Oconee County Finance Director Wes Geddings presented a $39.7 million budget to the public tonight that includes no increase in the county’s millage rate but does include a water rate increase of 1.5 percent and a sewer rate increase of 3 percent.
The budget is 8.7 percent greater than the current budget, and the extra revenue will come in part from an expected 6 to 10 percent increase in property values. Sales tax revenues also are projected to increase.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners released information Friday on the three applicants for the two openings on the county’s Farmland Preservation Ranking Committee and revealed that it had no applicants for the single opening on the Keep Oconee Beautiful Commission.
In preparation for its meeting tomorrow night, the Board identified James “J.R.” Charles as the finalist for appointment as the county’s economic development director.
While no vendors have located in the property adjacent to the Caterpillar Plant on Atlanta Highway on the east side of Bogart, despite the expectation that they would do so, Mike Power told the Planning Commission on Monday night that a four-bay truck repair is coming to his business park because of Caterpillar.
Power’s development, called Mars Hill Business Park, is located on Mars Hill Road across from Malcom Bridge Road.
When the Oconee County Board of Commissioners releases the county’s budget on May 26, it also will release two millage or property tax rates–one for property in the county’s four cities and another for property in the unincorporated parts of the county.
Those rates are likely to be different–-as they have been for at least the last six years--with property owners in Bishop, Bogart, North High Shoals and Watkinsville paying the county more in taxes for a comparable piece of property than do owners of property elsewhere in the county.
Oconee County lost another local news and information site on Friday with the closing of The Oconee Leader, the county’s largely free circulation weekly newspaper.
Publisher Rob Peecher announced the decision to close the newspaper in a front-page “note of thanks to our readers and advertisers” in Friday’s paper.
Oconee County Administrative Officer Jeff Benko said on Wednesday that he has rescinded his order that department heads limit their comments to the media.
Benko said he lifted the restriction on April 15, the day that the county released to me a copy of the email message Benko sent to department heads on April 3 telling them not to make statements to “the press” without clearing those statements in advance with him.
Angela Helwig, executive director of the Keep Oconee County Beautiful Commission, has submitted her resignation to the county, saying the job requires more time than she is able to give to it.
Helwig, who also serves as receptionist in the Oconee County Board of Commissioners office, open records officer for the Industrial Development Authority, and recording secretary for the IDA and for the Citizens Advisory Committee for Land Use and Transportation Planning, among other assignments, said her resignation is effective June 30.
