brinson Drive), and the County Manager has something to say about FY 2010 Community Development Block Grant. Plus a bunch of service contracts. Here’s the agenda for tomorrow and Tuesday.

-jsq

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JUNE 25, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
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Map of Azalea City Trail: path of Saturday afternoon’s bike ride

Here’s a map of the Azalea City Trail, which is the path of (Saturday 12 May 2012) sponsored by Valdosta Bike Co-op.

Oddly, the City of Valdosta doesn’t seem to have such a map anywhere on its web pages, nor does the Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Authority (VLPRA).

-jsq

I would like more information on the “partners meetings” —Barbara Stratton @ VLPRA 2012 04 19

Received today on Finance, Facilities, and Projects @ VLPRA 2012 04 19. -jsq

I would like more information on the “partners meetings” beginning with why these meetings are not announced as public meetings. The video link lists partners as The Boys & Girls Club and The YMCA. There is a long history of both of these private organizations being mixed into the Valdosta/Lowndes parks & recreation government operations including past competitions between these private sector elements. One of the main reasons Public/Private Partnerships are not in the citizen’s best interests is the fact the private entities are used to evade government transparency responsibilities. If the VLPRA is going to consider themselves partners with any private organization then the public has a right to know what is being discussed & what future plans are being considered. Those of us who are aware of past conflicts with partial privatizations of parks & recreation have a right to know that safeguards are enacted to prevent a return to situations that were not always in the best interest of the citizens and/or created sweetheart deals for private entities. Any private organization who claims to be non-profit should have to submit to an independent audit and also account for how for profit revenues relate to non-profit claims. When any organization that claims non-profit status in order to receive tax credits, grant monies, and United Way funds can have a million dollar plus extortion operation siphoning off revenues at the same time something is not right. Local taxpayers have a right to know that full disclosure and auditing methods are being employed to prevent any repeat situations before partnering is allowed.

-Barbara Stratton

Parks and Rec citizen meeting tonight in Hahira

Following up on something I heard last night, I called Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks & Recreation Authority and determined they’re having a citizens meeting tonight in Hahira:

Who: Lose & Associates presentation
What: will ask questions and take community input
Where: Courthouse, 305 W. Main Street, Hahira, GA
When: 6-7PM 18 April 2012

Image by Old Shoe Woman

There was one of these yesterday at Mildred Hunter in south Valdosta. For unknown reasons these events were not posted on VLPRA’s website, which is odd considering this earlier report:

In March there will be about six public meetings concerning the master plan. According to Mr. Page the meetings will be advertised on the VLPRA website, in the Valdosta Daily Times, and by word of mouth.

I heard by word of mouth there was a notice in the VDT yesterday, so that’s two out of three.

-jsq

Parks and Rec @ LCC 2012 03 26

George Page, Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks and Recreational Authority (VLPRA), gave a presentation to the Lowndes County Commission Work Session, 26 March 2012.

Here’s a playlist:


Parks and Rec
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 26 March 2012.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

-jsq

 

 

The group overwhelmingly supported the building of… —Matt Portwood

Second of two reports on last night’s VLPRA steering committee received today. -jsq
The message of Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Authority Executive Director George Page was clear at tonight’s Master Planning Steering Committee workshop when he told the group “I’m not a fan of the status quo.” If you’ve followed the work of Mr. Page and the staff of the VLPRA, especially their work on securing the upcoming baseball tournament which is projected to have an economic impact of about $250,000, then you know that this is no exaggeration.

The meeting tonight was the first of a series of meetings that are geared toward getting public involvement in the upcoming Parks and Recreation Comprehensive Master Plan. The VLPRA has contracted with the Nashville-based architectural and land planning group Lose and Associates, to conduct the comprehensive plan. Lose is pronounced more like the geologic term defining windborne silt (loess), and less like how we identify the team that scores fewer goals in a soccer match (lose). The meeting tonight, which was led by two Lose planners, was focused on evaluating current VLPRA programs and facilities and offering suggestions for future improvements.

This evening’s group of about 15 participants consisted of

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We had interesting discussions at our group table —Barbara Stratton

First of two reports on last night’s VLPRA steering committee received today. -jsq
If you attended any of the CUEE meetings the format was exactly the same. We were divided into groups. Each person wrote down their answers to a list of questions they handed out. Then each group was told to combine their answers into a group list which was written on poster size dry erase sheets. Then the sheets were displayed on the wall in front of all the groups & the answers were discussed. I had to leave when they were discussing the answers to the first question which was: List the 5 things you think are most important to improve the parks & recreation program. I am assuming the group lists were combined into a master list for that question. They were doing each question all the way through before going to the next question. I brought the list of questions with me intending to share what they were but I left my notebook in the car trunk of the person I was riding with & forgot to get it when we left the Law Enforcement Appreciation Dinner. I will not retrieve the notebook until Tuesday, but if you want to know the questions I will send them to you then. If you want more info in the meantime Karen Noll was there also. She came late & probably stayed the entire time. We had interesting discussions at our group table & I’m sure a lot of interesting subjects were covered. However,
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