The Oconee County Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee will return to the issue of bicyclists tomorrow night when it takes up a request that the county put up Share the Road signs on four Oconee County roadways.
Those roads are 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.
Much of the discussion was quite critical of the request, with Emil Beshara, county director of Pubic Works, saying he believed the signs would create liability issues for the county.
Committee Chairman Abe Abouhamdan agreed to take up the issue again at the meeting tomorrow night, which begins at 7 p.m. at the Community Center in Veterans Park.
In the meantime, the Board of Commissioners has sent the Land Use Committee the Plan for Bicycling and Walking for review.
The citizen committee has been asked by the BOC to make a recommendation to it both on the signage issue and on the Northeast Georgia plan.
The Bicycling and Walking plan was on the agenda of the BOC for Oct. 26 when County Clerk Gina Lindsey released it on the afternoon of Oct. 22. She released a revised agenda on Oct. 25 that eliminated the item.
Lindsey said in releasing the second agenda that the biking and walking plan was being sent to the Land Use Committee for review.
Chairman Melvin Davis sent the other four commissioners an email message on Oct. 1 advising them of the request by the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission that the county approve the plans.
He sent with his Oct. 1 memo three resolutions for the commissioners to consider. One endorsed the resolution and one adopted the resolution.
The third, which Davis said he recommended, simply recognized the resolution. That third resolution, which he told the commissions had been drafted by Strategic and Long-Range Planning Director Wayne Provost, greatly distances the county from the plan.
The other two drafts say that the county “will implement” or “will consider implementation” of the plan.
The document drafted by Provost says the county “may consider” the plan “when making some planning development decisions.”
Nina Kelly of the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission is scheduled to appear before the Land Use Committee to make the case for the plan.
A sewage line that the Oconee County administration has been touting as a way of providing sewage services for two existing customers, Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s Health Care System Highland Hills, actually will provide sewers for a separate tract of land that the county wants to open for development.
The 114-acre tract, previously undiscussed in public meetings, is owned by Evelyn and Frank Gordy Family, a limited partnership from Atlanta. Varsity Real Estate, also of Atlanta, is a partner of the Evelyn and Frank Gordy Family company.
Representing the Gordy Family in discussions with the county about the tract and sewage services is developer Frank Bishop, who expects to open his Epps Bridge Centre once the Oconee Connector Extension, now under construction, is completed.
According to an Oct. 29, 2010, email message from Chris Thomas, Oconee County Utility Department director, to Alan Theriault, Oconee County administrative officer, Bishop has an option on the 114-acre tract, which also will be accessible via the new roadway.
Bishop also purchased part of the tract for his shopping center from the Gordy Family.
The state is paying for that roadway, which will loop traffic from State Route 316 just west of LOOP 10 through the Bishop and Gordy land back to Epps Bridge Parkway just west of Lowe’s.
At the meeting of the Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night, Chairman Melvin Davis urged the Board to approve rebidding for the sewer line project, since the bids received in response to a request for proposals of September of 2009 have now expired.
The four other members of the board objected, however, because both St. Mary’s and the Gordy Family are asking the county to pay for easements to run the proposed sewer line across their property.
That means that the owners of two of the properties that would benefit from the sewer line not only are not willing to help pay for its construction but also want the county to use taxpayer dollars to pay them for use of their land.
The city of Athens, which also owns a piece of land the line will cross, also is asking the county to pay for an easement.
Despite the request from Davis to go forward with the project, the board agreed only to continue discussions regarding the easements.
Davis, in fact, had tried to keep the item off the agenda on Tuesday night, telling Theriault in an email message on Oct. 18 that “the board has already approved the project, the need for the project has not changed, the projected expense was approved from SPLOST and the grant, the BOC was aware that the property owners had the option of being paid for the easement.”
The grant he referred to was for $186,711 from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. The remainder of the estimated $773,000 cost of the sewer line is to be paid for from Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenues.
