Jeff Wilkes, speaking on behalf of the citizen group Save South Oconee, asked Oconee County commissioners on Tuesday night to help with a series of questions Wilkes said have not been answered about the proposed truck bypass to link SR 15 with U.S. 441 south of Watkinsville.
Even after the hour-long meeting the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) held last week with the Commissioners and other government leaders, Wilkes said, he and others in the county still don’t know why a route within the city boundary is not being considered.
Wilkes said he also doesn’t have confidence in the traffic numbers presented by GDOT, know what assumptions have been made about use of the proposed bypass if it were built, and understand why priority seems to have been given to the strategic plans of Watkinsville over those of the county as a whole.
GDOT has not sufficiently addressed how the opening of the Georgia Ports Authority’s Gainesville Inland Port will affect–and possibly reduce--truck traffic passing through Watkinsville on SR 15 or what role Barnetts Shoals Road and Simonton Bridge Road play in creating congestion in Watkinsville, Wilkes said.
Citizens were allowed to join that virtual meeting last week as guests, but they were not allowed to ask questions.
The commissioners were receptive to Wilkes and suggested that he send the questions to GDOT, since they didn’t have answers to offer him.
After the meeting, Commission Chair John Daniell said he will pursue the questions raised by Wilkes as well as others that the commissioners have with GDOT. He also said he is involved in discussions with Watkinsville city leaders about improvements the city and county could make to key intersections in the city.
Before the agenda-setting meeting got underway on Tuesday, the Board held its third and final hearing on the proposed property tax millage rates for the year. At the meeting, the Board approved a millage rate of 4.124 for the unincorporated parts of the county and of 5.154 for the incorporated parts of the county.
Public Comment
Wilkes addressed the Board during the public comment section of the Commission meeting, saying he was talking “on behalf of Save South Oconee and the citizens in Oconee County that are concerned” about the four alternative routes GDOT has proposed for a truck bypass south of the city limits of Watkinsville.
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| Wilkes 8/25/2026 |
“First, let me make it clear,” Wilkes said, “that I am personally in favor of a no bypass option, especially since the ones that have been presented rob us of our homes, our land that we have worked so hard for, not only for our families, but for generations past.”
At the stakeholders meeting held by GDOT on Aug. 20, consultants offered four alternate routes for the bypass but said at present they are “considering” one of those routes–closest to the city limits–as “the recommended alternative.”
The consultants said they had rejected a route inside the limits. That route would cross property formerly use for construction of piping.
“GDOT made it very clear in their presentation that the lowest cost, best traffic reduction, and least intrusion from the landowners such as their homes, their land, their families, the wildlife, the wetland areas are a priority to them” Wilkes said.
“If that is true, then why is an alternate route across the pipe plant being brushed off, pushed aside, and not even being considered?” Wilkes asked.
“So where are they getting their numbers from?” Wilkes asked. “How are they broken down? How much of this is actually truck traffic? How much of it is trucks with trailers? How much of it is local traffic? How much of it is pass through or local truck or local traffic to our area?”
“It seems only fair that if the numbers are there to support said project,” Wilkes said, “then those numbers would be broken down and made public for the citizens of Oconee County. We're asking you to help us justify it and understand it.”
Commission Response
Wilkes asked that the Commission agree to put “discussion of these questions and these items as a whole” on a future agenda.
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| Horton 8/25/2026 |
“We are asking to see more transparency and more clarity on these issues,” he said. “As taxpayers, as citizens, and land owners, we understand that the traffic is a challenge and they exist throughout Watkinsville.”
“We are in support of a sensible and responsible solution,” he said. “However, we believe that public funding should be spent where it is supported by data and it is in a location that provides the greatest benefit to the county as a whole, not just downtown Watkinsville.”
Commissioner Amrey Harden suggested the county call a special Town Hall meeting “to maybe help answer some of these question, give the citizens an opportunity.”
The deadline for comment is Aug. 27, but Horton said “I would hope that even if we were late, the good folks at DOT would take it in their heart to go ahead and get us some answers.”
Horton said at the stakeholders meeting he heard the projection that the bypass would decrease traffic in Watkinsville “but I never heard how they came to that, which I think is critical, because you’ve still got Barnett Shoals, Simonton Bridge, you’ve got cars coming into town from (U.S.) 441, Harden Hill, (SR) 53 (Experiment Station Road).”
