Oconee County farmland activist Russ Page and Laura Hall from the Athens Land Trust have called a meeting for Thursday to push for inclusion of funding for farmland protection in the county’s 2015 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.
The meeting comes before two oportunities—on Jan. 13 and Feb. 10—for citizens to indicate what projects they want to have included in the language for the next SPLOST referendum, scheduled to be held May 20 of this year.
The Oconee County Code Enforcement Office issued a building permit on Dec. 20 for Gigi’s Cupcakes in Epps Bridge Centre.
The store will be located in the same building as Taqueria Tsunami Restaurant, opposite the University 16 Cinema. Carter’s and Lane Bryant also are in that building.
Oconee County voters seem to have softened their opposition to alcohol sales, according to a scientific survey of registered voters conducted in the county in the last two weeks of October.
Only about one in four want to keep the current restriction on Sunday sales of beer and wine in the county.
Oconee County has at least $2.6 million in unspent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenues from the 2004 tax initiative as the Board of Commissioners begins preparing voters to approve a new sales tax in May of 2014.
The current tax, SPLOST 2009, runs through October of 2015, and, as of June 30 of this year, the county had spent less than half of the projected revenue from that tax. Revenue is running behind projections, however, and the county has tried to hold spending to about 80 percent of projections.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners last night accepted a ranking of six farms under consideration for the county’s farmland protection program that put the 75-acre farm of Carole Ludwig, 1510 Old Farmington Road in the south of the county, at the top of the list.
In accepting the recommendation of its review committee, the Commissioners gave themselves considerable leeway to select another of the farms on the list.
Oconee County voters are being asked to take the word of Superior Court Chief Judge David Sweat and his associates that there is a security problem at the Oconee County Courthouse that can be resolved only by construction of a new facility.
A publicly announced meeting of the Board of Commissioners and Judge Sweat on Wednesday morning was closed to citizens on the grounds the public cannot be privy to the discussion of security issues.
The Oconee County Code Enforcement on Monday of last week issued an interior build-out permit for Taqueria Tsunami Restaurant in Epps Bridge Centre.
The Latin and Asian fusion restaurant is to be located in the same building as children’s clothing store Carter’s and Lane Bryant, opposite the University 16 Cinema.
