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.
The Oconee County Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee got the blessing from the Board of Commissioners tonight to go ahead with its plans to show the public its PowerPoint presentation justifying its recommendation that the county build a separate judicial facility near the jail.
The presentation probably will be in October, but not at the regular meeting of the committee on Oct. 12, since that conflicts with a rescheduled meeting of the BOC.
In the meantime, the board is going forward with its plans to remodel the Government Annex on Greensboro highway on the south side of Watkinsville.
It voted tonight to spend up to an initial $2,990 to hire R.W. Allen, an Augusta company with offices in Athens, as construction manager at risk for the project.
In addition, the board decided that it will hold a public meeting on Sept. 21, probably at the Annex, to allow citizens to review options for the renovation of the facility, which currently houses the Utility Department, Public Works Department and the offices for the Fire Department.
At the Aug. 3 meeting, the BOC approved a contract of up to $74,500 with Precision Planning Inc. of Lawrenceville for architectural services for the renovation.
Commissioner Chuck Horton told Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee Chairman Abe Abouhamdan (right) tonight to make clear at its meeting that no decision had been made on the committee recommendation.
Abouhamdan responded that he knew that only the BOC could decide on what the county should do regarding what the committee has been calling judicial and administrative facilities for the county.
The committee met for a year before it reached its recommendation in March that the county separate judicial facilities from the present courthouse and build a new judicial facility somewhere near the current jail on Experiment Station road.
The BOC sent the issue of the future of the courthouse to the land use committee in March of 2009.
Board members tonight suggested that the committee might use the public hearing to get citizen feedback as well as make its case for its recommendation, though the committee has been clear as it discussed its presentation that the goal was to justify the decision it had reached.
“I think that is a great idea, personally to hold a public meeting, and get more public input,” Commissioner Margaret Hale told Abouhamdan.
Oconee County has only an informal set of procedures for deciding what goes on the county web site, with four people involved in the decision, according to County Administrative Officer Alan Theriault.
Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis, Theriault, Finance Director Jeff Benko and Clerk of Commission Gina Lindsey all can put something on the web, Theriault said.
Angela Helwig, administrative assistant to the BOC, is the “point person” who actually uploads the materials, Theriault added in that June 7 telephone conversation.
Over the last year, the Board of Commissioners has asserted its right to control the flow of information from county department heads to its members, but it has passed up chances to control the county web site.
Chairman Davis, in contrast, uses the web site to disseminate his view of county affairs via a column he posts there weekly, and he publicly has made other decisions unchallenged about what does and what does not go on the web site.
Davis’ column first appears in the weekly newspaper The Oconee Enterprise. He starts with a question and then provides his answer.
The Aug. 26 column, which leads the list today, deals with maintenance of vacant subdivisions. Davis asks: “What is the county doing to make sure the entrances, etc., are maintained?” He answers that the county is trying to guarantee that the required maintenance is done.
A week earlier, Davis posed this question: “I understand we only had a 20% turnout for the recent runoff election and a 29% turnout for the primary election. How much does it cost the county to hold an election?” Answer (shortened here): “The county budgets approximately $20,000 to conduct an election and a runoff costs the county approximately $10,000.”
Of course, the columns always represent Davis’ take on issues. On April 29, while the BOC was considering cutbacks to balance the budget without increasing the tax (millage) rate, he hinted that an increase in the millage rate might be worth considering.
“I do not believe this Board desires to raise the millage rate during these difficult economic times, even though over the past several years the county millage rate has dropped from 8.23 mils (should be mills) to 6.686 mils (mills). Therefore, at some point the Board of Commissioners will have to make some very tough decisions. Will some services and programs have to be reduced or eliminated? Will the costs of other services and programs have to be increased to meet revenue projections?”
Today, the county web site has the weekly columns by Davis back through January of 2009.
I told the BOC at its May 4 meeting that I felt the county needed a citizen committee to make suggestions on policy for the county’s site and that I would form such a committee. I invited all members of the commission and members of the county administration to join.
To date, Commissioner Margaret Hale has said she will be a member of the committee.
