On the LAKE Front

Transparency by a County Commission

Here's what local government transparency via the web looks like. Our county commission could do this.

Here's how the Commissioners of Travis County, Texas do it:

Video files of commissioners court meetings are available online. Agenda items are available by noon the day after the meeting.

For example:

Voting Session Agenda
Tuesday, December 13, 2011 Complete Agenda Backup Materials, 120 MB

This web page version is derived from a manual conversion of the official document of record for the convenience of the user. Travis County has posted this notice and agenda in good faith, in compliance with Government Code section 551.056. Please note that, in the event of a technical problem beyond the county's control that prevents the county from posting here or that results in an erroneous posting, notice of this meeting and agenda posted at the courthouse remains valid

By "Backup Materials" they mean the packet the Commissioners got.

The rest of that web page fior their 13 December 2011 meeting has video and text for ciizens communications and consent items, plus each item that had its backup information in the Commissioners' packet is separated out with video, text, and backup links.

And for next week's meeting, 20 December 2011, the complete agenda with links to

Ankle monitoring for Lowndes County Jail @ LCC 13 December 2011

Tuesday the Lowndes County Commission approved ankle bracelet monitoring for nonviolent jail inmates so they can serve the rest of their time outside the jail, putting them in a better environment and decreasing expenses at the Sheriff's office. This sounds like a good idea. I have not expressed an opinion because, as Barbara Stratton pointed out, the public doesn't really know what was in the proposal County Commissioners got in their agenda packet. However, I would like to compliment Commissioner Joyce Evans about trying to do something about nonviolent prisoners.

Summarizing the ankle monitoring discussion of Monday morning, County Manager Joe Pritchard Tuesday evening asked the Lowndes County Commission to approve continued work by county staff with the Sheriff's office in implementing an ankle monitoring system to move some inmates out of the county jail.

Commissioner Richard Raines gave the credit to Commissioner Joyce Evans for both proposing a drug court and for proposing ankle monitoring.

Commissioner Evans declined comment but did make the motion, seconded by Commissioner Powell, and approved unanimously.

The VDT had a little more information in David Rodock's Wednesday story:

County Public Hearing on Comprehensive Plan

Tuesday the Lowndes County Commission finally held the missing public hearing about the Comprehensive Plan, and it was pretty painless: only one citizen spoke, and she spoke for. If they'd held it two months ago like all the local cities did, they wouldn't now be risking not getting state or federal grants because they may not be certified. They still didn't distribute the draft STWP and ROA before the hearing as the state requires them to do, so they could still be in trouble with the state. However, at least they reset their timeline and held the hearing. That's a step towards transparency as defined by the state guidelines the county already agreed in writing to follow.

Commissioners had as much to say as they did at the Work Session Monday morning: nothing.

The one citizen, Gretchen Quarterman, said:

I'm a super fan of planning, and I'm a fan of the Comprehensive Plan. I think that if we don't know where we are going, and we don't have a plan on how we're gonna get there, we're not gonna get there. And the five year plan that tells us exactly what we're going to in the next five years to get to our 2030 plan is a groovy idea. So that part I'm in favor of. I've been over this document pretty thoroughly with Jason, and I still have some questions outstanding which I'm sure that they'll get resolved. He's been super helpful.

The one thing I talked to Mr. Raines about and I would encourage the other Commissioners to consider is that in section 4.5.1, at least that's what I have it on my document. Investigate

About the audio, and thanks to Aaron Kostyu

Answering part of Barbara Stratton's questions, the audio access was part of the award the Commission gave LAKE for blogging questions like yours. You may know it as a bill of attainder. When the commission moved to the palace, we tried sitting in several locations and found that the front couple of rows, near the edges have the best sound. When we were banished to the back corner, we found the audio on the recordings was nearly inaudible. Perhaps our readers and listeners noticed that too.

When we mentioned the poor audio quality to Aaron Kostyu, Director of Technology, he informed us of the possibility of a direct microphone feed in the "media nook" (to the right of the door as you go in) to a properly equipped camera. He even showed Gretchen a camera that had the proper features. A bit of shopping later, we purchased a Canon HFR21 that appears to have many of the features needed for effective recording of these meetings.

