{"id":648,"date":"2008-11-10T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-10T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/open-letter-to-commisioner-lee.html"},"modified":"2008-11-10T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-10T13:00:00","slug":"open-letter-to-commisioner-lee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/open-letter-to-commisioner-lee.html","title":{"rendered":"Open Letter to Commisioner Lee"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nTo: Richard C. Lee, District 2\n
\nCc: Rodney N. Casey, Chairman\n
\nCc: J. Edgar Roberts, District 1\n
\nCc: G. Robert Carter, District 3\n
\nCc: Jason Davenport, County Planner\n
\nLowndes County Board of Commissioners\n
\n325 West Savannah Avenue\n
\nValdosta, GA 31601\n<\/small><\/td>

   <\/td>

\nFrom: John S. Quarterman\n
\nresidence 6565 Quarterman Road\n
\n3338 Country Club Rd. #L336\n
\nValdosta, GA 31605\n
\n229-242-0102\n
\n10 November 2008\n<\/small>\n<\/td><\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/small>\nCommissioner Lee,\n

\nThank you for meeting with us Friday. That was a good beginning to\na conversation, much like I had hoped we would have after you\nattended our neighborhood meeting of June 5 in which we requested\nfurther options and my letter of August 7 in which I also requested\nfurther options regarding Quarterman Road.\nNow we’re talking!\n

\"Quarterman<\/a>I understand that there has been some confusion as to who wants to\ndo what with Quarterman Road. This is why we have clarified neighborhood\nopinion with the petition of 26 October showing that a majority of households\non the road and the owners of a majority of the road frontage\ndo not<\/strong> want the road paved,\nat least not using the current plan the county is pursuing of clearing\na 60 foot right of way and tearing down the tree canopy.\n

\nApparently there has also been some confusion as to what the state\nrequires the county to do. I hear that some time in the past the\ncounty was planning to use state money to improve Quarterman Road.\nIf so, I see how that money could have come with requirements from\nthe state. That would explain why the current county paving plan,\nwhich was originally drawn up many years ago, looks more like a state\nhighway than a rural local county road. However, as I am sure you are aware,\nSPLOST VI is a local tax, not state money,\nso there are no such requirements along with it.\nI confirmed this with the District Engineer with GDOT.\nHe tells me that the state makes\nno requirements on the county as to what to do with Quarterman Road,\nwhich the state classifies as functional class 9, a rural local road.\n\n\n

\nI specifically asked GDOT whether the county could, for example,\npave a road with a 30 foot right of way, and they said yes.\nThe distance across Quarterman Road from tree to tree\nis more than 30 feet all the way through the canopy.\n

\nThe county has already paved roads in the county with RoW less than 60 feet,\nsuch as Rusk Road near Lake Park (see March 11, 2006 County Commission\nminutes).\n

\nYou expressed some doubt as to whether speed limits could be set\nlow enough for safety if the right of way was narrow or\ntrees were close to a roadbed, because of AASHTO standards.\nStandards are a good thing, but they are guidelines.\nYou may not be aware that while Quarterman Road currently has a 35 MPH\nspeed limit, Coppage Road heading west from Val Del has a 30 MPH limit,\nand Coppage Road heading east from Val Del has a 25 MPH limit. For that\nmatter, Quarterman Road has a 15 MPH advisory limit at the first curve\npast the paved part. Even GDOT recommends in its Design Policy Manual, section 11.1.3:<\/a>\n

\n“a speed limit on the road equal to or less than the selected design speed.”\n<\/blockquote>\nSo clearly the county can set\na speed limit as low as is necessary for safety.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nYou mentioned potential liability on the part of the\nCounty Commission or its members if trees were too close to a roadbed.\nYet Thomas County, Georgia, and Leon County, Florida, to name only two,\nhave extensive scenic and canopy roads with trees no farther from the\nroadbed than the canopy on Quarterman Road.\nThomasville and Tallahassee advertise their scenic roads and\npeople drive from miles around just to see them.\nThat’s a kind of tourism Valdosta and Hahira and Lowndes County could use.\n

\nFinding out how these other counties do it and adapting that to\nLowndes County is a planning issue that would be quite useful to pursue.\n

