Big Gap Exists Between Stated and Real Purpose of Oconee County Sewer Project

Zoom Bait/St. Mary’s/Gordy Project

The Zoom Bait/St. Mary’s sewer project that Oconee County presented to the state, the federal government and the public is a limited, $383,055 undertaking to provide sewer services to two established businesses in the county with low-to-moderate income employees.

The actual project is a $851,639 infrastructure investment designed to provide sewer services to Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s Health Care System as well to the owners of a 114-acre parcel the county wants to develop as part of its Epps Bridge Parkway commercial complex.

At its Feb. 8 meeting, the Board of Commissioners is scheduled to consider a proposal by representatives of that 114-acre parcel that the owners give the county easements to build the sewer line on their property, but only if the county agrees to reserve 50,000 gallons of sewage treatment capacity for the property for five year.

The representatives also want the county to pay $1,000 in expenses associated with the negotiated settlement.

BOC Chairman Melvin Davis pushed the proposal at the Board’s Jan. 4 meeting, but the other four members of the BOC bulked, saying they had been kept in the dark about the true nature of the project and about the negotiations with the representatives of the 114-acre tract.

News about the value of the project for the owners of the 114-acre parcel first leaked out at the Nov. 2 meeting of the BOC.

What has not been clear until now is the extent to which the county had worked to mask the true nature of the sewer line project in the state and federal grant application.

I filed an open records request with the county on Nov. 15, asking for copies of the grant application the county had made when it sought state and federal support for the project and for related documentation and correspondence.

The application to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs for federal Housing and Urban Development block grant funds, approved by the BOC unanimously on May 26, 2009, is clear in its description of the project.

The county said it was seeking $373,422 in federal funds to provide sewage service to Zoom Bait Company and St. Mary’s Health Care System Highland Hills Village on Jennings Mill Road.

The county said that it expected the total cost of the project to be $383,055, or $9,633 more than it was requesting from the state, and that it would pay that difference from Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax funds

The county told the state it needed the federal money to keep Zoom Bait from leaving the county and to help St. Mary’s operate within its “financial means.”

The county said Zoom and St. Mary’s together provide jobs for 99 low or moderate income employees and will hire an additional seven low-to-moderate income employees once the sewer service is in place.

The application said Zoom Bait, which manufactures “artificial fishing lures for sportsmen,” has 127 employees, and “78.6 percent of these employees are low-to-moderate income individuals.”

It said St. Mary’s “has committed to work toward hiring 51 percent of their future employees meeting the low-to-moderate income criteria” of the federal government. The St. Mary’s facility includes residential units, a Center for Alzheimer’s and Dementia Care and a hospice house.

Specifically, St. Mary’s anticipates hiring 12 employees, according to the application, with wages ranging from $7.25 per hour for one housekeeper to more than $20 per hour for one licensed practical nurse. The average anticipated wage will be $11.72 per hour, according to the application.

The focus on low and moderate income jobs was advantageous for the federal Economic Development and Employment Incentive Program, from which the county was seeking funding.

The county said in its application that without the federal funding, the “project will not be completed” because Oconee County is using its existing resources for expansion of its Calls Creek sewage treatment plant and for construction of the Hard Labor Creek Reservoir in Walton County.

The application contains a map showing the location of the proposed gravity-flow sewer line and the properties it crosses. It also contains another map showing the contour of the land.

By putting the two maps together, it is possible to see that the proposed line stays just out of the flood plane for McNutt Creek, which forms the border between Clarke and Oconee counties in that area.

BOC Chairman Melvin Davis sent a letter to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs on Aug. 5, 2009, reaffirming that the project was for Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s alone.

Only two properties in the area other than those of Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s are not served by existing sewer lines, Davis wrote.

The two exceptions, which the sewer line actually crosses, are owned by the city of Athens and by the Evelyn and Frank Gordy Family, shown as Varsity Realty, Inc., on the map submitted with the application.

The 14-acre parcel owned by Athens was used in the past as an oxidation pond for sewage treatment for the Kingwood subdivision, according to the application documents. Davis said in his letter that there are “no known development plans” for the parcel.

Davis also wrote that there are “no known development plans submitted to the county” for the 114-acre Gordy property.

The state approved the Oconee County request for the sewer line for Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s on Oct. 5, 2009, but it said it would provide only half the requested money, or $186,711.

The BOC agreed to go ahead with the project on Nov. 24, 2009.

The construction was expected to cost $315,555, based on the preliminary engineering report by Williams & Associates, an Oconee County land planning firm.

In May of 2010, the construction bids came back, and the lowest bid that met the specifications were $327,212 higher than the $315,555 that Williams & Associates had estimated, bringing the total project cost to $710,267.