The sewer line appeared on the Nov. 2 BOC agenda because commissioners Jim Luke and Chuck Horton objected to going forward without further public discussion.
The possibility that some properties other than Zoom Bait and St. Mary, both on Jennings Mill road, might be served by the proposed sewer line was an issue at the July 27 meeting of the BOC, when the issue was last discussed publicly.
Commissioners Margaret Hale, Horton and Luke specifically asked Thomas of the Utility Department if other properties would be served by the sewer line.
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.
Economic Development Director Rusty Haygood interrupted 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 then 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.
The county also told the state of Georgia in its Department of Communnity Affairs grant application that the project was designed to help Zoom Bait and St. Mary's, existing businesses in the county.
While Davis on Tuesday night was acknowledging that Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s were not the only parties involved in discussions, he refused to even use the name of the owner of the “large tract” in arguing that the rebidding should go forward.
It was Thomas who explained who really is to benefit from the sewer line.
He told the commissioners that he had organized a meeting with Bishop on July 7 that was attended by Davis, Theriault, Rusty Haygood, County Attorney Daniell Haygood, and county Strategic and Long-Range Planning Director Wayne Provost.
“We were going to try to get some participation from the Gordy family for the project to help cover that shortfall,” Thomas said.
The project nearly doubled in cost after the first estimates used in the Department of Community Affairs application, and Thomas was hoping Bishop or the Gordy Family would help make up the difference.
Thomas even said he told Bishop the county might actually cancel the sewer project without some assistance.
The threat didn’t work, and Bishop didn’t come up with any money, though he did say he would work on the easement issue, Thomas said.
Commissioner Horton told me yesterday that he first learned of Bishop’s involvement in the discussions with the county about the sewer line only on Oct. 25.
Horton said he and Commissioner Hale met with Bishop–at Bishop’s invitation--at the Starbucks in downtown Athens at 10 a.m. that day to talk about progress on Epps Bridge Centre.
At the end of the meeting, Horton said, after Hale had already left, Bishop brought up discussions with the county about the sewer line on the Gordy property.
“That was the first I knew he had something to do with the Gordy property,” Horton said.
He said he also checked with Commissioners Hale, Luke and John Daniell and learned that they also were in the dark about discussions between the county and Bishop regarding the Gordy property.
On Oct. 28, Horton sent an email message to Davis and the other commissioners, with copies to Thomas, Rusty Haygood and Daniel Haygood, and Theriault.
“I would also like to know about any meetings with other landowners or possible purchasers of property that would be positively impacted by the infrastructure improvements by the county” on the Zoom Bait/St. Mary’s sewer project, Horton wrote.
On Oct. 29, Thomas wrote back to Theriault, saying “I believe the meeting Commissioner Horton is referring to took place on 7/7/2010. I attended and initiated the meeting along with the Chairman, Frank Bishop, Rusty, Wayne, you.”
He included in his email to Theriault a copy of an email he sent to Bishop “following the meeting.”
In that letter, Thomas estimated that it would cost the developer of the Gordy property about $975,000 if it had to pump sewage to the existing sewer line–the one Thomas had said would serve the property at the July 27 meeting–if the new line were not built.
The proposed new sewer line would be downhill from much of the expected development on the Gordy property, so lift stations would not be required, making the project less expensive.
I obtained this correspondence via an open records request I filed on Thursday night. I asked the county to provide to me what Theriault had provided to the commissioners to brief them on the Tuesday night meeting.
Included was a hand-drawn map, which Rusty Haygood also had provided me on Wednesday.
It also included copies of detailed maps produced by Williams & Associates of the actual sewer line.
The maps make it clear how much of a benefit the new sewer line would be to Bishop or whoever develops the Gordy track.
While the project has been described as a gravity flow system from Zoom Bait, which sits on a high bank above McNutt Creek, to a pump station on McNutt creek behind Kohl’s on Epps Bridge parkway, the maps show that the sewer line, in fact, does not follow McNutt Creek.
