Oconee County Board of Education Chairman Weeks Said New Board Member Can be a Critic

Idea Didn’t Float

The Oconee County Board of Education is willing to consider someone who is critical of the Board and critical of School Superintendent John Jackson when it evaluates candidates who apply for appointment as the Post 5 member, according to Board Chairman David Weeks.

The Board did not change its procedures for filling the vacant seat and reject Carter Strickland, the sole person who asked for the job under the original rules set up by the Board, because Strickland publicly criticized the Board and Jackson, Weeks said.

Weeks now says that the procedures he proposed to the Board for filling the Post 5 vacancy on May 19 should be seen as a kind of trial balloon.

Weeks said the public spoke out asking that the application process be opened to the public, and that is why the Board decided to abandon the procedures approved by the Board on May 19 and pass over Strickland at its June 14 meeting.

The fact that Strickland is a Democrat and all the Board members, including Weeks, were elected as Republicans had nothing to do with that decision, Weeks said.

I had asked Weeks to sit down and explain to me what the Board is looking for now that it has opened up the competition to anyone interested. At the June 14 meeting Weeks had listed five “qualities” that the Board will be looking for when it evaluates candidates.

We talked for about 45-minute on Thursday afternoon at Barberitos in Five Points in Athens. That is one of six local restaurants Weeks owns, including another Barberitos and a Mirko restaurant in Watkinsville and a Barberitos on Epps Bridge parkway.

I started by asking Weeks to explain each of the five qualities he listed at the June 14 meeting and which are on the Board of Education web site.

Weeks said many people misunderstand that the five Posts on the Oconee County Board of Education are not districts. The Board is looking for someone who is concerned about the entire system, not a particular school or part of the county, Weeks said.

The Board also wants someone who has a “team philosophy,” though Weeks said that did not mean that the person has to have the same opinions on issues as other Board members.

The ideal candidate will understand that she or he will have to make decisions that will not always be supported by everyone and has to be willing to “take heat” for those decisions, according to Weeks.

People also misunderstand that the Board of Education does not make decisions about appointments of principals or teachers or operation of the system, Weeks said. The Board works through the superintendent, Weeks said, and it is important that any new board member understand that.

Applicants must also be able to stay in communication with other board members, since the Board needs to be able to assemble and make decisions quickly, according to Weeks.

Post 5 BOE member Tom Breedlove resigned on May 10, and at the specially called meeting on May 19, Weeks, Post 2 incumbent Mack Guest, Post 3 member Kim Argo, and Post 4 member Mike Hunter agreed to invite the four candidates who had filed to run in the July 20 primary for the two open positions on the Board to apply for the Post 5 position instead.

That meant that Guest and Argo, along with Weeks and Hunter, were inviting Guest and Argo, along with Carter Strickland and Guest challenger Republican Mark Thomas, to apply for the Post 5 opening.

Ultimately, only Strickland, who filed as a Democrat to run against the winner of the Guest-Thomas contest, said he was interested in dropping out of the race and assuming the Post 5 opening.

At candidate forums held June 3 and June 9, Strickland criticized the Board and Superintendent Jackson.

At the June 3 forum, in response to a question posed to the candidates about Superintendent Jackson, Strickland said “if we can get rid of him without having to pay him, let’s get rid of him.”

At the June 9 meeting, again in responding to a question, Strickland accused the Board of “ineffective leadership,” though he said that criticism did not apply to all the Board members. He didn’t elaborate.

I asked Weeks how open the Board is to appointing someone who is critical of it, who is critical of Jackson, and who is a Democrat. I also asked him if Strickland’s comments or party had led the Board to reject him.

Weeks said the Board is willing to accept a critic and that Strickland was passed over because the public told the Board to open up the process, not because of what he said or his party affiliation.



At the time of our meeting, Weeks said, only three persons had applied for the Post 5 position. Weeks said he is hoping for about 10 times that number by the time the application window closes on July 15.

Screening will begin in August, with a Post 5 member being selected in late September or early October, according to the posted schedule.

Weeks told me Stuart McGarity, Gregory Zengo and Glenn Townsend had applied for the position. The Board of Education office was closed on Friday, so I could not confirm the list there.

I did talk with Glenn Townsend, 1030 Twin Oaks trail, and with Gregory Zengo, 1021 Oaklake trail, by telephone today, and each confirmed that he had applied. I was not able to reach McGarity.

During the interview, Weeks said he didn’t think the Post 5 position could have been filled through an election by the citizens even if Breedlove had resigned prior to the April 30 qualifying deadline for the July 20 primary.

Terrell Bentson, attorney for the Board, confirmed that in an email message sent to Weeks after our interview. Weeks forwarded the message to me.

According to Bentson, the Georgia Constitution, which defines the composition of the Oconee County Board of Education, stipulates that “Any vacancy occurring in the membership of the Board of Education of Oconee County, for any cause whatsoever, shall be filled by the majority vote of the remaining members of the Board of Education.”

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The video of my interview with Weeks is on the Oconee County Observations channel of Vimeo. I edited out the front and back of the conversation, which had more to do with my difficulty in getting the camera set up correctly than with the Board of Education.