Davis wrote to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs on May 19, asking it to increase its award from $186,711 to $500,000.

He restated that the project would provide needed sewer services for Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s, resulting in the retention of 127 jobs at Zoom Bait. He also said St. Mary’s would create 12 new full-time positions.

Davis made no mention of the Gordy property.

“With the revelation of the issues associated with the errors in the preliminary engineering report,” Davis wrote, “Oconee County is facing a commitment level of $522,556.22.”

Davis asked the state to increase its funding level to $500,000.

“Commensurately, Oconee County will increase its level of participation in this project to $210,267.22,” Davis wrote.

On June 28, Brian Williamson from the Department of Community Affairs said it would not change the grant because the department’s “management protocols and precedent with regards to similarly positioned grant recipients would prohibit such an increase.”

The BOC agreed at its Aug. 3 meeting to cover the full costs of the project, taking the additional money from SPLOST funds.

The Zoom Bait/St. Mary’s project was on the BOC agenda on Nov. 2 over the objections of Chairman Davis, who argued that the Board had already approved the project.

At that meeting, Davis urged the Board to approve rebidding the project, since the bids received in May of 2010 had expired.

The other four members of the Board objected, however, because St. Mary’s, the Gordy Family and the city of Athens were asking the county to pay for easements to run the proposed sewer line across their property.

At the Jan. 4 meeting, Oconee County Economic Development Director Rusty Haygood and Utility Department Director Chris Thomas reported on their efforts to get the property owners to donate those easements, but the four commissioners were focused on other things.

Commissioner Chuck Horton told Haygood and Thomas “There has been a lack of disclosure” about the true nature of the project.

“I need to know who was meeting and who stands to benefit from a piece of property. I don’t know how much clearer I can make it,” Horton said.

Luke said he agreed with Horton.

“I am embarrassed that I voted for a project I knew so little about in the beginning,” he started.

He added that he had asked specifically at the July 27 meeting if others besides Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s would benefit from the project “and one of the two of you told me no.”

Luke, Horton and Commissioner Margaret Hale all asked Thomas that question at the July 27 meeting.

“This project is specifically designed for those two businesses,” Thomas said, referring to Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s. He said no other customers had been identified.

Thomas also said the properties behind Walmart and Kohl’s, which is where the Gordy property lies, would be served by an existing sewer line. He made no mention of any possible value of the new line to the Gordy property.

Only after the Nov. 2 meeting did Haygood release to me a map showing that the Gordy property lies lower than the existing sewer line, making the proposed new sewer line more suitable.

County Utility Department Director Thomas also reported at that meeting on discussions he and Davis had on July 7 with Atlanta developer Frank Bishop.

According to Thomas, Bishop has an option on the Gordy property.

At the Jan. 4 meeting, Luke said he now has heard that “there have been meetings between representatives of the Gordy property and long before I knew about this project.”

Luke said he wasn’t sure Haygood and Thomas are to blame. “You are staff and you do what you are told,” he said.

“This thing just has not been carried out in a professional manner,” Luke said.

Commissioner John Daniell told Haygood and Thomas “you are seeing a huge change in culture” in the county and the BOC wants more information. “Hopefully everybody is learning that things are different.”

He said staff needs to learn to throw “everything out into the open.”

Commissioner Hale said her big concern was the special deal for the Gordy property owners. The county normally does not reserve sewage capacity for more than a year.

Davis sidestepped the criticism of the four commissioners by recalling the number of times the Board already approved elements of the project.

“It is a worthwhile commercial development project,” he said, “something that would be good for Oconee County long term.”

“Funding is available to handle this without being a budget breaker,” he added.

Horton told Davis he feels he should have been informed about the discussions with Bishop about easements on the Gordy project.

“If the Board is to make a decision about a project, and there is no information that would really affect that decision...now I’m confused...” he said.

Hale challenged Davis.

“Who makes the decision (about) what I need to be able to vote?” She asked. “I’m just saying, everything wasn’t disclosed.”

The specific proposal on the table calls for the county to accept easements from Zoom Bait, St. Mary’s and the Gordy property that would allow the county to put the sewer line on their property without paying for those easements.

The value of the easements was put at $600 in the case of Zoom Bait, $19,640 from St. Mary’s, and $84,910 for the Gordy Property. The county would have to pay the Gordy representatives $1,000.

These figures bring the total cost of the project to $851,639, up from the estimated $773,000 back in July, but the cost to the county would be $559,799, since the easements would be granted without cost (except for the $1,000) and the county is hoping it still hoping to obtain the $186,711 from the state.