Rather the line would leave Zoom Bait, cross Jennings Mill road, and follow the existing roadway on the creek side of the St. Mary’s complex.
Zoom Bait is willing to grant an easement for the small part of its land the line will traverse.
After leaving the St. Mary’s property, the sewer line would cross an edge of the property owned by Athens and then traverse large sections of the Gordy property before actually approaching McNutt Creek, which serves as the border with Clarke County.
From there it would connect with the existing sewer line.
An Athens-Clarke County line, according to the hand-drawn map, runs on the opposite side of the creek and roughly follows the creek.
Chairman Davis offered member of the audience a chance to speak on Tuesday night after he urged the commission to move forward on the project, and John Morrison, a member of the Oconee County Development Authority, came forward to support Davis’ recommendation.
He said he was certain that Zoom Bait was thinking of leaving the county if it didn’t get the sewage line to replace the septic system it now uses and said the county should do what it could to help support existing employers in the county. Zoom bait makes fishing lures.
St. Mary’s sends its sewage across McNutt Creek to the sewage line that parallels the creek and flows to a Clark County sewage treatment facility.
Commissioners Horton and Luke urged Thomas to explore whether Athens-Clarke County could handle the Zoom effluent as well.
A story in the the Athens Banner-Herald on Aug. 17 said, in its headline, that the proposed sewer line “will help prevent job drain.”
The story also said the new sewer line will “encourage more commercial growth along Jennings Mill road.”
Jennings Mill road does not connect with Epps Bridge parkway, but much of the traffic leaving a developed Gordy Family tract certainly will.
Benko, it seems now, had it right, though he was not toeing the official line when he said that a key purpose of the proposed sewer line is future development.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners last night officially voted to end discussion of renovation of the Government Annex on SR 15 south of Watkinsville.
Commissioner John Daniell argued that the county should go forward with the latest plans for the building and was supported by Commissioner Margaret Hale.
Commissioners Chuck Horton and Jim Luke were opposed, as was Commission Chairman Melvin Davis.
The Board has been discussing since May a major renovation of the facility, which now houses the Public Works and Utility departments as well as an office of the United States Department of Agriculture and an adult education program of Athens Technology College.
The Board held a public session on the plans at the Civic Center on Sept. 21. At that time, several board members expressed concerns about the cost. One of the proposals was just under $2 million.
At its Oct. 26 meeting, County Administration Officer Alan Theriault brought forward a scaled back version costing $1.3 million. In deference to Commissioner Hale, who said she still needed more information, the Board agreed to postpone final action until last night.
Daniell, who has been a strong proponent of the renovation, gave a five-minute argument last night for the scaled back plan and then made a motion that the county go forward with the renovation. The motion was seconded by Hale.
That motion was defeated 3-2 with Horton and Luke voting against and Davis breaking the tie with his no vote.
Luke next made a motion, seconded by Horton, that the county cease planning for the annex renovation.
That motion was passed 3-2, with Luke, Horton and Davis voting in the majority.
Daniell used an estimate of $2 million in costs for the renovation by adding costs for a needed new roof and other code upgrades to the $1.3 million figure used by Theriault.
Finance Director Jeff Benko had proposed the plan to renovate the Government Annex back in May as a way of saving money on the current and future budgets.
The idea was for the county to vacate the Courthouse Annex, located across the street from the courthouse in downtown Watkinsville, and move the departments housed there to the renovated Government Annex.
The county leases the Courthouse Annex, referred to as the Dolvin property, and pays other expenses totaling about $105,000 per year.
Running parallel to the discussion of the renovation of the Government Annex has been discussion in the county’s Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee about the future of the county courthouse.
At a public meeting on Oct. 19, that group argued that the county needs to build a separate judicial facility near the county jail in the next 10 years. The committee estimated the cost at between $20 and 22 million.
