Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell, Commissioner Mark Saxon, and School Board Member Michael Ransom beat back challenges in the Republican Party Primary on Tuesday.
Adam Hammond and Brock Toole won the Republican Party nominations for open posts on the Board of Education. Hammond won convincingly in a three-way race, negating the need for a runoff.
Kevin Olasanoye, Executive Director of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said last week he would be glad to help Oconee County Democrats decide how to deal with the three candidates who qualified for county offices but have no association with the party.
Olasanoye cautioned the group, however, that great care should be taken with the process.
Townley Family Partnership LLLP has filed suit against the Town of North High Shoals asking Oconee County Superior Court to reverse the Town’s decision on April 15 and grant Townley’s petition for deannexation of 175.8 acres from the city.
The suit contends that the decision by the Town Council “was an abuse of discretion, was not sustained by sufficient evidence, and contained legal errors.”
The Oconee County Planning Commission on Monday will get a rare recommendation from the county’s planning staff–that it deny a request for a rezone–as it reviews plans for development of 3.4 acres on Moreland Way just north of the Watkinsville city limits.
Pittman and Greer Engineering, on behalf of property owner Richard Grayson, wants to combine two parcels, one zoned Mobile Home District (M-H) and the other Agricultural Residential District (AR) , to create a single lot zoned Two-Family Residential District (R-2).
Early voting in Oconee County for the May 21 General Primary/Nonpartisan General Election picked up sharply in the final five days of voting, with 1,707 out of Oconee County’s 33,143 voters casting a ballot, or more than had voted in the previous 12 days of early voting.
The county Office of Elections and Voter Registration also has received 203 returned Absentee By Mail ballots.
Voters going to the polls in Oconee County on Tuesday, as well as those who already have participated in early voting, most likely have seen campaign signs around the county for Kalki Yalamanchili.
The signs say Yalamanchili is running for district attorney, though voters, when they see the ballot, do not find his name anywhere on it.
Yalamanchili is in the midst of a petition drive to get his name on the ballot in November as an Independent.
Republican State Rep. Marcus Wiedower had a very good April, raising $129,050 from the end of the legislative session early in the morning of March 29 to the April 30 filing deadline for campaign contributions.
That average of just more than $4,000 per day put him far ahead of his colleague Republican Rep. Houston Gaines, who raised $60,925 during that same period, and Republican Sen. Bill Cowsert, who reported raising only $2,750 in the days following the end of the legislative session.