Utility Department Director Chris Thomas told the Board that he anticipated generating $967,660 in capacity and other fees from Zoom Bait, St. Mary’s and Gordy’s in the future, so, to his way of thinking, the county actually would be making more than $400,000 from the project.

Nothing was said in the discussion about the easement on the property owned by the city of Athens.

The BOC voted to table the proposal until its Feb. 8 meeting so it can give additional thought to the issue. It also instructed the staff to revisit the easement issue and particularly the offer to reserve sewage capacity for the Gordy property.

The project already is far behind schedule.

According to conditions put forward with the award of the $186,711 by the state, Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s have only until Oct. 5 of this year “to retain and create and document the new jobs” resulting from completion of the sewage project.

Haygood told the Board he thought it possible to get an extension.

While application for the federal funds the county submitted to the state didn’t mention the value of the sewer line to the Gordy property, it did contain a section on citizen input to the decision-making process.

The county advertised in The Oconee Enterprise on May 7, 2009, that it would hold a public hearing about its plans to apply for the grant.

The headline on the 4-inch by 5-inch textual advertisement was simply “Public Hearing Notice.” The meeting was held on May 14, 2009.

Only two persons’ names appear on the sign-in sheet included in the application. Those names were Melvin Davis and Rusty Haygood.

The county dutifully included with the application the minutes of that meeting, which began at 6 p.m. in the Commissioner’s Chamber of the courthouse. Haygood took and signed the minutes.

The minutes begin by noting that Haygood “welcomed those in attendance.”

That would be Davis, whose office is just down the hall from Davis’ in the courthouse and to whom Haygood reports.

Haygood then explained that the county was proposing to build a sewer line “to begin at Zoom Bait, cross Jennings Mill Road, travel across St. Mary’s property, and terminate near Kohl’s department store.”

He also reported that the county intended to seek a grant “to assist low-to-moderate income persons working within Oconee County.”

After his presentation, according to the minutes, Haygood “opened the floor for questions or comments from the public.”

“Davis questioned about the time line for the grant application,” Haygood wrote.

Haygood reported that he told Davis the county anticipated making the application before June 1, 2009.

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I was not able to attend the meeting on Jan. 4. Russ Page, a citizen who did attend, shot video for me. I have edited the video to include only the one-hour discussion of the Zoom Bait/St. Mary’s/Gordy sewer line and have uploaded it to the Oconee County Observations Vimeo site.

Oconee County Voters See Economy, Lack of Jobs and Housing Market as Most Important Problems

Growth Also an Issue

While Oconee County voters are concerned about the local economy, unemployment and the weak housing market, about one in 10 also is concerned, even in the economic downturn, with what these voters see as rapid and unchecked growth with its adverse effects on the quality of their lives.

Some see a connection between the unwanted growth and the decline in the value of their homes and blame county policies for both.

While it is clear that not all voters are opposed to development, the opinions of a significant number of citizens are at odds with the strongly pro-development policy articulated by members of the county’s Industrial Development Authority and the Board of Commissioners.

This is the conclusion I reached from analysis of responses of 149 registered voters to a scientific survey conducted by my students late last year.

Economic issues, including the collapse of the local housing market and unemployment, top the list of problems that Oconee County voters think the county is facing.

Voters also are concerned about problems they see in the county’s schools.

The voters identified these concerns in response to a question on the scientific survey of registered voters conducted in the two weeks before the November election. The question asked the voters to identify in their own words “the most important problem facing Oconee County today.”

The survey was conducted by graduate students in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. The course, which I taught, was designed to teach students how to use social science methods to measure public opinion and how to analyze and interpret the data.

The students interviewed voters whose names had been selected from the Oconee County voter registration list I purchased from the Georgia Secretary of State office for use by the class.

Comparisons of the characteristics of those interviewed with the overall voter list shows that the sample was representative of all registered voters on several key characteristics. The sample of 149 does include fewer young voters than the overall voter list.

Most of the questions on the survey dealt with national political issues, but the students included the most important problem question to localize the survey for Oconee County.

I classified the responses to the open-ended question posed to the voters to get a sense of voter concerns. The actual responses and my classification of them is on the Box.net site for this blog.

The weakness of the local housing market was the top economic issue, with more than one in 10 of the voters giving that response to the question.

One voter listed the “real estate market and the impact of the developments that were started and basically stopped because of the economy” as the most important problem.

Another said the problem is “the Board of Commission's leadership that leads to the downfall of housing.”

About one in 10 of the voters listed growth as the most important problem.

“It's the expansion, the rapid rise of this county,” one respondent said. “They're stripping the land and building cookie-cutter houses, forgetting about the lifelong residents of this county.”

