Tag Archives: Work Session

Solid Waste, Developer Favors, Dollar General, Library, and Alcohol: Agenda @ LCC 2012-12-10

Updates 9 Dec 2012: Marked with *.

Will the Lowndes County Commission Tuesday evening finish railroading through their non-solution to solid waste disposal, without shouldering its legal responsibility to protect the environment and the public health, safety, and well-being from solid waste, and what’s this about a vendor change? Will the Chairman once again invite a developer to speak in Monday morning’s Work Session without letting anyone else speak? Will the Commission change the zoning code and rezone inside and against the Moody Exclusion Zone for that same developer they already provided $130,000 in road construction labor to back in 2007? Does Naylor need the area’s nineteenth Dollar General, and who’s behind it, anyway? How come the Five Points library is still on the agenda even though SPLOST VII failed? And what are they doing to the Alcoholic Beverage Ordinance this time? Come Monday morning at 8:30 AM and Tuesday evening at 5:30 PM and see! Better yet, also call or write your Commissioner before then.

Trash

6.b. Solid Waste Ordinance

Will the Commissioners finish railroading through their already-failing non-solution to solid waste disposal in the last session of this Chairman? The plan for which they held zero public hearings while any of the Commissioners who voted on it this October were on the Commission, yet someone down there feels free to anonymously ridicule concerns about that plan failing? Two citizens spoke up anyway, even though Citizens Wishing to Be Heard was after the scheduled vote last time, and another on this blog, all willing to state their names, unlike the anonymous pro-trash-railroad ridiculer. What was that unspecified new information that caused them to table it last time, anyway?

8.b. Exclusive Franchise Agreement for Residential Solid Waste Collection Services with Advanced Disposal Services of Central Alabama, Inc.

What happened to Veolia; Continue reading →

Video playlist @ LCC 2012-11-12

The Lowndes County Commission invited a developer to speak about his proposed rezoning at a Work Session without inviting any opposition to speak. Plus another rezoning, a proposed solid waste ordinance with exclusive franchise agreement, and proposed appointments to five boards and authorities. And at the end an animal event report.

Here’s a video playlist:

Video playlist
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 November 2012.

Here’s the agenda again, this time with links to the videos plus a few notes.

Continue reading →

Appointments to five boards, two rezonings, and a solid waste ordinance @ LCC 2012-11-12

Monday morning the Lowndes County Commission considers and Tuesday evening votes on members of five appointed boards. Who are the candidates? The agenda doesn’t say. The two rezonings are the same ones the Planning Commission recently considered. Presumably the solid waste ordinance has something to do with the recent privatization decision.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor Continue reading →

Video of 6 minute meeting @ LCC 2012-10-22

Here’s a single video of this morning’s entire Lowndes County Commission Work Session. The railroad item was neither of the ones on which I was speculating. The animal shelter wants a 24 hour “cooling-off period” with a submitted animal kept at home before “evaluation” by the shelter. The Tax Commissioner wants to refund some taxes they apparently accidentally overcharged. The Fire Chief has bids for equipment for the new fire truck. And there’s going to be an animal health fair. They vote tomorrow evening at 5PM.

Here’s the video, followed by the agenda, with links to the relevant parts of the video, and a few notes.

Video of 6 minute meeting
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 October 2012.
Thanks to Dexter Sharper for use of his video camera.

Here’s the annotated agenda:

Continue reading →

Rairoad, animals, taxes, and a fire truck @ LCC 2012-10-22

Five minutes? Or will they discuss any of the four items on the agenda for Monday morning’s Work Session?

What’s the CSX project? CSX in Lowndes County Is it this item from the T-SPLOST constrained project list?

RC11-000071 Construction of St Augustine Road Overpass

That overpass went from $12,000,000 to $14,627,933.04 during the T-SPLOST selection process. On the ground down there on St. Augustine Road it sure looks like people are preparing for an overpass. Has the county found some non-T-SPLOST way to fund that railroad overpass?

Since it’s CSX, I’d guess it’s not this other T-SPLOST project:

RC11-000077 Georgia and Florida Railway (GFRR) — Valdosta to Willacoochee Rehabilitation

The Commission could just post the proposed agreement along with the agenda, and then we’d all know.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Waste disposal discussions with Richard Raines —Gretchen Quarterman @ LCC 2012-10-09

Gretchen Quarterman Waste disposal issues in Lowndes County are more complex than one might think, and transparent processes could help citizens understand these stewardship issues, while helping the local government do its job.

