The Oconee County Board of Commissioners voted last month to accept a settlement under which drug manufacturers Allergan and Teva and CVS, Walgreens and Walmart pharmacies have agreed to pay $20 billion nationwide to settle an opioid mass tort lawsuit.
The state of Georgia will receive $181 million, and Oconee County will receive a yet-to-be determined part of that amount.
Oconee County added 563 residents from July 2021 to July 2022, according to the March 30 release by the U.S. Census Bureau of what it terms its Vintage estimates of population change.
That 563 is a little more than half the 1,102 estimated increase in the county’s population from July 1 of 2020 and July 1 of 2021.
Jeff Wilkes, having been unsuccessful in his attempt to get the Oconee County Board of Education to discuss his proposal for incorporating religious instruction into the school day, says he will next make a direct appeal to the Board at its April 17 meeting.
Wilkes said he expects others from the seven-member local steering committee championing the request to join him.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added 78 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on March 29, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
That number of cases added a week earlier had been 135.
The Department of Public Health reported no new confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District in its report on Wednesday.
The Oconee County Sheriff’s Office got eight new law enforcement vehicles, properly equipped, a year ahead of schedule.
Fire Station Number 1 will get its ordered Air Truck at an additional cost of $20,259, bringing the total cost to $269,810.
Supply chain problems forced the county to find a new supplier of the chassis for the truck, which is now being outfitted for the station on the north of Watkinsville.
In the last two days of the legislative session, which ended on Wednesday, the Georgia House and Senate agreed to create an oversight commission for district attorneys, with the support of Oconee County’s legislators, who had championed the effort.
The General Assembly didn’t agree to make district attorney races nonpartisan, to make it easier to recall the district attorney, or to move Banks County from the Piedmont Judicial Circuit, perhaps putting into motion transfer of Oconee to the Piedmont Circuit.
Oconee County voters will confront a hodgepodge of 10 ballot items next May when they vote on efforts to revise the county’s homestead exemptions and freeze property tax assessments for homeowners who have turned 65.
Four of the 10 items repeal or change existing laws, and six enact new ones.