“Too many ball fields, not enough cotton fields,” another said simply.

At a joint meeting of the Industrial Development Authority and the Board of Commissioners on Dec. 13, members pitched ideas to the members of the Board of Commissioners about what steps should be taken to promote development in the county.

While Board members did not embrace any of the ideas specifically, none said that development should be slowed.

At a town hall meeting in June on development, all BOC members present took strong pro-development stances, despite the observation from at least one of the citizens present that many people in the county were opposed to further development.

In what might be seen as an example of a pro-development response, one voter said the most important problem facing the county is that “People are out of work.”

“The lack of jobs,” another voter said simply in response to the interviewer-posed question about the most important problem.

The problems voters see with the schools are quite varied, ranging from issues of finance to drug and alcohol use.

One voter said “not enough money (is) spent on education” in the county, while another said “the school system (is) using money in the wrong way.” The voter mentioned “sports” as an example of misuse of limited funds.

Another voter said the most important problem facing the county is “alcohol and drug abuse” among teenagers at the schools.

Thirteen of the voters said they could not identify a problem facing the county, and 10 said the county did not have any problems.

Four people said the most important problem in Oconee County is the people.

“We still have a quite a few people in Oconee County who are prejudiced,” one voter said.

Another said people are not open-minded in Oconee County. A third said there is a “fear of new ideas in the county.”

I classified the following response to the most important problem question as a concern about zoning.

Property rights” are the most important problem, the voter said. “When you own the property, certain rights come with that. We try to infringe what other people do with their property.”

The voter continued: “If we don't like it, we can move somewhere else. You should be able to use what is yours. Biggest problem with UGA/university system is that those people show up and fight everything that is proposed.”

The students conducted the interviews from Oct. 20 to Nov. 1. They completed 135 of the interviews by telephone, with the remainder conducted in person or online.

Voter registration lists contain names, addresses, and some personal characteristics of voters as a means of preventing voter fraud.

The lists do not contain telephone numbers. The students were able to find telephone numbers in online directories for about three-quarters of those selected for the survey.

The students drew an initial sample of 825 persons from the 22,538 registered voters in the county on Sept. 20, but they actually only tried to contact 620 of those persons.

The students were able to complete an interview with about one in four of those they contacted. The completion rate is high in comparison with what is usually achieved in polls today.

The sample error for the survey is 8 percent, meaning that the odds are 19 to 1 that the true response for the whole population of 22,538 Oconee County voters, had they been interviewed, would have fallen within plus or minus 8 percentage points of the percent calculated from the sample.

In fact, the sample of 149 voters closely matched the population of 22,538 registered voters in the county in terms of gender, race and precinct of registration. The sample contained more voters in the 51 plus age group and fewer in the 18 to 30 age group than does the total list of registered voters.

Young persons generally are harder to reach in surveys because they are more likely to be away from home studying and working and more heavily rely on mobile phones.

While the survey was of registered voters only, most persons 18 years old and older in Oconee County are registered to vote. Based on U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the county has a voter-age population of about 23,925, indicating that about 95 percent of those 18 years old or older in Oconee County are registered.

While it was easy to classify many of the responses to the question on the most important problem facing Oconee County, some responses were idiosyncratic.

One voter said the most important problem facing Oconee County was lack of media covering Oconee County and a resultant lack of an “informed citizenry.”

The survey also contained a question asking the respondents to name their “source of news about what is happening here in Oconee County.”

Eleven of the 149 respondents said they didn’t follow Oconee County news, and three said they didn’t know what source they used, suggesting they didn’t follow the news much either.

Many voters listed more than one source.

Overall, 23 percent of the respondents mentioned The Oconee Enterprise as their source, 21 percent mentioned the Athens Banner-Herald and its online edition, and 17 percent listed The Oconee Leader.

Seventeen percent of respondents said they got their Oconee County news from “the newspaper” or the “local paper” without mentioning a paper by name.

Some respondents indicated the most important source of Oconee County news for them was the television stations in Atlanta, which almost never cover news in the county.

One voter answered simply that his “wife” was the source he relied on most for news about the county.

Oconee BOE Scheduled to Swear in Two Members at Meeting on Jan. 3

May 10 Again

At its Jan. 3 meeting, the Oconee County Board of Education is scheduled to swear in two members, bringing to an end a year that saw one board member resign, the board announce and then abandon a plan to replace the member, and voters toss out an incumbent.

Mark Thomas will join the Board at that meeting as Post 2 member after handily defeating both incumbent Post 2 Board member Mack Guest in the July Republican primary and Democrat Carter Strickland in the November general election.

