After Oconee County moved its nonjudicial offices to the new Administrative Building at 7635 Macon Highway north of Watksinville in the summer of 2023, it designated as excess property two buildings it had been using near the Courthouse and another on SR 15 on the south of the city.
When the Oconee County Library moved to Wire Park earlier this year, the county also designated that property an excess. It put all four properties up for sale.
Analysts asked by the Oconee County Democratic Party and by the Oconee County Republican Party to offer post-election assessments gave very similar interpretations of the outcomes of the Nov. 5 elections.
The experts said the margin of victory for the Republicans was small, that Georgia remains a swing state, and that elections are likely to be very competitive in the next election cycles.
The Oconee County Board of Education on Monday approved a Memorandum of Understanding with the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office and the county Board of Commissioners to provide school resource officers (SROs) for Oconee County Schools.
The Memorandum states that one resource officer will be assigned to each of the system’s two high schools for the remainder of this year.
Townley Family Partnership’s plans for a 120-lot residential subdivision on 300 acres north of Hog Mountain Road between Rocky Branch and Hodges Mill roads received a setback on Monday when the Oconee County Planning Commission recommended denial of a rezone for the project.
The 4 to 3 vote against the rezone request by the Townley Partnership came after its representative agreed to double the delay in the start of the project to 10 years and to add two segments of multi-use paths to the development to connect with the county’s Master Trail Plan.
The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration has taken the first steps to consolidate the current eight precincts in the county into four.
Dark Corner and Colham Ferry precincts would remain unchanged in the proposed consolidation, but Bogart and Marswood Hall precincts would be merged into one precinct called Oconee Northeast.
Oconee County Commissioners on Tuesday night reappointed three current members of the Oconee County Library Board and filled two other vacancies with a housewife and community volunteer and with a retired university education professor.
Forty-seven citizens had applied for the five openings, and the commissioners passed over people who have been vocal critics of the Oconee County Library and its programming as well as those closely associated with the library.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners has a full agenda for its meeting on Tuesday night, the last meeting of the year.
The Board is scheduled to hold a second hearing and vote on revisions to the county’s Alcoholic Beverage Ordinance that will slightly expand the service area, allow for brew pubs, and relax restrictions on sale of alcohol in University 16 Cinemas in Epps Bridge Centre.
The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) is going forward with plans for a right-in, right-out interchange for SR 316 and McNutt Creek Road with the complete elimination of cross traffic on McNutt Creek Road.
Oconee County officials have expressed a preference for a grade-separated interchange, citing the negative impact the proposed design will have on Fire Station No. 7, on traffic on local roads, and on the Gateway Technology and Business Park.
Townley Family Partnership LLLP is planning an 120-lot residential subdivision on what is now farmland bordered by Hodges Mill Road, Hog Mountain Road, and Rocky Branch Road in the northwest of the county.
While some of that acreage is inside the unincorporated Eastville community and is already zoned Agricultural Residential, the bulk of the 299.9 acres planned for the subdivision currently is zoned Agricultural.
The Hard Labor Creek Reservoir Management Board on Tuesday agreed to a $122 million contract with Archer Western Construction for a 12 million gallon per day water treatment plant on the Walton County reservoir.
The cost for construction of the plant is an increase from the estimated projected cost of $114.6 million the Board had received in June based on completion of 60 percent of the design work and an increase from $104.8 million at conceptual stage in September of 2023.
The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) last week awarded a $139.4 million contact with Archer Western Construction LLC and Heath & Lineback Engineering Inc. for reconstruction of the SR 316 interchanges with Jimmy Daniell Road, Virgil Langford Road, and the Oconee Connector.
The existing at-grade intersection at Jimmy Daniell Road will be replaced with a a grade-separated, diamond interchange with a single-lane roundabout at the northern ramp and another single-lane roundabout at the southern ramp.
Oconee County Schools administrators have drafted and sent to Sheriff James Hale for review a Memorandum of Understanding designed to put school resource officers in each of the system’s 12 schools by the start of the next school year.
The Memorandum also formalizes the placement of the two school resource officers now in the county’s two high schools for the remainder of this school year.
Oconee County commissioners last week spent 16 minutes deciding what to do with a driveway leading to an unpermitted guest house on Garrett Road and an hour deciding what to do with an unpermitted storage shed on Oconee Forrest Drive.
The decision on the driveway was one the commissioners had delayed following a zoning hearing a month ago, and last week they sided with the homeowners and allowed them to use an existing driveway the commissioners previously had blocked rather than build a new one.
For the first time since at least 1995, Oconee County Schools had a drop in enrollment, based on official school census data for October filed with the Georgia Department of Education.
The enrollment decline is at PK-5 and at the high school levels. Middle school enrollment actually increased last year to this.
The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration met on Friday to certify the Nov. 5 election results, adding four voters to the final presidential tally, all four of whom voted for Democrat Kamala Harris.
The addition didn’t change the results, of course, with Republican Donald Trump getting a rounded 67.32 percent of the vote in the county, rather than 67.35 percent, and Harris getting 31.50 percent before and after the addition of the four votes.
Former President Donald Trump improved his vote percentage in Oconee County on Tuesday by 1.6 percentage points over 2020 and ever so slightly over his figure for 2016, leading a strong performance by Republican candidates in the county.
Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Collins improved his percentage in the county over 2020 against Democratic challengers, as did Republicans state Sen. Bill Cowsert, state Rep. Houston Gaines, and state Rep. Marcus Wiedower.
The Oconee County Library Board of Trustees will look very different when it meets again in January at the Oconee County Library in Wire Park.
Mark Campbell, who has been on the Board for two five-year terms and served as Board Chair for the last two years, will not be at the table in the front of the room.
Oconee County commissioners are scheduled to continue their discussion of proposed changes to the county’s Alcohol Beverage Ordinance on Tuesday night with the goal of taking final action on a revised ordinance at its regular meeting on Dec. 3.
The five commissioners spent 35 minutes at their agenda-setting meeting this past Tuesday (Oct. 29) reviewing a draft of the ordinance from County Attorney Daniel Haygood.
Just more than 70 percent of the active voters in Oconee County cast a ballot by the end of the final day of early voting on Friday.
That figure includes the 21,272 voters who cast a ballot in-person, the 1,446 who returned an absentee ballot, and the single person who voted provisionally but whose ballot has now been accepted, for a total of 22,719 returned ballots.
Kalki Yalamanchili told the gathered Republicans on Monday night that he is prepared to start addressing staffing problems in the Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney Office the day after the election.
Yalamanchili said he feels good about his prospects in his challenge of incumbent District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez, and he said he has had conversations with a number of persons who are interested in working with him as assistant district attorneys.
Marilyn Hall, who spearheaded an inventory of water service lines in Oconee County, had a clear message for those who attended the Board of Commissioners Town Hall Meeting earlier this month.
Oconee County does not have a problem resulting from lead water service lines, she said. She repeated that statement several times in her 15-minute-long presentation at the beginning of the Town Hall meeting.
After two consecutive regular meetings where citizens packed the Board Meeting Room at the new Instructional Support Center and large numbers signed up to speak, the Oconee County Board of Education got a reprieve on Monday (Oct. 21).
Relatively few citizens were in the audience, and no one signed up to speak during the Public Communication section of the meeting.
Oconee County Superior Court Chief Judge Lisa Lott granted a temporary restraining order on Thursday afternoon requiring the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration to remove the challenge of voters it approved on Oct. 1 and to cancel a hearing on those challenges scheduled for Thursday (Oct. 24) evening.
Judge Lott issued her decision following a nearly 90-minute long hearing on Monday (Oct. 21) on a request by Oconee County resident Susan Noakes for the restraining order.
Incumbent Democratic District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez and Kalki Yalamanchili, challenging her on the Nov. 5 ballot as an Independent, agree that there have been problems in the District Attorney Office in the last four years.
They disagree to some extent on the severity of the problems, and they disagree on the causes. They disagree most strongly on the solutions.
The Oconee County Democratic Party turned its final meeting before the Nov. 5 election over to the seven candidates running with party support, giving each a chance to say once again why voters should support them.
Legislative candidates Gareth Fenley, seeking to represent the 46th Senate District, which includes all of Oconee County, Andrew Ferguson, running in House District 120, and Eric Gisler, running in House District 121, were on hand.
Oconee County Schools administrators have presented the Oconee County School Board with six memorandums governing the relationships between nearby schools systems and police and sheriff’s offices regarding school resource officers (SROs).
School Superintendent Jason Branch told the Board members at their work session earlier this month that he was providing the six documents “for your review” and that the Board should inform him “if there's thoughts or items that you want to share with us” after reviewing them.
The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration spent 90 minutes at the beginning of the month reviewing on a case-by-case basis challenges to the ability of 75 registered Oconee County voters to cast a ballot for the Nov. 5 election.
After reviewing each of the challenges made by Oconee County residents Victoria Cruz and Stephen Aleshire, the Board voted to sustain the challenge in 66 of those cases.
Kalki Yalamanchili, who is challenging incumbent Democrat District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez as an Independent on the Nov. 5 ballot, raised more than six times the amount of money Gonzalez raised in the three months leading up to the fall campaign.
Since the beginning of the year, Yalamanchili has raised $471,028, or nearly five times the $95,332 raised by Gonzalez.
Democratic incumbent Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez, and Kalki Yalamanchili, who is challenging her on the Nov. 5 ballot as an Independent, were respectful of each other in the nearly 90 minutes they spent on Tuesday night responding to questions in a candidate forum.
But from the very beginning, it was clear they have very different views of what has transpired in the four years Gonzalez has held the District Attorney Office.
When they cast their ballots in the Nov. 5 election, Oconee County voters will confront a statewide referendum and two proposed Constitutional Amendments, one of which will require a considered response on the part of all six of the county’s governing bodies.
The first of the Constitutional Amendments provides for what is called a floating state-wide homestead exemption that will limit increases in the assessed value of property that is a homestead.
Local governments are allowed to opt out of the exemption, however, and the Oconee County Board of Education, the Oconee County Board of Commissioners, and the councils of Bishop, Bogart, North High Shoals, and Watkinsville will have to decide by March 1 if they want to not allow the exemption.
If any of these six governing bodies decides to opt out of the exemption, it must advertise and hold three public hearings on its intent to opt out of the exemption and then adopt a resolution to that effect.
The floating homestead exemption is designed to limit the effect of inflationary growth of property taxes.
The Oconee County Board of Education has relied on this type of inflationary growth to help fund the county’s schools, and this year the Board of Education was the only governing body in the county that did not fully roll back its millage rate to offset the impact of inflation on assessments.
The second Constitutional Amendment creates a state-wide Tax Court to replace the existing Tax Tribunal. The statewide referendum would increase the amount of the tangible personal property tax exemption on such things as business inventory and farm machinery.
Early voting for the Nov. 5 election starts at 8 a.m. on Tuesday and runs until 5 p.m. at the Oconee County Administrative Building, 7635 Macon Highway, just north of Watkinsville. Early voting continues at those hours on weekdays until Nov. 1 and runs from 9 am. To 5 p.m. on Oct. 19 and Oct. 26.
Details Of First Amendment
The General Assembly earlier this year passed House Resolution 1022 putting onto the ballot a request of the voters of Georgia to amend the state Constitution to authorize the General Assembly “to provide by general law for a state-wide homestead exemption to limit increases in the assessed value of homesteads.”
In fact, the Assembly already has passed House Bill 581, which goes into effect on Jan. 1 of 2025 if voters approve the Constitutional Amendment.
That bill sets up what is called a floating homestead exemption because the value of the exemption increases to offset inflation.
Properties in Georgia are taxed at only 40 percent of fair market value, and if a property has a taxable value of $100,000 in year one that increases to $110,000 in year two based on assessment, the base exemption would be that $10,000.
That exemption would be reduced, however, to allow for inflation, based on some index determined by the Georgia Revenue Commissioner.
So if inflation was 2 percent, the actual exemption would be $8,000, rather than $10,000.
The Board of Education, the Board of Commissioners, or the governing authorities of any of the county’s four cities could opt out of this exemption after holding the three required tax hearings.
Benefit Of Opting In
House Bill 581 also changes the way counties can levy sales taxes.
At present, a county can levy only a 2 percent sales tax, and Oconee County has both a 1 percent Local Option Sales Tax and a 1 percent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.
The sales tax cap, however, does not apply to an Education Local Option Sales Tax approved by the Board of Education, and to a single-county Transportation Local Option Sales Tax. Oconee County has both of these 1 percent taxes.
With the state sales tax of 4 percent, Oconee County’s sales tax now is 8 percent.
If the county and all four of the cities in the county opt in, the county could pass a second Local Option Sales Tax of 0.5 percent or 1 percent, potentially bringing to 9 percent the local sales tax.
The condition is that the revenue from any new Local Option Sales Tax can only be used for property tax reduction.
The Board of Education could opt out of the floating homestead exemption and the county still would be able to implement the new tax as long as all four cities do not opt out.
Response Oconee County Schools
Justin Pauly, Director of Policy and Governmental Relations with the Georgia School Boards Association (GSBA), told me in a telephone conversation on Sept. 16 that GSBA had opposed House Bill 581 during the legislative session “because of the amount of money it is going to remove from the school districts.”
He noted that the opt-out provision has been included in the bill and “Each community will have to assess the change on their own and determine whether or not is right for them and for their community.”
I sent Kim Argo, Chair of the Oconee County Board of Education, an email on Sept. 26 asking if “someone has analyzed the impact for Oconee County Schools of Constitutional Amendment #1 on the ballot.”
“I see that you have included Dr. Branch and Steven Colquitt on this email,” she replied that same day. “One of them should be able to send it to the person that can best respond to your request.”
Neither School Superintendent Jason Branch nor Director of Communications Colquitt responded to the email request.
Response From Oconee County Government
An analysis by the Association County Commissioners Georgia and the Georgia Municipal Association says there are pros and cons for the changes incorporated in House Bill 581.
“The floating homestead exemption rewards homeowners, especially those that reside in the community for a long period of time after this legislation takes effect,” according to that analysis.
“Taxes do not disappear--they only shift,” the analysis continues. “In this instance, the taxes are shifting from homestead properties to all other property types (commercial, agricultural, industrial, residential non-homestead).”
John Daniell, Chair of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners, told me in a telephone conversation on Oct. 10 that because the county has been rolling back the millage rate each year, the new floating homestead exemption isn’t “a big deal.”
“We’re offsetting the inflationary growth anyway,” he said. “We’re going to talk about all of this and make those decisions, but the way we set our tax millage rate, I don’t know if it is going to be a huge, huge impact on us.”
“We might get into the numbers and look and make a different decision,” he said, “but a lot of it has got to do with how well that Constitutional Amendment does in Oconee County.”
“If it passes 90 percent, you’re going to be hard pressed to go against what the citizens just voted for,” he added.
Amendment 2, Referendum
Daniell also said that the referendum raising the amount of tangible personal property tax exemption from $7,500 to $20,000 also would not have much impact on the county.
Our biggest impact probably would be on inventories,” he said, “and I don’t think it is going to be huge.”
