Sports facilities dominated the Oconee County Board of Commissioners Town Hall meeting on Tuesday night, with citizens asking for additional sports fields, tennis courts, gymnasiums, and a swimming pool.
Sixteen citizens addressed the Board, and all but one of those lobbied for added recreational facilities. Just fewer than 50 people were in attendance.
Tennis courts and sports fields were most prominent in the requests.
Commissioner Chuck Horton spoke more than 10 minutes in responding to the requests, telling the speakers that they are going to have to work to get the community to vote to spend more money on new facilities.
Horton was anticipating that the Board will put on the ballot at some point in the near future a referendum on a General Obligation Bond for the planned Betty and Wendell Dawson Park similar to the one voters approved in 2002 for purchase of land and development of what is now Oconee Veterans Park.
No official decision has been made by the Board to do that, and Horton said he expected the other commissioners were “tired of listening to me” arguing that the county needed to move aggressively to increase its park facilities.
Daniell On Facilities
Daniell began the meeting with announcements and a summary of transportation project underway.
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| Daniell 5/13/2025 |
“It looks like we have a lot of interest in parks,” Daniell said next, no doubt recognizing many of those in the audience, “so we'll go ahead and give you some of what's going on right now.”
Daniell said the county has master plans for all of the county’s parks that have been approved by the Commission following community discussion.
The planned improvements in the show facilities at Heritage Park are in the design stage, he said.
Tennis courts at Oconee Veterans Park are also “currently in design,” he said.
“We are working with the Tennis Association in reference to a grant,” he said. ‘It's kind of delayed things. We have to change some on the plans to meet some of the standards they're coming up with.”
“Then we can get some bids on what the cost of those tennis course are, do some value engineering, and then we'll bring that for the board to make a decision,” he said.
Dawson Park
The Dawson Park on Rocky Branch Road is currently in design, Daniell said, with Carter Engineering doing the work.
“They're already in coordination meetings with the Water Resources (Department),” he said, “because this is currently an active Land Application System that has to be decommissioned. So they're coordinating the timing and the engineering on that.”
Daniell said the county also has had a meeting with the traffic engineer “trying to figure out the impact to the road infrastructure, what improvement is going to have to be made to handle people getting in and out.”
“We expect to have the bid documents ready by the end of the first quarter in 2026,” he said.
“We've also awarded the design firm for the buildings at that location--for the gym as well as the field services building,” he said.
Daniell said the county could build one gym with eight courts or two gyms with four courts each.
Sports Fields
Philip Bernardi was the first citizen to the microphone, and he came prepared to make the case that the county needs more sports fields.
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| Bernardi With Commissioner Mark Saxon 5/13/2025 |
Bernardi, who is the son-in-law of Commissioner Horton, told of how he and his wife, Courtney Bernardi, Oconee Chamber of Commerce President, travel in and outside the county to find fields and gym space for their daughter’s and son’s sports programs.
He said a team his daughter plays on recently traveled to Commerce to use a school gym there because none was available in Oconee County. The other team also was from Oconee County, he said.
“I just wanted to encourage you all,” he said. “There's several people here tonight that, I think, face the same challenges. I know you all are aware of the challenge. I think with Dawson Park, we have the unique opportunity to do it all right.”
Bernardi was followed by Wesley Scott, President of Oconee County Little League, who said in the seven years he has led the program the number of players has increased from 700 to 1,050.
“That equates to is approximately 2,000 parents, he said, “and the biggest complaint that I get is scheduling. And the reason that I get them is that we have lack of field space.”
“Now we got plenty of baseball and softball fields in this county,” he said, “but we don't get them all. They get used for, which I get I understand, lacrosse and soccer, and they need places to play too. And a lot of times they end up playing in our outfields.”
Also calling for additional sports fields were Todd Mueller, Movgan Anders, Eric Gattiker, president of Board of Directors of Oconee Parks Foundation, Travis Stephens, and Jason Bragg, who is also on Board of Directors of Oconee Parks Foundation
Tennis
Taylor Dodd, who owns Tall Socks Tennis, was the first to ask for increased tennis courts, and she was followed by Terry Gattiker, Melissa Harshman, Susan McKinney, Julie Crowe, and Mary Ellen Vandiver.