That proposal came up last night as well.
Davis told Daniell he thought the proposal for the Annex renovation “was way to expensive.” Daniell countered that it was a lot cheaper than the proposed judicial building.
“I don’t have any alternatives at this point,” Davis responded.
Luke used the opportunity to express his views on the judicial building proposal.
“I have no intention, probably in my life time, of going out and looking at that judicial center,” he said.
Horton also said he wanted to be on the record as not wanting to go forward with the plan of the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee.
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I have put the video of this entire section of the BOC meeting on my Oconee County Observations Vimeo site.
Challenger Pamela Hendrix and incumbent David Sweat have very different views about what distinguishes one from the other, about what each would bring to the Superior Court were she elected or he re-elected, and their most significant accomplishments in the last 10 years.
In responding to a series of questions I posed, Hendrix repeatedly focuses on her gender and the need, in her view, for a woman to join what is now a three-judge court made up entirely of men.
Sweat focused on his experience and his accomplishments during the eight years he has served Oconee and Clarke counties as a Superior Court Judge for the Western Judicial District.
“I am a woman and he is a man,” Hendrix said. “Men and women have different decision-making and administrative styles. Neither is better than the other, but our courts are best served when both types of decision-making and administrative styles are represented on the bench.”
“I brought 23 years of courtroom and legal experience to the bench when the voters elected me in 2002,” Sweat said. “Now, I have nearly 8 years of experience doing this work. I have been recognized by members of the community and fellow judges as an effective judge and leader in trying to solve the problems facing our community.”
“The voters should select me because I have a proven record of experience and success,” Sweat, who is 55, said.
“Voters deserve some fresh, new ways of thinking from the bench and not just judges that are making a nice salary and marking their time until retirement,” Hendrix, 44, said.
Hendrix has mounted an aggressive campaign against Sweat. She has put up yard signs in both counties (downtown Watkinsville pictured) and run advertisements, some with a negative play on the incumbent’s name, pronounced just as it is written. She also has been assertive in interviews with reporters.
The incumbent has been restrained in his response, relying on his name recognition and focusing on his incumbency.
Sweat also has mailed to Oconee County voters an endorsement from Sheriff Scott Berry, who said that Judge Sweat is “the kind of judge that law enforcement needs on the bench.”
The race, however, is likely to be decided in Clarke County, where Sweat resides, rather than in Oconee County, where Hendrix lives.
The Western Judicial Circuit, consisting of the two counties, is the western-most circuit of the Tenth Superior Court District of Georgia.
Clarke has 66,827 registered voters, and Oconee has 22,606.
As of the end of the day today, 6,688 Clarke County voters, or 10.0 percent of those registered, had voted in the 25-day early voting period, and 4,127, or 18.3 percent of the Oconee County voters, had cast their ballots.
In 2006, the last comparable election in terms of offices to be filled, 55.9 percent of Clarke County’s registered voters cast ballots, while 60.3 percent of Oconee County’s registered voters went to the polls.
If those ratios hold this year, just fewer than 51,000 votes will be cast in the two counties, and about a quarter (26.7 percent) will come from Oconee County.
The Superior Court race is a late bloomer, since judges run without party endorsement or identification. Hendrix filed her paperwork to run against Judge Sweat only on July 15, or five days ahead of the party primaries for most of the candidates whose names will appear on the Nov. 2 ballot.
Early voting is now ended, and voters will have from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday to cast their ballots at their polling places. Any voter confused about that venue or uncertain about her or his registration status can go to the My Voter Page of the Secretary of State web site for additional information.
On Oct. 21 I sent a list of 11 questions to Hendrix and Sweat, asking them to respond and indicating I would report the answers in Oconee County Observations.
The questionnaire I sent to the candidates began by asking them to identify “the personal characteristics that make (or will make) you a good Superior Court Judge for the Western Judicial Circuit of Georgia?”