Amendment 2 on the ballot creates a Tax Court to handle cases involving complaints with the Georgia Department of Revenue.
The Tax Court would be under the state Judicial Branch and have a chief justice appointed by the Governor.
The Tax Court would replace the Georgia Tax Tribunal, which is a specialized court which was established as an autonomous division within the Office of State Administrative Hearings.
Michael Ransom, who is seeking to become chair of the Oconee County Board of Education, will be on the ballot in two places when early voting for the Nov. 5 election starts on Tuesday.
First, his name appears as the Republican Party nominee for “County Board of Education Chairman, Post 1,” in the first of the three School Board races near the end of the ballot. He is unopposed.
The two candidates for open Post 5 on the Oconee County Board of Education offered differing views about issues facing the Board from the beginning of their separate 45-minute long video interviews.
Katie Green and Brock Toole both said they wanted to be on the Board to provide service to the community.
Adam Hammond and Sheri Ward Long, candidates for Post 4 on the Oconee County Board of Education, agreed on many issues in separate, 45-minute long interviews.
Hammond, the Republican Party nominee, and Long, running as a Democrat, said there is a need for more transparency in the way the Board interacts with the public.
Oconee County Superior Court Judge Lisa Lott on Monday dismissed a lawsuit seeking to force the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration to stop registering voters and seeking to force the Board to hold a hearing on a challenge to the registration of 228 persons on the voting rolls.
Lott issued her ruling dismissing the lawsuit filed by Suzannah Heimel after a 50-minute hearing that focused on requests for dismissal by Oconee County resident Susan Noakes and Common Cause Georgia and by Oconee County itself.
Oconee County Commissioners on Tuesday night, in a short agenda-setting meeting, tentatively agreed to spend an additional $116,311 to cover increased design service costs for the Bear Creek Water Treatment Plant expansion.
The initial estimated cost for the design services, approved by the Board in November of last year, had been $2,298,279, but in May the contract cost increased to $2,786,779, and Oconee County’s portion of the cost increase is 23.8 percent, bringing the total cost to the county to $663,532.
Oconee County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard has rejected the request by Townley Family Partnership LLLP for a review of the decision by North High Shoals Council to deny the Townley petition to deannex 175.8 acres from the city.
Haggard ordered that the Council’s ordinance passed on April 15, 2024, prohibiting the deannexation of any parcel of land in the Town exceeding 15 acres “should be affirmed.”
Data analyst and blogger Charles Hayslett divides the state of Georgia into two parts that he calls Atlanna and Notlanna, and he says the two parts differ in terms of population, population health, economics, educational attainment, and politics.
The gap between the two parts of the state is large, Hayslett said, with Atlanna generally doing well and Notlanna not.
Oconee County Schools and the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office have been talking about installing school resource officers in the system’s schools for 10 years and intensely for the last five years, Sheriff James Hall said at the meeting of the Oconee County Republican Party on Monday night.
As a result, he said, now that the Board of Education has voted to develop an agreement with the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office to install deputies in the schools, it should be possible to move forward with those plans quickly.
Officially, the four-minute confrontation between the Oconee County Board of Education and the co-publishers of The Oconee Enterprise at the Board meeting on Aug. 12 didn’t happen.
At its meeting on last Monday, the Board approved minutes of that meeting that made no mention of the conflict, which resulted in Amanda and Michael Prochaska being escorted out of the room by school administrators and sheriff deputies.
Kristin Gibson appeared before the Oconee County Planning Commission on Monday evening asking for help with problems she and her husband have with the 2.5 acre parcel on which their home sits at 1030 Garrett Road in the northwest of the county.
After the purchase of their home and the land in May of 2022, Gibson said, they discovered that no building permits had been issued for the partially completed guest house on the rear of their property.
Oconee County Schools took in $7.8 million more in revenue than projected in Fiscal Year 2024, according to the Year-To-Date Budget Report for June 30 released to the Board of Education at its meeting on Monday.
The biggest gain in revenue over budgeted amount was for investment income, which totaled $2.7 million. The Board had budgeted investment income of only $50,000.
Katie Green, seeking to fill open Post 5 on the Oconee County Board of Education, asked those present at the Democratic Party meeting last month if they had ever attended a Board meeting.
“They're really weird,” Green said. “The people who sign up to speak for three minutes, they get their three minutes to speak, and then there's just silence.”
Well more than 100 people filled the seats and the isles of the Board room at the Oconee County Schools new Instructional Support Center on Monday night to make sure the Board got the message that they wanted action following the Sept. 4 mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County.
Twenty of those present spoke, with most calling explicitly for the placement of school resource officers in each of Oconee County’s 12 schools.
Questioners of the three Republican Party candidates for the Oconee County School Board raised concerns at the party’s meeting last month about Board responsiveness to citizen input, transparency, and conflicts of interest.
Michael Ransom, currently Post 5 Member of the Board who is seeking to be elected Post 1 Board Chair, said he believes the Board and school administrators do respond to citizens and the Board is transparent in its actions.
Suzannah Heimel, who is running for Post 1 on the Board of Commissioners in November, has filed suit in Oconee County Superior Court asking the Court to force the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration to stop registering voters.
Heimel said she wants to block registration of voters until the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration holds hearings on 228 voters whose registration was challenged in July.
The Oconee County Board of Education next week will be asked to approve discussions with the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office designed to put a resource officer in each of the 12 Oconee County Schools.
A resource officer has been in each of those schools since the mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County last Wednesday, according to Sheriff James Hale.
The Oconee County Board of Education’s decision in June to hold hearings on its proposed 2.27 percent property tax increase without giving proper public notification has come back to haunt it.
Georgia Code is unambiguous in specifying that governing authorities can hold hearings on any planned tax increase no sooner than seven days after those hearings are advertised in the local legal organ so that citizens have a chance to offer comment.
MACORTS, the federal metropolitan transportation planning organization for Oconee County, is holding an Open House from 5 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday (Aug. 20) at the Oconee Community Center at Oconee Veteran’s Park to give citizens a chance to comment on the proposed 2050 Metropolitan Transportation Plan.
That plan lists 33 priority transportation projects that will involve federal funding, including seven in Oconee County.
Public Comment dominated the Monday meeting of the Oconee County Board of Education, with 29 people speaking to the Board during the one hour and 40-plus minute session.
Most of those who spoke were concerned with the status of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at Oconee County Schools, and the overwhelming majority who spoke want the organization present at elementary through high schools in the system.
The Oconee County Board of Education has agreed to pay Superintendent Jason Branch a base salary of $267,039 for the current year, up $13,968, or 5.5 percent, from his salary of $253,071 last year.
In addition to the base salary, the contract the Board approved on Monday night also includes a long list of other benefits, including dues and membership fees, a $1,000 monthly travel allowance, a cell phone, and his employee share of premiums (family plan) for health insurance, for dental insurance, and for vision insurance.
The Oconee County Board of Education on Monday night, after spending nearly an hour in executive session, voted unanimously in open session to extend the contract of Superintendent Jason Branch until June 30 of 2027.
The Board provided no details of the contract other than the end date, and Board Chair Kim Argo refused to provide a copy of the contract, saying it would be made available only in response to an open records request.
The Oconee County Board of Education would like to keep it a secret, but it is nearly certain to extend Superintendent Jason Branch’s contract another year--until June 30, 2027--following an executive session at either its Aug. 5 or Aug. 12 meeting.
The Board voted on Aug. 14, 2023, to extend Branch’s contract to June 30, 2026, with a base salary of $253,071 and added benefits that were budgeted to bring that amount to $284,810.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night took a big step toward creating its new park on Rocky Branch Road when it gave initial approval to spending up to $1 million for a design firm contract and related services for the first phase of the project.
