The Oconee County Board of Commissioners, at its agenda setting meeting on Tuesday (July 29), tentatively agreed to pay the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) $184,550 for the costs of utility relocation required for reconstruction of the interchange at Dials Mill Extension and SR 316.
GDOT will include the utility relocation costs in its contract for construction of the full interchange, currently scheduled to begin 2026.
The Commission also on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to adding $8,235 to the contract for utility relocation at the Clotfelter Road Bridge over Barber Creek, bringing the total utility relocation costs to $338,200.
The Board also agreed to spend $160,000 for upgraded security systems at the Civic Center and Animal Shelter, $83,720 for painting of the ceiling of the gym/fitness center facility at Oconee Veterans Park, and $14,500 to cover the costs of the July runoff election for Public Service Commissioner.
The Board also agreed to spend $6,400 to pick up the costs of a contract employee for 4-H programming at the County Extension Office after the federal government abruptly ended previously approved AmeriCorps funding for that position.
The Board agreed to abandon two roads inside a currently dormant subdivision on Price Mill Road near the Morgan County line.
It also gave tentative approval to a modification of its Memorandum Of Understanding with the county’s Tourism and Visitors Bureau that will allow the Bureau to open additional Welcome Centers, including at Eagle Tavern Museum in downtown Watkinsville.
The Board put all of these decisions on its consent agenda for final action at its meeting on Tuesday, where the Board will also hold hearings on nine zoning requests, including downzones of 203.7 acres from residential to agricultural use.
Speed Limits Changes
The first item on the agenda on Tuesday was revision of the county ordinance to establish a List of Roads for the county’s Speed Detection Device Permit from the Georgia Department of Public Safety.
 |
| Powell Before Board 7/29/2025 |
Included is a reduction of the speed limit on SR 24 (U.S. 441) inside Bishop from 45 to 40 miles per hour. Jody Woodall, Public Works Director for Oconee County, reported that the Town of Bishop had requested the change.
The ordinance also reduces the speed limit on Astondale Road from the Bishop Town line to SR 15 from 55 to 50 miles per hour, and on Colham Ferry Road from the Greene County line to Greene Ferry Road from 55 to 50 miles per hour.
The speed limit on Colham Ferry Road from just north of Greene Ferry Road to the Watkinsville city limits will go from 45 to 40 miles per hour.
Jeff and Jennifer Morgan have spoken repeatedly in recent months at Commission meeting, asking the Board to address their concerns about the high speed of travel on Colham Ferry Road.
Their 17-year-old son William died in a single-car accident on Colham Ferry Road on March 4 of this year.
The ordinance drops the speed limit on Dials Mill Road from SR 316 and U.S. 78 to 45 miles pre hour.
In response to a question from Commission Mark Thomas, Woodall said when the speed limit is approved by the Department of Public Safety, “we would post the roads at the approved speed limits and then 30 days after that, the radar could be used on those roads.”
The Board put the revision to the ordinance on its consent agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, meaning it will not be discussed further unless one of the commissioners asks that it be taken off the consent agenda for further discussion.
Road Projects
Adam Layfield, Director of the Water Resources Department, told the Board on Tuesday that water lines will need to be relocated for the planned interchange at Dials Mill Extension and SR 316.
 |
| Layfield Before Board 7/29/2025 |
He presented the Board with a Memorandum of Understand with GDOT that will allow the GDOT contractor to include the relocation as part of the overall project.
“This would allow the GDOT subcontractor to relocate the utilities on behalf of the county,” he said. “I recommend doing this because it is going to be put under state contract. It has to be competitively bid. And it would save us some time and energy on our own projects--to put our guys on our own projects.”
The cost is estimated at $184,550, and Layfield said he has sought financial assistance from GDOT for the work, but he said he has not yet received a response.
Layfield also told the Board that ‘as part of the Clotfelter (Road) bridge project, we did have to relocate a 12-in water line. It ended up going over the contract amount by $8,235 due to encountering more rock than what was anticipated.”
“We have the money in the FY25 budget,” he said. “Because it went over the contract amount, it has to come back before the Board to approve it.”
Runoff Costs
Finance Director Melissa Braswell told the Board that the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget for the Department of Elections and Registration had anticipated the upcoming November 2025 and May 2026 elections.
The special election primary for the Public Service Commission in June required a runoff in July for the Democratic Party nominee for District 3.
Money for this runoff had not been included in the budget, Braswell said.
The total cost of the election was $14,500, and Braswell requested the Board amend its budget to cover those costs.
“By amending the budget for this amount,” she said. “It will allow us to continue our next two elections within our budget,” Braswell said.
The November 4 ballot will contain the Public Service Commission District 2 and 3 races as well a referendum for a new Education Local Option Sales Tax and possible local city elections.
The General Primary Election/Nonpartisan Election is scheduled for May 19, but a runoff, if necessary, will be on June 16, within the current Fiscal Year.
Other Spending
Board Chair John Daniell said on Tuesday that “for the last couple of years, the 4H program has been using AmeriCorps to fill in with some part-time help, and we've been funding part of that at the rate of $3,600 a year and then the AmeriCorps program was paying the rest of the salary.”
 |
| Thomas, Horton, Daniell (L-R) 7/29/2025 |
Daniell said the AmeriCorps program “has been discontinued...and they really would like to have an additional part-time staff member. The request is to increase their funding by $6,400 for a total of $10,000 to allow part-time staff on a 1099 basis to fill that gap this time period.” (A 1099 employee is a contractor rather than a full-time employee.)
