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.
