Oconee County’s Republican Party is giving Oconee County citizens a chance on Monday night to hear from their two representatives in the Georgia House, Marcus Wiedower and Houston Gaines, regarding the just completed redistricting in the state.
Gov. Brian Kemp is the featured speaker at the meeting, scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m. at Hadden Estates at DGD Farms, 1112 Cliff Dawson Road, but the two representatives are scheduled to give what is being called a “redistricting update” as well.
Oconee County Commission Chair John Daniell didn’t make any mention in his opening comments at the Town Hall Meeting on Tuesday of voter rejection on Nov. 2 of the proposed Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.
He bragged in those first comments about recognition the Water Resources Department and the Parks and Recreation Department have received and discussed the contract the county has signed with Charter Communication to expand broadband in the county.
Daniell also updated the audience on a number of road projects, including at U.S. 441 and LaVista Road, at three intersections on Hog Mountain Road west of Butler’s Crossing, and along Experiment Station from Butler’s Crossing to the U.S. 441 bypass.
With a population of 41,799, Oconee County is too small to have its own House District.
Clarke County, however, has enough residents to have two districts of its own, with 9,649 residents left over.
With the addition of those 9,649 residents from Clarke, plus another 8,063 from another county, such as from the area around Statham in Barrow County, Oconee County could be whole and dominant in a House District, as it was prior to redistricting in 2011.
If Oconee and Clarke joined in a Senate District, they would need fewer than 21,000 residents from another county, such as Madison or Barrow or Walton, to form a Senate District.
The outcome of the latest round of redistricting is quite different from the outcome just described.
The 10-county Northeast Health District added 415 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Friday, up from the 290 cases added a week earlier, and 10 new confirmed deaths from the disease, down from 11 added last week.
Two of the confirmed deaths in the last week were in Clarke County.
The average number of added cases in the District was 59.3 per day on Friday, up from 41.1 added cases per day for the week ending Nov. 12.
The Oconee County Planning Commission on Monday night recommended approval a medical center as a replacement for a proposed hotel in one rezone request and the near doubling of the size of a Continuum of Care Retirement Community in another.
Both rezone requests were in the fast-developing medical area along Virgil Langford Road between SR 316 and SR 10 Loop.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners has decided to use $1.7 million in federal relief funds the county has in hand to pay Charter Communications to build out broadband in underserved areas mostly in the central and southern parts of the county.
The county’s grant isn’t likely to be all that Charter will need to invest to reach the 1,377 addresses tentatively identified as lacking adequate broadband service, but it is the amount that Charter requested in negotiations for the grant from the county.
The 10-county Northeast Health District added 290 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Friday, down sharply from the 561 cases added a week earlier, and 11 new confirmed deaths from the disease, down from 18 added last week.
Three of the confirmed deaths in the last week were in Clarke County.
The average number of added cases in the District was 41.1 per day, about half of the average of 80.1 for the week ending Nov. 5.
The average number of cases was down from the 65.5 average on Oct. 29.
