On the LAKE Front

Videos @ LCC 2012-12-11

Moody and the Chamber won, rural residents got wasted, and taxpayers still didn't get to see a single thing the Lowndes County Commission voted on last night in 45 minutes (very long for them) in front of the biggest audience I've ever seen there.

They appointed John "Mac" McCall to ZBOA. They revised the alcohol ordinance with some unspecified "changes to the fee schedule", and added another alcohol restriction to the Lake Park rezoning before approving it. They approved the solid waste ordinance and granted a waste collection monopoly to a company from New York City despite all known public input being against it. Two more people spoke against it in Citizens Wishing to Be Heard. Gretchen Quarterman recommended adding all the appointed Boards and Authorities to the county's calendar. Commissioners accepted applicant's withdrawal of the rezoning request near Moody AFB and tabled indefinitely the related zoning code amendment. They approved rezoning for the Naylor Dollar General. Commission approved four Decorative Lighting Special Tax Districts (forgetting it was supposed to be a public hearing), and a refund for one that wasn't. Danny Weeks got approved a new netclock and new phones for the 911 center, and he and his staff got an award. The library railroad continues, the bonds renegotation was approved with about $2 million savings and some legal questions, the Annex has asbestos but they'll deal with it, and after Friday's demolition ceremony there will be a going-away reception for Chairman Paulk, and Bill Slaughter will be the new Chairman. You missed all that and more at yesterday's Commission meeting.

Here's a video playlist of the Regular Session, followed by the agenda with the videos linked into it.

Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 11 December 2012.

For reference here are the videos of yesterday morning's Work Session. And here is the agenda with links to the videos and some notes.

Videos @ LCC 2012-12-10

A surprising amount of discussion at yesterday morning's Lowndes County Commission Work Session, on ZBOA appointment, alcohol Sunday sales, rezoning next to Moody, and more. They said nothing about the solid waste ordinance, however; maybe they'll table that loser again. They vote tonight:

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2^nd Floor

Here's a video playlist of the Work Session, followed by the agenda with the videos linked into it.

Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 10 December 2012.

Here's the agenda, this time with links to the videos and some notes.

County proceeding on a fixed library line @ LCC 2012-12-10

Scoring for library architect selection seems more rigorous now, at yesterday morning's Lowndes County Commission Work Session. But where are the scores? And what are the names of the two finalists? They vote or table tonight at 5:30 PM.

8.h. New Main Library — Construction Manager At Risk Selection

Project Manager Chad McCleod said proposals had been received from nine firms, and "using a score sheet with certain grading criteria" staff narrowed them down to three offers. Each firm gave a one-hour presentation last Friday to the selection committee which again "used certain grading criteria to score each firm". The top two scorers were Coffee[?] Construction and Quillian Powell Construction.

I applaud actually using scoring, instead of what appeared to happen for the main library architect selection, with a relatively elaborate selection process including a scoring sheet that then apparently wasn't actually used in the architect selection. But where are these filled-out score sheets for the applicants this time, so we the taxpayers can see them?

The Commission could have staff

More developer favors at the County Commission Work Session this morning? @ LCC 2012-12-10

At the 8:30 AM Work Session this morning, will the Chairman

Clint Joyner (speaking) and J.D. Yeager (seated on right) of Joyner Realty at LCC Work Session 2012-11-12

invite Clint Joyner of Joyner Realty to speak like he did last month, without inviting anybody else? Will Chairman Ashley Paulk invite J.D. Yeager of Joyner Realty (and formerly Sheriff Paulk's lieutenant at the Sheriff's office) to speak? That plus solid waste (if privatization is bad for Moody, why is it good for a county public health and safety service like solid waste collection?), Dollar General (where's the marketing plan to indicate whether tiny Naylor needs the area's nineteenth Dollar General?), Library, (Houston County's SPLOST passed in a landslide after they held public hearings; maybe Lowndes County should try that), and Alcohol (county staff say they're coalescing previous changes into the body of the ordinance), all at the Lowndes County Commission Work Session this morning; here's the agenda.

When he spoke 12 November 2012, Clint Joyner started by referring to a nearby subdivision "In 2007". 2007 was the year Mr. Joyner got (according to the Commission's minutes of 26 June 2007) $130,000 in road construction labor from the Commission because of "an unforeseen Department of Transportation requirement regarding a costly intersection improvement." Why couldn't the County Engineer or Mr. Joyner forsee such a requirement?