Sweat’s answer was short and direct. He listed “Honesty, empathy, patience, intelligence, compassion, experience, insight.”
Hendrix said “I have a love for people, especially children, and a servant’s heart. I am very even-tempered and am often called a ‘peace maker.’ As a mother and self-employed attorney, I am a master multi-tasker and administrator. I am smart and my character is above reproach.”
Hendrix listed a number of professional skills that would make her a good Superior Court Judge, including those gained from “over 19 years of legal experience in diverse practice areas including real estate, general business, wills and probate, property tax appeals, family law and criminal defense.”
Sweat said that before he was elected in 2002 as a judge of the Superior Court he “had 23 years experience in private law practice, handling a broad variety of criminal and civil legal matters in all levels of state and federal courts...As a judge I have conducted hundreds of jury and non-jury trials and handled thousands of cases.”
Sweat gave a long list of professional accomplishments over the last 10 years, including that he established and now presides over a “Child Support Problem-Solving Court which is one of two model child support problem-solving courts for the State of Georgia. “
Hendrix listed a number of accomplishments as well, but she began by saying “What I am most proud of is giving birth to and raising mostly on my own (their Dad left when my two boys were just three and six years old) two well-adjusted children who are model students and well on their way to becoming hard-working, productive citizens.”
I asked the two candidates what they hoped to be able to point to in four years as their most significant accomplishments as Superior Court Judge. Hendrix listed several things, but ended by focusing on families.
“I would especially hope that the children in fractured family situations would feel I had really listened to them if they desired to speak,” she said.
Sweat, among other things, said he hopes he is able to say he expanded the Child Support Problem-Solving Court “to include many additional parents who are failing to support their children, to make them accountable and responsible and to enhance the economic well being of their children.”
I also asked the two candidates to identify the challenges and opportunities facing the Western Circuit of the Superior Court.
Sweat said the economic downturn has resulted in greater stress on families and individuals and that, in addition to programs he already has in place, he would want to work more with the governments of the two counties to address the increased stress from the downturn.
He said technologies offer some new opportunities for the court and he has already tried to seize these and other opportunities available.
Hendrix cited the heavy case load for the three judges as a challenge, indicating that “good case management is imperative.” She also said “It may be time to consider a Family Court in the Western Judicial Circuit.”
She said the University of Georgia Law School is an opportunity for the Clarke and Oconee Superior Court and said that second and third-year law students could help with legal clinics “to help reduce the backlog of cases.”
Sweat made no direct reference to Hendrix in his answers. He did point out that he has lived “in this community since 1976.” Hendrix moved to Oconee County from Morgan County three years ago.
Hendrix made several references to Sweat in her responses.
“I have never been a judge,” Hendrix said in one response, “but eight years ago neither had David Sweat. I know that I am at least as intelligent as he is, so if he learned the job so can I.”
As of Sept. 30, Hendrix raised $10,134, with $7,407 of that being a loan she made to the campaign, according to the records she filed with the State Ethics Commission. No contributor gave more than $1,000.
Hendrix spent $8,689 during the period ending Sept. 30. She spent more than $3,000 for yard signs and other printing. She listed a filing fee of $3,607 as her largest expense.
Sweat had raised $29,277 in campaign contributions, according to his filing with the Ethics Commission. Though only required to list contributions by name if the amount was more than $100, he listed all contributions. The largest was for $2,000 from the law firm of Blasingame, Burch, Garrard and Ashley.
Sweat spent only a little more than $3,000, and a third of that was for yard signs. He listed $697 as postal expenses. That probably did not include the expenses for the mailing from Oconee County Sheriff Scott Berry.
I received my letter from Sheriff Berry in the middle of October. The letter of endorsement of Judge Sweat by Sheriff Berry was listed as paid for by the Committee to Re-Elect Judge David Sweat.
The return address for the mailing was David Sweat, 1140 Experiment Station road, Watkinsville, GA 30677. That is the Oconee County sheriff’s office and county jail.
