A joint Congressional House-Senate Conference Committee is expected to report out early this week its version of the appropriations bill that funds Agricultural Research Service facilities such as the J. Phil Campbell Sr. Natural Resource Conservation Center outside Watkinsville.
The bill is likely to seal the fate of the Center and determine the procedures for disposing of the property once ARS brings the operation at the Watkinsville research facility to a close.
Only 352 people, representing just 1.5 percent of those eligible, turned out during the 15 days of early voting that ended on Friday for the Oconee County Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax ballot issue.
In March of 2009, the last time Oconee County had a tax issue on the ballot, a slightly higher 1.8 percent of registered voters cast ballots during the 21 days of early voting, and, ultimately 6.6 percent of those eligible decided the issue.
Oconee County schools are behind other schools in the area in terms of technology, and passage of the Nov. 8 Education Special Purchase Local Option Sales Tax would help correct that.
Athletics are important to the development of the child, and the proposed athletic facilities at North Oconee High School that are part of the tax proposal will help meet the needs of students there.
The Oconee County Board of Education needs to borrow money now against future revenue from the proposed tax because state money could be available for the projects if the school system can demonstrate it has money in hand.
These are some of the arguments advanced by David Weeks, chairman of the Oconee County Board of Education, in the final days before voters decide whether to renew the one cent on the dollar sales tax to support education.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to take up the Dolvin property again at its meeting tomorrow night, this time in the form of a possible renewal of its lease of the two buildings on the property that make up the Courthouse Annex in downtown Watkinsville.
That does not mean that the BOC will not decide to purchase the property or to enter into a lease/purchase agreement, as has been suggested in the past.
At this point, however, acquiring the property “does not appear to be a viable option for the Board,” County Attorney Daniel Haygood told me in a brief telephone conversation this afternoon.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to review at its Nov. 1 meeting two requests for a downzone of property that would reduce the inventory of unbuilt residential lots in the county by 89.
The reduction is almost trivial given the estimated 2,300 lots in the county zoned and platted for residential development.
Oconee County Commissioner Jim Luke said on Friday that he has asked Oconee County Attorney Daniel Haygood to explore how to revise the intergovernmental agreement that creates the Hard Labor Creek Reservoir Management Board so that Oconee County can once again have a citizen representative.
“Daniel is researching it for me,” Luke said when I talked with him by telephone on Friday. Luke is chairman of the management board.
Only a relatively small percentage of Oconee County’s 22,765 registered voters is likely to decide whether the current sales tax of one cent on a dollar for educational projects, which expires at the end of 2012, will be extended through the end of 2017.
Early voting began on Monday, and by late afternoon today only 21 had voted, according to Carole Amos in the Oconee County elections office.