This time many people do forsee that rezoning to develop in the Moody Activity Zones would be a bad idea. Houston County is using state and local tax money to buy up houses in similar zones around Warner Robins Air Force Base. Doubtless Houston County would love it if Lowndes County encroached enough on Moody AFB that Moody's missions moved to Robins AFB.

-jsq

SPLOST won in Houston County but not in Lowndes County: why?

Why did SPLOST in Houston County, Georgia win by a landslide while SPLOST VII in Lowndes County lost?

Houston County's SPLOST passed in March 2012 by a landslide. Christina M. Wright wrote for The Telegraph 6 March 2012, UPDATE: Houston officials celebrate landslide SPLOST approval,

“This is a ‘thank you’ for the voters,” said Houston County Chairman Tommy Stalnaker as Warner Robins Councilman Paul Shealy presented the black and white sign. “They are the real victors of this thing tonight.”...

Unofficial results showed the SPLOST received 10,029 ‘yes’ votes to 4,799 ‘no’ votes. More affirmative than negative votes were cast in every precinct.

That's 67.6% to 32.4%, and a difference: Houston County local elected officials thanked the voters. Lowndes County Chairman Ashley Paulk, who rushed through a SPLOST vote a year early,

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;

SPLOST, media, southside library: videos @ SGLB 2012-11-20

Here's a video playlist of the 20 November 2012 South Georgia Regional Library Board meeting. And here's George Rhynes' editorial on what he saw, heard, and was asked at that meeting. He'd prefer SPLOST being spent first on sidewalks than on moving the library where people would have to go farther to get to it. Also, like many of us, he's tired of a few people controlling the purse-strings without input from the rest of us. He gave an example:

SPLOST VII @ SGLB 2012-11-20

At Tuesday's South Georgia Library Board meeting. a board member (his nameplate said Willis Miller) wanted to know about SPLOST:

How we know it's going to come up next November or at another time?

Good question.

Here's video of the discussion as it resumed later in the meeting:

SPLOST VII discussion at Monthly Meeting, South Georgia Library Board (SGLB),
Video by George Boston Rhynes for K.V.C.I. and bostongbr on YouTube,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 20 November 2012.

Kay Harris said there had to be a minimum of twelve months, so November 2013 would be the next possible time. She said County Commissioner Richard Raines had expressed full support for the new library, and she was talking to the other commissioners. She was asked whether the SPLOST lists would be the same, and said there might be some changes, but she hadn't heard anyone suggest that the Five Points property might be deleted. That's curious, because she quoted Valdosta Mayor Gayle in the VDT 7 November 2012 as saying:

Library Architect Submissions (part 3)

Here are the submissions from the final four architects that were considered for the new Five Points Lowndes County Library. This continues the series with Library Architect Selection Documents (part 1) and Library Architect RFP and "Bible" (part 2) which presents documents received by LAKE from SGRL in response to an open records request.

The four architect submissions are linked on this LAKE web page. Here they are separately:

• BDS: Barganier Davis Sims Architects
• CRA: Clemons, Rutherford & Associates, Inc.
• ERA: Ellis, Ricket and Associates Architects
• McCall: McCall & Associates, Inc.

If we missed anything please let us know.

Architects: feel free to put your submissions on your own web pages and send us a link.

-jsq

Library Architect RFP and "Bible" (part 2)

Here is the Request for Proposals and the "Bible" of related documents that served as background for the architect selection process for the new library at Five Points. These were received on a CD as part of the library architect selection documents in the very organized open records response from the South Georgia Regional Library; see the previous post for related agendas and minutes.

Included in the RFP (which was issued by the County, not by the Library Board), is a list of fourteen numbered submittal instructions that looks like it might have been the basis for the list of 90 items on the Library Scoring Worksheet.

The RFP also includes this interesting section:

RESERVATIONS

Lowndes County Board of Commissioners reserves the following rights:

Rejection of any and all submittals
Negotiate changes in the Scope of Work
Negotiate services to be provided
Negotiate fee proposal
Waive any and all technicalities

That last line basically seems like it could be interpreted to mean they could select whatever appealed to them no matter what the fit (or not) with what was asked for in the RFP.

The "Bible" includes a cover sheet that says: