Given the costs of paying for the enticements to bring Caterpillar to the area, the need for new judicial facilities, and the plans to build new roads and maintain the existing ones, Oconee County commissioners should consider an increase in the county’s property tax rate.
That was the message of Wes Geddings, county finance director, in the opening session of a day-long planning meeting held by the Oconee Board of Commissioners at a conference venue in Athens-Clarke County today.
The Oconee County Citizen Advisory Committee on Land Use and Transportation Planning is asking the Board of Commissioners to increase significantly funding for road repairs, resurfacing and related improvements.
The Committee decided at its meeting on Jan. 13 to ask the commissioners to increase the funding following a discussion in which Pubic Works Director Emil Beshara outlined spending needs for transportation infrastructure in the county.
Crews will begin intermittent blocking of Mars Hill Road on Thursday, the first time such action has been taken on the roadway since construction work began on the widening project last November.
Weather permitting, dump trucks will begin hauling dirt across Mars Hill Road between Hodges Mill Road and Riverhaven Lane sometime after 9 a.m. Thursday, according to a news release sent out late this afternoon by the Northeast Georgia office of the state Department of Transportation.
Carrying a gun legally is no different from carrying a wallet.
Because of this, police officers cannot search someone simply because they believe the person is carrying a gun.
Oconee County Commissioners are to hold what are being called planning sessions from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday and Friday.
The meetings will be held in Athens, in the conference room of the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission, 305 Research Drive, which runs from College Station Road to Barnett Shoals Road.
Oconee County collected more than $1.6 million in Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenue in the final quarter of 2014, representing the best quarter ever for the county in terms of revenue from the 1 percent sales tax.
The collection, up 3.9 percent from the previous quarter, puts the county in a position to collect in the neighborhood of 84 percent of the originally projected $40.4 million from the tax.
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.