Kim Argo, who ran unopposed in both the Republican primary and in the general election in November, also is scheduled to be sworn in for a second four-year term. She holds Post 3.

The two will join Wayne Bagley, chosen by the Board on Oct. 4 to replace Post 5 Board member Tom Breedlove, who resigned on May 10 after he decided to move out of the state to take a new job.

The terms of Board Chairman David Weeks, Post 4 member Mike Hunter and Bagley will expire in 2012. The terms for Argo and Thomas run until 2014.

On May 19, the Board announced it would turn to the four candidates who had filed for the Post 2 and 3 positions to find a replacement for the Post 5 vacancy.

That meant that Argo and Guest, along with Weeks and Hunter, were inviting Argo and Guest, along with Thomas and Strickland, to ask to be considered to replace Breedlove.

In the end, only Strickland said he was interested, and the Board decided on June 14 that it would pass Strickland over and seek applicants from the general public.

Bagley was chosen from 17 applicants after the Board shortened the list to three on Aug. 9 and interviewed those finalists on Sept. 2. Bagley was sworn in on Oct. 11, or a week after his selection.

In a conversation with me on Nov. 2, Weeks said the board had learned from the experience of selecting the Post 5 replacement.

“I know we have taken some heat on the process we went through,” he said. “I think in the end it did work out the way it was supposed to work out.”

Weeks said if he could go back to May 10, he would propose opening up the process “right off the bat.” But he said it was easy to second guess the decision and he didn’t want to do that.

Weeks said he didn’t think there would be any long-term consequences of the decision process and he is very pleased with the selection of Bagley.

The official selection of Bagley on Oct. 4 came after the Board voted to go into executive session at the end of its regular meeting, which started at 4:30 p.m.

According to the official minutes of the meeting, that was at 5:22 p.m. The Board returned from executive session at 5:33 and announced the selection of Bagley.

“I know that 11 minutes does seem like it was already predetermined,” Weeks said in our conversation. But he said that was not the case.

The Board had discussed the three candidates following their interviews on Sept. 2, Weeks said.

According to the official minutes of that meeting, the Board spent a little less than an hour and a half in executive session after the Sept. 2 interviews.

“At that time,” Weeks said, “We didn’t have a consensus.”

Weeks told me he encouraged the Board members to talk one-on-one with the candidates on their own, and that he had talked with Townsend by telephone and had lunch with Bagley and Burnette.

Weeks said he also encouraged the Board members to exchange information and ideas, though not in groups of three, since that would violate the state’s open meetings laws.

Weeks said the Board did not discuss the three candidates in meetings held on Sept. 13 and 20, because Guest missed the first of those meetings and Weeks missed the second.

So the next discussion of the full board about the three finalists was on Oct. 4, he said.

“When we got there, everybody said Wayne Bagley was their choice,” Weeks said.

Superintendent John A. Jackson attended the two executive sessions where the three finalists were discussed, according to Weeks, but he did not express his opinion, and the Board did not ask.

“He didn’t play any role whatsoever,” Weeks said.

No reporters for the papers were present when the Board came out of executive session on Oct. 4 and announced Bagley’s selection, and none of the papers mentioned the small amount of time the Board needed to select Bagley at that meeting in the stories they wrote about the meeting.

The Athens Banner-Herald had a story in its Oct. 5 edition about Bagley’s selection, and The Oconee Enterprise and The Oconee Leader had stories in their Oct. 7 editions.

Oct. 4 was a Monday, and that is the final day for copy for the Leader. The Enterprise normally includes in its Thursday editions stories from meetings on Tuesday nights.

Reporter Kathy Russo from the Enterprise was present at the Oct. 4 meeting but left when the Board went into executive session.

Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Brook Whitmire sent a press release immediately after the meeting to the three newspapers, according to the response to an open records request I filed with the school office on Oct. 17.

The meeting ended at 5:35 p.m., and the news releases were sent at 5:46 and 5:47.

Superintendent Jackson handed me a copy of that news release about that same time.

The news release contained a lengthy quote from Weeks explaining the selection of Bagley and noting his credentials.

The Enterprise used the quote in its story, written by Russo, while Ryan Blackburn from the Banner-Herald used a part of the quote. Reporter Katie Tavernier did not use the quote in her story in the Leader.

According to an email message I received on Oct. 18 from Deborah Epps, administrative assistant to Superintendent Jackson, Jackson called Tavernier after the meeting because Epps had told Tavernier earlier in the day that she did not expect an announcement of a selection at the meeting.

Tavernier quoted Jackson praising Bagley rather then Weeks in her story.