At the suggestion of Jay Hanley, chairman of the Oconee County Republican Party, I asked Kate McDaniel to join, and she has agreed. McDaniel is a frequent attender of BOC and other county meetings, is active in Republican Party affairs and has a blog called A Positive Vision for Oconee County.
At the suggestion of Jonathan Veit, chair of the Oconee County Democratic Committee, I asked Tony Glenn to be a member of the committee. He, too, agreed. Glenn is a resident of Farmington who has been active in community affairs there and has been involved with the county Democratic Party.
The Committee has not yet met. I am hoping this posting will generate some additional interest and that another person or two will join the committee.
I told the BOC at its May 4 meeting that at a time when the traditional media are struggling to find the resources to cover government, it is particularly important that citizens have the ability to obtain information on their own.
The reporter for the Athens Banner-Herald who is responsible for Oconee County, Erin France, also covers Madison and Oglethorpe counties. Before the cutbacks at the paper several years ago, the Oconee County reporter for the paper had only that assignment.
“The county web site is a powerful communicative tool for the county,” I said to the board, “but it is not owned by the elected officials of this county or those they appoint. It is owned by the citizens of the county.”
I proposed that the citizen committee develop policy on the timely provision of information to citizens and also address the right of citizens to comment on matters before the county.
My comments were made at the citizen comment section of the May 4 meeting and were in part because of the way Chairman Davis responded to a question I had posed at the April 20 meeting. (Davis is pictured at left from the April 20 meeting.)
At that meeting, I asked members of the commission about a story written by Banner-Herald reporter France on April 19, 2010, that quoted Davis saying the commission had been “pricing various lots around the courthouse and near the jail.”
I said I recognized that the board could have secret meetings–I should have said could meet in secret–to discuss property. I asked the commissioners to indicate nonetheless what they had been discussing.
Each of the members of the commission except Chairman Davis said she or he had not been discussing any purchases.
Chairman Davis said he would put a response to my question on the county web site.
On April 22, I found on the county web site an unsigned response to my question at the April 20 meeting.
Since the unsigned response mentioned me by name and, in my view, gave a misleading rendition of the question I posed, I sent an email message to Chairman Davis, copied to Theriault, Clerk Lindsey and Jane Greathouse, Davis' assistant, at 10:31 p.m. on Sunday, April 25.
In that email message, I asked that a response I had attached to my email message be added to the county web site with an appropriate link on the home page indicating it was a response to the posting using my name.
At 10:32 p.m., I received a receipt indicating that Chairman Davis had opened my message. I received receipts from Theriault on 7:58 a.m. on April 26, from Ms. Lindsey at 9:32 a.m. that same day, and from Ms. Greathouse at 9:01 a.m. on April 28.
I did not receive any actual response from the chairman or from any of those to whom I copied my request.
At the May 4 meeting, I asked during the citizen comment section once again that my message be posted on the county web site, with a headline on the front page indicating that it has been posted as a reply to the earlier message.
No member of the commission responded to my comments, and to date my response has not been posted on the county web site, though the original message remains there.
At that same April 20 BOC meeting, Oconee County Attorney Daniel Haygood presented the Board of Commissioners an 11-page draft ethics ordinance that spelled out ethical standards and set up conditions for creation of a Board of Ethics to hear complaints about board members.
Haygood said he drafted the ordinance at the request of the board and that he forwarded it to members along with a Draft Model Ethics Ordinance for Counties prepared by the Association County Commissioners of Georgia.
He said he also sent to the board an analysis of ethics ordinances prepared by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia.
As is usual, the citizens in attendance had no information on what Haygood was talking about. No copies of the ordinance or other materials he was discussing had been presented to the public in advance, and none were available at the meeting, either in written form or via a visual presentation.
After the discussion, County Administrative Officer Theriault said he would put the materials provided by Haygood on the web for the public to view, but Chairman Davis told him not to do so, saying he wanted to wait until after the commissioners had discussed it further.
The ethics issue is on the agenda for discussion again at the BOC agenda-setting meeting on Tuesday.
Prior to the May 25 meeting of the BOC, the commissioners held the first of two required public hearings on the 2010-2011 budget.
Before the meeting, the final budget to be discussed had not been released to the public, and nothing was available at the door as the meeting began.
