At a time when Republican elected legislative leaders are proposing to cut property taxes and shift to sales taxes, voters in Oconee County on Tuesday night chose the opposite.
A proposal to renew the county’s Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (TSPLOST) failed, with 53.3 percent of the voters rejecting extension of the tax, which is set to expire on March 31 of 2028.
Voters in the northern part of Oconee County will be represented in Atlanta in January by someone not from neighboring Clarke County for the first time since Oconee County was split into two parts in House legislative redistricting in 2011.
Both Democrat Suzanna Karatassos and Republican Ward Black, on the ballot in tomorrow’s 120 House District race, are from Jackson County.
Only just more than a handful of people turned out for the Town Hall meeting House District 121 Rep. Eric Gisler called last month to discuss data centers, but he stuck to his plan of reviewing bills proposed in the last session of the General Assembly before stating his position.
The state currently is exempting data centers from paying both state and local sales taxes as a result of legislation passed in 2018 to bring data centers to the state, and Gisler offered that as a beginning point of his review.
Oconee County is set to add 54.1 acres to the 828.6 acres in the south of the county already shielded from development through its Farmland Protection program, bringing the total number of tracts covered by this type of preservation easement to 15.
Thad Padgett, Chair of the county’s Farmland Preservation Committee, reported to the Board of Commissioners at its meeting on Tuesday (Oct. 27) that the selection committee is recommending that the farm of Darryl Matthews, 2591 Astondale Road, be added to the list of protected properties.
Construction will begin soon on expansion of the Oconee County Library at Wire Park in Watkinsville to create additional study space and a children’s activity room.
Toby Mayfield, Assistant Director, Regional Services at Athens Regional Library System, told the Oconee County Library Board of Trustees at its October meeting that she is finalizing plans with Oconee Construction Services, which has been awarded the contract for the $400,000 expansion.
A rush of Advance In Person voting on Friday in Oconee County brought the total number of votes cast at the end of early voting for the Nov. 3 election to 16,401--up by 445 from the number cast at this point four years ago.
With a decline in Absentee By Mail voting and an increase in the number of registered voters in the county, the turnout percentage at this point is lower at 47.4 than the 48.6 percent who had cast a ballot at the end of early voting four years ago.
The three Republicans seeking to represent Oconee County in the Georgia General Assembly in January raised $216,138 among them in the 11 weeks following Aug. 1, compared with the $126,392 raised by the three Democrats in those races in that time period.
The three Republicans spent $219,250 of their campaign money in the period leading up to Oct. 20, compared with the $125,769 spent by the three Democrats, according to Campaign Contribution Disclosure Reports due to the State Ethics Commission on Tuesday (Oct. 27).