The Jan. 3 work session where Argo and Thomas are scheduled to be sworn in starts at 5 p.m. at the school system’s administrative offices, 34 School street in Watkinsville.

Oconee County News and Information Web Site Scheduled to Launch Tomorrow

Hyperlocal and Interactive

Oconee County’s Patch.com local news and information site is scheduled to go live tomorrow.

Jane Lee, the editor of the Oconee County site, said the plan is for the site to be made available to the public sometime between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

The Oconee launch will follow a successful launch of a site in Dacula on Dec. 17. A Barrow County site is scheduled to launch on Dec. 28, Lee said. The Athens site will launch after the first of the year, she added.

In all, AOL Inc., the web site owner, plans to launch 12 sites in the northeast Georgia region in coming months as part of the its national roll-out of the local web sites, according to Lee.

Patch.com web site shows the service as available in 19 states and the District of Columbia.

AOL Inc., formerly known as America Online, is attempting to move from being an Internet service provider to an Internet content producer.

The web site will be both “interactive” and “hyperlocal,” Lee said, distinguishing it from anything else available in the market.

It will contain news produced by Lee and correspondents working for her as well as materials submitted by the readers.

Readers will be able to contribute to a calendar, post birth, wedding and other types of announcements, and place advertisements for such things as garage sales. AOL will not charge for these postings.

The company will charge for some types of reader contributions, such as job posting, Lee said.

The site also will have a directory of local businesses and governmental offices. Businesses can pay extra for a larger listing, similar to what they do in printed telephone directories.

Readers will not pay for access to the web site. AOL plans to support the site through advertising.

At present, Lee said she has lined up seven freelance writers to contribute to the Oconee site. She said she plans to cover governmental meetings and post stories to the site upon the meeting’s completion.

The two Oconee County weeklies, The Oconee Enterprise and The Oconee Leader, have web sites, but both papers give priority to their print products, which come out on Thursday.

Many county meetings are at the front of the week, with the Board of Education meeting on Mondays and the Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesdays.

On Dec. 13, a Monday, both papers had reporters at the meeting of the Oconee County Industrial Development Authority and the Oconee County Board of Commissioners. The meeting was from 4 to 6 p.m.

Both included stories in their Thursday, Dec. 16 editions.

Neither paper put the story on its web site.

The daily Athens Banner-Herald also wrote about the story in its Dec. 16 edition and put the story on its web site.

Perry Parks, a Georgia regional editor for AOL’s Patch.com project, told me in October that he planned to hire a professional editor for Watkinsville and Oconee County in November.

Lee, 47, told me on Saturday that she has been living in Oconee County for a little more than a month.

She is a graduate of the University of Georgia (in classics) and has worked as a journalist in Thomaston, in Upson County, south of Atlanta.

Lee said readers will have easy access to her telephone and email address via the web site.

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Online Media Daily on 12/21 released a projection by eMarketer that 2010 will be the first year in which online advertising exceeds advertising by newspapers, including for their online editions. eMarketer also expects online advertising to continue to grow and print advertising to decrease.

Oconee County Industrial Development Authority Seeks Advice from Board of Commissioners

Offers Bond Tips Too

The Oconee County Industrial Development Authority, seeking guidance on what it should do next, spent two hours yesterday afternoon tossing out ideas to members of the Board of Commissioners.

Among the proposals put forward was adding roadways and other infrastructure to the Gateway Park, enticing companies now incubating at the University of Georgia to locate in Oconee County, and getting voters to approve liquor by the drink so the county can develop a convention facility.

Gateway Park, on SR 316 near the Barrow County line and envisioned as a technology park, is a project of the IDA. At present, it is undeveloped.

The commissioners present were less than committal about which projects they favor and what they want the IDA to do.

The ideas the Authority was pitching came for a survey of the members.

Leonard Meyers, acting as facilitator for the meeting, methodically went through the responses, encouraging members to elaborate and commissioners to respond. Meyers said about halfway through the session he was surprised how little comment his presentation was generating.

Those who did speak favored an activist and expansive role of county government in promoting development, consistent with the comments in the survey Meyers was summarizing.

County Attorney Daniel Haygood, who also represents the IDA, said the authority has been in existence since 1962, when it was approved by the citizens of the county under the authority of the state’s constitution.

Haygood said the IDA can receive gifts, it can borrow money, it can make intergovernmental agreements, and it has the powers of private corporations.

This latter power, according to Haygood, means the IDA can do such things as build a building “without having to comply with all the state law that a county would have to comply with.”

“The big one, and this is the one you are all here to really think about and talk about,” said Haygood, “is encourage or promote expansion and development of industrial facilities and commercial facilities in Oconee County to relieve possible unemployment.”