“This project has nothing to do with those vehicles,” he said. “So then to make a statement that we believe it will cut the traffic in Watkinsville, then OK, how about showing us how you came to that.”
Comments After Meeting
In a conversation after the meeting, Daniell said he has been meeting with Watkinsville Council members to discuss ways to improve all the intersections that feed into Watkinsville.
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| Daniell 8/25/2026 |
The goal of the conversations, he said, is “to try to talk through what some options might look like.”
Possibilities include constructing a roundabout at the Experiment Station Road intersection with Main Street to eliminate the light there, he said.
“I don’t know if a roundabout would work” at the Barnett Shoals, SR 15, Main Street intersection, Daniell said. “We’d have to get some people to do the study.”
“To me, there are two separate conversations,” he said. “Even if GDOT does put a truck bypass, there’s got to be improvements in the city at those intersections. Do one way streets. Do right in right out at one. There’s all kinds of options out there that you could look at.”
Daniell said that Wilkes and his colleagues already have sent their list of questions to GDOT.
“I’ll go through it,” he said of the list. “We’ll have conversations with GDOT to see how we get to answers for the questions they’ve got plus what the commissioners have got.”
Millage Rates
At the final hearing on the millage rates, Daniell repeated his summary from the two earlier meetings.
Tax Commissioner Jennifer Riddle calculates the rollback rate for the unincorporated parts of the county at 4.157 and for the incorporated parts of the county 4.984 , Daniell said.
These roll back rates–the rates that tax real growth in the tax digest and not growth due simply to reassessment-- would generate $824,000 more in taxes in 2026 than in 2025.
Rather than those rates, Daniell was recommending that the Commission adopt a millage rate of 4.124 for the unincorporated parts of the county, or 0.33 mills less than the rollback rate, and a millage rate of 5.154 for the incorporated parts of the county, or 0.17 mills more than the rollback rate. The 5.154 rate is the same as for 2025, while the 4.124 rate is down from 4.184 last year.
These recommended rates will generate real property taxes of $788,000 additional over 2025, or 4.5 percent less than would be generated by the rollback rates, Daniell said.
The difference in the millage rates for the unincorporated parts of the county and for the incorporated parts reflects the distribution of the insurance premium tax from the state to the county for the unincorporated parts of the county and to the four city governments for the incorporated parts of the county.
Those four city governments also impose a separate and additional property tax to cover city services.
Most of the real growth in the county’s overall tax digest is in the unincorporated parts of the county, leading Daniell to recommend that the rollback rate not be used for the incorporated parts of the county.
During the regular meeting, the Board adopted the two millage rates unanimously and ratified the millage rate set by the Oconee County Board of Education of 13.962, the rollback rate.
Other Action
The Board on Tuesday gave tentative approval to a budget amendment to spend $32,415 for a server replacement used by the Sheriff’s Office for JailTracker, the jail management system.
It also tentatively approved moving $20,800 from the personnel budget to the operating budget to fund a contracted part-time position in the County Extensive Office.
Budget Director Melissa Braswell told the commissioners that a position in that office has become vacant and the University of Georgia has implemented a hiring freeze and therefore is unable to fill the position.
“There is currently no established time line for lifting the hiring freeze,” she said.
County Administrator Justin Kirouac told the commissioners that the Fiscal Year 2026 resurfacing program came in under budget and recommended carrying forward use of the excess funds into the current Fiscal Year 2027 to resurface Hancock Court, Prickel Lane, Wellbrook Road, and Williamsburg Place. The total miles will be 1.69.
The commissioners approved moving forward $561,338 from the Fiscal Year 2026 Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax to fund the resurfacing.
The Board also tentatively approved a resurfacing program for Fiscal Year 2027 that includes 25.3 miles of roadway.
Finally, the commissioners tentatively agreed to spend $250,000 of Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenue for a 2,000 gallon tanker truck for the Fire Department.
These items will be on the consent agenda for the meeting on Sept. 1, meaning they will be approved without further discussion unless a commissioner asked that an item be removed for further deliberation.
Video
The video below is on the county YouTube channel.
The tax hearing begins at 5:55 in the video.
Wilkes made his comments at 9:55 in the video.
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