I spoke with Sherilyn Streicker, the deputy executive secretary of the State Ethics Committee, on Oct. 18 and asked if there was any provision of state law that would keep the sheriff from using the return address of a county facility for a paid political mailing.
Ms. Streicker, who is an attorney, said in her view the use of the return address alone does not constitute a contribution to a campaign. Use of county personnel to mail the envelopes would be a contribution and would be prohibited, she said.
Sheriff Berry indicated in his letter that he also had written to citizens four years ago endorsing Judge Sweat.
Voting in Oconee County had been slow during the first weeks of early voting, which began on Sept. 20. As of Oct. 22, only 1,804 persons had voted.
Until this week, voting only was possible at the Board of Elections and Registration office next to the courthouse in Watkinsville. The Civic Center on Hog Mountain road also was open for voting this week.
Of the total 4,127 votes cast in early voting, 844 were cast at the Civic Center.
Plans to renovate the Oconee County Government Annex building on SR 15 on the south side of Watkinsville stalled tonight after County Administrative Officer Alan Theriault announced the latest cost estimate of $1.324 million.
The Board of Commissioners delayed making a final decision and decided instead to put the item on the agenda for the Nov. 2 meeting.
Commissioners Chuck Horton and Jim Luke spoke against going forward on the project.
John Daniell said he remained in favor of the plan. Commissioner Margaret Hale said she still wanted to explore some options before making the final decision and argued for the postponement of a decision.
If Hale joins with Daniell at the Nov. 2 meeting in favor of the project, as she indicated she might, and Horton and Luke voted against, BOC Chairman Melvin Davis would break the tie.
He indicated tonight he is opposed to going forward with the renovation.
The county has been considering a major renovation of the Government Annex since it was proposed in May by county Finance Director Jeff Benko as a way of saving money as the county tried to balance its budget in the face of revenue shortfalls.
The idea was to move the Planning Department, Code Enforcement and other offices out of the Courthouse Annex, across Main street from the courthouse in downtown Watkinsville, to the Annex and to cancel the lease on the Courthouse Annex.
The Government Annex now houses the Utility Department, Public Works and the Fire Department. It also is used by the United States Department of Agriculture and Athens Technical College adult education program.
At a public meeting on the renovation on Sept. 21, the commissioners looked at three separate plans for the renovation of the Government Annex, with the most expensive running to just less than $1.9 million.
Theriault said the $1.3 million version scaled back on expenses by eliminating roof repairs, a brick facade and covered entrance, and simplifying internal office structure. The cost estimate does include the cost of moving, of renting temporary office trailers and of furniture.
The plan includes space for adult education but not for the USDA.
Theriault said he had met with each of the commissioners individually over the last week and a half to discuss the renovation options.
The reduced plans and cost were not enough to satisfy Horton, who spoke first after Theriault summarized the new proposal.
“I think it is trying to do the right thing,” Horton said, but said he thought it wasn’t going to accomplish what the county wanted.
Davis next seized the opportunity to speak and said while he agreed that consolidation of the county departments in one location made sense, he was not sure the Government Annex was the right place.
“I think the final location of this concept deserves further study,” he said.
Commissioner Luke said he has been opposed to the renovation of the Government Annex from the beginning and that his position had not changed.
Daniell said he “can count to three most of the time, and I can see where this is going” but he was “very discouraged” with the decision. He called the original idea “brilliant” and said he was “really disappointed” with the apparent decision.
Hale said she wanted more information about a possible reduction in the lease price of the Courthouse Annex, referred to as the Dolvin Property, and about an increase in the amount of money the USDA might be willing to pay for its space.
She said she could be in favor of the proposal if all the pieces fell into place.
The Oconee County media scene will have a new player come the first of the year if AOL launches the hyperlocal web site for Watkinsville it has in the plans.