Haygood said the IDA can acquire or build a building and even provide the furnishings and machinery for it.

The IDA also can accumulate funds year to year, he added, and can negotiate tax abatements for businesses seeking to expand or locate in the county.

Haygood introduced Jim Woodward, an attorney at Miller & Martin law firm in Atlanta, who said his speciality is counseling governments on bond sales.

Woodward added “an additional benefit for governments” of the IDA.

“You can borrow money without a voter referendum,” he said.

Haygood said the county can dedicate property taxes to pay for bonds and projects of the Authority.

Commissioner Margaret Hale was unable to attend the meeting, and Commissioner Chuck Horton came in with only about a half hour remaining. He apologized and said he was attending another government meeting.

Commissioners John Daniell and Jim Luke and Commission Chairman Melvin Davis sat through the entire two-hour session.

“We need somebody to come back to us and say here is what you can do in Oconee County,” Daniell said. “If you want this type of business, you’ve got to do this. If you want this type, you’ve got to do that.

“After we have all the options on the table, that is when the Board of Commissioners have got to raise their hands and say, all right, let’s go down this road.”

Commissioner Jim Luke turned to Chairman Davis at one point and said of the IDA:

“They are sitting here asking us, what do you want us to do? We’re saying, figure it out and tell us.”

Horton said the county should not waste its effort going after companies not interested in coming to Georgia.

“I think you’ve got to look at where money currently is going and where you have a legitimate chance of getting some of that money,” he said.

BOC Chairman Melvin Davis, who is a member of the IDA by virtue of his BOC role, was more determined to push forward with a directive for IDA.

He introduced Tom Griffith, whom, Davis said, he had invited to the meeting.

Griffith, founder of Golden Pantry Food Stores, based in Oconee County near Bogart, said the county needs to purchase what is called the Orkin property, a piece of land at the U.S. 78 and SR 316 interchange and stretching into Clarke County, and have it available for development.

Griffith also said the county should put “one person” in charge of leading the development effort in the county and “trust” him to go forward. That person, he said, should be Davis.

The Industrial Development Authority has five members.

Chuck Williams, president of North Georgia Bank, is chairman, and he opened the meeting last night, which was held from 4 to 6 p.m. in the courthouse in Watkinsville.

The IDA meets at 4 p.m. on the second month of each month.

Other members are BOC Chairman Davis, Oconee Chamber of Commerce President J.R. Whitfield, Watkinsville Mayor Joe Walter, and Rick Waller. Waller and Williams are appointed by the BOC.

The county also has a Development Authority, which consists of the IDA and six additional members, four of them at-large appointments of the BOC.

The meeting was last night was attended by two reporters from The Oconee Enterprise, one from the Athens Banner-Herald, and even one from The Oconee Leader.

About a half dozen citizens also attended.

Williams said at the end of the meeting he felt some progress had been made and that the “ball is now in the court of the IDA.”

“I would ask that we keep the dialog open,” he said.

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The full video of the meeting is at the Oconee County Observations Vimeo site.

Oconee Planning Commission Adds to Size of Planned Epps Bridge Centre

The Equivalent of Four Trader Joe's

The Oconee County Planning Commission took only 10 minutes tonight to agree that developer Frank Bishop should be allowed to increase the maximum square footage of his proposed but as yet unstarted Epps Bridge Centre on Epps Bridge parkway.

Bishop, through his representative, Philip Cranmer, told the commissioners tonight he needed the additional 42,185 square feet of space because of an “increased interest in retailers locating in this area." He said “we wanted to make sure we can accommodate those interested parties.”

Bishop has not submitted any construction drawings for the $76 million project and gave only vague indications of how the extra space would be spread around the 22-building complex, located west of Lowe’s.

The documents Bishop did submit list one tenant, Georgia Theatre Company, which, according to the documents, will occupy an 80,000 square foot building at the rear of the complex. The building will have 16 screens and seat 2,992, according to the submitted documents.

The Board of Commissioners approved a rezone for the 68-acre tract in October of 2008.

The state currently is building the Oconee Connector Extension, which will provide five of the six proposed entrances to the shopping center. The sixth is off Epps Bridge parkway itself.

The Planning Commission’s unanimous recommendation is scheduled to be on the agenda of the Board of Commissioners at its Jan. 4, 2011, meeting.

Planning Commission member George Rodrigues, who represents Watkinsville, asked Oconee County planner Brad Callender if there was going to be any change in the amount of paved parking area as a result of the increased size of the shopping center.

Callender said the increase would be about three percent.

