No Decision on Courthouse Imminent, Oconee County Commissioner Jim Luke Asserts

SPLOST 2003 is the Problem

Oconee County Commissioner Jim Luke used the commissioner comment section of the March 30 Board of Commissioners agenda-setting meeting to offer his perspective on where things stand regarding future plans for the courthouse.

No decision is imminent, he said. “I don’t think there is any possibility...that a shovel is going in the ground to dig any dirt in probably at least 10 years,” he added.

On April 2, Luke told me in a telephone conversation that he was motivated to make the comments by the hope that the papers would cover what he said and reassure citizens.

His strategy backfired. the Athens Banner-Herald reporter present ignored his comments. The Oconee Leader, as is usual, has not run a story on the meeting.

The Oconee Enterprise got the story exactly backwards, reporting under the headline “Commissioners favor new government center” that “A decision to buy a site for a government center was made when the Oconee County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday night.”

The Enterprise had Commission Chairman Melvin Davis and Commissions Chuck Horton and John Daniell “concurring” with Luke on something, and Commissioner Margaret Hale remaining “silent.”

The paper was right in saying that Davis and Horton concurred with Luke, but they concurred in saying that no decision is pending.

Daniell didn’t say anything at all, and Hale was silent. So one out of five was right.

Luke said at the BOC meeting that he had “scared up a few” people who would talk with him about the courthouse, “and most of them are angry.”

In my telephone conversation with him, Luke elaborated by saying that he had talked with half a dozen people and none of them said they think the county needs to move forward at this time to build a new courthouse.

Luke said that is his position as well, though he did say there are two reasons why the county might want to consider purchasing land at this time for construction of a courthouse in the future.

The first reason is that land prices are low. The second is that the county is sitting on money from the 2003 SPLOST that was set aside for county facilities, including a courthouse.

But before a decision to even more forward that far, Luke said, there “is a lot more vetting to be done.”

And Luke said he did not want to do what the Oconee County Board of Education did when it announced a decision back in December of last year, without public input, to purchase 6.6 acres of land in Watkinsville for construction of administrative facilities at some point in the future.

The current round of discussions about the future of the courthouse also began in secret when Wayne Provost, strategic and long-range planning director for the county, called a meeting of 15 governmental officials for Dec. 17, 2008, at the request of BOC Chairman Davis.

The Dec. 17 meeting wasn’t advertised to the public, and Davis greeted those gathered at the courthouse and then left when Commissioner Horton and then-Commissioner Don Norris showed up–creating a quorum of the Commission and making the meeting a clear violation of the state’s open meetings laws.

Following that meeting, Provost came before the Board of Commissioners in March of last year with a proposal that the BOC issue a request for proposals for "architectural consulting services for county judicial and governmental administrative facilities."

The Commission (without Davis speaking up) balked, however, and instead sent the issue to the Citizen Advisory Committee for Land Use and Transportation Planning for review.

After a year of deliberation, that committee voted on March 9 to recommend that the county split its administrative and judicial offices and build a new judicial building near the current jail on Experiment Station road.

The voting procedure was complicated, with each of the members given four votes, which could be used to vote for four conflicting outcomes, one outcome four times, or any combination of outcomes.

The Committee has 14 members, but only the chair, Abe Abouhamdan, and eight other members showed up to vote. Abouhamdan did not cast his four votes, but another member sent in a proxy, meaning that 36 voters were cast.

The first outcome, moving all governmental functions to one new location, received five votes.

Putting the administration and judicial functions in separate places, with the administrative offices staying at the current courthouse and a new judicial facility being built near the new jail, received 20 votes.

Putting the administration and judicial functions in separate places, with the administrative offices staying at the current courthouse and a new judicial facility being built near the courthouse, got six votes.

No one wanted to separate the administrative and judicial facilities but put the judicial facilities in some other location.

And no one voted to do nothing.

Putting the administrative and judicial facilities in some structure that also combined school administration facilities got five votes.

The recommendation of the Committee hasn’t been given to the BOC just yet. Committee Chairman Abouhamdan told me in an email message of March 25 that “Our recommendation is normally forwarded to the BOC via approved minutes.”

Approved minutes will be sent to the BOC after the Committee meeting on April 13, he said.

And the Committee might not be finished with its work.

Provost told the group on March 9 that “I think the commissioners would like some additional input after we show them this chart (with the votes) tonight.”

Provost once again pushed the idea of issuing a request for proposals for “a design, engineer, architectural consultant, planning consultant to revisit our space analysis and cost analysis.”