The hearing began with a PowerPoint presentation on the budget by Finance Director Benko, who summarized what he considered to be the key features of the budget. Among the things he left out was mention of an increase in the water and sewage rates that was included in the budget.
After the citizen comment on the budget, Chairman Davis announced the proposed budget and the proposed fee schedule that supported it would be placed on the county website the next day and would be available at the courthouse and the county library.
At the July 27 meeting, I thanked the county for providing the PowerPoint and the single page summary of the budget, and I asked if the county could provide a full budget for the county that would include details at the departmental level. I also asked for a finalized budget for fiscal year 2009-2010, which ended on June 30.
I said these could be provided either on the web or as a hard copy for citizens to review and copy.
No one responded to my request.
I had asked Commissioner Hale after the June 17 forum sponsored by the Oconee County Republican Party and by the Oconee Regional Republican Women if she would give me a copy of the final budget for 2010-2011 so I could make a copy. She told me she only had budget requests, not the final department budget that the commission had approved.
During a break in the July 27 meeting, Commissioner John Daniell said he would obtain a copy of the budget for me.
He told me last week he had received the budget and would bring me his copy. He dropped it off at my house yesterday.
Included is the 2010-2011 budget, but not the 2009-2010 reconciled budget.
The detailed Utility Department budget, more than twice the size in terms of dollars allocated of any other departmental budget and more than the combined separate budgets for the jail and for law enforcement, was not included.
My plan is to scan the budgets I have and make them available to the public through this blog.
After I made my comments about formation of a citizen committee to develop policy for the county web site, Lisa Davol, then interim director and now deputy director of programs at the Parks and Recreation Department, told me she would be glad to discuss with the committee the departmental efforts to create a modern and clean web site.
The Park and Recreation website, which has its own look and structure, it linked to the main county web site.
The Planning Department, working within the structure of the existing county site, has taken steps on its own to provide information to the public in advance of Planning Commission and BOC meetings.
For example, the department has key documents for the upcoming BOC discussion of a rezone request by Courtney Elder already available online.
This is the strategy also being followed by the Oconee County Board of Education, though navigation of that site is quite difficult.
Anyone who is interested in helping citizens develop recommendations for the county on how to make the best use of its web site and on policy for the site should contact me at lbbecker@mindspring.com.
The headline that ran across the top of the page of the Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2010, edition of the Athens Banner-Herald was clear enough.
Sewer line will help prevent job drain, it said.
PROJECT TO SERVE MAKER OF FISHING TACKLE, ST. MARY’S HOSPICE FACILITY, the subhead explained.
“A new sewer line will keep jobs in Bogart and encourage more commercial growth on Jennings Mill road, Oconee County officials say,” the lead, or first paragraph of the story, elaborated.
The problem is that neither the “maker of fishing tackle” nor the St. Mary’s facility is in Bogart, so the sewer line won’t keep jobs there.
The bigger problem is that, even when pushed by members of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners at its July 27 meeting, the Oconee County officials most involved in the sewer line project said it would not have much of an effect on future development on Jennings Mill road.
There simply isn’t land in the immediate area that can be developed, and what is available can better be served by an existing sewer line, they said.
The $773,000 sewer line, the officials said, is to provide Oconee County sewage services to Zoom Bait, located at 1581 Jennings Mill road, and St. Mary’s Highland Hills Village and the accompanying St. Mary’s Center for Alzheimer’s and Dementia Care and St. Mary’s Hospice House.
The St Mary’s facility is located at 1660 Jennings Mill road.
Zoom Bait currently is on a septic system. St. Mary’s is sending its sewage to Athens-Clarke County for treatment.
Where–and what–is Bogart?
Bogart is an incorporated city lying partly in Clarke County but mostly in Oconee County whose eastern border starts near the intersection of Fowler Mill road and the Atlanta highway several miles west of Georgia Square Mall.
The bait manufacturer and the St. Mary’s facilities are on Jennings Mill road between SR Loop 10 and McNutt’s creek, which forms the Clarke/Oconee county border at that point.
Jennings Mill road intersects the Atlanta highway opposite Logan’s Roadhouse restaurant.
