The 10 county Northeast Health District added 837 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Friday–more than twice the number added a week earlier.
District also added one new confirmed death attributed to the disease. The death was in Oconee County.
The 837 added cases of COVID-19 and two deaths compare with the 411 new cases and two confirmed death added in the week ending July 23.
Oconee County Commissioners took another step on Tuesday to put a referendum for a new 1 percent Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax on the ballot in November.
Commissioners tentatively decided to ask the Board of Elections and Registration at its regular meeting next week to vote to officially respond to the request from the commissioners to put the referendum for the new sales tax on the Nov. 2 ballot.
Oconee County Schools will open on Aug. 4 with all in-person instruction.
As was the case last year, masks will not be required, but those students who choose to wear a mask are “welcome to do so.”
COVID-19 vaccinations also are not required for employees or students.
More than half of the absentee ballots received in Oconee County in the Nov. 3, 2020, election were deposited in the drop box in front of the Elections and Registration Office opposite the Courthouse in downtown Watkinsville.
Of the ballots received after early voting ended, 60.1 percent were via the secure drop box in the front of the elections office.
Of the ballots received before early voting started, half came in via the drop box.
The Northeast Health District added 411 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Friday and two new confirmed death attributed to the disease. One of the deaths was in Clarke County.
The 411 added cases of COVID-19 and two deaths compare with the 245 new cases and no confirmed death added in the week ending July 16.
The average of 58.7 new cases per day for the week ending on Friday compares with the average of 35.0 new cases per day for the week ending on July 16.
The Oconee County Planning Commission told the Board of Commissioners on Monday that it thinks building a drive-through fast food restaurant on a tiny piece of property on Hog Mountain Road across from RaceTrac is a bad idea.
The property actually fronts on the stub of what was Hog Mountain Road before it was re-engineered to meet the widened U.S. 441, and traffic would have to cross that stub before reaching or leaving the restaurant.
County planners showed a complicated set of modifications to the roadway that would be needed to make the plan work.
The Judicial Workload Assessment Committee of the Judicial Council of Georgia voted on Friday to recommend to the full Council that Oconee County not be allowed to split from Clarke County in the Western Judicial Circuit.
The Workload Assessment Committee was responding to a Feb. 12 request from Marcus Wiedower and Houston Gaines, who represent both Oconee County and Clarke County in the Georgia House of Representatives.
The pair were requesting that the Judicial Council do what is known as a “circuit boundary study” to determine if the current configuration of the Circuit could be changed.
The Federal Railroad Administration and the Georgia Department of Transportation have chosen a route for high speed rail linking Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C., that passes through Athens, rejecting two alternate routes that bypassed the area.
The proposed 274-mile route will be fully separated from the existing roadway and railroad transportation systems, and it will be on a new dedicated right of way for most of its distance.
The route does not pass through Oconee County, but the inclusion of Athens as a “station opportunity” would provide potential rail links for the area with downtown Atlanta and Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
Oconee County citizens get the first two of three opportunities on Monday to tell the members of the Board of Education how they feel about the Board’s decision not to reduce the school property tax rate despite the increased assessed value of county properties.
The Board voted earlier this year to use some of the increased tax revenue from the growing tax digest to offer a one-time $1,250 bonus to all employees and an additional permanent increase of $1 per hour for custodial staff, bus drivers, and school nutrition workers.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners, by contrast, decided to make a very slight cut in the county’s millage rate.
The Northeast Health District added 245 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Friday. The District added no new confirmed deaths attributed to the disease.
The 245 added cases of COVID-19 and no deaths compare with the 180 new cases and one confirmed death added in the week ending July 9.
The average of 35.0 new cases per day for the week ending on Friday compares with the average of 25.7 new cases per day for the week ending on July 9.
The Town of Bishop will receive only a small amount of sales tax revenue from the planned Dollar General on High Shoals Road at U.S. 441, not the $80,000 annually projected by town leaders in April when they annexed and rezoned land for the convenience store.
The amount of money the town will receive–less than $550 annually if company estimates of sales are correct--is exactly the same as the amount it would have received had Dollar General located outside the town limits.
The Varsity Restaurants announced its plans to build a new store in Oconee County in a full-page advertisement in the Athens Banner-Herald on Sunday, followed by a posting on its Facebook page on Monday.
That Facebook posting led to a story at the top of the front page of the Banner-Herald on Tuesday. The paper had written several stories about the recent closing of the restaurant on West Broad Street at Milledge Avenue.
The Oconee Enterprise also put the announcement in a short story on the front page of its Thursday edition.
Marcus Wiedower, who represents nine of Oconee County’s 12 precincts in the Georgia House of Representatives, has more than 10 times the campaign cash in hand than he had at this time two years ago.
Houston Gaines, who represents the remaining three Oconee County precincts in the Georgia House, has nearly three times the amount of funds as he had at this point in the off-year in 2019.
Bill Cowsert, who represents all of Oconee County in the Georgia Senate, has slightly more campaign money than he had in his campaign account two years ago.
The Northeast Health District added 180 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Friday and one new confirmed death attributed to the disease.
The 180 added cases of COVID-19 and one death compare with the 63 new cases and no confirmed deaths added in the week ending July 2.
The average of 25.7 new cases per day for the week ending on Friday compares with the average of 9.0 new cases per day for the week ending on July 2.
The large drop box installed in front of the Oconee County Elections and Registration Office last year to make it easy for county voters to cast an absentee ballot is a thing of the past.
The drop box has been replaced, Oconee County Director of Elections and Registration Rebecca Anglin told county Democrats at their meeting last month, by a different one inside the office itself.
Voters will be able to use the new drop box only during the regular hours when the Elections and Registration Office at 10 Court Street opposite the Courthouse in Watkinsville is open to the pubic, Anglin said.
The Northeast Health District added 63 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Friday, and no new confirmed deaths attributed to the disease.
The 63 added cases of COVID-19 and no deaths compare with the 70 cases and the four confirmed deaths added in the week ending June 25.
The average of 9.0 new cases per day for the week ending on Friday compares with the average of 10.0 new cases per day for the week ending on June 25.
Maxie Price let the deadline pass on Thursday without filing the threatened constitutional challenge to the decision by the Oconee County Board of Commissioners not to grant a rezone for a shopping center at the Oconee Connector and Mars Hill Road.
Angela Elder-Johnson, Clerk of Superior, Magistrate, and Juvenile Courts for Oconee County, confirmed on Friday morning that Price had not filed suit in Superior Court by the end of the day on Thursday.
Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez said on Friday that Oconee County Sheriff James Hale was incorrect on Monday when he said that she is unwilling to prosecute cases in the county.
Gonzalez was responding to a news release circulated by the Oconee County Republican Party after its meeting on Monday that claimed that Hale had said “he has a stack of cases that District Attorney Deborah Gonzales refuses to prosecute.”