Commissioner Raines called me yesterday evening after I had left him a voice mail and an e-mail letting him know that I had some questions.

I was particularly curious about the proposals in column “F” which asked for:

Contractor(s) agrees to provide an independent proposal option to address residential solid waste, bulky item, yard waste and recyclable materials collection, transportation and disposal, collection center management and related customer service, records, billing and payment processing services for unincorporated Lowndes County residents.

Proposal “F” Pricing —

Residential solid waste, bulky item, yard waste and recyclable materials collection, transportation and disposal, collection center management and related customer service, records, billing and payment processing services.

$______________ per month/subscriber

This was an opportunity for the vendors to provide some option that the county had not asked for but used their expertise in waste disposal and offer a creative solution.

Lowndes County Solid Waste RFP Summary Sheet October 9, 2012 The prices in column “F” ranged from $8.33 to $19.95 to “Negotiate”.

Commissioner Raines briefly explained what had been submitted by each vendor and it became clear that there was not a creative winning solution proposed there. In fact, submitting a “Negotiate Rates and Program” is clearly a failure.

We then went on to discuss at length the whole solid waste disposal history, problems, options, and so on. Commissioner Raines stressed his focus Continue reading →

Videos: Water, water, water, waste! and planning? @ LCC 2012-10-08

The big news was the waste disposal railroad, but the Lowndes County Commission also heard about three water issues (one a rezoning), plus a beer license, revenue bonds, community planning month, and a health fair at its Work Session this morning.

Here’s the agenda, with links to the videos and a few notes, or links to separate posts.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Lowndes County Solid Waste RFP Summary Sheet @ LCC 2012-10-08

This is the summary sheet Kevin Beals presented at the Lowndes County Commission Work Session this morning.

Assuming the dollar figures in the table are monthly charges to the end user, note that the only one that comes out less than the current $100/year is the $8.33 in the lower right corner: $8.33 * 12 = $99.96. Presumably plus tax, since this would be a private service. So if the Commission chooses any of these options, we the current waste disposal customers will have to pay more.

The upper end of $19.95 (upper right corner) comes to $239.40 per year. Or 140% more than the current price. A bit more to a lot more: that’s what we’ll have to pay. Plus the socialized costs of privatizing waste disposal, such as code enforcement to pick up trash dumped on rights of way, private fences and gates built to keep trash out, and other costs.

Average is somewhere around $13/month, for $156/year. If they simply charged that for the current service, the already rapidly decreasing budget deficit for waste disposal would vanish, and there would be no need to change to something else.

If you want to see the actual proposals summarized in this table, you can file an open records request. According to the County Clerk’s web page:

Once a request is received, Lowndes County will notify the requesting party within 3 days regarding the availability of information.

So if you file it today, you’ll get a response of some sort within two days after they vote on waste management tomorrow.

Does this seem right to you?

-jsq

Waste disposal railroad by County Commission @ LCC 2012-10-08

The Lowndes County Commission plans to vote tomorrow evening to privatize waste disposal in the unincorporated areas of the county, after numerous discussions at meetings the public were unaware of, without any public hearings, and regardless of whether the people want it.

County Manager Joe Pritchard talked about “a long, long process” they’d been through, including at the Commissioners’ retreat.

You remember,

Although I don’t recall it being there last night when I picked up the agenda, the RFP is now linked into the county’s front web page (copy on the LAKE website).

At this morning’s meeting, Kevin Beals, Lowndes County Development Reviewer, addressed the Commissioners and said,

Continue reading →

A rezoning, wastewater pump repair, solid waste RFP, and community planning month @ LCC 2012-10-08

2974 Pecan Plantation Road A rezoning for well and septic, Bevel Creek is back with a lift station pump repair, and something about an Alapaha waterline: water, water, water. Plus a beer license, refunding revenue bonds, and the long-awaited waste management RFP. And an employee health fair, whatever that is, and apparently this is community planning month. All that at the Lowndes County Commission, Monday morning and Tuesday evening.

Here’s the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Continue reading →