“When was the phase out of the AmeriCorps?” Commissioner Chuck Horton asked.
“It was probably about six weeks ago,” Daniell said. “I got a call on Friday--said gone on Monday with no warning at all. We were already into--the budget already had been approved.”
AmeriCorps is a federal agency that connects individuals and organizations in communities through national service and volunteering to help with economic opportunity, education, environmental stewardship, disaster response, healthy futures, and veterans and military families.
On April 25, AmeriCorps sent out a notice to grant recipients that their funding was being terminated immediately as part of President Donald Trump’s funding cuts.
County Administrator Kirouac recommended that the Board spend $160,000 in Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax funds to install card reader access and additional security cameras at the Civic Center and the Animal Shelter.
“What we're looking to do is increase the security within all our facilities,” Kirouac said, and the Civic Center and the Animal Shelter, currently undergoing renovation, will be targeted in this phase of the project.
Parks and Recreation Department Director Lisa Davol told the Board that “We've got issues of the paint peeling” at the Oconee Veterans Park gym and fitness center. “It's landing on the gym floor. It's been going on for a while. We're probably sweeping that up a couple times a week where we're getting chunks that are fallen,” she said.
She said she had received three bids for repair and painting and recommended that a bid of $83,720 from Berry Coating Inc. of Athens be accepted.
Abandonment Of Roads
At its June 24 meeting, the Board had agreed to begin the process of abandoning two roads inside the now dormant 150-acre Pointe Preserve subdivision on Price Mill Road south of Gober Road near the Morgan County line.
 |
| Haygood, Kirouac, Thomas, Horton (L-R)7/29/2025 |
Ned Butler of Walton County, vice president of TMFT Lot Investments LLC, told the county in a May 14 letter that TMFT wants to reverse a decision it made on June 6, 2020, when it gave the county easements for Preserve Landing and Pointe Court, roadways within the subdivision. The subdivision property had been rezoned in 2006 but none of the 36 lots has been sold.
County Attorney Daniell Haygood said on Tuesday that “the developer is just much more comfortable having those roads as private roads, and that means those are roads we don't have to maintain going forward.”
Commissioner Horton told Haygood that “every now and then it comes up where we've got private roads and then the roads start falling apart and they want the county to pay for it.”
“Is there any way we can make sure to the owners that as it moves down the road that they make sure they tell buyers they own the roads?” Horton asked.
Tuesday’s meeting was the official public hearing on the TMFT request, and Butler appeared before the Board and responded to Horton’s question.
Butler said the developer will “update the covenants in the subdivision to say that they're public streets and they're the responsibility of homeowners association...and then we will add that into our marketing that these are private streets to be maintained by the HOA.”
Butler said the decision to make the roads private is that “there's no water within over a mile. So rather than doing 36 individual wells, we've talking with Georgia Well and Water (Services) out of Athens on doing a community well system down there, but we can't put private utilities in a public right of way.”
Welcome Centers
County Administrator Justin Kirouac told the Board that the 2019 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) it signed with the Tourism and Visitors Bureau to provide tourism-related activities funded by the county’s Hotel-Motel Tax is up for renewal.
 |
| Kirouac 7/29/2025 |
The Tourism and Visitors Bureau currently leases the William Daniell House, 1070 Founders Boulevard, for a Welcome Center, and Kirouac recommended that the MOU be modified to allow for operation of additional Welcome Centers.
The modified contract approved for the consent agenda states that the Tourism and Visitors Bureau “may designate facilities, including the Eagle Tavern Museum and William Daniell House as ‘Welcome Centers’.”
The county leased the William Daniell House to the Tourism and Visitors Bureau in September of 2023, and the Bureau moved its Welcome Center from downtown Watkinsville next door to the Courthouse to the William Daniell House.
Kirouac said the agreement with the Tourism and Visitors Bureau “has been a very big success through five years” and the new contract is for a year with possible renewal for four additional years.
Zoning On Agenda
Icy Forest LLC, which owns 203.7 in two parcels fronting on old Barnett Shoals Road in that triangle of Oconee County on the northeast side of the Oconee River, wants to downzone the property from AR (Agricultural Residential) to AG (Agricultural).
The parcels are part of what had been a 284-acre rezone in August of 2007 for a 196-lot single family residential subdivision.
As a condition of rezoning, the developer at the time was required to improve Old Barnett Shoals Road to current standards and extend a public water line 1.7 miles, with the line crossing the Oconee River.
No construction plans were approved for the proposed Old Barnett Estates subdivision, according to the Oconee County Department of Planning and Code Enforcement, and no road or utility improvements were made after the rezoning approval.
The county already has approved two other downzones of parts of the 284-acre original rezone.
Icy Forest LLC is proposing to construct a single-family dwelling on the property and not to change the current property size. Water will come from an individual private well.
Kevin York, who owns three properties adjoining the property being considered for rezone, is listed as the registered agent for Icy Forest LLC in the business records of the Georgia Secretary of State.
Video
The video below is on the county’s YouTube Channel.
The meeting starts at 2:18 in the video.
I also recorded the meeting, and the still images above are frames from my video.
No comments:
Post a Comment