By car, it would be 4.7 miles from Zoom Bait to the Bogart city border. It would take, according to Google maps, about 10 minutes.
The Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s properties do have a Bogart Zip Code, as do large parts of western Athens.
Oconee County Economic Development Director Rusty Haygood and Utility Department Director Chris Thomas came to the BOC at that July 27 meeting to explain why they needed an additional $400,000 on top of the $186,711 the county had already committed and the $186,711 the state had committed to the County for the sewer line.
The state was using federal money for its commitment.
The pair explained that the original estimate of the cost of the project they had used was bad, and that they now thought they were likely to need another $400,000.
Several of the commissioners were pretty unhappy, and they wanted to believe that the sewer line was going to do something more than simply take sewage from the “maker of fishing tackle” and St. Mary’s.
They asked that question of Thomas, and in the exchange, Thomas seemed to be conceding that the new sewer line might be used by customers other than Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s.
Haygood stopped him and corrected him.
The land available for development behind WalMart and Lowe’s can be better served by an existing line the county installed more than a decade ago, Thomas said.
“This project is specifically designed for those two businesses,” Thomas said. No other customers had been identified, he said, but, at least theoretically, others could use it.
When I called Haygood on the phone on July 30 and asked him again if there were others customers, he said the sewer line was for two customers, Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s.
In fact, a check of the tax records for the county shows that Zoom Bait sits on two pieces of property totally 16.1 acres and owned by William Edward Chambers Sr. and Faye S. Chambers.
Georgia Secretary of State records list William E. Chambers as CEO of Zoom Bait and William E. Chambers Jr. as CFO.
St. Mary’s Highland Hills Inc. sits on 66.6 acres.
These are the only two pieces of property along which the sewer line will run until near where it reaches the pump station behind Kohls. From there the sewage will be pumped to one or the other of the county’s two sewage treatment locations.
I posted my story, with this statement from Haygood and summary of the customers for the sewer line on Aug. 2.
Two days after the July 27 meeting The Oconee Enterprise had run a story on page 1 under a single column headline reporting that the sewer line was going to cost $400,000 more than projected and that the undeveloped land behind the big retailers on Epps Bridge Parkway would be served by a different sewer line.
Banner-Herald reporter Erin France, who was at the July 27 meeting and wrote the Aug. 17 story about the sewer line, seems have been more interested in the theoretical than the real.
She quoted County Finance Director Jeff Benko as saying that the sewer line will help protect existing jobs, but it also will prepare surrounding property for commercial development along Jennings Mill road.
She quoted Benko as saying specifically:
“That line will strategically open up a corridor that goes towards Epps Bridge parkway.”
That is exactly what Thomas said at the July 27 meeting is not the case.
I talked with Haygood the day the Banner-Herald story appeared and asked him a few additional questions.
He told me that Williams and Associates, a land planning firm with offices on Daniells Bridge road in Oconee County (but with an Athens Zip Code), had provided the $373,422 cost estimate for the project that the county used for its Georgia Department of Community Affairs grant application.
He also told me that no contract had been let for the project, and in response to my request he gave me a copy of the list of the six bids the county had received for the May 7 bid opening.
At the July 27 meeting, the “low responsive bid” was referred to as for $642,700, and Harrison & Harrison, Inc., of Athens, submitted a bid of $642,766, according to the list.
I also asked Haygood if the county had made any calculation of how much money the Utility Department would take in from sewage fees per month from Zoom Bait and St. Mary's once the line was built. He told me that Thomas had made just such an estimate.
Thomas told me later that day that he had calculated, based on current water usage, that Zoom Bait will pay about $300 per month and St. Mary’s about $160. Sewage fees are calculated on water use, and both customers currently get water from the county.
Thomas estimated that Zoom Bait’s figure could easily double to $600 per month if the firm expands, as he said it has said it will if it gets a sewer line. Thomas said that St. Mary’s could be paying more than at present as well when its new facilities are fully operational.
The Board of Commissioners approved the extra $400,000 for the new sewer line at its Aug. 3 meeting. (The minutes call it the “Zoom Bait/St. Mary’s Sewer Line Project.”)