Oconee County Board of Education Chairman Explains Board Strategy On Sales Tax Vote

Responds to Criticism

Oconee County schools are behind other schools in the area in terms of technology, and passage of the Nov. 8 Education Special Purchase Local Option Sales Tax would help correct that.

Athletics are important to the development of the child, and the proposed athletic facilities at North Oconee High School that are part of the tax proposal will help meet the needs of students there.

The Oconee County Board of Education needs to borrow money now against future revenue from the proposed tax because state money could be available for the projects if the school system can demonstrate it has money in hand.

These are some of the arguments advanced by David Weeks, chairman of the Oconee County Board of Education, in the final days before voters decide whether to renew the one cent on the dollar sales tax to support education.

Oconee County Board of Education Changes Course on Plans to Fill Vacancy

Thanks, but No Thanks

The Oconee County Board of Education, having invited Carter Strickland to apply for a vacancy on the board less than a month ago, passed him over tonight and decided instead to open up the process to other applicants.

Board Chairman David Weeks tonight proposed the change in procedures for filling the Post 5 position vacated when Tom Breedlove resigned on May 10, saying that he had gotten a lot of feedback indicating that the board was interfering with the election.

Strickland is running as a Democrat for Post 2 on the BOE and is unopposed in the July 20 primary.

At the called meeting on May 19, Weeks proposed that the four qualified candidates for Post 2 and Post 3 be invited to apply rather than open up the position to everyone in the community.

The other three board members accepted the proposal. That included Mack Guest, incumbent Post 2 commissioner and a Republican candidate for that position in the July 20 primary, and Kim Argo, incumbent Post 3 commissioner and a candidate for that position in the July 20 Republican primary.

Argo and Guest subsequently declined to apply for the Post 5 vacancy, as did Mark Thomas, who has qualified to run against Guest in the Republican primary.

Strickland alone said he would be willing to drop out of the race and accept the vacant slot.

Argo has no one running against her in the primary and, unless someone qualifies to run as an independent, will have no opposition in November.

Guest now has to get through the Republican primary and, if successful, in November get past Strickland and any independent who might qualify.

Strickland has been critical of the board, indicating dissatisfaction with it motivated him to launch his candidacy.

At the candidate forum organized by Russ Page and me last week, Strickland accused the board of “ineffective leadership” but said that characterization applied only to “some members of the board.”

Weeks said that the procedures the board put into place last month were chosen because of “extenuating circumstances” resulting from the fact the election was underway.

He said, however, that he had heard from people in the community who said the selection procedure actually “was hindering the election process.”

Weeks tonight thanked Struckland for applying, “But at this point, I think--I feel-- that we need to let the election process play out.”

In other action, the Board approved a $53.5 million budget without discussion. The budget had not been released to the public at the time of the meeting, which began at 5 p.m. at the school central offices in Watkinsville.

The board also agreed that the four members present would not accept the $1,800 each is entitled to as compensation for serving on the board this fiscal year.

The new board member or members will have to decide on compensation separately.

The board will accept applications for the Post 5 position from June 15 to July 15, interview applicants in early August, interview finalists in early September and make a decision in late September or early October, according to Weeks’ proposal, which was accepted unanimously.

Weeks said the board wants candidates to be concerned about the entire system, not just parts, to be team players, to be unafraid of controversy, to understand that the superintendent actually runs the schools, not the board, and to be willing to stay in communication with the other board members.

Guest, who was not able to attend the candidate forum last week, today sent me a copy of a statement he said he had asked board member Mike Hunter to read at the forum.

When I asked citizens present at the end of the half-hour session for BOE candidates if they wanted to ask another question or hear Hunter’s summary of the statement, no one asked to hear the statement.

In the statement Guest sent to me today, he said he was in Colorado at a business meeting with one of his largest clients at the time of the forum. Guest is the founder of LAD Logistics, which has warehouses, a logistics center and offices in Watkinsville.

He said that “Despite what some would have you believe, we are clearly on the right track.” He cited upgrades to technology, infrastructure, classrooms and athletic facilities in the system as examples.

17 Want to be Post 5 Member of the Oconee County Board of Education

Initial Review Monday

Seventeen individuals came forward before the 5 p.m. deadline today to ask the Oconee County Board of Education to consider them for appointment to the vacant Post 5 slot.

Included are attorneys, retired and current educators, a developer, financial advisers and business owners.

The four members of the Board are scheduled to meet in a work session on Monday to begin reviewing the applications.

Full screening will begin in August, with a Post 5 member being selected in late September or early October, according to the posted schedule.

Tom Breedlove resigned from the board on May 10. At a specially called meeting on May 19, Chairman David Weeks, Post 2 incumbent Mack Guest, Post 3 member Kim Argo and Post 4 member Mike Hunter agreed to invite the four candidates who had filed to run in the July 20 primary for the two open positions on the board to apply for the Post 5 position instead.

That meant that Guest and Argo, along with Weeks and Hunter, were inviting Guest and Argo, along with Carter Strickland and Guest challenger Republican Mark Thomas, to apply for the Post 5 opening.

