Tag Archives: Withlacoochee River

Roads, rezoning, sales tax, Sunday alcohol, and Troupville River Camp @ VCC 2019-12-05

Unusual on the Valdosta City Council agenda for Thursday are an award to Valdosta Main Street and a request by WWALS Watershed Coalition for support for its Troupville River Camp project; see also WWALS blog post.

Photo: via Valdosta Today.

Possibly controversial is the item to allow Sunday Alcohol Sales to begin at 11:00 a.m. Business as usual includes a rezoning several road widening and other traffic improvement items.

Here is the agenda.

AGENDA
REGULAR MEETING OF THE VALDOSTA CITY COUNCIL
5:30 PM Thursday, December 5, 2019
COUNCIL CHAMBERS, CITY HALL

Opening Ceremonies

Call to Order
Invocation
Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag

Awards and Presentations

Special Recognition of the Valdosta Main Street Program as a Georgia Exceptional Main Street (GEMS) by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs Office of Downtown Development.
Consideration of a request for a Special Presentation at the December 5, 2019 Regular City Council Meeting.
Consideration of the December, 2019 Employee of the Month Award (Sergeant Heather Willis, Valdosta Police Department).

Minutes Approval

Valdosta City Council – Regular Meeting – Nov 7, 2019 5:30 PM

Public Hearings

Consideration of an Ordinance to rezone 6.70 acres from Planned Mixed Use Development (PMD) to Highway-Commercial (C-H) by Quick Trip Corporation (File No. VA-2019-08). The property is located at 1394 North St. Augustine Road. The Greater Lowndes Planning Commission reviewed this request at their November Regular Meeting and recommended approval (8-0 Vote).
Consideration of an Ordinance for Text Amendments to Chapter 102 – General Provisions, Chapter 106 – Definitions, Chapter 242 – Zoning Procedures, Chapter 302 – Subdivision and Site Development Standards, and Chapter 332 – Infrastructure and Site Improvements of the City of Valdosta Land Development Regulations (File No. VA-2019-09). The Greater Lowndes Planning Commission reviewed this request at their November Regular Meeting and recommended approval (8-0 Vote).

Ordinances and Resolutions

Consideration of an Ordinance to amend the City of Valdosta’s Alcohol Ordinance to allow Sunday Alcohol Sales to begin at 11:00 a.m.
Consideration of a Resolution authorizing the Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Revenue to provide sales tax information to the City of Valdosta’s Finance Director.
Consideration of a Resolution authorizing the acceptance of a Contract with the Georgia Department of Transportation for the Eager Road/Jerry Jones Widening Project.

Bids, Contracts, Agreements and Expenditures

Consideration of bids for traffic improvements at the intersection of Park Avenue and Forrest Street.
Consideration of bids for a Front-End Loading Dumpster Garbage Truck for the Public Works Department.
Consideration of a request to approve a Contract for new water meters for the City of Valdosta.

Local Funding and Requests

Consideration of a request to approve street selections for the Georgia Department of Transportation’s Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant (LMIG) Program.
Consideration of a request from the WWALS Watershed Coalition for a Letter of Support for the Troupville River Camp.

City Manager’s Report
Council Comments
Citizens to be Heard
Adjournment

-jsq

Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today!

Videos: River Gauges, Roads, Alcohol, and Fire @ LCC 2019-10-22

The longest items at last month’s voting Regular Session were 3 minutes on 5.b. 2020 Census Resolution (due to discussion about the new initially online methods), two minutes on 5.l. Tax Assessment for the Lowndes County School District Bonds (it’s about debt service on ESPLOST), and 1:44 on 5.k. Industrial Authority Bond Issue and Funding (it’s complicated).

The 5.a. FY2020 USGS Joint Funding Agreement, which adds county funding for the Skipper Bridge Withlacoochee River USGS Gauge to the Hahira Little River Gauge the county has been funding since 2009, breezed through.

Below are Continue reading →

Videos: River Gauges, Roads, Alcohol, and Fire @ LCC 2019-10-21

Surprise bonds for the Development Authority and Lowndes County Schools, and a turn lane for Wiregrass Tech, plus a new Forestry Ranger about fire, in these LAKE videos of yesterday morning’s Lowndes County Commission Work Session.

The longest item was five minutes about funding the Skipper Bridge Withlacoochee River USGS Gauge in addition to the Folsom Bridge Little River Gauge, by EMA Director Ashley Tye. Valdosta apparently discovered that Skipper Bridge is not in the city limits, so Valdosta will no longer fund that gauge. But the former funding from the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) plus more from Lowndes County will cover it, if the Lowndes County Commissioners vote for it at 5:30 PM Tonight, after their discussion yesterday morning.

Georgia Forestry Ranger Randy Spell talked about the use of a vehicle in the Rural Fire Defense Cooperative Lease Agreement And MOU.

Second longest was the extremely vague Continue reading →

Packet: River Gauges, Roads, Alcohol, and Fire @ LCC 2019-10-21

Lowndes County is adding funding for the Skipper Bridge Road Withlacoochee River gauge to its traditional since 2009 funding of the Folsom Bridge GA 122 Little River gauge. That’s $8,300 and $14,200, respectively, with another $5,900 for the Skipper Bridge Gauge from the Suwannee River Water Management District. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) puts in $900 towards each gauge, or $1800 total. Valdosta still funds the North Valdosta Road US 41 Withlacoochee River Valdosta gauge, and USGS completely funds the US 84 Quitman Withlacoochee River gauge.

