The Oconee County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday (June 30) cleared the way for approval on July 6 in a special meeting with the Oconee County Board of Education of transfer of ownership and operation of the Civic Center to Oconee County Schools.
In a brief discussion at the end of its agenda-setting meeting on Tuesday, Board members reviewed the details of the proposed Intergovernmental Agreement released on June 26 without raising major concerns.
Board Chair John Daniell said the agreement on use of the facility will continue the current scheduling priority for Oconee County Schools, for county events, and for public use, in that order.
That facilities use part of the agreement will continue through June 30, 2031, Daniell said, with the exception of the county’s use of the facility for elections, which will continue to be held there “until such time as we move it.”
The Board of Commissioners on Tuesday also gave tentative approval to an agreement with Brightside Company LLC of Watkinsville for creation of a holiday lighting event at Oconee Veterans Park.
The Board also approved a Memorandum Of Understanding with the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine to outline the current framework of cooperation between Oconee County Animal Services and the county.
The Board also tentatively approved two Intergovernmental Agreements (IGAs) with the Town of Bogart, one to provide planning and building code enforcement, engineering services, fire protection, and animal control to Bogart, and the other for the Oconee County Sheriff to provide law enforcement to the city. Both IGAs update existing agreements between the county and the city.
Civic Center Agreement
Daniell, in his summary Tuesday of the Intergovernmental Agreement developed with the Board of Education, said the “Board of Education will continue first priority, Board of Commissioners second, and then community activities follow that.”
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| BOC Discusses Civic Center 6/30/2026 |
“Some of the Board of Commissioners activities are for elections, 4-H, Friends of the Library, our Region 10 EMS activities, Sheriff's Office training, State of the County, Oconee County Fire Rescue Banquet, our employee Christmas lunch,” Daniell said.
“So these are just some examples,” he continued. “There are others that may fall in there but those are the big ones. The Board of Commissioners will only pay direct costs.”
“So, if we need cleaning or contracting with sound services and stuff along that line,” the county would pay, he added, “but there would be no rental fee applied to those.”
The county has developed a list of “furniture, fixtures, and equipment we're going to retain,” he said. Included are Oconee County Wall Prints from the theater and “stanchions–to say on site for elections.”
“This is a five-year term, and the thought process there is at the end of that five years, the joint use agreement that we have for the other school facilities will kind of join together,” Daniell said, “with the exception of elections.”
“Elections are there until such time as we move it around,” he said. “So that's not included in the termination clause of the agreement.”
The two Boards currently have an IGA controlling use of sports facilities of the schools and of the county’s Parks and Recreation Department.
The Board of Commissioner and the Board of Education will meet jointly at 4 p.m. on July 6 at the Instructional Support Center, 71 North Main Street in Watkinsville, to vote on the agreement.
Commissioner Comments
Commissioner Chuck Horton, noting that the agreement allows the School Board to change the name of the Center, said he “hoped” the School Board didn’t remove the plagues on the building honoring those who were responsible for its construction in 1993.
If the Board did remove those memorials, Horton said, he would like the county to take possession of them.
The agreement before the two Boards calls for the transfer of the 3.6 acres and Civic Center from the Board of Commissioners to the Board of Education, in exchange for 42.7 acres of undeveloped land between U.S. 441 and Union Church Road north of Bishop.
The county says it will use the land for a park at some point in the future.
“Have we done an inspection of the 42 acres as it may pertain to any kind of environmental issues?” Commissioner Amrey Harden asked when Horton finished.
“We've done a visual inspection, but it'd be worthwhile to send an inspector out there to take a look,” County Administrator Justin Kirouac said.
“It's been lying idle for quite a while,” Harden continued. “I didn't want somebody to have a tire dump out there or something like that.”
The Board had purchased the acreage in 2007 as a possible school site, but it since has declared the property as surplus.
“This has been kind of out in the public's eye for several weeks,” Harden said. “I haven't had any--other than the lady that came to the Town Hall that had a question about the Friends of the Library--I haven't had any comments from any citizens about that.”
Louise Langdale, a member of the Board of Director of the Friends of the Oconee County Library, spoke at the Board of Commissioners Town Hall Meeting on June 16, asking if the group would continue to have access to the Civic Center space for its book sales.
Daniell told her at that time scheduling would be handled by Oconee County Schools, but he listed the Friends use of the Civic Center as a county activity on Tuesday, meaning it had second priority.
Holiday Lighting
Lisa Davol, Director of Oconee County Parks and Recreation, told the Board on Tuesday that the holiday lighting agreement “is something that we've been working on for almost a year now--trying to see if we can actually make this happen.”