Only Strickland, who filed as a Democrat to run against the winner of the Guest-Thomas contest, said he was interested in dropping out of the race and assuming the Post 5 opening.

At its June 14 meeting, the board decided to abandon this process, pass over Strickland and accept applications by today’s deadline.

Argo is running unopposed for reelection to her Post 3 position in the July 20 primary and is unopposed in November.

The 17 applicants for the Post 5 opening were asked to complete a two-page form that asked for address, contact information, occupation, length of residency in the county and reason for wanting to be appointed to the board.

Deborah Epps, administrative assistant to Superintendent John Jackson, told me yesterday that the completed forms will be scanned and available for the Monday board meeting, which starts at 5 p.m. in the Superintendent's Building at 34 School street in Watkinsville.

The final applicant, Wayne Bagley, turned in his paperwork about 20 minutes before the deadline, and Jackson gave me a list that contained name, address, contact information, and occupation of each of the applicants at the 5 p.m. closing of his office.

The list given me by Jackson is on my Box.net site.

Among the applicants are Franklin Shumake, former deputy school superintendent for the Georgia Department of Education and former Oconee County school superintendent, Rich Clark, who ran unsuccessfully against Breedlove for the BOE slot in 2008, and Gregory Zengo, a Watkinsville physician.

The first three applicants were Stuart McGarity, Glenn Townsend and Zengo. Board Chairman Weeks gave me their names during an interview I did with him on July 1.

On Tuesday the Athens Banner-Herald ran a story by reporter Erin France that indicated that six applications had been submitted. France did not identify the applicants and told me yesterday she did not ask for their names because she planned to wait until tomorrow to obtain the full list.

Dan Matthews said on his blog Tuesday that he did try to obtain the list that day, was denied access and filed an open records request for the information.

Epps sent me and others a list of eight candidates as of 2 p.m. Tuesday, and Jessica Rumely of The Oconee Enterprise put the names on the paper’s web site an hour later.

Epps told me yesterday afternoon that the list had grown to 10 applicants.

Weeks told me in the interview I did with him on July 1 that he was hoping for as many as 30 applicants for the job. He also listed in that interview the characteristics the board will be seeking.

Jackson told me today that he expects the 17 applicants will be asked to make their first personal presentations to the board at its Aug. 2 session.

On Tuesday, voters will select the winner of the Guest-Thomas contest, who will meet Strickland in November to fill the Post 2 position on the board.

By 4:15 p.m. today, 1,184 voters had cast their ballots as part of early voting for the Tuesday primary.

On July 1, according to Oconee County Elections Director Pat Hayes, the county had 20,244 active voters.

On July 1, 2006, the county had 17,030 active voters, and 4,147, or 24.4 percent, cast a ballot in the July primary.

If that same ratio holds in this election, about 5,000 voters will participate in the primary this year.

Early voting, being held at the Board of Elections office near the courthouse in Watkinsville and at the Civic Center on Hog Mountain road, ends at 5 p.m. tomorrow.

Marcus Wiedower Said He Would Help Oconee County Board Of Commissioners Become More Proactive In Dealing With Challenges

Wide Ranging Interview

Marcus Wiedower said he will bring his listening skills and his planning skills to the Oconee County Board of Commissioners if voters select him for Post II in the special election on Nov 8.

“All I do all day long is plan,” said Wiedower, a custom home builder, in an hour-long interview. He said he will bring to the Commission “an educated, experienced voice” that “has a planning background.”

Oconee County School Board Expects To Name A Superintendent Finalist By End Of August, Have Superintendent by September/October

***Board Held Two Days Of Interviews In Second Round***

Oconee County Board of Education Chair Michael Ransom said on Friday morning that he anticipates the Board will be able to name a finalist in its search for new school superintendent by the end of the month, and possibly as early as the week of Aug. 18.

Citizens will have 14 days after that announcement to comment on the selection, Ransom said.

Meeting Called To Develop New Request Of Oconee School Board For Adding Religious Instruction Into School Day

***Mars Hill Baptist Church Is Venue***

Julie Mauck has called a meeting of interested local citizens for 6 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday) at Mars Hill Baptist Church to develop a new plan for incorporating Christian instruction into the curriculum of Oconee County Schools.

Working with LifeWise Academy, Mauck plans to ask the Board to allow K-5 students at Oconee County Schools to leave their campuses during regular school hours for Bible-based instruction.

Oconee County School Board Completes Interviews With Seven Applicants For Superintendent In First Round Of Screening

***Board To Move To Next Phase In August***

The Oconee County Board of Education on Wednesday completed the first phase of its screening of the 19 applications it received for superintendent of Oconee County Schools.

Board Chair Michael Ransom said in an email on Wednesday evening that the Board had interviewed seven applicants in the three sessions it has held and that the Board “in the weeks ahead” will review notes from the interviews.

Daniells Bridge Road Upgrades Put on Hold by Oconee County

Forget the Flags

Travelers along Daniells Bridge Road can expect to see roadway construction in the next month or two at the intersection with the Oconee Connector, but the county has no firm schedule for doing any additional work on the roadway east of that intersection, according to the head of Public Works for the county.

In December, the county had said it planned to finish by the end of June widening of Daniells Bridge Road to three lanes back to just east of the blind curve.