The plan is to utilize 50 acres out of the 240-acre site for sports fields, parking, restrooms, and a gymnasium that contains four basketball courts with restroom facilities and staff support areas.
Oconee County’s two libraries are facing financial problems, as projected revenue is not sufficient to sustain current levels of staffing and programming.
Athens Regional Library System Executive Director Valerie Bell says the libraries need to find new sources of revenue for the future.
UPDATE: As of 7/30/2024, the Georgia Secretary of State is listing Yalamanchili as "Qualified-- Signatures Accepted," as an Independent candidate for the November ballot.
Kalki Yalamanchili has turned in 9,967 accepted petitions, or just more than twice the number the Secretary of State Office has determined he needs to have his name placed on the ballot on Nov. 5 as an Independent candidate for Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney.
That determination comes from a report filed with the Secretary of State Office dated Friday (July 26) by the Oconee County Office of Elections and Registration and the Clarke County Office of Elections and Voter Registration.
The metropolitan transportation planning organization that has responsibility for Oconee County is in the final stage of modifying its documents to reflect the addition of $1.9 million in right of way funds for construction of the new interchange at SR 316 and the Oconee Connector.
The new money brings to $3.4 million the amount for right of way and preliminary engineering of the multi-grade interchange in the current Fiscal Year 2025. Of that, $2.8 million is federal funding.
Tim Bryant, whose radio program on Cox Media Group’s WGAU was ended on June 18, said on Monday night that he expects to be back on the air “in the next few weeks.”
Bryant said he also expects to resurrect his podcast, but his primary focus is getting back on radio, and he said he expects to be able to make an announcement soon.
Oconee County Schools received $4.5 million more in revenue over the just-completed Fiscal Year 2024 than it had anticipated when the Board of Education adopted that budget in May of 2023.
The largest part of that increase resulted from $2.4 million in Investment and Interest Income. The budget approved by the Board in May of 2023 had listed only $50,000 in expected income in that category.
To say that the Democratic challengers to Oconee County’s three incumbent Republican state legislators are entering the fall campaign at a financial disadvantage is a gross understatement.
House District 120 Rep. Houston Gaines had $657,766 Net Balance Cash On Hand at the beginning of this month.
His Democratic challenger, Andrew Ferguson, had $4,538.
The Oconee County Planning Commission on Monday night recommended that previously approved plans for the 24-acre cleared and graded parcel on the Oconee Connector at SR Loop 10 be modified to allow for a day-care center and private kindergarten.
Landscape Architect Ken Beall told the Commission that the developer of the multi-use project has been approached by someone who wants to open a Goddard School, a preschool franchise, as part of the project.
University of Georgia Political Science Professor Charles Bullock didn’t tell Oconee County Democrats last month that Joe Biden will win Georgia in November, but that he could, and he explained how that victory likely will have happened if it comes about.
Drawing on data from recent elections, Bullock said Democrats win when they get about 30 percent of the White vote and African-Americans make up about 30 percent of the electorate.
Oconee County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard said at the beginning of an hour-long hearing last week on the suit filed by the Townley Family Partnership LLLP against the Town of North High Shoals that he would not make a decision at the end of the session.
He told attorneys for Townley and the Town of North High Shoals that he would be reviewing the materials already submitted after the hearing and would follow up on “things that you think are important.”
The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration on Tuesday voted not to proceed with a challenge filed by Stephen Aleshire of 45 Oconee County voters “due to lack of probable cause.”
Aleshire addressed the Board during the public comment section of the meeting, which was before the Board vote, and said he was challenging the registration of the voters, not their “ability to vote.”
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night turned down a rezone request for a commercial development on Mars Hill Road at Julian Drive and approved a large strip development on U.S. 441 just north of Watkinsville.
The vote against the Mars Hill Road development represented an attempt to keep that section of Mars Hill Road residential. Commissioner Mark Thomas was the sole negative vote on the rezone denial.
The Oconee County Elections and Registration Office on Monday began verifying the petitions with Oconee County signers to put Kalki Yalamanchili on the November ballot as an independent candidate for Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney.
The Georgia Office of the Secretary of State has given the election offices in both Oconee and Clarke counties until July 26 to complete the verification process.
The Oconee County Board of Education on Monday voted to set the millage rate for the collection of property taxes for Oconee County Schools at 14.25, representing a 2.27 percent property tax increase.
The Board took the unanimous vote after completing the last of three required public hearings on the tax increase.
The Oconee County Board of Education is poised to vote on Monday to set the millage rate at 14.25 for Oconee County Schools, down from the originally proposed 15.0, and to compensate for the lost revenue from the lower rate by drawing down the school system’s savings account, or Fund Balance.
Oconee County Chief Financial Officer Peter Adams revealed the strategy of spending reserves to allow for the reduction in the millage in two tax hearings on Monday and in a revised budget he released at the second of those hearings.
The Oconee County Board of Education will hold two of its three required public hearings on a planned 2.27 percent tax increase at 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday (July 1) at the new Instructional Support Center at 71 North Main Street in Watkinsville.
The third hearing will be held at 6 p.m. on July 8, and the Board will be able to vote on its millage rate after that hearing.
The Oconee County Planning Commission on Monday recommended that the Board of Commissioners approve a request by an Atlanta developer for a 16-lot commercial subdivision on the west side of U.S. 441 between BankSouth and a planned QuikTrip north of Watkinsville.
The concept plan submitted with the application shows fast food restaurants with drive thrus, a family restaurant, an automotive oil change facility, a two-story tennis court facility, a sports club, a pet boarding facility, and a day care center.
The Oconee County Board of Education will have to roll back its millage rate used to compute property taxes from the current 15.0 mills to 13.934 mills to avoid a tax increase.
The County’s Board of Commissioners will have to decrease its millage rate from 4.824 in the unincorporated parts of the county to 4.483 and from 5.804 in the county’s four cities to 5.375 to avoid a tax increase.
Oconee County commissioners are set to roll back the millage rate for county property taxes for the fourth year in a row and decrease the rate sufficiently to offset inflation for the second year in a row.
The new rate will not represent a tax increase, and the Commission will not be required to hold a tax hearing before setting the millage rate at its regular meeting on July 9. The Board approved the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget at the June 4 meeting.
The Oconee County Board of Education on Monday passed its Fiscal Year 2025 General Fund Budget, approving without discussion $114.9 million in spending.
Though the action moved what had been labeled a “tentative” budget to a “final” budget, the revenue side of the document remains incomplete, pending analysis of the county’s tax digest and the setting of a final millage rate.
Fifteen of the 17 Oconee County candidates in the May 21 General Primary/Nonpartisan General Election completed an affidavit stating their intent not to accept more than $2,500 in campaign contributions.
They also said they would not spend more than that amount, making them exempt from filing a contribution and expenditure report with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission.
Only two citizens stepped forward on Monday to speak at the second and final budget hearing held by the Oconee County Board of Education before it adopts the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget at its meeting tomorrow (Monday).
Both had spoken at the first budget hearing held by the Board on May 22, and each made some of the same points at the second hearing as at the first.
The Georgia Democratic Party has appointed local business owner Eric Gisler to replace Courtney Frisch on the Nov. 5 ballot as the party nominee for Georgia House District 121 representative.
Frisch submitted her letter of withdrawal from the campaign to the Georgia Secretary of State on May 28, or seven days after the May 21 Democratic Party Primary, in which she ran unopposed.
The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) on Thursday published in The Oconee Enterprise, the county’s legal organ, a required Notice of Location and Design Approval for a diamond interchange at SR 316 and Dials Mill Extension.