He also said the commissioners want to know, “should we go ahead and utilize SPLOST funds that were collected in the previous SPLOST and earmarked” for courthouse expansion.

The SPLOST–or Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax--is the problem.

If the county just sits on the money, it has to admit that it asked citizens to pay a tax for something that wasn’t needed at the time and is not needed even now.

Only a little more than 10 years ago, in November of 1998, the county completed a renovation of the current courthouse that doubled its size. The original building had been built in 1939.

Just less than five years the later, on Sept, 2, 2003, the BOC said it needed to expand the courthouse again, and it voted to put onto the November 2003 ballot a SPLOST authorization that would gather a projected $4.6 million.

That money, according to the authorizing ordinance, was for the “acquisition, construction, equipping and installation of expansions of the County Courthouse, the County Government Annex Building and County Libraries, all to be owned and operated by the county, including the acquisition of all property, both real and personal, necessary therefor.”

Of the current Board members, only Davis and Hall voted on that authorizing ordinance. Horton and Luke joined the Board in January of 2005, and Daniell joined in January of 2009.

Neither Davis nor Hale–nor anyone else–has come forward during the current discussion of the courthouse to say publicly what the BOC had in mind when it voted for that $4.6 million authorization in 2003.

During the public meetings leading up to the vote by citizens in March of 2009 to authorize a new SPLOST, the unspent monies from the old SPLOST were not discussed.

The county collected the $4.6 million for the courthouse and other governmental facilities, and $4.2 million of that remains unspent.

On March 11, 2005–or 18 months after the BOC voted to ask voters to approve collection of the $4.6 million for the courthouse, the county got a justification for that decision.

On that date, Brian Gene Nichols escaped from custody in the Fulton County courthouse and murdered the judge presiding over his trial, a court reporter, a sheriff’s deputy and a federal agent.

Around the country, this tragedy became a rallying cry for more security at courthouses.

Oconee County Sheriff Scott Berry joined the chorus and has argued that the current Oconee County courthouse, with the intermixed court and administrative functions, is unsafe.

Berry made that argument to the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee, and Provost has repeated it frequently in deliberations of that body, saying that administrative and court functions needed to be separated.

The vote of the Committee on March 9 indicates the argument was accepted.

Commissioner Luke’s comments at the BOC meeting on March 30 were meant, he said, to give his view of what might happen next. He used the 10-year figure as when he thought the county actually would start building something.

WGAU’s Tim Bryant asked Chairman Davis on Feb. 16 about the courthouse. “What is the level of need right now?” Bryant asked.

Davis hedged.

“We’re ok right now,” he said, “But we do have an issue with our court functions.” He said security was a concern, and administratively “services are not as efficient as they could be” because of crowding.

Davis said that by “the time 2015, 2016, 17 gets here, it is really going to be...need some kind of additional facility.”

Davis also made reference to the expectation that the county will ask voters again in 2015 to approve a new SPLOST and said money for a courthouse could be included in that. The current SPLOST does not set money aside for that purpose.

So Davis is advocating much earlier action than is Luke.

The BOC can keep the public in the dark on decisions on land purchases for a courthouse, as land acquisition is one area exempted from the provisions of the state’s open meeting laws.

This Commission makes frequent use of executive sessions, and it held one after the session on March 30 when Luke made his comments.

That open part of the meeting lasted until about 8:45 p.m.

When I left the courthouse at 9:30 the Commission was still meeting in Davis’ office with the county attorney. From the street outside I could see that Finance Director Jeff Benko, Administrative Officer Alan Theriault and Planning Director B.R. White also were present.

The official minutes of the meeting did not report on when the meeting ended, who attended or what was discussed.

Luke made a point of saying that the public will be involved in whatever decision is made. On that, Davis and Horton really did concur.

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A recording of the entire March 9 meeting of the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee was made by Sarah Bell and edited by me. It is on my Vimeo site.

Oconee County Cleanup Event Scheduled for April 24

Chairman Davis Claims Oliver Bridge road

Volunteers participating in the Make Oconee Beautiful Cleanup will gather starting at 9 a.m. April 24 at Harris Shoals Park in Watkinsville to get gloves and bags and check in with the Keep Oconee County Beautiful Commission, the event organizer.

If volunteers need tips on where to go to find the most litter, Commission members will be able to offer advice.

The Commission is analyzing data from its monitoring of roadways around the county as part of its litter index, Esther Porter, executive director of the Commission, told me on Friday. That information will be available on April 24.