The BOC took the money for the $400,000 investment–as well as the $186,000 committed earlier--from Special Purposes Local Option Sales Tax revenues, not from the Utility Department budget.
This means that the financially strapped Utility Department will get the improvement that will generate the new sewer revenue without paying for those improvements from its budget.
The Aug. 17 story about the Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s sewer line was not the only one the Banner-Herald ran last week about sewer projects and development.
On Aug. 16, it ran a story on page 1 about a sewage project in Oglethorpe County, also written by reporter Erin France, under the single column headline: Sights set on sewer
The city of Crawford is building a new sewage plant to replace the two antiquated ones it now operates, and France quoted Crawford Mayor Jimmy Coile on the prospect:
“Hopefully, with this system, it will encourage more business to come into the area. That’s what Oglethorpe County needs right now.”
Sewage projects are complex, with someone getting rid of the sewage and someone receiving the effluent. They use different technologies with different effects. And they cost a lot of money.
The Aug. 16 story about the Oglethorpe project did not say where the treated sewage water will go once it is treated. Part of Oglethorpe County is in the Oconee River watershed, and part is in the Savannah River watershed.
I called the Crawford city office and was referred to Austin Rambin, project manager with Peoples and Quigley in Sandy Springs.
He told me that the effluent, which will be treated to close to reuse standards with a disk filter system, will discharge into Barrow Creek.
Barrow Creek flows to the Oconee River, meeting just upstream from where Oglethorpe, Greene and Oconee counties intersect.
The math is in the favor of the Crawford mayor’s assertions about the ability of the plant to meet future needs.
Rambin told me (and France also reported in the last paragraph of her story) that the plant will have the capacity to handle 250,000 gallons per day of sewage, and that the two old Crawford plants are handling only about 80,000 combined today.
Rambin said that 80,000 includes surface water that is entering the antiquated sewer lines.
To help finance the project, Crawford has agreed to sell sewage treatment to Lexington, which relies wholly on septics at present, according to Rambin.
Even with the Lexington sewage, Rambin said, the new Crawford plant will have plenty of unused capacity.
The plant–a relatively small one by area standards–has been built so that it can be expanded if needed, he added.
The Banner-Herald story didn’t contain much detail about financing.
Rambin said the city got a $4 million federal grant and a federal loan for $3.3 million. The agreement with Lexington to treat its sewage was part of the package presented to the federal government to demonstrate that Crawford can repay the loan, he said.
The story did expand on the sewage for development theme.
France wrote the following summary of her take of the situation:
“People in Oglethrope County have yearned for more commercial development–maybe a fast-food restaurant, or even a big-box store like Home Depot–when thinking about what a sewer system could mean for the county.”
She didn’t mention any yearning for a “maker of fishing tackle.”
That would be Bogart, or at least the Bogart Zip Code.
Nathan Deal carried all but one of the 13 Oconee County precincts in the Aug. 10 Republican primary runoff for governor, according to the official Statement of Vote Cast for the county.
Deal received 60.2 percent of the 4,024 votes cast in the Republican runoff in the county, and 50.2 percent statewide.
Of the Oconee County precincts, Karen Handel carried only the precinct of Farmington in the far south of the county, where she got 58, or 53.7 percent, of the 106 Republican votes cast.
She received 48.5 percent of the 270 votes in the City Hall precinct, her next best performance. Most of that precinct is in the city of Watkinsville.
A total of 4,142 Oconee county citizens voted on Aug. 10, and all but 118 (2.9 percent) of them chose to vote in the Republican primary.
In addition to the governor’s runoff, Republicans could cast a ballot to decide the party nominee for attorney general, commissioner of insurance and public service commissioner of eastern district 2.
Oconee County voters favored Sam Olens (55.8 percent) over Preston Smith for attorney general, Ralph Hudgens (66.6 percent) over Maria Sheffield, and Tim Echols (51.7 percent) over John Douglas. In all cases, Oconee County went with the state-wide winners.
Oconee County’s Democratic voters favored Georganna Sinkfield (56.8 percent) over Gail Buckner in the party’s sole runoff for secretary of state. Sinkfield won statewide.