GDOT also published the Notice in the May 16 and May 23 editions of the paper and after publication of the fourth notice on June 6, GDOT will be free to begin acquiring right of way needed for the project.
Two-thirds of Oconee County voters who participated in the May 21 Republican Party Primary favored a closed primary in which only registered Republicans would be allowed to vote.
Six in 10 of the Oconee County Republican voters asked for hand-marked paper ballots, scanned and verified by hand count on live stream video, and nearly eight in 10 approved of a statewide vote on allowing gaming in Georgia.
The rain moved the ceremony to the gym at the Community Center in Oconee Veterans Park on Monday, where about 150 people turned out to honor all military veterans and the 39 fallen from Oconee County whose names are engraved on the memorial at the front of the park.
The program kicked off with Art Ryder, representing the William Daniell Society, Children of the American Revolution, reading In Flanders Fields, a poem from the First World War.
The four speakers at the first required public hearing on the tentative Fiscal Year 2025 Budget for Oconee County Schools on Wednesday mostly asked questions.
Particularly focused on questions was the final speaker, Jeff Hood, who pointed out that the Fiscal Year 2020 General Fund Budget–the oldest available on the Oconee County Schools web site–shows projected interest income of $195,000.
When Courtney Bernardi, who handles economic development for Oconee County, finished her very upbeat report to the county commissioners at their meeting on Tuesday night, Commissioner Amrey Harden thanked Bernardi and her staff.
Bernardi had just reported that Costco has outperformed greatly its revenue estimates in its first year, that the Oconee Walmart is the fourth most profitable in the state, that a new tenant is expected soon for the empty Bed Bath & Beyond, and that IMI Industrial Services Group will have double its staff capacity at its new site near Bogart.
The Oconee County Planning Commission on Monday set aside the recommendation of the county planning staff and instead told the Board of Commissioners it should approve a rezone request for development of 3.4 acres on Moreland Way just north of the Watkinsville city limits.
The Commission made this recommendation after Justin Greer, speaking on behalf of property owner Richard Grayson, and Grayson himself, said that the project was a positive development for the neighborhood and had support of owners of the adjoining properties.
The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT), in responding to comments received following its virtual Public Information Open House on March 22, confirmed that the current plans remain for a full interchange of SR 316 at Dials Mill Extension.
Those project plans may need to be revised, GDOT Environmental Administrator Eric Duff wrote in a letter dated May 20, but, if “no significant changes” are proposed, the project will proceed to right of way acquisition, final design, and construction based on current plans.
Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell, Commissioner Mark Saxon, and School Board Member Michael Ransom beat back challenges in the Republican Party Primary on Tuesday.
Adam Hammond and Brock Toole won the Republican Party nominations for open posts on the Board of Education. Hammond won convincingly in a three-way race, negating the need for a runoff.
Kevin Olasanoye, Executive Director of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said last week he would be glad to help Oconee County Democrats decide how to deal with the three candidates who qualified for county offices but have no association with the party.
Olasanoye cautioned the group, however, that great care should be taken with the process.
Townley Family Partnership LLLP has filed suit against the Town of North High Shoals asking Oconee County Superior Court to reverse the Town’s decision on April 15 and grant Townley’s petition for deannexation of 175.8 acres from the city.
The suit contends that the decision by the Town Council “was an abuse of discretion, was not sustained by sufficient evidence, and contained legal errors.”
The Oconee County Planning Commission on Monday will get a rare recommendation from the county’s planning staff–that it deny a request for a rezone–as it reviews plans for development of 3.4 acres on Moreland Way just north of the Watkinsville city limits.
Pittman and Greer Engineering, on behalf of property owner Richard Grayson, wants to combine two parcels, one zoned Mobile Home District (M-H) and the other Agricultural Residential District (AR) , to create a single lot zoned Two-Family Residential District (R-2).
Early voting in Oconee County for the May 21 General Primary/Nonpartisan General Election picked up sharply in the final five days of voting, with 1,707 out of Oconee County’s 33,143 voters casting a ballot, or more than had voted in the previous 12 days of early voting.
The county Office of Elections and Voter Registration also has received 203 returned Absentee By Mail ballots.
Voters going to the polls in Oconee County on Tuesday, as well as those who already have participated in early voting, most likely have seen campaign signs around the county for Kalki Yalamanchili.
The signs say Yalamanchili is running for district attorney, though voters, when they see the ballot, do not find his name anywhere on it.
Yalamanchili is in the midst of a petition drive to get his name on the ballot in November as an Independent.
Republican State Rep. Marcus Wiedower had a very good April, raising $129,050 from the end of the legislative session early in the morning of March 29 to the April 30 filing deadline for campaign contributions.
That average of just more than $4,000 per day put him far ahead of his colleague Republican Rep. Houston Gaines, who raised $60,925 during that same period, and Republican Sen. Bill Cowsert, who reported raising only $2,750 in the days following the end of the legislative session.
The Oconee County Board of Education on Monday adopted its tentative Fiscal Year 2025 budget unanimously and without discussion.
The budget is based on $114.9 million in spending, up $8.9 million from the current fiscal year.
It also includes $116.6 in projected revenue, up from $106.1 million in the current budget.
Early voting in Oconee County for the May 21 General Primary/Nonpartisan General Election picked up just slightly in its second week, with 788 out of Oconee County’s 33,143 voters casting a ballot.
The county Office of Elections and Voter Registration has now received 102 returned Absentee By Mail Ballots.
The Oconee County Fiscal Year 2025 Proposed Budget, released to the public on Tuesday night, shows increased General Fund spending of $1.9 million over the original budget for the current fiscal year, but a drop in spending of $3.7 million from the budget as amended.
The General Fund Budget is balanced, with revenue and expenditures at $40.7 million.
The total County Budget, which includes the General Fund as well as Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, and Water Resources Enterprise Fund spending, will increase $1.8 million over the original Fiscal Year 2024 Budget.
Oconee County Schools Superintendent Jason Branch is asking the Board of Education to adopt a tentative Fiscal Year 2025 budget on Monday that increases spending by $8.9 million over the current fiscal year.
Much of that increased spending results from dictates from the state and is covered by increased state revenue, the bulk of it for teacher pay raises.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners Tuesday night will review and almost certainly approve a concept plan for the future IMI Corporate Campus on Aiken Road in the Gateway Technology and Business Park on the edge of Bogart.
The Conceptual Site Plan shows an eight-building complex for IMI Industrial Services Group that includes a corporation office, a fabrication building, a machine shop, a stainless steel shop, and buildings for future expansion.
Only 635 of Oconee County’s 33,143 registered voters cast a ballot in the first six days of Advance In Person voting for the May 21 General Primary/Nonpartisan General Election.
The Oconee County Elections and Registration Office received and accepted another 34 Absentee By Mail ballots in the first week of early voting, meaning that only 2.0 percent of the county’s voters have cast a ballot to date.
Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) Engineer Marvin Gavins said in late March that the Department had picked Dials Mill Extension over Dials Mill Road for its preferred full interchange at SR 316 in part because of the existence of a historic house on the northwest corner of Dials Mill Road and SR 316.
The owners of that property literally have removed that justification.
UCS Dials Mill Road LLC applied for and received a permit in the middle of January to demolish the historic home, and the site is now cleared of what was the Lee Daniel Farm homestead, built in 1910, according to county tax records.
In the March 12 Presidential Primary, Oconee County was sixth from the bottom among Georgia’s 159 counties in the percentage of Republican Party vote going to former President Donald Trump.
