Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell said on Tuesday that legislation introduced in the Georgia General Assembly last week, if passed, would “nullify” Oconee County’s Comprehensive Plan.
Oconee County Commissioner Chuck Horton called the legislation “an attack on local control.”
The two were reacting to House Bill 517, called the Georgia Homeowner Opportunity Act, introduced by Rep. Dale Washburn, Republican from Macon.
Given the panel that Marvin Nunnally assembled for his presentation on Sunday on African-American History in Oconee County, it was almost inevitable that school desegregation would become the focal point of much of the discussion.
The four female panel members all had links to Oconee County Schools as students, teachers, or the children of teachers.
Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell said on Friday that he remains opposed to House Bill 189, which has been revised to allow commercial trucks with only specified types of cargo to exceed the current weight limit on roads throughout the state.
Daniell had sided with the Georgia Department of Transportation in opposing the original version of Georgia House Bill 189 that would have increased the weight limit of all commercial trucks on state and local roads from 80,000 to 90,000 pounds.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added 470 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Feb. 22, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
That number of added cases a week earlier on Feb. 15 had been 353.
Both Oconee County and Clarke County reported an increase in cases.
Kirk Shook, the Republican Party representative on the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration, told his colleagues that he wants to review the policy and procedures that resulted in the Board voting to put the names of two Independent School Board candidates on last November’s ballot.
Shook said “it was a big shock” for him to be asked back in July of last year to vote to allow Ryan Repetske and Melissa Eagling to run following a review by the staff of the Office and Elections and Registration and County Attorney Daniel Haygood of the separate petitions submitted by the two Independents.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added 353 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Feb. 15, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
That number of added cases on a week earlier on Feb. 8 had been 400.
Both Oconee County and Clarke County reported a decrease in cases.
In 2015, Halloran Masonry, an Athens construction contractor, told the county it planned to move its corporate offices to one of three lots in a business park it proposed to develop at the southwest corner of U.S. 441 and New High Shoals Road.
Halloran Masonry has changed its plans, and now it wants to build a self-storage facility consisting of up to four interior or external loaded building that could be up to two stories in height.
One in five of the Oconee County students who requested a different school assignment for next year from the one they were given through redistricting opted to move to Dove Creek Elementary School.
Nearly the same ratio opted not to attend High Shoals Elementary School and not to attend Malcom Bridge Elementary School, as they would have under the new redistricting plan adopted last year by the Oconee County Board of Education.
About halfway through her hour-long presentation to the Oconee County Board of Education, Oconee County Schools Chief Financial Officer Liz Harlow paused and asked a question.
Harlow had just reviewed the current fiscal year budget and presented a slide showing the calendar for the Fiscal Year 2024 Budget.
“Are there any goals that the Board would like to consider for the FY 24 Budget?” Harlow asked.
The Hard Labor Creek Reservoir Management Board on Monday approved an $8.3 million proposal from Jacobs Engineering Consulting Group Inc. of Atlanta for design of the water treatment plant at the reservoir jointly owned by Oconee and Walton counties.
The Board also agreed to shortlist and request competitive pricing from the three highest ranked firms for engineering design services for the transmission system from the plant to Walton County’s currently existing water distribution system.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported three new confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District in its report on Wednesday, including one in Clarke County.
The Department of Public Health reported four confirmed deaths from the disease in the Northeast Health District on Wednesday of last week.
Oconee County Schools has received and approved a whopping 379 applications for School Choice, meaning that the student requested and was granted transfer to a different school in the system than the one assigned as a result of redistricting.
Last year, by comparison, Oconee County Schools received 84 applications and seven of those were denied because the applications were made to schools, North Oconee High School and Malcom Bridge Middle School, where no space was available.
Three pieces of legislation introduced in the Georgia House of Representatives could have impact on the District Attorney Office serving Oconee County.
House Bill 48, introduced on Jan. 23, would make the election of the District Attorney of the Western Judicial Circuit consisting of Oconee and Clarke counties, and all other circuits in the state, nonpartisan.
Attorney David Ellison, representing Deferred Tax LLC before the Oconee County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night, made it clear his client was not interested in any compromise over the rezone request for a shopping center with a Publix on the Oconee Connector at Mars Hill Road.
“You should approve the rezone as submitted,” he said several times.
Land Planner Ken Beall, also representing Deferred Tax, said the same.
The Board of Commissioners responded by voting unanimously to turn down Deferred Tax LLC, owned by Maxie Price, with no real discussion.
Both of Oconee county’s high schools currently are under capacity.
School administrators are projecting, however, that North Oconee High School will be over capacity by eight students next year, while Oconee County High School will be over capacity in 2032.
In eleven years, by 2034, North Oconee High School will be 94 students over its capacity of 1,500 students, and Oconee County High School will be 99 students over its capacity of that same number, the administrators project.
It is time to make decisions about how to accommodate the roughly 200 students the existing two high school currently are not designed to accommodate, Superintendent Jason Branch and Associate Superintendent Dallas LeDuff told the Board of Education at its retreat last month.
One of the issues that has divided the Oconee County Board of Education and the Oconee County Board of Commissioners–the joint use of athletic facilities–is about to surface again.
Oconee County Schools Associate Superintendent Dallas LeDuff told Board of Education members at their retreat last month of his plans to move ahead with charging the county’s Parks and Recreation Department the same user fee charged to nonprofits.
None of the Board members pushed back on that plan.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported four new confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District in its report on Wednesday, including two in Clarke County.
The Department of Public Health reported eight confirmed deaths from the disease in the Northeast Health District on Wednesday of last week, and seven the week before that.
The Department of Public Health also reported that the Northeast Health District added 384 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Feb. 1, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
Oconee County received just less than $1.1 million in Local Option Sales Tax in December, the first time the monthly collection has exceeded the $1 million mark.
The increase in collections, attributed to the November opening of Costco, played a role at the Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday night as the Board gave tentative approval to Fiscal Year 2023 Mid-Year Budget Amendments for $1.8 million.