Volunteers don’t need to go to those dirtiest sections of roadway, Porter said. In fact, the Commission is encouraging people in the county to look at the roadways around where they live and agree to do cleanup nearby, Porter said.

All the Commission asks is that volunteers report back on how much trash they picked up during the cleanup so the Commission can include the data in its report on the day’s activities.

The Commission is asking volunteers to dispose of the gathered trash themselves, either at county collection sites or via their usual garbage collection.

Porter said members of the Commission will stay at Harris Shoals Park until at least noon, cleaning up there and passing out the gloves, bags and trash tips to those who come to the park.

Other members of the Commission will be meeting at 9 a.m. on U.S. 78 where it crosses the Apalachee River to gather trash there as part of the River Alive program.

Volunteers who want to join that group should meet in the parking area off the westbound lane just before the bridge, Porter said.

Porter also said she will have available for sale at Harris Shoals the Smith and Hawken Home Composter, which the Commission sells for $40 as a fund raiser and to encourage composting. The round, plastic, 13-cubic-feet bin comes disassembled and will easily fit in a van or SUV.

(I bought one on Friday and assembled it today in my back yard in only a few minutes.)

April has been designated as Keep Oconee Beautiful Month, Porter told the members of the Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night at the Board’s agenda-setting session. She challenged the Commissioners to get involved in the April 24 event.

Chairman Melvin Davis spoke up, saying he would be out of town on the 24th but that he would take responsibility for cleaning up Oliver Bridge road in the southern part of the county, where he lives.

Decision on Regionally Important Resource Selections for Oconee County Set for April 15

Noon Meeting in Athens

The Council of the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission is scheduled to decide at its April 15 meeting whether it will accept the recommendation of its Planning Advisory Committee that Elder Mill Bridge, Elder Mill and the Athens-to-Madison rail line be designated as Regionally Important Resources.

The Council is made up of representatives of all 12 counties that are part of the NEGRC. Oconee County is represented by Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis, Watkinsville Mayor Joe Walter and Oconee State Bank President Amry Harden.

Davis represents the county and Walter the cities. Harden is designated as the citizen representative, according to Lee Carmon, planning director and general counsel for NEGRC.

Only Walter served on the Planning Advisory Committee that selected the three Oconee nominations for the Regionally Important Resources designation at its March 1 meeting.

Elder Mill Bridge and Elder Mill were nominated by Russ Page, John English, Robert Jahn and Melissa Steele, representing Friends of Elder Mill and Elder Mill Bridge. The bridge and mill were nominated as a single resource, but the Advisory Committee counted them as two.

Tony Glenn of Farmington, an avid biker, acted on his own to nominate the rail line. The line from Athens to Bishop currently is used, while the remainder of the line is not.

Glenn nominated the line because of its historical value to the county and its potential recreational use.

At the BOC meeting on Tuesday night, when Carmon reported the Advisory Committee recommendations, Chairman Davis raised question about the designation of the rail line as a Regionally Important Resource, saying such a designation potentially could limit development opportunities in the county.

Commissioners Jim Luke, Chuck Horton and Margaret Hale also questioned the designation. Hale was particularly critical of the process of selection of the RIRs for the county, saying she had not been informed of the decisions until the BOC meeting.

Mayor Walter told me in a telephone conversation tonight that he did not inform anyone from the county of the outcome of the March 1 meeting. It was his first meeting, he said, and he knew little of the process.

Page and his group have been quite open in their efforts to find a way to protect Elder Mill Bridge and Elder Mill.

Glenn sent me a copy of an email message he received that indicated that Chairman Davis was informed on March 17 by NEGRC that the rail line–called the Athens Line–had been recommended for inclusion on the list.

The meeting on April 15 will start at noon at the Holiday Inn in Athens and is open to the public.

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Carmon's presentation to the BOC is on my Vimeo site.

Oconee County BOC Less Than Enthusiastic about Regionally Important Resource Designations

Caught Off Guard

The report that the Elder Mill and Elder Mill Bridge as well as the Athens Line--the rail line running through the county--have been designated as Regionally Important Resources met with less than an enthusiastic response from Oconee County commissioners Tuesday night.

Lee Carmon, planning director and general counsel for the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission, told the Board of Commissioners at its agenda-setting meeting that only two resources had been nominated for Oconee County and both had been accepted by the Commission's Planning Advisory Committee.

Commissioner Jim Luke and Chairman Melvin Davis said they were concerned about the rail line, since it meant that development within a mile on either side of the line could be affected by requirements that the line be protected.