Rodrigues had complained about the amount of impervious surface in the complex back when it was before the Planning Commission in 2008.

According to the documents submitted with the rezone modification request by Bishop’s Oconee 316 Associates, LLC, the Atlanta company developing the project, tree canopy on the site now covers 35 percent of the site.

Bishop plans to clear 100 percent of the land but replant tress so that 34 percent of the site will be covered by trees within five years of build-out of the center and 40 percent of the land will be covered “at tree maturity.”

According to the submitted documents, the project will take about six years to build out once construction begins.

Bishop also plans to put two streams on the site in pipes and to fill wetlands on the site. He has been given permission to do this by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is allowing him to mitigate these damages on a site Bishop purchased in Greene County.

Planning Commissioner member Bill Ramsey asked where the mitigation site was and if it was going to be “downstream from here.” Greene County is south of Oconee County.

In addition to the increase in total square footage for the project from the 444,056 approved in 2008 to the 486,241 requested, the Planning Commission also recommended that the BOC grant Bishop three additional exceptions to zoning regulations.

Bishop wants to increase the number of lots that will use a private access road, modify the minimum front and side yard setbacks for parking areas, and modify the setbacks between buildings.

The 42,185 increase in square footage will allow Bishop to add the equivalent space of 80 percent of the Kroger’s across Epps Bridge parkway from the planning shopping center.

Or, about the size of four Trader Joe’s, also located across Epps Bridge parkway from Bishop’s complex.

Board of Commissioners Approves Rezone Modification for Possible Move of Oconee County USDA Offices

Dormers Added

The Oconee County Board of Commissioners tonight approved a modification to an earlier rezone that could result in the United States Department of Agriculture relocating its offices from the county Government Annex on Greensboro highway south of Watkinsville to near the USDA farms on Hog Mountain road.

The modifications would allow Allen Giddens of Gainesville to purchase a vacant lot (below) in Twelve Oaks Office Park, build a single-story building and lease the building to the USDA.

Prior to the unanimous vote tonight, buildings in the five-lot office park could not be larger than 2,800 feet of ground coverage. The BOC vote increased the amount to 5,600 square feet.

The USDA currently is renting space on a monthly basis in the Government Annex for its Farm Service Agency and for its Natural Resource Conservation Service. The county had a lease with USDA for the space, but the lease expired earlier this year.

In May the county began discussing the possibility of renovating the Government Annex to accommodate county space needs. It told the USDA after those discussions began that it would have to leave.

On Nov. 2, the BOC voted to stop the discussions of the renovation.

County Administrative Officer Alan Theriault told the BOC tonight that the county has informed USDA it can stay. In that circumstance, the county and USDA would have to renegotiate the lease.

Theriault told me after the meeting that the USDA was paying about $10,000 a year for use of the Government Annex space and has not told the county what it plans to do in the future.

Giddens told the BOC tonight he has an option to purchase the lot in the Hog Mountain road office park from Robert and Joanne Fine of Bishop. Giddens said the option runs only through the end of this year.

Giddens said he submitted a bid to USDA earlier this year but has not heard if it will be accepted. He said he hopes to hear in the next few weeks.

“If we don’t get the bid, the project will not go forward,” he said.

The proposal calls for use of 4,100 square feet of the 5,500 square-foot building Giddens said he plans to build. He said the additional space would be available to the USDA for future expansion.

Giddens told the Board the USDA specified it wants a one-story building. He told me that the cost of an elevator for such a small building would increase the price by $100,000, making it too expensive for him to build.

Total estimated cost of the proposed building without the elevator is $400,000, according to a letter Giddens submitted to the county along with the rezone application.

The rezone the BOC approved in March of 1993 for the office park specified that the buildings must have a brick exterior, be built “in a Georgian style” and be one and a half stories or two stories in height.

The BOC tonight added the requirement that Giddens modify his submitted plan to add dormers at the front of the building to give it the appearance of being a story and a half in height.

The Board also added the stipulation that the change it was making to allow Giddens to build a single-story building did not apply to another unbuilt lot in the subdivision.

Giddens was the only person speaking in favor of the proposed change tonight. No one spoke against, though I did ask the Board several questions about the proposal, including how the one-story structure meshed with the 1993 ordinance and whether the change applied to the other empty lot.

Twelve Oaks Business Park was designed when the adjoining Twelve Oaks subdivision was built early last decade. Both adjoin USDA farm land.

Two lots in the subdivision are used by Summer Hill Recreation Club for a commercial pool and tennis court facility under a Conditional Use Permit approved by the county in 1994. Summerhill also uses space in Twelve Oaks Business Park for parking.