The only counties in the state ranking lower than Oconee County in terms of the percentage of Republican vote for Trump were Chatham, Cobb, Clarke, Fulton, and DeKalb, in that order.
The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) showed plans at its In-Person Public Meeting in Statham last week for a Right-In, Right-Out Access to SR 316 from McNutt Creek Road and for closing access to SR 316 at both Mars Hill Road and Julian Drive.
The presentation was labeled as “Initial Findings of the SR 316 Planning Study,” and those in attendance at the meeting were advised that “access point improvements may be refined during preliminary engineering.”
Voters participating in early voting for the 2024 General Primary/Nonpartisan General Election starting at 8 a.m. Monday will confront a long and complex ballot.
Those selecting the Republican Ballot will see contests for County Commission Chair and County Commission Post 4, Board of Education Post 1 Chair, Post 4 and Post 5, eight nonbinding Party Questions, and, for those in six of the county’s eight precincts, a contest for House District 121.
Oconee County Post 5 School Board Member Michael Ransom was in a unique position among the members of the panel at the candidate forum on Thursday night.
None of the other seven candidates seated at the front of the room in the Community Center at Oconee Veterans Park is currently on the Board.
Oconee County Commission Chair John Daniell took his informational campaign on the 10 items on the May 21 ballot designed to increase the homestead tax exemption and freeze assessments for seniors to the Oconee County Republican Party on Monday night.
Daniell has been working to explain the proposed changes to the public for more than a year now at a variety of settings, including at the quarterly Board of Commissioners Town Hall Meetings and at a session with Oconee County Democrats last month.
When a parent told the Oconee County Library Board of Trustees earlier this month that he didn’t want his child to see the book, A Child’s Introduction to Pride, on display on a shelf at the Oconee County Library, he acknowledged a problem.
He said he didn’t know who opened the book so its cover was on display next to other books with only their spines showing on the library shelf.
As the Oconee County Democratic Party meeting got underway on Thursday, Party Chair Harold Thompson told those gathered that what was about to take place was a candidate forum, not a debate.
Most of those who came to the front of the room one-by-one are running unopposed in the May 21 Democratic Party Primary, and, in one case, the person they want to debate won’t be decided until the May 21 Republican Primary.
Oconee County Commission Chair John Daniell on Tuesday evening started yet another Town Hall Meeting with a review of the efforts he and fellow commissioners have made to increase the county’s homestead exemptions and expand property tax relief for seniors.
Those efforts will increase the size of the homestead exemption from $2,000 to $5,000 in 2025 and to $10,000 in 2035, add an additional $10,000 exemption for those 75 years old and older, and freeze property tax assessments automatically for those 65 years old and older.
Joyce Reifsteck asked the Oconee County Board of Education on Monday night to indicate when and how it made the decision to seek legislation that will strip her of the position of Chair of the Board if she is elected to that position in November.
Reifsteck pointed out that she qualified to run in the Republican Primary for the open Post 1 on the Board of Education–a Post that is labeled as Board Chair–on Friday, March 8.
Oconee County Commissioners are holding their second Town Hall Meeting of the year at 6 p.m. on April 16, with the initial focus once again on the 10 items on the ballot on May 21 that will increase homestead exemptions and automate the freezing of property tax assessments for those 65 and older.
Commission Chair John Daniell has been using Town Hall meetings to explain the initiative going back to March of last year, and he opened the Town Hall Meeting in January with a summary of the changes that will take place if voters approve all 10 items on the ballot.
The Oconee County Board of Education has scheduled a called special session starting at 4 p.m. on Monday that is being labeled a budget workshop.
Superintendent Jason Branch announced the special session in his report to the Board at its work session on Monday
The Conservatives of Northeast Georgia didn’t invite the incumbents to participate in their candidate forum last week, and even though none of the incumbents physically was in the room, their presence was much in evidence.
All of the speakers at the forum are challenging incumbents, and the speakers criticized the Board of Commissioners, the Board of Education, the Clerk of Superior Court, and the three incumbent legislators representing the county in the General Assembly in Atlanta.
The Oconee County Library Board of Trustees accepted the recommendation of the Athens Regional Library System Reconsideration Review Committee on Monday and voted unanimously to move the book Other Boys by Damien Alexander from the Juvenile to the Young Adult section of the Oconee County Library.
The Board put aside the recommendation of the Review Committee that Nick and Charlie remain in the Young Adult Section and instead moved the book to the Adult Section of the Library.
At its 4:30 p.m. meeting tomorrow (April 8) at the Bogart Library, the Oconee County Library Board of Trustees will take up two new Requests for Reconsideration of books in the Oconee County Library filed by Oconee County citizens.
Rebecca Billings has asked the Board of Trustees to move the book Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman from the Young Adult to the Adult Section.
Concerns about the Oconee County Library and about election integrity were prominent again at the Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday.
Five citizens used the public comment opportunity at the beginning of the regular meeting of the Board, with one focusing on recent legislation designed to make it easier to challenge voter registration, two voicing criticism of the Oconee County Library, and two voicing support for that Library.
The Georgia Department of Public Health has announced that its COVID-19 Daily Status Report of March 27 is its last.
“According to the CDC and leading public health officials,” the Department of Public Health states, “COVID-19 remains an important public health threat, but it is no longer the emergency that it once was.”
The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration on Tuesday adopted policies for citizen comment at its meetings and for when it goes into executive session.
The Board agreed to set aside 15 minutes at the beginning of its regular monthly meetings for citizens to speak. Citizens will be required to use a sign-up sheet at the meeting and will be called up in order of sign-up.
The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) is asking MACORTS, the metropolitan transportation planning organization for Oconee County, to bundle funding in its planning documents for the Jimmy Daniell Road, Virgil Langford Road, and Oconee Connector intersections with SR 316.
The request is to facilitate moving forward with construction of the three projects, Kimberly Grayson from GDOT Planning told members of the Technical Coordinating Committee of MACORTS at its meeting last month.
Oconee County’s three incumbent Republican state legislators entered the campaign season with huge financial resources, having raised $367,629 in the seven months leading up to the just completed legislative session and reporting a net balance among them at that time of $1.2 million.
House District 120 Rep. Houston Gaines, who represents Bogart and Marswood Hall precincts in Oconee County, led the three legislators with $184,099 received from July 1 of last year to Jan. 31 of this year, and with a net balance on hand of $613,558, according to his report to the Georgia Campaign Finance Commission.
The Athens Regional Library System has made two changes in response to community concerns about children’s use of library materials, Valerie Bell, Director of the Library System, said at the agenda-setting meeting of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners last week.
Existing policy is that children 10 and under are not allowed in the library unaccompanied by an adult or older sibling at least 16 years of age, Bell told the commissioners.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added 108 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on March 27, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
The Department of Public Health reported the Northeast Health District had added 87 cases in the week ending on March 20, 132 cases in the week ending on March 13, and 229 cases in the week ending on March 6.
Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell had a long list of accomplishments and updates he offered to those gathered to hear the 2024 State of the County address earlier this month.
The Board of Commissioners rolled back the property tax millage rate for each of the last three years, he said, and at the same time put five new deputy sheriffs on the payroll this year.
The Oconee County Republican Party assembled 17 candidates on the stage at The Barn at Hadden Estate on Monday with the assignment that each spend five minutes answering questions from WGAU News Director Tim Bryant.
All of the candidates except incumbent Probate Court Judge Mike Hunsinger are running in the Republic Party Primary on May 21. Hunsinger is running unopposed on the nonpartisan judicial ballot.
Georgia Department of Transportation experts made clear at their virtual Public Information Open House on Friday that the preferred design for the Dials Mill Road/Dials Mill Extension interchange with SR 316 is a right-angled, multi-grade junction at a reconfigured Dials Mill Extension.