Commissioner Margaret Hale was concerned that she had not been involved in the process.

“I was caught off guard” by the nominations, she said. “While I don’t disagree with the concept,” she said, “I would like someone to have let me know that these things were being done.”

“The county owns the bridge,” she said. “There is a lot of misconception that we don’t. I would like to know what your process is when these things are sent in and they are not sent in by a county official. We’re not notified, so we have no input into your process.”

Commissioner Chuck Horton said he was concerned that private property could be designated as a Regionally Important Resource without the approval of the property owner.

The rail line was nominated by Tony Glenn of Farmington, an avid biker. Glenn told me tonight in a telephone conversation that he made the nomination as an individual. The line could be used for hiking and biking in the future.

Elder Mill and Elder Mill Bridge were nominated by Russ Page, John English, Robert Jahn and Melissa Steele, the leadership of a group called Friends of Elder Mill and Elder Mill Bridge.

Carmon said that the Planning Advisory Committee reviewed 37 nominations.

“The vast majority were from counties,” she said. “We had a few from individuals and a few from organizations."

Carmon said that the two Oconee County selections were among the 24 sent forward for further review by the Regional Commission Council. (The web site lists only 23 selected nominations.) Final decisions will be made in September, she said.

If the two Oconee County sites were to make the final list, large-scale development projects in the county that meet a set standard in terms of size would have to provide some protection for the rail line and the bridge and the mill.

The mill is in private hands, but it and the bridge were at the center of a park proposed by the county in 2007. The Board of Commissioners has not endorsed the park concept and has been unwilling to put any money into it.

BOC members have stated their desire to acquire the mill at some point and to continue to protect it and the covered bridge.

The review of regionally important resources is dictated by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs.

According to Carmon, the process is part of “planning for the impact of new development on these resources.”

A Regionally Important Resource is defined as “a natural or heritage resource that is of sufficient size or importance to warrant special consideration by the local government having jurisdiction over the resource.”

The Athens rail line, Glenn said, dates back to 1888 and was instrumental in the history of Farmington. The line from Bishop to Madison is not in use, he said, though it has not been declared as abandoned.

Six Oconee County Volunteers Gather Data on Water Quality

Stream Checks

Volunteers organized by Friends of Barber Creek drew water samples and filed descriptive reports on nine sites on Barber Creek and its tributaries for the Upper Oconee Watershed Network 13th Annual River Rendezvous today.

The six volunteers were among more than 40 who spread out after a 9 a.m. meeting at the Sandy Creek Nature Center in Clarke County to create a portrait of “a day in the life of a watershed.”

The samples gathered will be analyzed to give a picture of the quality of the water in the streams and to be compared with data from previous samplings.

UOWN has limited data on Oconee County streams from the past and made a push to get more volunteers involved in the event today.

Tim Price and I, vice president and president of Friends of Barber Creek, were joined by Cathy Jackson, Janie Price, Bob Isaac and David Jackson in drawing samples and describing the nine sites.

Tim and I attended the training session at the start of the day and then joined the others to create three, two-person teams to visit the sites, all located where roads cross the streams.

Included were three sites in the western part of the county: Barber Creek at Clotfelter road, a tributary to Barber Creek at Rocky Branch road and Barber Creek at Malcolm Bridge road.

Four sites on Mars Hill road were sampled: a tributary of Barber Creek near the QuikTrip under construction at the Mars Hill road and Daniells Bridge road intersection, Barber Creek where it is crossed by Mars Hill road, Parker Branch of Barber Creek near Crooked Creek road and a Barber Creek tributary crossed by Mars Hill road near the blocked entrance to the undeveloped Parkside subdivision.

The final two sites were where Daniells Bridge road crosses Barber Creek and on the tributary of Barber Creek that feeds Lake Wellbrook just before the lake is formed in LakeWellbrook subdivision, which is off Daniells Bridge road.

At each site, the team drew two water samples and completed a form providing data on clarity of the water, amount of algae, signs of erosion of the banks, amount of litter, and other site and stream characteristics.

UOWN has four additional sites on Barber Creek designated for sampling, one near the Barrow County line and three near where Barber Creek joins McNutt Creek, but we didn’t have time to include them today.

Tim and I returned the samples to the Nature Center at 1 p.m.

OUWN also has sites on Calls Creek in Oconee County designated for sampling and was prepared to send volunteers to Rose Creek, but no other Oconee County volunteers were able to join the rendezvous today.

