While the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act makes it easier for Georgia to revisit redistricting in the 2014 session, Oconee County’s two representatives to the Georgia House of Representative say they are unsure the General Assembly will take up the issue.
If it does, however, they think their plan to bring all of Oconee County back into a single district stands a good chance of being approved.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners tonight rezoned 23 acres at the corner of SR 316 and the Oconee Connector, making way for a medical and office complex that will include an assisted living facility to be developed by Thrive Senior Living.
The rezone included two additional parcels at that intersection, one of which is being developed for a dermatological medical center. The other is being developed speculatively for a hotel.
In the past six months, the Oconee County Board of Commissioners has invested nearly two hours of public meetings to a controversy of its own creation about a program involving relatively small amounts of money and relatively few people.
The program has required the county to spend just a little more than a half million dollars, but it has received nearly $3 million in state and federal funds.
Williams and Associates Land Planners is asking the Oconee County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night to modify zoning conditions on three parcels of land in the northeast corner of SR 316 and the Oconee Connector for a medical office building, a hotel, and an office park with an assisted living facility.
The Northeast Georgia Regional Commission found the project to be in the best interest of the region and state, though it did express concerns about encroachment on wetlands on the site, excessive surface parking and less-than-ideal pedestrian access.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners postponed action last night on a slate of candidates for a ranking committee for the county’s farmland protection program even though, at least according to Chairman Melvin Davis, the Commissioners had agreed upon the slate before the meeting took place.
The Commissioners also approved a timetable putting another Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax on the ballot in June or July of next summer, and they agreed to take steps to reduce the size of one of its citizen committees because of difficulty getting enough members to show up to make a quorum.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night is scheduled to remove key responsibility for the county’s farmland protection program from a citizen committee that initiated the program in 1998 and has controlled the program since.
Instead, the Commissioners are set to shift responsibility for selection of farms for the program to a committee they appoint and control.
The Oconee County Parks and Recreation Department has received approval to spend $220,000 in Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenue in Fiscal Year 2014 for five projects, including completion of the paved walking trail in Oconee Veterans Park.
Also included are funds for a net and shade protective cover at the youth fields at Oconee Veterans Park, for a restroom between fields five and six at Bogart Sports Complex, for recoating of tennis courts at Oconee Veterans Park, and for emergency public address systems and equipment at all of the county’s parks.