"Assuming the BOC agrees with our final numbers and approach, I’d like this to be completed before the end of this fiscal year (end of June)," Public Works Director Emil Beshara wrote me on Dec. 3, when I asked him to confirm what he had said at the Board of Commissioners meeting the night before. "Weather could cause delays as could availability of contractors."

Beshara told me in an interviews in his office on July 10 that the county is waiting on further development along Daniells Bridge Roadway before it begins the upgrade it presented to citizens back at the end of last year.

Specifically, Beshara said, the county is waiting to see what happens to the 9.1-acre site just east of the blind curve on Daniells Bridge Road. That piece of property, owned by Dolores N. Lance and Dorothy N. Anglin, was rezoned from agricultural and residential use to Office Business Park on Dec. 2, 2008.

The county said at the time of the rezone of that property that it would upgrade Daniells Bridge Road by making it three lanes wide with a center turn lane to the eastern end of the site.

The county committed $400,000 in Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax money to the project. That money had previously been dedicated only for improvements to the Daniells Bridge Road and Oconee Connector intersection.

Beshara said in my interview with him on July 10 that the county does not have enough money to do the full upgrade it presented to the public at the Dec. 2 BOC meeting. Some of that money, he said, must come from the developers of the Lance and Anglin site, who agreed, as is usual in such cases, to make roadway improvements as part of their request for the rezone.

"There is no way we could do this project start to finish with only $400,000," Beshara told me in the interview.

As of this writing, the 9.1 acres remain in the hands of Lance and Anglin, according to the county tax records. Because of the rezone, however, its value has increased from $349,267 to $637,000 for 2009.

When the property was rezoned, Stephen D. Jenkins and Edward Nichols of Athens proposed to build a two-story office building on the site to be known as Perimeter Center. According to documents filed with the rezone request, infrastructure construction plans were expected to be approved by June of 2009, and total build-out was to be completed by January of 2011.

Nothing has been done since the rezone, and the Lance and Anglin property remains the only property east of the blind curve on Daniells Bridge Road that is not agricultural or residential, shown in green, blue or white on the county zoning map.

Lance and Anglin first asked for the rezone in May of 2007, and residents in the subdivisions around the site protested that the development was unsafe because it is located just east of the blind curve on Daniells Bridge Road as the road nearly touches the entrance to SR Loop 10 off SR 316 East.

The BOC turned down that rezone.

Lance and Anglin filed suit against the county, and the matter came back before the board in the fall of 2008 as part of that settlement. More than 400 individuals signed another petition against the rezone, but this time the board approved the rezone after asking Beshara to present it with redesign plans for the roadway.

Just after the rezone, small flags appeared in the right of way on both sides of Daniells Bridge Road, making it seem that some action on the roadway improvements was imminent.

"What you saw out there on the ground starting back in December was the utility location process," Beshara said on July 10. "All those flags out there identified the exact locations of the various underground utilities, including fiber optic, gas, power, telephone, what have you. All those had to be surveyed."

The purpose was to determine which of these, if any, would have to be moved, Beshara said. In the end, it turned out that just a couple "would be under asphalt" and will have to be relocated, he said.

He said when I talked to him that he had not yet seen final plans, being prepared by ABE Consulting. Abe Abouhamdan, the president of ABE Consulting and winner of the bid for design of the widening of the road, also is chairman of the county’s Land use and Transportation Committee.

ABE Consulting is "about 95 percent completed with the design," Beshara told me in the interview.

Beshara said the county road crews might do some paving at those places on Daniells Bridge Road that are now only two lanes wide "if they have a week where they are caught up with their maintenance activities."

In the meantime, he said, citizens will see work being done at the Oconee Connector and Daniells Bridge Road intersection, where QuikTrip plans to build a gas station and convenience store.

Beshara said he expects QuikTrip to start filling the site and adding turn lanes along both roadways within the next six to eight weeks.

The county will then do some similar work to add lanes on the opposite side of the Connector, he said.

QuikTrip will have two entrances, one on the Oconee Connector and the other on Daniells Bridge Road. At some point in the future, a median will be added to the connector, Beshara said at the hearing on the QuikTrip plans on June 2.

At that point, traffic entering the station heading south on the Connector will have to enter the station via the Daniells Bridge Road entrance.

Beshara at that June 2 meeting expressed concern over safety of the Oconee Connector entrance because traffic will be entering the station after crossing two lanes of traffic on the Connector heading north to SR 316.

The long-range plan is for Daniells Bridge Road to be five lanes wide, with two lanes in each direction and a center turn lane. Daniells Bridge Road will serve as the southern part of a loop road circling the busy SR 316 connection with SR Loop 10.

Construction of the northern part of that loop will begin soon, but the southern part will require a second flyover of Loop 10, and Beshara said that probably won’t happen until between 2020 to 2025.

The plans to make Daniells Bridge Road three lanes wide will serve as a stopgap.

Reconstruction of Daniells Bridge Road as part of the QuikTrip roadway will only result in four lanes–two on the north, a center lane, and one on the south, according to Beshara.