Opposition to that plan has surfaced from two directions, however, and the engineers said in the virtual session on Friday said that the plans are not final.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added only 87 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on March 20, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
The Department of Public Health reported the Northeast Health District had added 132 cases in the week ending on March 13, 229 cases in the week ending on March 6, 311 cases in the week ending on Feb. 28, and 374 cases in the week ending on Feb. 21.
Oconee County Commission Chair John Daniell, in his meeting with Oconee County Democrats last week, said the 10 items the Commission put on the May 21 ballot will simplify the process of freezing property assessments for home owners 65 years of age and older and make it easier for the Tax Commissioner to make that happen.
Those ballot items also will increase the size of homestead property tax exemptions for every home owner, Daniell said.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added only 132 new cases of COVID 19 in the week ending on March 13, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
The Department of Public Health reported the Northeast Health District had added 229 cases in the week ending on March 6, 311 cases in the week ending on Feb. 28, and 374 cases in the week ending on Feb. 21.
The Oconee County Board of Education on Monday night released on its web site and via social media the full text of the law it wants passed to change how the chair of the Board of Education is selected.
If the bill passes and becomes law, the ballot item for the November election would ask voters if they want the Board to appoint its own chair, rather than have voters do that, as is the case at present.
Former President Donald Trump received 77.4 percent of the vote in the Republican Presidential Preference Primary in Oconee County on Tuesday, and President Joseph Biden received 94.2 percent of the vote in the Democratic Presidential Preference Primary.
Only 5,243 (17.2 percent) of the 30,488 active voters cast a ballot in the two primaries, with 4,471 (85.3 percent) voting in the Republican Primary and 772 (14.7 percent) voting in the Democratic Primary.
Oconee County of Board of Education Member Tim Burgess informed the other members of the Board at their meeting on Monday that he is expecting the county’s state legislators to introduce bills shortly to change the ways the Board operates.
The legislation would require vacancies on the Board to be filled by voters under most circumstances rather than by the Board itself and would allow the Board, rather than voters, to select the Board Chair.
The Oconee County Board of Education and the county’s two House members in the Georgia General Assembly have a secret they have worked hard to keep.
The Board met with the legislators in an unpublicized meeting last fall before the current legislative session began, using a legal loophole in the state’s Open Meetings Act allowing them to do that.
Kevin Yancey, Principal at Oconee County High School, will become Director of Student Services for Oconee County Schools on June 3, reporting to Assistant Superintendent of Student Services Suzanne Korngold.
The Oconee County Board of Education approved the move of Yancey along with other personnel recommendations from Superintendent Jason Branch after meeting in executive session at the end of its work session on Monday.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added only 229 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on March 6, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
The Department of Public Health reported the Northeast Health District had added 311 cases in the week ending on Feb. 28, 374 cases in the week ending on Feb. 21, 509 cases in the week ending on Feb. 14, and 485 cases in the week ending on Feb. 7.
Qualifying for the May 21 General Primary and Nonpartisan election took an unusual turn in Oconee County on the last day of qualifying on Friday when six candidates completed the required paperwork, one as a Democrat and five as Republicans.
Democratic Party Chair Harold Thompson said after qualifying ended at noon that one of the candidates who qualified as a Democrat on Friday as well as two who qualified as Democrats on Thursday were not recruited by the Democratic Party.
Three more Democrats qualified on Thursday at the Oconee County Office of Elections and Registration to run for county offices in the May 21 General Primary and Nonpartisan Election.
Reginald Wade qualified to run for Sheriff, and Laura King qualified to run for Clerk of Superior Court.
Kathryn Green qualified to run as a Democrat for Post 5 on the Oconee County Board of Education on Wednesday, and incumbent Watkinsville Post 5 Council Member Jeff Campbell qualified to run for re-election in the nonpartisan Watkinsville race.
Green’s name will appear on the Democratic ballot on May 21 in the General Primary and Nonpartisan Election, while Campbell’s name will appear on the ballot on Nov. 5 in the Watkinsville races.
Watkinsville Post 3 Council Member Brett Thomas was the only candidate to qualify at the Oconee County Office of Elections and Registration on Tuesday, the second day of qualifying.
Thomas joined Watkinsville Post 4 Council Member Christine Tucker, who qualified on Monday. Qualifying also is underway for Post 5, currently held by Jeff Campbell, but no one has qualified so far.
The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) will hold a virtual Public Information Open House on March 22 to get reaction to its plan for a multi-grade intersection of Dials Mill Extension at SR 316.
According to the GDOT Project manager, the concept layout for an interchange at Dials Mill Extension is the only one that will be presented to the public at the Public Information Open House.
Oconee County’s four incumbent Constitutional Officers, the current Coroner, and the three sitting members of the Board of Commissioners up for re-election all qualified on Monday for the May 21 Primary and Nonpartisan election–so far without opposition.
In addition, incumbent Post 5 Board of Education Member Michael Ransom qualified for the Post 1 (Chair) position on the Board, Brock Toole qualified for Post 5 on the Board, and both Andrew Pippin and Russell Toms qualified for Post 4. All are running as Republicans.
Turnout picked up just slightly in the second week of in-person voting for the March 12 Presidential Primary.
A total of 711 voters cast their ballots in person last week, up from 606 the week before.
To date, the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration also has received and accepted 95 absentee ballots, up only by 33 from the 62 returned and accepted at the end of last week.
More than 125 people put aside the cold and overcast weather on Saturday to turn out for the official opening of the new Oconee County Library at Wire Park in Watkinsville.
That official opening lasted only about 15 minutes–culminating in a ribbon cutting--and was followed by informal tours of the new facility and a full day of programming, with an uncounted number of participants.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added 311 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Feb. 28, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
The Department of Public Health reported the Northeast Health District had added 374 cases in the week ending on Feb. 21, 509 cases in the week ending on Feb. 14, and 485 cases in the week ending on Feb. 7.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners is set to approve an amendment to its 2021 agreement with Charter Communications that will extend Charter’s broadband service in the county to an additional 211 currently unserved addresses.
The agreement will increase the number of served addresses subsidized by the county to 1,927 and increase the amount of subsidy the county has agreed to provide Charter for expansion of broadband from $1.7 million to $2.2 million.
The murder of nursing student Laken Hope Riley, whose body was found in a wooded area on the University of Georgia campus last Thursday, dominated the Monday meeting of the Oconee County Republican Party.
At the very beginning of the meeting, Greg Ziesenhene, field representative for Rep. Mike Collins, offered condolences for the family of Riley.
Fewer than 2 percent of Oconee County’s 32,969 registered voters cast a ballot in the first six days of early in-person voting for the March 12 Presidential Primary by the end of the day on Saturday.
Another 62 voters had returned a valid mail ballot, for a total vote of 668 votes cast to date, or 2.0 percent of the eligible voters.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added 374 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Feb. 21, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
The Department of Public Health reported the Northeast Health District had added 509 cases in the week ending on Feb. 14, 485 cases in the week ending on Feb. 7, and 544 cases in the week ending Jan. 31.
The Oconee County Planning Commission devoted a little more than three minutes on Monday night to the request by Rancho Tesoros LLC to downzone and subdivide 68 acres into five single family residential lots.
The 68 acres are in the small triangle of Oconee County bordered by Clarke and Oglethorpe counties on the eastern side of the Oconee River.
On the recommendation of Mayor Stephen Goad, the North High Shoals Council voted on Monday night to table for a second time the request by Townley Family Partnership LLLP to deannex 175.8 acres from the city.