Oconee County Republicans voted much like voters in neighboring counties in the Republican gubernatorial runoff.
In Barrow County, Deal got 62.5 percent of the vote. He got 58.3 percent in Clarke County and 60.0 percent in Oglethorpe. In Greene County, Deal got 57.2 percent of vote, while in Morgan County he got 53.5 percent and in Walton County he got 56.0.
Handel, of course, did best in her home county of Fulton, where she got 71.3 percent of the vote.
The turnout rate in Oconee County for the Aug. 10 runoff was 20.5 percent, compared with a turnout of 29.8 percent in the July 20 primary.
The county eliminated nearly 2,000 voters through the voting process, however, and only 20,239 voters were counted as properly registered for the runoff, compared with 22,225 in the July 20 primary.
In the Aug. 10 runoff, 4,024 Republican ballots were cast, while 5,804 Republican ballots were cast on July 20.
In the Aug. 10 runoff, only 118 Democratic ballots were cast, compared with the 824 Democratic ballots cast on July 20.
Of the 4,142 votes cast in the Aug. 10 primary, 86.0 percent were cast on election day. In the July 20 primary, 74.1 percent of the 6,628 ballots were cast on election day, with most of the remainder cast through early voting.
The Statement of Votes Cast for the elections reassigns the early and absentee mail ballots to precincts, making it possible to determine how the candidates did in the various precincts in the county. That report was released on Aug. 13.
In the July 20 primary in Oconee County, Deal had a higher percentage of the Republican votes for governor than did Handel. From the field of seven candidates, Deal got 33.6 percent of the Republic vote to 26.7 for Handel.
Farmington was the Oconee County precinct with the highest percentage of voters asking for the Democratic ballot in the July 20 primary. Civic Center and City Hall were next highest, in that order.
The Oconee County Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee has changed its schedule for its next meeting on Sept. 14 and will begin discussions at that meeting of bike-friendly road signage rather than make a presentation to the public about its recommendation for a new county judicial facility.
Committee Chairman Abe Abouhamdan announced the schedule change at the end of the Aug. 10 meeting, during which the committee reviewed for the third straight meeting a PowerPoint presentation prepared by Oconee County Strategic and Long Range Planning Director Wayne Provost.
The presentation is designed to persuade the public that the committee reached the right decision back in March when it voted to recommend to the Oconee County Board of Commissioners that it build a judicial facility separate from the current courthouse in downtown Watkinsville.
The new facility, according to the committee recommendation, should be near the current jail on Experiment Station road.
It took the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee a year to respond to a request from the BOC that it provide guidance on the courthouse issue, and the BOC has now gone forward with its own plan to remodel the Government Annex south of Watkinsville to accommodate county space needs.
At its Aug. 3 meeting, the BOC approved a $74,500 contract for architectural services and agreed to proceed with the hiring of a constructions manager for the project. Commissioner Jim Luke opposed the decision, which was approved 3-1.
At the July 13 meeting Abouhamdan scheduled the public presentation for the next meeting of the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee on Sept. 14, but he announced at the end of the Aug. 10 meeting that, according to the draft of the minutes, “the public meeting will be held at the will” of the BOC.
Abouhamdan told the committee members he will discuss the public hearing with the BOC at its agenda-setting meeting on Aug. 31.
(I was not able to attend the Aug. 10 meeting, but Russ Page did record sections of the meeting.)
The decision not to turn the Sept. 14 meeting into a public hearing freed Abouhamdan to move forward on the committee schedule discussion of a request from the Oconee County Cycling Organization that the county install Share The Road signs on roads used by cyclists throughout the county.
The cycling group has identified four key roads it want to be top priorities: Colham Ferry road from Watkinsville to Watson Spring Mill road, Simonton Bridge road from Watkinsville to the county line, New High Shoals road from U.S. 441 to SR 186, and Barnett Shoals road from Watkinsville to the county line.
Richard McSpadden, a member of the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee and president of the Oconee County Cycling Organization, asked Abouhamdan to put the request on the agenda of the committee. (McSpadden is pictured above, left, at the July meeting with committee member Bill Tollner.)