It will not be possible to make Daniells Bridge Road any wider than three lanes through the blind curve without taking additional right of way from property along the roadway, Beshara said at the Dec. 2 BOC meeting and again in my conversation with him earlier this month.

An option, which Beshara acknowledged both before the BOC and to me again, was to create a new roadway behind the existing houses on Daniells Bridge Road. This would have the effect of eliminating the curve in the roadway.

The county has never made public a full map of this "circle" route, and I asked Beshara if he had any to make available.

He said he had a drawing of the full loop that he created for the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) in April of this year. He gave me an electronic copy of that map.

The blind curve on Daniells Bridge Road is the result of the construction of SR 316 and SR Loop 10.

Beshara showed me a copy of a GDOT map of the County from 1972. A blowup of the map shows Daniells Bridge Road intersecting with Epps Bridge Road and then circling back around to meet Mars Hill Road near the current intersection.

I began the interview on July 10 by telling Beshara "I was trying to get a picture of what the status of the Daniells Bridge Road upgrade is."

In answering, he referred first to the drawings that had been done by ABE Consulting and then started talking about the work at the QuikTrip site.

About 20 minutes into the 45-minute conversation, I asked again about plans for the work discussed when the Lance and Anglin site was rezoned. I’ve edited the next seven minutes of the interview, and it is available for listening and download on my Box.net site.

Oconee County Chair Will Not Mount Legal Challenge to Ordinance

Wants to Table Ordinance Instead

Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis does not intend to mount a legal challenge to the ordinance being considered by the full board that would reduce his power and increase the power of the other members of the board, though he said he has considered it and sought legal advice about the possibility.

He said he has not thought about resigning should the ordinance be passed, but "there’s always options."

Davis said passage of the ordinance "would be a factor that would cause me to make a decision on whether I would or would not seek reelection" when his terms expires in three years.

Davis said he "will probably end up asking the board" to table the ordinance before it and instead launch a larger study of what kinds of changes should be made in the governmental structure of the county.

The chairman, now in his third four-year term, said the county has changed a lot in recent years, but the structure of government has remained the same.

He said one thing that should be considered is creation of districts for the members of the commission. At present, the chairman and the four commission members run at large.

Davis made these comments in a 15-minute interview with me this morning in his office at the courthouse. I had asked for the interview in an email message I sent him on Friday night because I realized he had not been asked these questions by journalists.

I was interested in his answer and thought others might be as well.

Davis said he had been asked before in recent weeks by at least one citizen if he intended to challenge through the courts the ordinance.

"No, I would not do that because of primarily the cost involved," he said in response to my question. "I don’t think that is fair to the Oconee County citizens."

Davis said he has sought legal advice from someone other than County Attorney Daniel Haygood, who drafted the ordinance before the commission after a series of meetings going back to last September. Davis said he is still waiting on the response from one person he has consulted but wanted to keep "private" the identity of his adviser or advisers.

Davis said he has not had conversations with any others who may be interested in challenging the ordinance.

"I think the public needs an opportunity to determine what form of government we have," Davis said. "That’s the public’s decision."

Davis said the public should decide what kinds of executive officer it wants as well as how the commissioners are elected.

"They now run county wide," he said. "Should they still run countywide, or represent a certain district...These are all options that I think the public needs to take a look at."

Neither Davis nor any of the other commissioners sought public comment as the current ordinance was drafted. At the meetings held for the purpose, the public was told specifically it would not be given a chance to speak.

Nine citizens did speak at the first reading of the proposed ordinance on July 7. Public comment is scheduled to be allowed again at the board’s agenda-setting meeting on July 28. Final action on the ordinance is scheduled for the regular meeting of the BOC on Aug. 4.

The proposed ordinance, available with related documents on the county web site, has eight sections.

Section 1 names the ordinance as the "Oconee County Organization Policy."

Section 2 adopts an organizational chart for the county that is radically different from the one currently in place.

The ordinance specifies that the county attorney, the county clerk, the administrative officer and the finance director all report to the full commission, which includes the chairman, and that all department heads report to the administrative officer.

At present, the administrative officer and the finance director report only to the chairman of the board. Department heads also report to Davis.

Sections 3 and Section 4 define the responsibilities of the administrative officer and the finance director respectively.

Section 5 spells out duties of the chairperson of the Board of Commissioners and states that "It shall be the policy of the Board that the Chairperson shall have particular leadership and emphasis" in six listed areas.

The specified areas are coordination of intergovernmental activities, economic development, public relations, development of policies related to future needs of the county, evaluation of county services, and review of reports of the administrative officer and finance director and of staff activities.

If these are the only activities of the chairman of the board, the chairmanship would be a very different position than at present, since all activities of the county currently flow through the office of Chairman Davis.

Section 6 specifies a budget process that involves the commissioners explicitly in the deliberations and creation of the budget. In the past, the budget has been submitted to the commission by the chairman.

Section 7 states that department heads can be hired only with the approval of the board, upon the recommendation of the chairman, the administrative officer and the human resources director. At present the chairman hires and fires department heads.

Section 8 deals with meetings of the board and states explicitly that commissioners "have the right to have a matter placed on the agenda." At present, Davis controls the agenda.

