Former state Representative Bob Smith defeated incumbent Watkinsville Mayor Dave Shearon by two votes on Tuesday in an election that brought out 39.6 percent of the active registered voters in the city.
Incumbent Council Member Connie Massey defeated Jonathan Kirkpatrick, with Massey receiving 52.8 percent of the vote.
After failing in its first attempt, Oconee County is going to try again to get a grant from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs for expansion of the Senior Center, located in Oconee Veterans Park.
Commissioners gave tentative approval at their agenda setting meeting last week to an agreement with the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission for assistance in making the grant application and, if the county is successful, in administering the grant.
Oconee County commissioners are likely to consider before the end of the year doubling the treatment capacity of the Calls Creek Wastewater Treatment Facility on the northeast of Watkinsville.
Even with that expansion, the county will not be able to offer residential sewer because of over commitment of residential sewer in the past.
Publix Supermarkets Inc. is seeking a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dredge and fill a tributary of Barber Creek so it can build a shopping center on roughly 45 acres at the intersection of Mars Hill Road and the Oconee Connector.
The shopping center, across from the QuikTrip convenience store and gas station, is to include a Publix Super Market and additional retailers, hotels, restaurants and service providers, according to the permit application.
The Georgia Secretary of State Office will send notices to the addresses of 1,177 inactive voters from Oconee County next week as part of the state-wide effort to clean and update the voter files.
Across the state, according to a news release from the Secretary of State Office issued Wednesday, the notice will go to 313,243 inactive voters.
Tax collections for the Oconee County Education Local Option Sales Tax were down more than 2 percent in August compared with August of last year, marking the fifth time in the last six months that the education sales tax revenue had been lower than a year earlier.
Over the first 20 months of the current tax, called ELOST V, the average monthly change over a year earlier remains positive at 7.8 percent, but the trend line since October of a year ago has been negative.
Oconee County is an excellent opportunity for Democrats, Michael Thurmond told a gathering of party members at the Bogart Library earlier this month, because of the demographics of the county.
The county has one of the highest educational levels in the state and in the southeast, Thurmond said, and the college educated, and particularly college-educated women, are being targeted by Democrats nationally.