Abouhamdan said at the July meeting when McSpadden made the request that he would not schedule the discussion until the committee was finished with the courthouse issue.
Abouhamdan told McSpadden that biking issues have been controversial with the committee in the past.
Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis made an unusual appearance at the Aug. 10 Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee meeting, joining the committee at the table and engaging in the discussion.
Visitors usually sit at the rear or sides of the room for the hour-long meetings, which begin at 7 p.m. at the community center in Veterans Park.
According to the draft minutes, Davis told the committee that it will be 2014 before citizens can approve a new Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax that could include money for new courthouse facilities and that it would take several years of tax collections to have “seed money” for the project.
Planner Provost noted, however, that the roughly $4.2 million in unspent funds from the SPLOST voters approved in 2003 could be use to purchase land for a new judicial facility.
The committee has not devoted much time to discussion of what might be done with the $4.2 million in unspent funds and has devoted no time to discussion of properties, though it has recommended that the new judicial facility be close to the jail to facilitate safe transfer of prisoners.
In discussing the PowerPoint presentation the last three meetings, the committee has focused on ways to strengthen the argument for its recommendation, opting to add more pictures, including of facilities from Jackson and Barrow counties, which recently have built new courthouses.
At the urging of Chairman Abouhamdan, the committee reached a final decision at the August meeting on the background color for the presentation.
In selecting its three finalists from among the 17 applicants for the open Post 5 position on the Oconee County Board of Education, the board chose three men with long ties to the community.
And the board rejected all three female applicants as well the only three who, in their applications, offered even mild criticism of the board and Oconee County schools.
The board also rejected the only applicant with a Ph.D., the only applicant with a medical degree and both candidates with law degrees.
The board also rejected the only applicant who had labeled himself a Democrat. That was when he ran unsuccessfully for the Post 5 slot less than two years ago.
Two of the three selected applicants have extensive business experience, while the third is a retired Oconee school teacher and administrator.
The four members of the board who made the decision include a businessman with experience in restaurant franchising, a businessman who operates a trucking company, a teacher and a staff member at the University of Georgia. All but the teacher are men.
Tom Breedlove, who resigned from the Post 5 slot in May, was a land planner who worked in development.
Breedlove and the other four board members were elected as Republicans.
These three finalists–Joseph Bagley, Michael Burnette and Glenn Townsend–will be interviewed by the board on at a meeting starting at 7 p.m. on Sept. 2. Board Chairman David Weeks told me in early July that he expected the board to makes it decision in late September or early October.
The board released the names immediately, but it did not release the application forms. Those forms list name, educational and employment background, school and community activities, reasons for requesting appointment to the board, and length of residence in Oconee County.
Sixteen of the 17 appeared before the board on Aug. 2 and gave three-minute introductions of themselves. Applicant Alan Alexander, one of the two attorneys, could not attend, and Weeks read a statement from him. Most applicants summarized what they had put on the application form.
I requested and received the full set of applications. I summarized their responses in a spreadsheet.
The length of residence of the 17 applicants ranged from less than one year (Michael Brown, 9 months) to 33 years (selected applicant Burnette).
The applicant with the second longest tenure in the county was selected applicant Townsend with 26 years.
Among those selected, Bagley was a relative newcomer, with nine years of residence. But he attended high school in Commerce and did his undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia.
Bagley is vice president of development for Lassiter Properties, Inc. According to his application, he currently directs the development of two major retail centers for Lassiter. Based in Morrow, southeast of Atlanta, Lassiter owns and operates timberlands in the U.S.
Burnette, according to his application, has been a store manager for more than 20 years with Tires Plus and has been area manager for the company for the last eight years.
Townsend, who served as an assistant principal in the Oconee County school system from 1992 to 2008, is now retired. Prior to moving to the Oconee system, Townsend was an administrator and teacher in the Clarke County school system.
Townsend began his teaching career in Commerce, following a short stint as graduate assistant football coach at the University of Georgia.
Bagley said he has two children currently in the Oconee County school system, while Burnette and Townsend did not indicate if they have children in the schools. Burnette’s application was one of the briefest, consisting of less than 11 lines of hand-written comments to the three open-ended questions.