\nAs you know\n\nDr. Dorfman’s report\nabout the Local Government Fiscal Impacts of Land Use in Lowndes County<\/a>\nrecommended development close in to existing services for the most benefit\nto all parties. Sprawl is a sure path to fiscal problems.\nPaving a road way out here risks encouraging development in an area\nthat has no infrastructure: no county water or sewer.\nI thank you for saying you would prevent that, but since you’ve\nsaid you’re retiring from the commission, you will be a commissioner\nonly for another year or two, while those of us who signed the petition\nnot<\/strong> to pave generally plan to live here until we die,\nand then leave the land to our heirs.\n

\nLet us take a step back and treat this issue of improving Quarterman Road\nnot as a rushed job of “improvement” by clearing and paving.\nInstead, let’s take the opportunity to plan not only to\nSave Our Canopy Road<\/a>,\nbut also to preserve other canopies in the county\nwhile maintaining safety and community character.\n

\nTherefore I recommend several things:\n

    \n
  1. \"marker<\/a>\nPlease halt the current Quarterman Road road clearing project.\nYou did the right thing in making a motion to stop the rezoning\nfor the proposed subdivision last year,\nsticking to the comprehensive plan\nthat says that this area up here on the north edge of the county\nis supposed to be an agricultural and wildlife area.\nWe’re counting on you to do the right thing again Tuesday,\nby stopping the current cutting and paving project, which\nis too destructive of this rural neighborhood.\n

    \n

  2. \nI hope the county Public Works and Engineering departments will\ncontinue with ditch and culvert cleaning, building up roadbeds,\nand similar work such as has already improved the quality\nof Quarterman Road so much that it did not\nactually wash out even during Hurricane Fay.<\/a>\nThey were out working as soon as the rains stopped,\nand they have done quite a bit of work since.\nSoon they will have the road in good enough shape that there won’t be\nany more water running over the road, except in very unusual rains\nlike hurricanes.\nThis is the kind of improvement the majority of households\naround the road want.\nI know of no one who objects to using SPLOST VI\nmoney for some of that, such as for example a box culvert at the creek.\nLet me once again take the opportunity to thank Robin English and Mike\nFletcher for their efforts to improve Quarterman Road by such methods.\n

    \n

  3. \n\"Quarterman<\/a>\nPlease start a planning project to evaluate canopy roads throughout the\ncounty and determine how best to preserve the canopies while maintaining\ntheir roads. \nLeon County, Florida, has a citizens’ committee<\/a>\nthat meets every other month to help with that. Lowndes County can, too.\nThe result could be a tourist attraction that would not only preserve\nthe environment, but also burnish the reputation of the county, and\nmaybe even bring in more sales tax dollars. That sounds like a much\nhigher and better use of canopy roads.\n

    \n

  4. If after the above the county wants to come back to the residents\nof Quarterman Road with a better plan for improvement, a plan that\nincludes preserving the rural nature of our country road, we’re all ears.\nThat would be real progress for our neighborhood and the county.\n<\/ol>\n

    \nIt’s always a pleasure to communicate with you; let’s keep the lines open.\n

    \nSincerely,\n

    \nJohn S. Quarterman\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To: Richard C. Lee, District 2 Cc: Rodney N. Casey, Chairman Cc: J. Edgar Roberts, District 1 Cc: G. Robert Carter, District 3 Cc: Jason Davenport, County Planner Lowndes County Board of Commissioners 325 West Savannah Avenue Valdosta, GA 31601     From: John S. Quarterman residence 6565 Quarterman Road 3338 Country Club Rd. #L336 Valdosta, […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[913,1736,12],"tags":[1108,1098,3,115,2156,2,1846,2128,2171,917,1834,2172,2169,2155,2170,1372,45],"class_list":["post-648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canopy-road","category-lowndes-county-commission-georgia","category-politics","tag-canopy-road-2","tag-florida","tag-georgia","tag-hahira","tag-leon-county","tag-lowndes-county","tag-paving","tag-planning","tag-progress","tag-quarterman-road","tag-richard-lee","tag-rusk-road","tag-save-our-canopy-road","tag-tallahassee","tag-thomas-county","tag-thomasville","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Gj0O-as","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}