Oconee County’s two commissioners and two Board of Education members whose terms expire at the end of this year have qualified for re-election.
All four are Republicans, and no one has come forward in the first two days of qualifying to compete against any of the four in the May 22 primaries.
Residents living along the Apalachee River turned out in force on Sunday, producing a petition after nearly two hours of discussion with 73 names on it directed toward the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Petitioners are asking the Corps to hold a public hearing on a previously undisclosed decision by the Hard Labor Creek Regional Reservoir Management Board to move its planned intake site on the Apalachee River from High Shoals to several miles south in Morgan County.
The Oconee County Democratic Committee is sponsoring a local March For Our Lives Rally from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on March 24 at Oconee Veterans Park.
The local event is part of a national day of demonstrations following the Feb. 14 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
The Oconee County Development Review Committee approved the preliminary site plans for two additional buildings on the now-cleared land between Jennings Mill Road and the Oconee Connector at SR Loop 10.
Those plans calls for a 21,020 square-foot-building to house University Surgical Vascular and a 9,972 square-foot-building for an office of The Commercial Bank.
Rick Jeffares, running for Georgia lieutenant governor, told Oconee County Republicans that he doesn’t expect the Republicans to loose any state offices in November and that the party is likely to control state politics for at least eight to 12 more years.
Jeffares, from Henry County, said he expects fewer people to vote in the May 22 Republican primary than voted in the primary four years ago.
Russ Page, a tireless advocate for farmland and historic site preservation, last (Tuesday) night delivered on his promise in January to present the Oconee County Board of Commissioners a proposal for a county History Museum and preservation of historical sites on the Oconee River.
Page, representing a group of land owners, historians and archaeologists, and the Athens Land Trust, asked that the Board set aside $300,000 in Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenue for the purchase of land for the museum.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners, in a called meeting on Friday, approved a $2.1 million contract for construction of a new fire station on Virgil Langford Road just south of SR 316.
The Board also approved a lease-purchase agreement with the Association County Commissioners of Georgia that will provide the county with $2.4 million in credit for construction of a replacement for the Barber Creek Fire Station #8 on the Oconee Connector.