“My background in accounting and 20 years in the business field will be instrumental with current economic times,” Burnette wrote.
Bagley also wrote that his experience in business would be an asset and said that he and his wife “are proud to tell folks that our sons are part of the Oconee County School System, and I believe that this system is well on its way to maintain the status as one of the best systems in the country.”
Townsend said he is “knowledgeable of many school policies + procedures, and am familiar with many of the policies and procedures of the Oconee System.” He added: “I am a ‘team’ person, and would love to be able to contribute to the current B.O.E. and its decision making.”
Only three of the applicants even hinted at criticism of the current board or system.
Kirk Dunham, a financial adviser, wrote: “While I believe that our school system in Oconee County is very good, I also believe that there is room for improvement in several areas.”
Dunham did not elaborate, but he did list communication, measurement of performance and development of personnel as areas he would like to focus on if he were appointed.
William Rakosnik, who said he was in upper management, was even more circumspect, saying he believed in “consensus building and a team approach to problem solving.” He added: “I do not believe that excellent schools and a reasonable tax rate are mutually exclusive goals and will work toward achieving both.”
Franklin Shumake said “We need school board members who will look, listen, and learn what our parents, students, teachers, administrators, and community citizens want in our schools.” He added that “we need to go beyond personal agenda items and focus on what is best for the students in our schools.”
Shumake, a retired Oconee County school administrator, said the county needs school board members who can communication with and coordinate with leadership groups in the community, such as the county commissioners, city leaders, and civic and business leaders.
Of the three female applicants, two did not list current work outside the home. Roslyn Beckstead has been a teacher in the past, and DeeDee Gaines has worked in the health and wellness field.
Cindy Chapman currently is working as an office manager.
Michael Brown was the second attorneys who did not make the short list. (Alexander was the first.)
Gregory Zengo was the only physician on the list of 17 applicants. His practice is in Watkinsville.
Zengo had asked to be appointed to the board back in 2007, when Post 2 became vacant because of a resignation. Guest was appointed instead.
Richard Clark, who holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Connecticut and is on the public service faculty at the University of Georgia, also had applied for that opening.
Clark then filed as a Democrat to run against Breedlove in November of 2008. Breedlove had defeated Kyle Martin in the Republican primary for the Post 5 opening and defeated Clark in the general election.
During the Aug. 2 presentation to the board, Clark urged the board to seek diversity in making its selection and even said he would understand if he were passed over for someone with expertise in elementary or secondary education.
The other applicants were Britt Beaver, a teacher and coach, Mark Capobianco, a business owner, Gary Davis, a financial adviser, and Stuart McGarity, a financial representative.
The board opened the applications up to the general public after abandoning an earlier attempt to fill the slot from among the four persons who had filed to run for the two seats being contested in this year’s election cycle.
Chairman Weeks made that proposal to the board on May 19, and members Mack Guest, Kim Argo and Mike Hunter quickly accepted it.
Guess and Argo were two of the four persons who had qualified to run. The others were Mark Thomas and Carter Strickland. Thomas filed to challenge Guest for the Post 2 position as a Republican, while Strickland filed to challenge the winner of that contest as a Democrat.
Argo has filed to run for reelection to Post 3 as a Republican and received no opposition from her party or from the Democratic Party.
Strickland alone asked to be appointed to the Post 5 position, but the board rejected his application on June 14 and decided to seek candidates from the general public.
Weeks said at the time that the public had registered its complaint with the restrictions the board had placed on applicants.
Thomas defeated Guest in the July 20 Republican primary. Thomas and Strickland will face off in the November general election.
Guest is the owner of Lad Trucking in Watkinsville. Argo is a Walton County teacher. Hunter is on the staff of the School of Forestry at the University of Georgia. Weeks owns six local restaurants, including three in Oconee county.
Thomas is a contractor, and Strickland owns a media content management service company.
Strickland had been critical of the current board and of Superintendent John Jackson in two candidate forums in June.
I met with Board Chairman Weeks on July and asked him if Strickland’s party or his criticism of Jackson had been factors in rejecting his candidacy.
Weeks said these things had not been factors and that the board was open to applicants with points of view different from those of current members.