Perry Parks, a Georgia regional editor for AOL’s Patch.com project, said he expects to hire a professional editor for Watkinsville and Oconee County next month. That editor will be in charge of Oconee County exclusively and will have a budget to hire stringers to help with local coverage.
That coverage, according to Parks, will include Oconee County government, schools, sports, culture and politics. Patch.com will have a dedicated web site for Oconee County that also will serve as a portal or one-stop gateway for other news sites and blogs in the county, he said.
Parks is even closer to having a staff person operating in Athens/Clarke County and is in the process of hiring staff for other counties in the state.
AOL is rolling out web Patch.com around the country and announced on Aug. 17 that it plans to hire 500 professional journalists in 20 states this year. Patch.com had 100 web sites operational at the time.
Patch.com now has about 300 sites up and has a goal of 500 sites by the end of the year, Parks said.
AOL is trying to move away from its historical roots as an Internet service provide to become a content provider.
“We are not trying to view ourselves as a competitor” of the county’s two weeklies, Parks said. “We want to be another voice. There is plenty of room in Watkinsville.”
Parks, who has taught at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and worked as a professional journalist, lives in Oconee County.
He said his goal is to hire someone to be Oconee County editor who will live in Oconee County and work out of the home.
The first assignment of the editor is to build a comprehensive directory of county businesses and governmental offices. The directory will contain copy produced by the editor and those working for her or him, but businesses will be able to pay for additional, premium listings.
This directory is the backbone of the local Patch.com sites and is expected to bring traffic to the sites, which also will contain advertising separate from the directory as well as the other news content.
Neither of the two weeklies, The Oconee Enterprise and The Oconee Leader, has a full-service web site, and both papers give priority to their print products.
The Enterprise has an unaudited circulation of 4,000. The Leader is a free, total market circulation product, with the post office delivering to each of the roughly 9,000 households in the county.
The daily Athens Banner-Herald also has an insert in the Wednesday edition of the paper dedicated to Oconee County.
“Our overriding philosophy is that if we have more voices competing it will increase the engagement throughout the county,” Parks said. “We will do well if everyone does well.”
Parks said Patch.com will take advantage of its ability to gets its news online quickly. “If news happens on Friday night, we will be able to report it on Friday night.”
Not everyone thinks AOL’s strategy is a winner. Reuters quoted a number of skeptics last week in a summary story it wrote on the company’s plans for Patch.com.
Newspaper companies also have had trouble converting from their business model involving the printed product.
Patch.com will be operating without the expenses of an ink-on-paper operation and without any of the newspaper assumptions about how to go about the business.
“What we are starting is not a newspaper,” Parks said. “It is a web only site.” The product will be entirely focused on the local community, he added, and will be professionally staffed.
Carter Strickland and Mark Thomas are offering Oconee County voters distinctive choices for the Board of Education Post 2 position on the Nov. 2 ballot.
Strickland is critical of the current board, saying it needs to do a better job of listening to the citizens of the county and communicating back to those citizens.
Thomas says he does not have criticisms of the board.
Thomas says the county has “one of the top school systems in the state of Georgia” and the Board of Education must provide support, “thereby assuring our continual improvement.”
Strickland says “the BOE and the county must admit that we do have problems” and the BOE should “strive to be the best school system in the country, not just northeast Georgia.”
Strickland says the BOE should sell immediately the 6.7 acres on North Main street it bought for $900,000 on Dec. 7, 2009–“if there is anyone willing to pay the $900K the taxpayers were forced to pay for it.”
Thomas says: “We need to be good stewards of the assets we have” and, prior to making any decisions about use of the assets, “the school board should accurately assess our current and future needs.”
Thomas, who defeated incumbent Mack Guest in the July 20 Republican primary, says “That the people of Oconee County were obviously in favor of making a change in the membership of the school board” when they selected him.
Strickland agrees that voters tossed out Guest “because they clearly wanted a change.” Strickland adds: “By electing me they have a chance to make that change.”
