Oconee County voters cut a nearly blank check for $850,000 to the Oconee County Industrial Development Authority when they approved the 2015 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax last November.
The language on the resolution for the 2015 SPLOST merely said the money should be used for “Economic Development Facilities,” and the voters, probably without giving it much thought, accepted the deal.
The Oconee County Citizen Advisory Committee on Recreational Affairs reversed course on Tuesday evening and voted to recommend to the Board of Commissioners that it move forward with a greenway project along the Oconee River at Barnett Shoals.
The Recreational Affairs Committee said the BOC should begin negotiations with two key landowners over easements and use Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenue for securing public access to the property.
Oconee County Special Master James Warnes has rejected the complaint filed by Sarah Bell against Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis, saying that Bell had not provided evidence of a violation of the Ethics Ordinance establishing standards for county commissioners
“This report should terminate this matter,” Warnes wrote in a letter he sent to Michael Pruett, standing in for County Attorney Daniel Haygood, who has been out of town.
The Oconee County Citizen Advisory Committee on Recreational Affairs is holding a called meeting at 5 p.m. tomorrow in the Community Center at Veterans Park to reconsider a proposed greenway along the Oconee River near the Barnett Shoals Dam.
In July, the Advisory Committee turned down a recommendation of a joint subcommittee that the county use Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenue to purchase easements on two key properties along both sides of the river that would be the centerpieces of the greenway.
Construction crews last week began assembling equipment and materials in preparation for pouring the foundation for another two-story office building that will be part of the University Parkway Office and Technology Park at 2500 Daniells Bridge Road.
The building will join two others under construction in the quickly-developing area around the Oconee Connector, SR 316 and Virgil Langford Road.
One of those, a storage facility complex of two three-story buildings, is visible across SR 316 from near the site of the office building to be constructed on Daniells Bridge Road.
Sarah Bell on Monday morning refiled her complaint against Oconee County Commission Chairman Melvin Davis charging violations of the county’s ethics ordinance.
Bell contends Davis violated several provisions of the code when the county spent, at Davis' initiative, nearly $10,000 for design work for the reconnection of Old Mars Hill Road with Mars Hill Road itself.
Oconee County is holding three meetings on Tuesday dealing with a permit for the county’s inert landfill, the Mars Hill Road Overlay District, and a rezone request for a business park at the corner of the U.S. 441 bypass and New High Shoals Road.
Two of the meetings actually overlap.
