About 40 people showed up last Thursday night at a meeting in Veterans Park to learn about county plans for development of Oconee County’s Mars Hill Road corridor, and none gave evidence of being there because of happiness with how things are going as the two-lane road is widened to four lanes.
Bill Ross, hired by the county as a consultant, told the residents as the meeting got underway that he wanted to hear from them, but he also said the meeting would last only an hour.
Oconee County is scheduled to hold a meeting at 7 p.m. tomorrow night to allow the public to react to preliminary findings regarding a possible overlay district for the Mars Hill Road corridor.
The meeting, to be held at the Community Center in Veterans Park on Hog Mountain Road, is a sequel to a session held on July 23, where about 20 attendees got an introduction to the process for creation of a district.
The Oconee Leader, which ceased publication on May 15, is relaunching, with the first edition to be delivered to driveways and distribution stands around the county on Thursday.
The paper will be owned by the Athens Banner-Herald, according to an Aug. 2 post on Facebook by former Leader owner Rob Peecher.
Even though the Oconee County Calls Creek wastewater plant stopped producing solids at least a year ago, the county continued to pay a company for hauling those solids to a landfill through at least the end of April of this year, according to financial records of the county’s Utility Department.
Solids, also referred to as sludge, are removed from the raw sewage in a wastewater plant as part of the treatment process and then disposed of, generally at a landfill.
Oconee County Administrative Officer Jeff Benko raised concerns about the build up of solids at the county’s Calls Creek wastewater treatment plant at least five days before problems at the plant were exposed by a citizen and nearly four weeks before consultant Bob Sheldon said solids at the plant had reached a critical stage.
Utility Department Director Chris Thomas reassured Benko that “I think everything is ok as far as sludge goes” at the plant.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners tonight is scheduled to continuing its discussion of how to spend the 3 percent set aside in the current Fiscal Year 2016 county budget for salary increases for county employees.
The Board will not be discussing the salaries of its members.
The Georgia Environment Protection Division detected no problems with the quality of water discharged from Oconee County’s two wastewater treatment facilities during the September 2013 to April 2015 period, even though the agency criticized the county for “serious violations” of its permits to operate the plants during that time.
