Presbyterian Homes of Georgia is back with yet another attempt to locate a continuing care retirement center in Oconee County.
Plans filed with the Oconee County Planning Department on Monday call for construction of a $120 million complex on just more than 70 acres fronting both on U.S. 441 and Wellbrook Road.
As a result of action taken last night by the Oconee County Board of Commissioners, the county now has a new liquor ordinance that allows for the sale of beer, wine and other alcoholic drinks in county restaurants.
The commissioners removed the requirement that patrons must purchase food with their purchase of these drinks, but they retained the requirement from the existing beer and wine ordinance that the restaurant cannot report that more than 25 percent of its gross income comes from the sales of alcoholic drinks.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners tomorrow night is scheduled to give a second reading to a liquor-by-the-drink ordinance, key features of which remain unspecified.
County Attorney Daniel Haygood drafted an ordinance that he presented to the commissioners back in July and again at their meeting on Dec. 16, when they held the first reading and public hearing on the proposed change in the county laws governing the sale of alcohol.
Oconee County voters ended the year concerned about over development, traffic problems, and their schools.
Concern about road and traffic problems was up dramatically from two years ago, when the economy had been the major concern of voters in the county.
Oconee County voters gave overwhelming support to the liquor-by-the-drink initiative on the ballot in November, and an analysis of survey data from the weeks before that vote shows that all major political, social and demographic groups approved of the change in county liquor laws.
Political conservatives, voters more than 60 years old, evangelical Christians, those who attend church weekly or more often, and voters with children under 18 years of age all favored allowing the county to issue licenses for restaurants to sell liquor by the drink.
Oconee County officials expect to let bids early in January or February for construction of a $2.5 million gravity-fed sewer line running along McNutt Creek from Jimmy Daniell Road to Parkway Boulevard at Kohl’s.
While the county has tried to stay outside the 25-foot buffer the state places on streams, that was not possible in all cases, and the county is waiting on a final approval of a variance to encroach on the buffer for 627 feet along the creek.
By the end of the last fiscal year, Oconee County had spent about three-quarters of the revenue it is expecting from the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum passed by voters in 2009, according to a report just released by the county’s Finance Department.
By the end of the report period on June 30, 15 months of tax collection remained, meaning the county was spending at about the right amount to keep revenue and expenditures from the 1 percent sales tax in balance.