Davis today said, in effect, he was accepting that the board has the right to make these changes.

The type of county government is not spelled out in the Georgia Constitution, but rather in what is called local enabling legislation. Each county asks the legislature to pass laws setting up the type of county government it wants.

Since each county has its own enabling legislation, a court would have to interpret the ordinance under consideration by the Board of Commissioners against the specific legislation for Oconee County.

The county commission system that Oconee County has was established in 1917. According to that legislation, the chairman "shall be the chief manager of the affairs of said county that are within the jurisdiction of said board of commissioners acting as its executive officer."

The legislation put the chairman in charge of making contracts and purchasing for the board and said the chairman "shall discharge all the duties of the board of commissioners during interim between the dates of the board's meetings."

The full commission, according to the 1917 enabling legislation, has responsibility "over all matters concerning county property, county taxes..., in establishing and changing ... election precincts, in examining and auditing and setting accounts of all offices having the care, management, correction, keeping and distribution of moneys belonging to the county or appropriated to its use and benefit, ... in establishing, altering and abolishing roads, bridges and ferries..."

The enabling legislation for Oconee County has been changed many times over the years, mostly to adjust the salaries of the chairman and the commissioners.

In 1919, the number of members of the board was increased from three to five. In 1975, the legislation created the current four "posts" plus the chairmanship, with candidates having to indicate which post they were seeking at the election. All posts cover the whole county.

In 1988, the duties of the chairman were greatly restricted.

They were: (1) serving as presiding officer at meeting of the Board, (2) stating questions coming before the board and announcing decisions, (3) voting in the case of a tie, (4) signing ordinances, (5) executing statements of indebtedness, (6) acting as ceremonial head of the county, (7) and exercising "other administrative duties that my be delegated to the chairman by the board of commissioners."

In 1998, the enabling legislation was changed again, restoring the power of the chairman. The 1998 enabling legislation repeated the seven responsibilities of the chairman listed in 1988 and added an eighth: "To act as the chief executive officer of the county."

The chairman, in sum, serves as both the executive officer of the county and as chairman of the legislative body. The legislation does not say that the board defines the powers of the chairman, but only that it can delegate some of its own powers to the chairman.

County Attorney Haygood was asked at the July 7 meeting if he felt the ordinance was consistent with the enabling legislation. He said he would not have written it unless he did.

The board, rather than pass the ordinance, could change the enabling legislation, and that is what Davis advocated in his interview with me this morning.

He said the county might hold an election "to determine what the public desires to do." Such an election would be followed by "legislation to go to the general assembly" for approval.

Such a series of steps--coupled with a tabling of the current ordinance--certainly would do much to maintain the status quo. That is something the board is unlikely to entertain.

To listen to or download the full interview with Davis, go to my box.net site.

Oconee County Goes Forward With Farmland Program Despite Losing $175,000 In Federal Funds

Application Deadline Set

Oconee County is going forward with the process of identifying and selecting farms for a farmland protection program even though there is no federal money to make the program work.

The local office of the United States Department of Agriculture, which administers the federal program, in July turned back $175,000 in federal funds that were available to the county for farmland protection this year, saying that the county “opted not to put a farm forward” for 2013 funding.

GDOT Published Required Legal Notice For Planned Dials Mill Extension Diamond Interchange At SR 316

***Opposition To Decision Ongoing***

The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) on Thursday published in The Oconee Enterprise, the county’s legal organ, a required Notice of Location and Design Approval for a diamond interchange at SR 316 and Dials Mill Extension.

GDOT also published the Notice in the May 16 and May 23 editions of the paper and after publication of the fourth notice on June 6, GDOT will be free to begin acquiring right of way needed for the project.

Advanced Voting Turnout for Oconee County Education Tax Lower Than for Most Recent Tax Election

Bogart Will Have A Turman

Only 352 people, representing just 1.5 percent of those eligible, turned out during the 15 days of early voting that ended on Friday for the Oconee County Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax ballot issue.

In March of 2009, the last time Oconee County had a tax issue on the ballot, a slightly higher 1.8 percent of registered voters cast ballots during the 21 days of early voting, and, ultimately 6.6 percent of those eligible decided the issue.

Oconee County Liquor Referendum Had Support Of Major Political, Social And Demographic Groups

Survey Analysis Shows

Oconee County voters gave overwhelming support to the liquor-by-the-drink initiative on the ballot in November, and an analysis of survey data from the weeks before that vote shows that all major political, social and demographic groups approved of the change in county liquor laws.

Political conservatives, voters more than 60 years old, evangelical Christians, those who attend church weekly or more often, and voters with children under 18 years of age all favored allowing the county to issue licenses for restaurants to sell liquor by the drink.

Oconee County Chamber of Commerce Joins Board of Education in Opposing State Charter School Amendment

Local Proponents Not Organized

The Oconee County Chamber of Commerce has added its support to the resolution passed by the Board of Education earlier this month asking voters in Oconee County to vote against the charter school amendment on the Nov. 6 ballot.

The Chamber included the BOE resolution in its Oct. 15 newsletter with the heading stating that “The Oconee County Chamber of Commerce Supports the Board of Education’s Resolution for the Purpose of Supporting Quality Georgia Public Education.”

