Oconee County has issued interior building permits for all three of the buildings currently under construction in the core of Epps Bridge Centre.
Shell only permits had been issued for the three buildings earlier this year, and construction on the structures–side-by-side and northwest of Marshalls–is in full swing.
A month-long investigation of effluent from the county’s Calls Creek sewage plant outside Watkinsville became public last night when Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis reported that the county had received the resignation of two of the plant’s employees.
The county also released a six-page report by a consultant hired to review the operation of both of the country’s sewage treatment facilities.
Oconee County Finance Director Wes Geddings presented a $39.7 million budget to the public tonight that includes no increase in the county’s millage rate but does include a water rate increase of 1.5 percent and a sewer rate increase of 3 percent.
The budget is 8.7 percent greater than the current budget, and the extra revenue will come in part from an expected 6 to 10 percent increase in property values. Sales tax revenues also are projected to increase.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners released information Friday on the three applicants for the two openings on the county’s Farmland Preservation Ranking Committee and revealed that it had no applicants for the single opening on the Keep Oconee Beautiful Commission.
In preparation for its meeting tomorrow night, the Board identified James “J.R.” Charles as the finalist for appointment as the county’s economic development director.
While no vendors have located in the property adjacent to the Caterpillar Plant on Atlanta Highway on the east side of Bogart, despite the expectation that they would do so, Mike Power told the Planning Commission on Monday night that a four-bay truck repair is coming to his business park because of Caterpillar.
Power’s development, called Mars Hill Business Park, is located on Mars Hill Road across from Malcom Bridge Road.
When the Oconee County Board of Commissioners releases the county’s budget on May 26, it also will release two millage or property tax rates–one for property in the county’s four cities and another for property in the unincorporated parts of the county.
Those rates are likely to be different–-as they have been for at least the last six years--with property owners in Bishop, Bogart, North High Shoals and Watkinsville paying the county more in taxes for a comparable piece of property than do owners of property elsewhere in the county.
Oconee County lost another local news and information site on Friday with the closing of The Oconee Leader, the county’s largely free circulation weekly newspaper.
Publisher Rob Peecher announced the decision to close the newspaper in a front-page “note of thanks to our readers and advertisers” in Friday’s paper.
