The Oconee Count Planning Commission, in a 7 to 3 vote last week, sided with the county planning staff and recommended approval of a rezone request of nearly 50 acres on the north side of Barnett Shoals Road east of Watkinsville for a 12-lot residential subdivision.
The county planning staff recommended approval of the rezone only on the condition that lot size be at least three acres–a condition that the property owner opposed.
The Oconee County Board of Education on Monday night received a partial preview of its Fiscal Year 2026 Budget, showing $120.5 million in expenditures, an increase of 4.9 percent from the current Fiscal Year.
Chief Financial Officer Peter Adams told the Board that he will have a complete budget for it to review at its work session on May 5.
Agriculture in Oconee County, as well as in the rest of the state and country, faces a number of challenges--from population growth, climate change, cuts in federal funding, an aging farmer population, and a high suicide rate among farmers.
Agriculture remains important to Oconee County, however, with the farm gate value, or value of the cultivated product, at $64.4 million, according to the most recent annual estimate.
Oconee County Schools sent out a news release nine minutes after the School Board ended its session on Monday night announcing that Superintendent Jason Branch had told the Board that he is retiring on June 30.
School Board Chair Michael Ransom said on Tuesday evening that Branch informed the Board of his decision to retire as part of his personnel recommendations to the Board presented at the executive session at the end of the Board’s regular meeting.
The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) has acquired, by purchase or condemnation, all of the rights of way needed for construction of the interchange of the Oconee Connector and SR 316, according to an analysis of county property records and published GDOT plans for the project.
It has acquired the sole property to be displaced by the flyover of SR 316 by Virgil Langford Road and all but two of the required rights of way.
Oconee County on Tuesday experienced its second sewer spill in the last two months and third in the last 11 months into an unnamed tributary of McNutt Creek near where the tributary crosses under Tanglebrook Drive at the entrance to Tanglebrook subdivision.
The break in the force main on Tuesday resulted in a release of 17,411 gallons of untreated sewage into the tributary.
The Oconee County Board of Education told the Georgia Department of Education last month that it expects the small decline in enrollment at Oconee County Schools in school year 2023-2024 to be temporary.
The Board predicted a growth in enrollment for the current school year, and for that growth to continue through to school year 2028-2029.