OPTIONS: 1. Approve the FY 2020 Funding Agreement
PDF

Details are in the Board Packet now on the LAKE website, received Friday, October 18, 2019, in response to an open records request.

The rest of the Lowndes County Commission agenda for Monday and Tuesday is dominated by roads: a resolution on criteria for taking private roads into the county public road system, and resolutions taking in roads within several subdivisions: Continue reading →

Videos: Sixty-one lots on Val Del Road @ GLPC 2019-08-26

The Val Del Road rezoning breezed through unanimously in four minutes, with one Planning Commissioner wondering if Val Del Road could handle the traffic, and nobody speaking against. The Valdosta cases took almost half an hour, with three split votes (yes, three votes on two cases).

GLPC Chair Vicki Rountree

Final decisions will be made by the Lowndes County Commission on Tuesday, September 10, 2019 for REZ-2019-12 Val Del Rd., and by the Valdosta Mayor-Council on Thursday, September 5, 2019, for the paired Valdosta cases, as you can see in the agenda. The Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC) is an advisory body only, with the actual decisions being made by those other bodies, as its Chair Vicki Rountree explained at the beginning of the session, before she had to vote thrice to resolve tied votes. You can hear Gretchen Quarterman of LAKE explaining it towards the end of the final LAKE video.

After they adjourned, they kept talking about a joint ordinance to the six governments, without saying what that was about. Since Lowndes County Chairman Bill Slaughter was standing up there at the time, I would guess it’s the SPLOST VIII agreement.

Before it adjourned, the Planning Commission established the minutes on the county’s website as its official minutes.

Below are links to each LAKE video of each agenda item, with a few notes, followed by a LAKE video playlist. See also the agenda. And come to the Lowndes County or Valdosta decision meetings if you care about one of those cases. Continue reading →

Sixty-one lots on Val Del Road @ GLPC 2019-08-26

Apparently NATCO LLC wants to rezone 28 acres of its 567.12 acre Parcel 0072 061 to build 61 house lots.

Parcel 0072 061, NATCO LLC

Where along Val Del Road it wants to put them is not stated in the Planning Commission agenda for today. I’d guess close to the existing lots to the south, but the county ran water and sewer up to Nelson Hill, which you can see to the northwest of the NATCO tract, so the subdivision could be anywhere along Val Del in that tract.

Greater Lowndes Planning Commission
~ Lowndes County ~ City of Valdosta ~ City of Dasher ~ City of Hahira ~ City of Lake Park ~ City of Remerton ~
REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING AGENDA
Monday, August 26, 2019 5:30 P.M.
Public Hearing, Lowndes County South Health District Administrative Office
325 West Savannah Avenue, Valdosta, Georgia
Continue reading →

Videos and packet: Millage, SPLOST VIII, Wastewater, roads, bridges, mosquitos, Construction Board @ LCC 2019-08-12

County Manager Joe Pritchard said Finance Director Stephanie Black has received a millage report from the Tax Commissioner. He and she will prepare something from it for the Lowndes County Commissioners for a later meeting.

The board packet is on the LAKE website, in response to a LAKE open records request.

Below are Continue reading →

$1.5 mllion on wastewater, SPLOST VIII, roads, bridges, mosquitos, Construction Board @ LCC 2019-08-12

The resolution to reimpose the SPLOST tax as SPLOST VIII, was not included with the agenda for the tax-paying public to see. LAKE has filed an open records request for the entire board packet. Perhaps the county will supply it before they vote tomorrow.

Land Application Site

Four bids were received for LAS and Pump Station Improvements with the high bid at $3.3 million, and the low at $2.5 million, but apparently the county negotiated the low bidder, Doyle Hancock & Sons, down to $1,520,858.00. This is “for improvements to the LAS [Land Application Site, aka wastewater spray field], Bevel Creek, Francis Lake, and Coleman Road lift stations.” The LAS is between Grassy Pond and Pike Pond, a few thousand feet from the GA-FL line, in the Withlacoochee River watershed. Continue reading →

Board Packet @ LCC 2019-07-22

For the first time ever, the county returned the complete board packet before the Lowndes County Commission voted on it! This was in response to an open records request sent Wednesday, so the statutory three days were actually up Monday morning. They emailed the packet Monday afternoon about 5PM.

Google Map annotated by LAKE to show the quit claimed part of Reed Road in magenta (this map was not part of the board packet).

All the dirt part of Reed Road, back from the old Skipper Bridge over the Withlacoochee River, to the entrance to Pine Grove Middle School, is what is being abandoned. It is possible to decipher this from the quit claims in the board packet for yesterday morning’s Lowndes County Commission Work Session and tonight’s Regular Session.

All the SPLOST VIII Project Lists, for the county and the five cities, are included; see below.

Everything the county sent, plus images of each page, is on the LAKE website. LAKE looks forward to the county putting all these packet documents on the county’s own website, along with the agenda and agenda sheets.