Despite these and other differences, the candidates have similarities.
Both are self-employed, Thomas as owner of Mark Thomas Enterprises, Inc., a grading and electrical contractor, and Strickland as CEO of OurVarsity, a nationwide distributor of media content management systems.
Both have children in the Oconee County school system.
Neither of them mentions party as a reason to vote for them. Strickland, in fact, considered running as an independent before he filed as a Democrat in April.
Thomas is 50. Strickland is 40.
The man selected on Nov. 2 will be joining a school board made up of three other men and one woman.
Strickland and Thomas appeared together in two candidate forums in June, organized by the Oconee County Chamber of Commerce and by citizens groups.
And the race was featured in stories in the Athens Banner-Herald and The Oconee Leader this past week.
By 4:55 p.m. on Friday, only 1,804 of the county’s 22,606 registered voters had cast their ballots. Early voting ends at 5 p.m. this Friday.
On Monday evening, I sent to both of the candidates a list of 10 questions, asking them to provide answers to be posted on my blog.
I received the responses from Strickland on Thursday and from Thomas on Friday.
Thomas added some additional information about himself at the end of the form, and I left the information as he had provided it.
The responses show the differences between Thomas and Strickland highlighted above and some of the similarities.
Strickland has moderated some of his responses from the candidate forums.
At the June 3 forum organized by the Chamber of Commerce, in response to a question about Superintendent John Jackson, Strickland said “if we can get rid of him without having to pay him, let’s get rid of him.”
Thomas said Jackson had a contract and the county did not need a situation where someone was being paid and not working.
And at the June 9 candidate forum , the candidates were asked to comment on “turnover and turmoil in the Oconee County School System in the last two years.”
Thomas said some turnover, at least, was routine, but Strickland said “some of the things that have been done brought me to a boil, and that is why I’m here.”
In response to an invitation from the Board of Education to all the candidates who had filed for either Post 2 or Post 3, Strickland had applied for the then-open Post 5 position. He was the only one who did so.
Incumbent Post 3 member Kim Argo was the only candidate to file for that slot and will be on the November ballot unopposed.
Thomas has raised $6,437 for his campaign, which included the primary battle with Guest, and spent $5,630, most of it on signs and advertising with the two local weeklies.
Strickland has not raised any money, but he has spent $637 on yard signs, his only campaign expense.
In response to my question about criticism of Superintendent Jackson, Strickland said his “job is not to criticize what has happened in the past but to bring something new to the table.”
“Oconee County needs a visionary who is politically astute, understands how to network and has a strong business background,” he wrote. “We need a person who can look 15 years into the future, understand where we need to be at that date and then has the gumption and skills to take us to that place.”
“I will not become a school board member with preconceived opinions about the performance of the school superintendent or other personnel,” Thomas wrote in his response. “I will evaluate the performance of the staff objectively and address each issue based on the facts presented.”
Thomas responded to a question about the unique characteristics, talents and perspectives he would bring to the Board by saying that he is “willing to listen to ideas and solutions from parents, teachers, administrators, support personnel, students, local citizens, and local organizations...I will communicate, cooperate, and coordinate with my colleagues.”
Strickland said he would bring outside perspectives to the board. “I have lived beyond our borders. I know what is being accomplished in other school systems,” he said. “And I know our school system is capable of achieving those great and many things if we have the right leadership.”
Thomas said voters should select him on Nov. 2 because “I have a deep interest in our school system... I am a life long resident and my family has been in Oconee County for several generations.”
“The students, teachers, administrators and parents have created a legacy of excellence in our schools,” Thomas continued. “The school board serves as a steward of that legacy. Let us preserve this tradition of excellence by voting for me.”
“The public should vote for me because the current board doesn’t want me in there,” Strickland said in response to the same question.
“I’m different. I’m new. I’m transparent. I’m not afraid to admit when I am wrong. I’m in this for you and your kids.”