Oconee County Board of Education Interviews Three Applicants for Post 5 Position

Questions in Rotation

The Oconee County Board of Education spent an hour tonight interviewing the three applicants for its open Post 5 position, tossing them a series of questions on such topics as the responsibility of the board, perceived strengths and weaknesses of the school system and how the board members should handle complaints from the public.

Applicants Wayne Bagley, Michael Burnette and Glenn Townsend, seated at a table in front of the board members, answered the questions in rotation, and they gave mostly similar answers to the questions posed.

Bagley, a vice president of development for Lassiter Properties, made reference to his experience on the Oconee County Citizen Advisory Committee for Land Use and Transportation Planning in response to several of the questions to indicate his familiarity with local governmental issues.

Burnette repeatedly made reference to his experience as a businessman. He is an area manager for Tires Plus.

Townsend, a retired teacher and administrator in the Oconee County system, stressed his knowledge of the system and of educational issues generally.

The applicants recognized that the Board of Education sets policy, but it does not run the schools day-to-day.

They also said that complaints from the public should be directed to the school administration and that board members should not get involved.

Candidates were given three minutes to answer questions, which board members took turns in asking.

Burnette said the biggest strength of the Oconee County school system is the “teachers, parents and the students.”

“I’m going to have to say it is the community,” Townsend said.

“I think it is the students,” Bagley said.

Townsend said that one of the biggest problems facing the schools is a lack of maintenance people “to take care of the plant and facilities.”

“The teacher-parent communication is something that I think could use a little help,” Bagley said.

“Just like in business when you have high performers and low performers, the low performers are the ones that get the most attention,” Burnette said. He said all students need to be given attention.

Near the end of the interview session, board member Mack Guest asked each applicant to indicate what he would cut if the school budget needed to be trimmed more.

Bagley said he didn’t know what he would cut, but he would protect the teachers.

Burnette said he would look for whatever did not affect the classroom.

Townsend said he would focus on such things as lights that didn’t need to be on, travel that was not necessary and ways to make the bus system more efficient.

Only about 20 people attended the session, which was held at the superintendent’s office in Watkinsville.

The Post 5 position became vacant in May when Tom Breedlove resigned and moved out of the county. Seventeen citizens applied for the opening, and the three candidates interviewed have been selected by the board as the finalists.

Board Chairman David Weeks said after the meeting tonight that he expected the board to make its decision on Breedlove’s replacement by October.

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The full video from the meeting is on the Oconee County Observations Channel of Vimeo.

Russ Page, Whose Contributions To Oconee County Were Numerous, Passes

***He Was A Farmer–And Much More***

Russ Page, business entrepreneur, farmer, and dedicated civic activist in Oconee County, died peacefully at his home in Wilmington, N.C., on Saturday (Oct. 25) after a long battle with cancer. He was 80.

Page was instrumental in creating Oconee County’s farmland protection program, was one of the founders of the county’s farmers market, and was the key advocate for including designated funding for historic preservation in the county’s budget.

Oconee County Voters See Economy, Lack of Jobs and Housing Market as Most Important Problems

Growth Also an Issue

While Oconee County voters are concerned about the local economy, unemployment and the weak housing market, about one in 10 also is concerned, even in the economic downturn, with what these voters see as rapid and unchecked growth with its adverse effects on the quality of their lives.

Some see a connection between the unwanted growth and the decline in the value of their homes and blame county policies for both.

While it is clear that not all voters are opposed to development, the opinions of a significant number of citizens are at odds with the strongly pro-development policy articulated by members of the county’s Industrial Development Authority and the Board of Commissioners.

This is the conclusion I reached from analysis of responses of 149 registered voters to a scientific survey conducted by my students late last year.

Economic issues, including the collapse of the local housing market and unemployment, top the list of problems that Oconee County voters think the county is facing.

Voters also are concerned about problems they see in the county’s schools.

The voters identified these concerns in response to a question on the scientific survey of registered voters conducted in the two weeks before the November election. The question asked the voters to identify in their own words “the most important problem facing Oconee County today.”

The survey was conducted by graduate students in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. The course, which I taught, was designed to teach students how to use social science methods to measure public opinion and how to analyze and interpret the data.

The students interviewed voters whose names had been selected from the Oconee County voter registration list I purchased from the Georgia Secretary of State office for use by the class.

Comparisons of the characteristics of those interviewed with the overall voter list shows that the sample was representative of all registered voters on several key characteristics. The sample of 149 does include fewer young voters than the overall voter list.

Most of the questions on the survey dealt with national political issues, but the students included the most important problem question to localize the survey for Oconee County.

I classified the responses to the open-ended question posed to the voters to get a sense of voter concerns. The actual responses and my classification of them is on the Box.net site for this blog.

The weakness of the local housing market was the top economic issue, with more than one in 10 of the voters giving that response to the question.

One voter listed the “real estate market and the impact of the developments that were started and basically stopped because of the economy” as the most important problem.

Another said the problem is “the Board of Commission's leadership that leads to the downfall of housing.”