Council Members Eric Carlson, Hilda Kurtz, Eric Wright, and Meagan Cundiff voted in favor of the motion to table the request, and Council Member Fred Johnson abstained.
The North High Shoals Mayor and Council is scheduled to take up at its regular meeting on Monday the request by Townley Family Partnership LLLP to deannex 175.8 acres between Jefferson Road and the Apalachee River from the Town.
Action on the deannexation petition is on the agenda for the Feb. 19 meeting following the unanimous vote of the Council at a meeting on Jan. 22 to table action on the Townley request.
An Athens limited liability company is asking Oconee County to downzone 68 acres from a dormant 284-acre subdivision in the small triangle of Oconee County on the eastern side of the Oconee River.
The applicant, Rancho Tesoros LLC, plans to subdivide the 68 acres into five single family residential lots.
The 2007 rezone of the larger 284 acres authorized creation of 197 single-family lots, each served by county water.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added 509 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Feb. 14, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
The Department of Public Health reported the Northeast Health District had added 485 cases in the week ending on Feb. 7, 544 cases in the week ending Jan. 31, 406 cases in the week ending Jan. 24, 481 cases in the week ending on Jan. 17, 403 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Jan. 10, and 278 cases in the week ending on Jan. 3.
Kalki Yalamanchili on Thursday launched a new phase of his petition drive to get on the ballot in November as an Independent candidate for Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney.
Yalamanchili selected seven locations, four in Oconee County and three in Clarke County, where registered voters in either of the two counties could sign a petition asking that his name appear on the November ballot.
Oconee County Schools took in a little more than $1.2 million in Education Local Option Sales Tax (ELOST) revenue in January, but the amount was nearly a percentage point lower than the system took in from the sales tax in January of 2023.
The decline, which actually was for taxes collected in December of 2023, compared with a 5.1 percent increase in December of 2023 over December of 2022 and was the first decline in ELOST collections going back to April of 2022.
When he stood before the Oconee County Board of Commissioners on Feb. 6, Engineer Jeff Carter didn’t present an attractive picture of what’s on the property at the eastern intersection of Ruth Jackson Road and U.S. 78.
Carter, representing Rick Bradshaw’s Mulberry Property Investments LLC, told the Board the property owned by Mulberry Property Investments is “in bad shape,” and “the owner wants to revitalize that corner” by putting in a “general retail facility.”
Oconee County Schools Superintendent Jason Branch on Monday will ask the Oconee County Board of Education to award a $2.6 million contract to Amacher Bros. Construction Company of Atlanta for modifications and renovations to Rocky Branch Elementary School.
Branch also will ask the Board to spend $732,954 for purchase of five 48-passenger buses and one 72-passenger bus from Thomas Peach State Freightliner, based in Norcross.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added 485 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Feb. 7, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
The Department of Public Health reported the Northeast Health District had added 544 cases in the week ending Jan. 31, 406 cases in the week ending Jan. 24, 481 cases in the week ending on Jan. 17, 403 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Jan. 10, and 278 cases in the week ending on Jan. 3.
Oconee County picked up only 12 new registered voters in the last month, with Monday (Feb. 12) being the final day of voter registration before the March 12 Presidential Primary.
As of Tuesday, when the Oconee County Board of Elections and Voter Registration met, the county had received only 77 absentee ballot applications for the Presidential Primary.
Watkinsville Attorney Pamela Lohr Hendrix is working with a group to organize a slate of candidates to run against all of the Oconee County Republican incumbents in the Republican Primary on May 21.
Hendrix said she has decided to run for the Board of Education, but she hasn’t decided which of the three Posts up for election in November she will seek.
Politicians have had many ways to mislead the public in the past, but the advent of AI chatbots is making political deception even more effective, communication researcher David Clementson said at a meeting with Oconee County Democrats last month.
Clementson said AI can be used to improve campaign solicitations, create better tailored campaign messages, tell implausible lies, and manipulate visuals.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added 544 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Jan. 31, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
The Department of Public Health reported the Northeast Health District had added 406 cases in the week ending Jan. 24, 481 cases in the week ending on Jan. 17, 403 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Jan. 10, and 278 cases in the week ending on Jan. 3.
Oconee County Schools enrolled 8,535 students in October of 2023, an increase of four students from October of 2022, according to data the system reported to the Georgia Department of Education.
Only 8,459 of those enrolled students were residents of Oconee County, however, and the enrollment of Oconee County students fell by 16 from October of last year.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added 406 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Jan. 24, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
The Department of Public Health reported the Northeast Health District had added 481cases in the week ending on Jan. 17, 403 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Jan. 10 and 278 cases in the week ending on Jan. 3.
Oconee County Schools Superintendent Jason Branch emphasized at the Jan. 8 meeting of the Oconee County Board of Education that the Board’s Jan. 16 retreat would be open to the public.
The Board and Branch’s staff took a number of steps before and after that announcement, however, that made it difficult--and in one case impossible–for the public to access that meeting.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added 481 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Jan. 17, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
The Department of Public Health reported the Northeast Health District had added 403 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Jan. 10 and 278 cases in the week ending on Jan. 3.
The Oconee County Board of Education on Monday agreed to spend approximately $350,000 for the remainder of the school year to increase the pay schedule for bus drivers in an effort to recruit and retain needed drivers.
The Board took this action after hearing a report from Chief Human Resources Officer Justin Cofer, who told the Board that despite a string of initiatives, the vacancy rate for bus drivers increased from 22 percent in May of last year to 31 percent as of January of 2024.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added 403 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Jan. 10, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
The Department of Public Health reported the Northeast Health District had added 278 cases in the week ending on Jan. 3.
The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration voted on Tuesday to call a special election in conjunction with the May 21 General Primary/Nonpartisan Election to allow voters to decide if they want to increase homestead exemptions in the county.
The Board voted to put 10 items on the ballot, four of which remove the current laws and six of which put new laws in place. All 10 must pass for the changes in the exemptions to take effect.
The Oconee County Library Board of Trustees on Monday voted to reject the request of four county residents that four books in the Oconee County Library be reclassified because of their content.
At the meeting, Board Chair Mark Campbell also announced that the Library, closed since Thanksgiving, will reopen at the new Wire Park location on Feb. 3.
Georgia Democratic State Rep. Spencer Frye told Oconee County Democrats last year that he expects the legislative session that starts in Atlanta on Monday will include renewed discussion of school vouchers, which he opposes.
Republicans were unable to get enough votes to pass a voucher program in the last session, Frye noted.
The Oconee County Library Board of Trustees, meeting for the first time on Monday in the as-yet-not-completed Oconee Library in Wire Park in Watkinsville, will consider four requests for reconsideration of the classification of books.
Stephen Aleshire is asking the Board to move the book Different Kind Of Fruit from the Juvenile to the Adult Section of the Library.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added 278 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Jan. 3, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
The Department of Public Health reported the Northeast Health District had added 184 cases in the week ending on Dec. 27, down from 268 cases in the week ending on Dec. 20, and 274 cases in the week ending on Dec. 13.
The Oconee County Board of Education, at its meeting in December, decided to ask the Georgia Department of Education to allow a one-year extension of its five-year local facilities plan that is set to expire on June 30 of this year.
The Board told the Department of Education in the resolution it approved at that Dec. 4 meeting that it will continue to update the current facilities plan.
Oconee County commissioners on Tuesday night consented to the deannexation of 175.8 acres between Jefferson Road and the Apalachee River from the Town of North High Shoals.
The Board took the action in response to a petition to the Mayor and Council of the Town of North High Shoals from Tony Townley, General Partner of Townley Family Partnership LLLP, who owns the 175.8 acres and an adjoining 407.3 acres outside the Town limits.