The Oconee County sites are in Zone 3 of the Middle Oconee region of UOWN.

UOWN, formed in 2000, is dedicated to protecting water resources and improving stream health in the Upper Oconee watershed through community-based advocacy, monitoring and education.

Elder Mill Bridge Park Forum Draws Crowd to Oconee County Library

Farmers Plant Seeds

About 35 people showed up at the Oconee County Library in Watkinsville tonight to hear citizen activist Russ Page talk about a proposal for a park surrounding Elder Mill Bridge and Elder Mill itself and two Oconee County officials say why the plan for a county park is not feasible.

Page said he has been working on the park for more than two years because he is “convinced the area needs to be protected.” He said that to accomplish this “will take some good ideas from a lot of people.”

Peggy Holcomb, director of tourism for Oconee County, said in the last three years she has only taken 27 groups to see the wooden covered bridge off SR 15 in the southern part of the county and a park “would not be a money maker for us.”



Later in the meeting, however, Holcomb acknowledged that she uses Eagle Tavern in downtown Watkinsville and the Elder Mill Bridge heavily in her promotional materials for the county. She said the bridge also is in the state tourism guidebook, the Antebellum tour guidebook and the Southern Living tour book.

“We use that covered bridge for just about any publication that we use,” she said.

Wayne Provost, strategic and long-range planning director for the county, said the county is expected to cut between $1 and $1.5 million from the budget this year and that money for a county park just isn’t likely to be available.

He said it is necessary to allocate money for maintenance and operation of a park, not just for land acquisition.



Page was undeterred. He said he is a farmer, and farmers plant seeds. He hopes a park will be the outcome.



Jonathan R. Veit organized and moderated the forum, which lasted for an hour and 20 minutes.

Among those attending was Oconee County Commissioner Chuck Horton and Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis.

Davis said he was in favor of preserving the mill near the bridge because of its historic value to the county. Horton left before the public discussion of the three presentations by Page, Holcomb and Provost and did not speak.

Page said he has set up an account at Athens Land Trust for those who wish to donate money for the park. The check should be sent do and made payable to Athens Land Trust, 2109 W. Broad street, Athens, GA 30606, and contain the notation “for Elder Mill Bridge.”

It also is possible to donate online using the Athens Land Trust donation tool. (At present, it isn't possible to designate "for" except in an address line.)

A complete video recording of the session, including the slide presentation by Page showing pictures from the bridge, the mill and Rose Creek, which flows under the bridge and beside the mill, is on Vimeo.

Elder Mill Bridge Forum Scheduled for Thursday Night At Oconee County Library

Three Points of View

A forum on Elder Mill Bridge is scheduled for 7 to 9 p.m. on Thursday at the Oconee County Library in Watkinsville.

Russ Page, a land-preservation activist and proponent of a park on land surrounding the bridge, Peggy Holcomb, director of tourism for Oconee County, and Wayne Provost, strategic and long-range planning director for the county, have agreed to speak, according to forum organizer Jonathan R. Veit.

Though the forum is intended to be a non-partisan, informational event, it has been endorsed by the Oconee County Democratic Committee, of which Veit is chairman.

According to Veit, Page will talk about the land surrounding the bridge and his efforts to preserve it. Holcomb will talk about the impact of creating the park on tourism, he said, and Provost will talk about “the governmental processes and jurisdictions and hurdles involved.”

In 2007, John Gentry, director of Parks and Recreation for Oconee County, presented the Board of Commissioners a plan for a 580-acre park that would incorporate the wooden, covered Elder Mill Bridge, the nearby Elder Mill itself, and surrounding land, including the historic W. Joe Elder cemetery.

The BOC refused to spend any county money on the project. In January, 2.3 acres of land just used by many visitors to the area to access the shoals of Rose Creek beneath the bridge went onto the market and quickly under contract. What the new owner plans in terms of allowing public access is unclear.

At the town hall style meeting held by the BOC on Feb. 16, Page asked the commissioners about their level of commitment to the proposed park. All five of the commissioners said the county should attempt to purchase the mill, but only Commissioner Margaret Hale spoke in favor of county involvement in a broader park.

Chairman Melvin Davis said on the day of the town hall meeting in an interview on WGUA that there was “not a huge amount of conversation taking place (about the park) but there is a group of folks that desire that.”

To register the amount of support for a park, Veit has created an online petition for people to sign.

At the meeting on Thursday night, each of the three speakers will be given about 15 minutes to talk, Veit said. Then the audience will have the opportunity to comment and ask questions.