About one in 10 of the voters listed growth as the most important problem.

“It's the expansion, the rapid rise of this county,” one respondent said. “They're stripping the land and building cookie-cutter houses, forgetting about the lifelong residents of this county.”

“Too many ball fields, not enough cotton fields,” another said simply.

At a joint meeting of the Industrial Development Authority and the Board of Commissioners on Dec. 13, members pitched ideas to the members of the Board of Commissioners about what steps should be taken to promote development in the county.

While Board members did not embrace any of the ideas specifically, none said that development should be slowed.

At a town hall meeting in June on development, all BOC members present took strong pro-development stances, despite the observation from at least one of the citizens present that many people in the county were opposed to further development.

In what might be seen as an example of a pro-development response, one voter said the most important problem facing the county is that “People are out of work.”

“The lack of jobs,” another voter said simply in response to the interviewer-posed question about the most important problem.

The problems voters see with the schools are quite varied, ranging from issues of finance to drug and alcohol use.

One voter said “not enough money (is) spent on education” in the county, while another said “the school system (is) using money in the wrong way.” The voter mentioned “sports” as an example of misuse of limited funds.

Another voter said the most important problem facing the county is “alcohol and drug abuse” among teenagers at the schools.

Thirteen of the voters said they could not identify a problem facing the county, and 10 said the county did not have any problems.

Four people said the most important problem in Oconee County is the people.

“We still have a quite a few people in Oconee County who are prejudiced,” one voter said.

Another said people are not open-minded in Oconee County. A third said there is a “fear of new ideas in the county.”

I classified the following response to the most important problem question as a concern about zoning.

Property rights” are the most important problem, the voter said. “When you own the property, certain rights come with that. We try to infringe what other people do with their property.”

The voter continued: “If we don't like it, we can move somewhere else. You should be able to use what is yours. Biggest problem with UGA/university system is that those people show up and fight everything that is proposed.”

The students conducted the interviews from Oct. 20 to Nov. 1. They completed 135 of the interviews by telephone, with the remainder conducted in person or online.

Voter registration lists contain names, addresses, and some personal characteristics of voters as a means of preventing voter fraud.

The lists do not contain telephone numbers. The students were able to find telephone numbers in online directories for about three-quarters of those selected for the survey.

The students drew an initial sample of 825 persons from the 22,538 registered voters in the county on Sept. 20, but they actually only tried to contact 620 of those persons.

The students were able to complete an interview with about one in four of those they contacted. The completion rate is high in comparison with what is usually achieved in polls today.

The sample error for the survey is 8 percent, meaning that the odds are 19 to 1 that the true response for the whole population of 22,538 Oconee County voters, had they been interviewed, would have fallen within plus or minus 8 percentage points of the percent calculated from the sample.

In fact, the sample of 149 voters closely matched the population of 22,538 registered voters in the county in terms of gender, race and precinct of registration. The sample contained more voters in the 51 plus age group and fewer in the 18 to 30 age group than does the total list of registered voters.

Young persons generally are harder to reach in surveys because they are more likely to be away from home studying and working and more heavily rely on mobile phones.

While the survey was of registered voters only, most persons 18 years old and older in Oconee County are registered to vote. Based on U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the county has a voter-age population of about 23,925, indicating that about 95 percent of those 18 years old or older in Oconee County are registered.

While it was easy to classify many of the responses to the question on the most important problem facing Oconee County, some responses were idiosyncratic.

One voter said the most important problem facing Oconee County was lack of media covering Oconee County and a resultant lack of an “informed citizenry.”

The survey also contained a question asking the respondents to name their “source of news about what is happening here in Oconee County.”

Eleven of the 149 respondents said they didn’t follow Oconee County news, and three said they didn’t know what source they used, suggesting they didn’t follow the news much either.

Many voters listed more than one source.

Overall, 23 percent of the respondents mentioned The Oconee Enterprise as their source, 21 percent mentioned the Athens Banner-Herald and its online edition, and 17 percent listed The Oconee Leader.

Seventeen percent of respondents said they got their Oconee County news from “the newspaper” or the “local paper” without mentioning a paper by name.

Some respondents indicated the most important source of Oconee County news for them was the television stations in Atlanta, which almost never cover news in the county.

One voter answered simply that his “wife” was the source he relied on most for news about the county.

Oconee County School Board Selected Melissa Butler As Superintendent From Six Female, 12 Male Applicants For The Job

***Butler Sworn In At Monday Board Meeting***

The Oconee County Board of Education received 18 applications in response to its announcement of its intention to hire a new superintendent, not the 19 that Board Chair Michael Ransom had stated.

Those 18 applications included six females, including Melissa Butler, whom the Board ultimately hired and who was sworn in as superintendent on Monday night. She will assume her duties on Oct. 14.

Oconee County Commission Candidate Wants More Residential Growth In County

***Turning Farms To Subdivisions***

John Laster, in a meeting with local Republicans last week, left little doubt about the pro-development views he would bring to the Oconee County Board of Commissioners were he to win the Republican primary on May 22.

Laster said he wants to see continued residential development in Oconee County, “and, to me, that is a great privilege for our land to no longer grow crops but grow communities.”