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| Dodd Before Full Commission 5/13/2025 |
Dodd said she has a contract with Oconee County and “we offer junior programming, adult programming, individual lessons. We serve all ages and abilities. We start at five years old and we have 80 old people on our tennis court.”
“Our biggest challenge is court space,” she said.
Terry Gattiker said “I wanted to follow up after Taylor because I agreed that we need more tennis courts.”
When she first started playing tennis in 2003, Terry Gattiker said, tennis players had access to four courts at Herman C. Michael Park and 10 courts at Oconee County High School.
Players had access to another 10 courts when North Oconee High School opened, she said, but those 20 high school courts are no longer available.
“That's 20 courts that we lost,” she said. “Thankfully, you know, OVP (Oconee Veterans Park) was built. And we have the eight courts over there that are used a lot.”
Terry Gattiker asked Daniell if the county was going to be breaking ground on the proposed additional 16 courts at OVP in 2025.
“That’s our goal,” Daniell said. “We were almost ready to bid it when this Tennis Association grant came in.”
The grant requires “different kind of fencing, different kind of asphalt,” he said. “So we're analyzing all that.”
Other Topics
Jeff Morgan began his comments by supporting the requests for additional sports facilities but shifted quickly to “talk about the safety on Colham Ferry Road, where I live off of.”
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| Magee With Commissioner Mark Saxon 5/13/2025 |
Morgan has spoken at the two most recent regular sessions of the Board of Commissioners about the road. His 17-year-old son William died in a single-car accident on Colham Ferry Road on March 4.
Morgan is asking that the intersection of Colham Ferry Road and Astondale Road be changed to make it a four-way stop before it becomes a roundabout later this year or early next year.
Dan Magee also called for more sports fields, but he also thanked the Board for building the multi-use path along Hog Mountain Road from Butler’s Crossing to U.S. 441.
“A lot of people complained,” he said. “They're going to get used. “Kids are going to walk to school. Walk to Dunkin Donuts on that sidewalk. I'm going to use it. People are going to play, jog, run.”
Magee also said he hoped somebody would find a way to preserve an abandoned house constructed in 1860 slated for demolition as part of a residential development the Commission approved on June 6.
“If that's demolished, that's a piece of history you’ll never get back,” he said.
Victoria Cruz, the only speaker at the Town Hall meeting who did not mention sports, said “I just want to remind everybody to start practicing to get out there and do your civic duty.”
“We do have a Public Service Commission election coming up,” she said. “The primary election day is June 17th of this year. Early voting starts on Tuesday, May 27th.”
Horton
Before Cruz spoke, Horton responded to the many requests for additional facilities.
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| Horton 5/13/2025 |
“I want to get this thing going,” he said, referring to the Dawson Park. “I want to get as much as possible and get it to where we should have been 15 years ago.”
“My granddaughter happens to be Phillip’s daughter,” Horton said, pointing to Bernardi.
“So wherever she goes, Brenda (his wife) and I try to go,” he said. “That's how I saw how far behind we are... So we're having to catch the rabbit.”
“Now, I don't know what's going to happen down the road about the financial part, where we go,” he said, “but I will tell you this, if it goes to a ballot issue, you folks have got to get out there and you have got to get the votes.”
“In my opinion, this could be probably will be the most expensive project this county has ever taken up,” he said. “There's going to be a lot of angst and that sort of thing. But I don't see an option.”
“If we don't get it right the first time,” Horton said, “somebody tell me when the second time to get it right is going to be. That's what I'm worried about.”
“We're still messing with the tennis courts and OVP,” he said. “We should have them done a long time ago.”
“We have got to have citizen buy-in,” he said. “Whatever's on the ballot, you have got to work to get the voters.”
Video
The video below is of the May 13 Town Hall Meeting.
Daniell began his initial comments of county parks at 8:06 in the video.
Bernardi began his comments at 11:10
Horton responded to citizens at 59:39.
Note: An earlier version of this story mistakenly identified the President of Oconee County Little League. I apologize for the error.
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