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| From Davol's Presentation 6/30/2026 |
“This would allow us to offer a holiday light event at Oconee Veterans Park,” she said. “It's a pretty exciting event to be able to offer the community.”
In her memorandum to the Board before the meeting, Davol said that Oconee County resident Alex Clark, with Brightside, approached her office in 2025 to offer a Holiday Lights Event at Oconee Veterans Park.
Brightside will pay to upgrade the electrical facilities of the park to meet the needs of the lighting and “provide 10 percent of gross ticket sales to the Oconee Parks Foundation, which can also assist us in some of our other park enhancements that we're looking to try to do,” Davol said.
Brightside “would be basically running the event,” Davol said. “We would just be assisting in terms of how that event is coordinated and ensuring safety and all those things are taken in account. It aligns with our park mission and really helps us to kind of connect the community, and that's part of what we try to do.”
The Board put approval of the contract with Brightside on the agenda for final approval at its July 7 meeting.
Animal Services
Crystal Berisko, Manager of Animal Services, told the Board on Tuesday that she was asking for approval of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the county and the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia on behalf of University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine.
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| Berisko 6/30/2026 |
Berisko said the “agreement establishes a cooperative educational partnership. It does not obligate Oconee County to expend any funds beyond those already budgeted for normal shelter operations at this time.”
“The program may provide indirect financial benefits through increased veterinary services, enhanced animal care, improved shelter outcomes, and expanded educational resources available to” Oconee County Animal Services, she said.
“The proposed partnership formalizes and expands a long-standing relationship that we've had with the University of Georgia Shelter Medicine Program,” she continued.
“They do currently come to the shelter, do some exams on the animals, administer rabies, vaccinations, and so forth,” Berisko said, “and that's increased over the last several years.”
“The program is expected to improve the quality and efficiency of medical care provided to the shelters, increase opportunities for preventative care and surgical services, and enhance adoption outcomes through improved animal health,” Berisko said.
“Additionally, veterinary students will receive practical experience in shelter medicine, animal welfare, population management, and community veterinary practice under professional supervision,” she added.
“Approval of the MOU supports both education and community service objectives without creating additional contractual obligations or significant financial commitments for Oconee County,” she continued.
“Crystal's been working on trying to get something like this started for awhile,” Board Chair Daniell said. “So, congratulations on getting it here.”
The Board approved the MOU without further discussion.
Bogart
County Attorney Daniell Haygood said updating the two Intergovernmental Agreements between the county and the city of Bogart “has been a long running effort so that Oconee County can enforce ordinances within the city limits of Bogart--planning, code enforcement, animal control.”
“What they've agreed to do and have already done,” Daniell said, “is enact ordinances that match ours as close to identically as they can.”
“So this ordinance will allow our folks to go in and do that--issue citations, bring people to court when they're not acting right. It also continues the kind of formal arrangement for fire protection services that we already have.”
Bogart will pay the county $30,000 annually for fire protection. The county will retain fees for code enforcement.
Bogart also will pay the county $19,200 annually to be used to “offset the County’s payments to its third party providers” for services.
The IGA “allows Bogart to function as a qualified government while we're providing some of the services because we're doing it by contract,” Haygood said. To retain their charter, cities must provide their constitutions with services from a specified list that includes the services covered by the IGA.
“So I think it's a it's a win-win for everybody,” Haygood said. “I think we've worked on it for a year and a half maybe.”
“Law enforcement has to be a separate contract because the sheriff is involved,” Haygood said. “Essentially it provides that the sheriff will provide law enforcement inside the county limits that are within the city of Bogart.” Bogart extends into Clarke County.
“The compensation is basically that that building that they use for SANE, Bogart provides that to us free of charge,” Haygood said, referring to the office in Bogart used for the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners program.
“So it's a it's a good way for Bogart to do the things the city needs to do, but they can do it with economies of scale by us helping provide that service,” Haygood said. The new IGA is an update of one already in place” that “has been working just fine.”
The Board put the two Intergovernmental Agreements with the Town of Bogart on the consent agenda for final approval on July 7.
Video
I was unable to attend the Commission meeting on June 30.
The video below is on the county’s YouTube Channel, and the still images used above are screen shots from that video.
Consideration of the Animal Control agreement is at 15:33 in the video.
Discussion of the holiday lights proposal is at 23:27 in the video.
Explanation of the IGAs with Bogart are at 25:08 in the video.
Discussion of the Civic Center is at 28:22 in the video.
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