Oconee County Commissioners probably will have at least another month to sort out promises made more than 30 years in a rezone for a combined commercial and residential development at U.S. 78 and Hog Mountain Road.
Attorneys for the property owner and for residents of Oconee Crossing subdivision submitted a request Monday afternoon to table consideration of the rezone request by Donald Hammett of Kennesaw so they can continue discussions.
The Georgia Hospital Association and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency reported on Friday that area hospitals had 47 COVID-19 patients, down from the 56 reported last Friday.
The number of ICU beds in use on Friday was 75, up from 72 a week earlier, and the number of adult ventilators in use was 35, up from 31 last Friday.
Oconee County Schools had a Fund Balance of more than $20 million every month from the beginning of the last fiscal year in July of 2021 through May of this year, the last month for which Oconee County Schools has been willing to release data.
In May, the Fund Balance was $39.5 million, $1.8 million lower than in April. April was $1.7 million lower than in March. The peak had been $48.4 million in November.
The Georgia Hospital Association and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency reported on Friday that area hospitals had 56 COVID-19 patients, up sharply from the 44 reported last Friday.
The number of COVID-19 cases in the area hospitals has not been this high on a Friday since February 25, when it stood at 70.
Oconee County has told Walton County that it will not pay its full share of the costs of building a water treatment plant at the Hard Labor Creek Reservoir that the two counties built and own in Walton County.
Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell told his fellow commissioners on Tuesday night that he had met with Walton County Commission Chair David Thompson on Aug. 26.
Daniell said he informed Thompson at that meeting that Oconee County is willing to pay only $12 million toward construction of the plant.
The two candidates running as Independents for the Oconee County School Board said the chair of the Oconee County Democratic Party was wrong in suggesting that the petition drive that put them on the November ballot was the work of the Democratic Party.
Both said that a large number of people were involved in soliciting signatures of voters on the petitions required for them to be on ballot, and that only about a quarter of the signature collectors were affiliated in some way with the Democratic Party.
The two said they emerged as candidates from a group of parents who wanted to see some changes in the Board of Education and that they decided from the very beginning to run as Independents, rather than as Democrats or Republicans.
The decision by the Oconee County Board of Education to approve a 4.7 percent increase in property taxes–after first proposing a 9.8 percent increase–hung in the air at the Tuesday night Town Hall meeting of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners.
The advertised central theme of the Town Hall meeting was the decision of the commissioners to put a 1 percent Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum on the ballot in November.