Because the "media nook" speaker output had never been used before Monday,

I feel we are selectively being left out of the process. —Barbara Stratton

Received yesterday on Videos for Lowndes County Commission 13 December 2011. -jsq

These videos are fantastic & I love the sequential playlist. How did you get permission to connect to the county microphones? Thanks to both of you, John & Gretchen, we citizens who can't make all the numerous meetings have excellent access to view the proceedings. I need info on the new camera please.

I have a question. Since all meetings are open to the public & all information is accessible by open record requests why do the various entities have a habit of not publically answering questions related to money amounts publically? Very often I have noticed all local government entities share a habit of referring money & budget amounts and/or bid questions to the packets each member has in front of them instead of vocalizing them. Since the public attendees do not have access to this information I feel we are selectively being left out of the process. Citizens should not have to process & fund open record requests for information that should be part of the public meeting. Since you have more experience with local entities can you explain this practise?

-Barbara Stratton

Videos for Lowndes County Commission 13 December 2011

Here are videos for the entire Lowndes County Commission Regular Session of Tuesday 13 December 2011. Gretchen took these using a new camera with fast stop-start, high zoom, and taking audio input directly from the county's own microphones. How do you like it?

See also the previously-posted agenda and the videos of Monday morning's Work Session.

Here's the playlist:

Videos for Lowndes County Commission 13 December 2011
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 13 December 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

County's website: Reapportionment maps

Since we posted the Reapportionment maps obtained Tuesday evening, the county has posted PDF versions of this same information on their own website. Copies are on the LAKE website and appended below. I've added HTML tables of the statistics.
VAP is Voting-Age Population.

-jsq

Commission Explansion Update

At the December 13, 2011, meeting of the Lowndes County Board of

Reapportionment maps, Lowndes County, 13 December 2011

Here are the new County Commission District maps that the Commission just agreed on tonight for reapportionment due to the new census and population changes in the county. These are the districts that will be used for next year's County Commission elections.

These documents were obtained by John S. Quarterman for LAKE from County Manager Joe Pritchard by asking the County Commission during Citizens Wishing to Be Heard at their Regular Session of 13 December 2011.

I made a little list of requests, and the County Manager fulfilled all of them. I'm convinced this demonstrates that Joe Pritchard is indeed typecast as Santa Claus.

-jsq

8.a. Ankle Monitoring System —Joe Pritchard @ LCC 12 December 2011

County Manager Joe Pritchard briefly described agenda item

8.a. Ankle Monitoring System

He said it would permit jail inmates to serve some of their time outside the jail. He mentioned early discussions with Commissioners Joyce Evans and Richard Raines, and said it started related to drug court, but the idea had expanded. He recommended the board approve the County Manager working with the judges to organize the monitoring.

Chairman (and former Sheriff) Ashley Paulk remarked that this could lower the jail population. He seemed to be in favor of it.

Sheriff Chris Prine had some concerns that were hard to hear, but seemed to be related to budget.

Pritchard indicated that everybody realized the program was an experiment, and everyone would work with the Sheriff to avoid any unnecessary impact.

Commissioner Raines also reassured the Sheriff along the same lines.

They vote on it tonight, 5:30 PM.

Here's the video:

8.a. Ankle Monitoring System --Joe Pritchard @ LCC 12 December 2011
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 December 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Commissioners Uncommunicative on Comprehensive Plan @ LCC Work Session, 12 December 2011

The Commission started early, and they were already into agenda item

7.a. REZ-2011-16 South Beach Commercial, US Hwy 41 South R-10 & TLA to C-G, ~1.7 acres

when this video started. Then they moved right into

7.b. Lowndes County - Greater Lowndes 2030 Comprehensive Plan Updates — Resolution to Transmit

As you can see, County Planner Jason Davenport had little to say about that (mostly that this draft isn't the final version; they'll revise it some time next year after they hear back from the state), and the Commissioners even less (they said nothing), at Monday morning's Work Session. Tonight at 5:30 PM they vote on sending these materials to the state. If you want to know what's in these documents, see Gretchen's writeups The actual documents are on the LAKE web site. LAKE obtained them from elsewhere after the county refused to honor an open records request. The Chairman told Gretchen yesterday that those versions were "close enough" to what they're going to vote on tonight.

Here's the video:

Comprehensive Plan @ LCC Work Session, 12 December 2011
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 December 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq