First Chance to Comment
Nine individuals came forward last night to express opinions on and ask questions about a proposed ordinance that would change the way the Oconee County Board of Commissioners interacts with administrators and department heads who run the county day-to-day.
Some of those taking a position were supportive of the ordinance, and some were critical.
Mary Mellein, who has been active in local politics, questioned whether the full board efficiently could handle hiring and firing of the administrative officer and finance director, as is proposed in the ordinance. At present, the administrative officer and finance director report only to the chairman of the Board of Commissioners.
Chuck Williams, president of North Georgia Bank and chair of the Oconee County Development Authority, also expressed doubts that the proposed changes would improve the operation of the county.
Charles Baugh, president of Citizens for Oconee’s Future, spoke in favor of the ordinance, which was drafted by County Attorney Daniel Haygood after lengthy discussions over the last 10 months about the power of the chairman and the others members of the commission.
The chairman both runs the meetings of and votes on issues before the commission in case of a tie and is the chief executive of the county. Baugh applauded the four commissioners for their work to strengthen their role in county governance.
At one point during the meeting, Commissioner Margaret Hale restated emphatically her position that Chairman Melvin Davis has withheld information from the commission during his nearly nine years in office, making it difficult for the commissioners to function effectively.
Chairman Davis responded by unpacking a box he had brought to the meeting, saying it contained documents he had given to the commission recently. "Communication is a two way street," he said.
Sarah Bell, who ran unsuccessfully against Davis in the Republic primary in July of 2008, also supported the ordinance. I also spoke in favor of the ordinance but asked that it be modified to eliminate the section specifying duties of the chairman. I said I did not believe the existing enabling legislation gave the commissioners the right to limit the chairman acting as chief executive officer of the county.
The public comments followed the first reading of the ordinance by Haygood. The public also will be given a second chance to comment at the next agenda setting meeting of the commission, which starts at 7 p.m. on July 28 at the courthouse.
The second reading of the ordinance, and final action, is scheduled for the next regular meeting of the commission on Aug. 4.
The ordinance and supporting documents are available on the county web site. The video recording of last night’s meeting is available on the official county site on Vimeo.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Reorganization of Oconee County Government Set for Tuesday Vote
Davis Unlikely to Get to Vote
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to give first reading on Tuesday night to an ordinance that would change the organizational chart for the county and put the full commission–rather than just the commission chairman–in charge of administration of the county.
Specifically, the ordinance would make the administrative officer and the finance director of the county responsible to the full five-member commission, rather than just to the chairman. The heads of county departments would be approved by the full board. At present, they are hired by the chairman of the board.
The County Clerk and the County Attorney would continue to be appointed by the full board, as in the existing organizational chart. The revised organizational chart reflects the changes.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to give first reading on Tuesday night to an ordinance that would change the organizational chart for the county and put the full commission–rather than just the commission chairman–in charge of administration of the county.
Specifically, the ordinance would make the administrative officer and the finance director of the county responsible to the full five-member commission, rather than just to the chairman. The heads of county departments would be approved by the full board. At present, they are hired by the chairman of the board.
The County Clerk and the County Attorney would continue to be appointed by the full board, as in the existing organizational chart. The revised organizational chart reflects the changes.
Melvin Davis, chairman of the Board of Commissioners, made a full-scale assault on the ordinance in his column in the July 2 issue of The Oconee Enterprise and in an interview he did with Johnathan McGinty, who writes a column for the Athens Banner-Herald.
Davis wrote in the Enterprise that the "draft ordinance alters the state legislation" that governs the county by removing "the day-to-day responsibility of management from the county chair (CEO)." The ordinance assigns responsibility for management of the county to the administrative officer, he said.
Davis said that the other four members of the commission are trying to "change our form of government without voter input and approval." He said citizen input is needed and, if "citizens desire a change, then it should be implemented the proper way."
Davis doesn’t say this in his column, but he knows that state Rep. Bob Smith and state Sen. Bill Cowsert are not likely to introduce any legislation to the state General Assembly for approval unless there is agreement of the full board about what it should contain.
The proposed ordinance, which, minus some of the exhibits, is on the county web site, was drafted by County Attorney Daniel Haygood after a series of board meetings going back to last September.
Commissioners Margaret Hale, Chuck Horton and Jim Luke have been calling for change in the way the county operates from the start of those meetings, and they were joined in January by new Commissioner John Daniell.
Hale, Horton and Luke have repeatedly charged Davis with withholding information from them. They have argued that they need to have control over Administrative Officer Alan Theriault and Finance Director Jeff Benko and some power over other department heads to fix the problem.
Davis has repeatedly said there is no communication problem. In the interview with McGinty, he is quoted as saying "communication is an excuse, not a fact. My honest belief is that the board desires more direct involvement in the day-to-day operations of government."
Davis has said that this kind of involvement is not efficient and goes against the current enabling legislation for the county, which says that the chairman of the board is the "chief executive officer" of the county.
Davis’ interview appears in three parts on a blog McGinty posts. Parts one and two deal with the proposed ordinance.
The ordinance that will be considered by the board on Tuesday states that "nothing in this Ordinance is intended to make any change" in the existing enabling legislation. The ordinance says that it "shall be the policy of the Board that the Chairperson shall have particular leadership and emphasis" in specified areas.
Those areas include coordination of intergovernmental activities, economic development, public relations, development of policies related to the future needs of the county and evaluation of county services.
The ordinance also says that the chairperson shall review "reports of the Administrative Officer and Finance Director" and "review staff activities to ensure the ordinances, resolutions, policies, actions and directives of the Board are being implemented and to take such steps as are reasonably required to correct any deficiencies."
The public was prevented from commenting at the meetings held to develop the ordinance but is scheduled to be given a chance to have input on Tuesday night. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the courthouse in Watkinsville.
The public also is to be allowed to comment at the July 28 agenda setting meeting of the board. The board is scheduled to take final action on the ordinance on Aug. 4.
Davis is unlikely to have a chance to vote on the ordinance. The existing enabling legislation specifies that the chairperson votes only in the case of a tie vote among the other four commissioners.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
QuikTrip Poised to Lead Oconee County Development on Corridor
Everything is Negotiable
The opening of a QuikTrip gas station on the corner of Daniells Bridge Road and the Oconee Connector–approved by the Oconee County Board of Commissioners on June 2–almost certainly will be the first of a series of major upcoming changes for that busy intersection and Daniells Bridge Road itself.
The county has listed nearly all of Daniells Bridge Road from the intersection where the QuikTrip will be located to Chestnut Hill Road as part of a regional center intended for commercial and office park de
velopment.
Most of the tracts along the road and near it are owned by corporations waiting for the right time to begin development of them.
Two large properties on the Oconee Connector between SR 316 and Daniells Bridge Road are listed as for sale at present, as are three properties on Daniells Bridge Road itself.
Included among those on Daniells Bridge Road listed for sale is a 17-acre tract that was rezoned in 2007 for two, seven-story high office buildings. Developers said at the time that the buildings would be used for a Zaxby’s headquarters, currently in buildings adjoining that property.
The 17-acre tract, on the south side of Daniells Bridge Road, has just recently been posted for sale by Southern Land Exchange, with offices on Jennings Mill Road, while the others have been listed as for sale for longer periods of time.
Any new owner of the 17-acre tract will be required to come back to the county with a new development plan if the owner does not plan to build the two office buildings. The property was rezoned in 2007 for an office business park.
The 2030 Future Development Map for the county designates all of the properties on both sides of Daniells Bridge Road from the Oconee Connector to Chestnut Hill Road as part of the regional center that includes the existing massive commercial development along Epps Bridge Parkway and SR 316.
The exceptions are the four eastern most lots on the south side of Daniells Bridge Road just before Chestnut Hill Road.
The county plans to make the section of Daniells Bridge Road between the Connector and Chestnut Hill Road the southern part of a commercial loop road circling SR 316 and Epps Bridge Parkway.
The northern part of that loop–called the Oconee Connector Extension--will run north from the current intersection of the Oconee Connector and SR 316 and reconnect with Epps Bridge Parkway between Lowe’s and the building housing the Starbucks.
The roadway to Home Depot then will be extended across SR Loop 10 to connect to Daniells Bridge Road near Chestnut Hill Road.
Work on the $13.5 million northern loop is expected to start soon and be finished by Dec. 31, 2011.
That roadway, which will provide access to the proposed $76 Epps Bridge Centre shopping mall next to Lowe’s, will dump traffic onto Daniells Bridge Road long before the second overpass or flyover to Home Depot is built. The county has said that construction of that flyover is at least 10 years in the future.
In the meantime, the county plans to spend $400,000 to make Daniells Bridge Road three lanes wide from the Oconee Connector nearly to Chestnut Hill Road. This upgrade will not eliminate the blind curve but simply run a center turn lane through it.
QuikTrip is counting on the traffic generated by Oconee Connector Extension, and its representatives told the Board of Commissioners on June 2 that it should not be required to plant the 14 shade trees required on the site by the county’s Uniform Development Code (UDC) because the trees would make it too hard for drivers to see the site and its signage.
County Planner Krista Gridley said she had been reviewing landscaping for three years for the Planning Department and that developers frequently ask to be allowed to plant fewer required trees. She said during those three years no exceptions had been granted.
After a 50-minute discussion, Commissioners Chuck Horton and Jim Luke voted to turn down the request. Commissioner John Daniell voted against the denial motion, saying he didn’t want to force the developer to plant the trees as required by the code. Commission Margaret Hale missed the meeting because she was sick.
The 1.3 acre tract currently is wooded and slopes into a ditch below Daniells Bridge Road and the Oconee Connector. The gas station will have entrances and exits on both the Oconee Connector and Daniells Bridge Road.
When construction is completed, the gas station will contain a 4,555 square foot convenience market and 16 fueling positions.
QuikTrip also said at the June 2 meeting that the site was not big enough to accommodate the number of parking spaces required by the UDC unless the county agreed to allow it to put eight of the spaces inside the 30-foot parking setback from the roadway rights of way on the Oconee Connector and Daniells Bridge Road.
Daniell and Luke agreed to that request even though Public Works Director Emil Beshara had said in the staff report on the project that he objected to the intrusion into the buffer at the Oconee Connector entrance. "A vehicle backing out of either of the spaces in question may interfere with entering traffic," he said in the report.
The Commissioners stipulated that only employees are to be allowed to use the parking spaces in the setback on the Oconee Connector, presumably with the view that employees are better at backing out of parking spaces without interfering with entering traffic than patrons.
The property is owned by JJMB, LLC & Paul Keller Jr., 1010 Prince Ave., Athens, which also owns a half acre on the southeast corner of the intersection and 3.5 acres on the southwest corner of the intersection, according to county tax records.
The 47-acre tract listed for sale on the northwest side of the intersection is owned by Deferredtax, LLC, of Lawrenceville, according to Oconee County tax records. The tract actually is made up of three different parcels and contains all of the frontage on SR 316 between the Oconee Connector and Virgil Langford Road.
The 4.5-acre tract on the southeast corner of the Oconee Connector intersection with SR 316 also is listed for sale and is owned by 316 Holding Group, also with the same 1010 Prince Ave., Athens, address as the owners of the property to be used for the QuikTrip. That 4.5-acre tract is separated from the QuikTrip site by the Oconee County Barber Creek Fire Station, which has entrances and exits both onto the Oconee Connector and Daniells Bridge Road.
Adjoining both the 316 Holdings Group property and the Fire Station is the 6.3-acre site of the SpringHill Suites by Marriott, scheduled to open this summer. That site was rezoned back in 2007, at the same time as the site across the road where the two seven-story buildings were to be built.
The seven-acre site just east of the hotel is owned by Glades Commercial Properties LLC of 2500 Daniells Bridge Road, according to tax records. Glades also owns the 1.7-acre site that is listed for sale just east of the Office of Information and Instructional Technology (OIIT).
According to the Georgia Secretary of State database, Carl R. Nichols is the registered agent for Glades, which owned the hotel site, the OIIT site, and the site of the Exchange office building behind the 1.7 acres site listed as for sale.
The OIIT site is owned by the county itself through the Oconee County Development Authority.
The property on which the St. Mary’s Heart and Vascular unit sits is owned by 316 LLC of Watkinsville. According to the Secretary of State records, Jeff B. Bell is the agent.
The 17-acre site across Daniells Bridge Road now listed for sale is owned by Daniells Bridge Partners, LLC., with the same address as 316 LLC and also with Jeff B. Bell as agent.
Southern Land Exchange LLC, the agent for the 17-acre site, is headquartered at 1551 Jennings Mill Road. Secretary of State records list Steve Ebbert as the agent. Tax records list Steve and James Ebbert as owners of the seven-acre hay field at the corner of Daniells Bridge Road and Hog Mountain Road that already has been rezoned for commercial and office park development.
Developer Mike Thornton owns three tracts totaling five acres on the north side of Daniells Bridge Road opposite Founder’s Boulevard. The tracts, one of which contains a cell tower, are listed for sale.
Zaxby’s Holdings owns the 6.4 acre vacant lot east of Founder’s Boulevard, and Thorton owns three additional tracts on the south side of Daniells Bridge Road. Two of those are west of the blind curve and the other is on the east side of the curve.
The Board of Commissioners rezoned nine acres on the north side of Daniells Bridge Road just east of the blind curve on Dec. 2, ignoring the 400 plus petitions submitted by neighbors opposed to the rezone. That property was owned by Dolores Lance and Dorothy Anglin.
The BOC found the unspent $400,000 in Special Purpose Local Options Sales Tax funds to cover the widening of the road as a way of justifying the rezone.
Reuben Moss and Thomas Kittle live on and own the remaining properties on the north side of Daniells Bridge Road up to Chestnut Hill Road. Moss’ property is 2.5 acres. Kittle’s 20- acre tract extends to and along Chestnut Hill Road itself.
The BOC votes on the QuickTrip variance requests on June 2 as well as on the rezone of the tract in the blind curve on Dec. 2 confirm what the developers in the county already seem to know:
Everything is negotiable when it comes to development in Oconee County.
The opening of a QuikTrip gas station on the corner of Daniells Bridge Road and the Oconee Connector–approved by the Oconee County Board of Commissioners on June 2–almost certainly will be the first of a series of major upcoming changes for that busy intersection and Daniells Bridge Road itself.
The county has listed nearly all of Daniells Bridge Road from the intersection where the QuikTrip will be located to Chestnut Hill Road as part of a regional center intended for commercial and office park de
velopment.Most of the tracts along the road and near it are owned by corporations waiting for the right time to begin development of them.
Two large properties on the Oconee Connector between SR 316 and Daniells Bridge Road are listed as for sale at present, as are three properties on Daniells Bridge Road itself.
Included among those on Daniells Bridge Road listed for sale is a 17-acre tract that was rezoned in 2007 for two, seven-story high office buildings. Developers said at the time that the buildings would be used for a Zaxby’s headquarters, currently in buildings adjoining that property.
The 17-acre tract, on the south side of Daniells Bridge Road, has just recently been posted for sale by Southern Land Exchange, with offices on Jennings Mill Road, while the others have been listed as for sale for longer periods of time.
Any new owner of the 17-acre tract will be required to come back to the county with a new development plan if the owner does not plan to build the two office buildings. The property was rezoned in 2007 for an office business park.
The 2030 Future Development Map for the county designates all of the properties on both sides of Daniells Bridge Road from the Oconee Connector to Chestnut Hill Road as part of the regional center that includes the existing massive commercial development along Epps Bridge Parkway and SR 316.
The exceptions are the four eastern most lots on the south side of Daniells Bridge Road just before Chestnut Hill Road.
The county plans to make the section of Daniells Bridge Road between the Connector and Chestnut Hill Road the southern part of a commercial loop road circling SR 316 and Epps Bridge Parkway.
The northern part of that loop–called the Oconee Connector Extension--will run north from the current intersection of the Oconee Connector and SR 316 and reconnect with Epps Bridge Parkway between Lowe’s and the building housing the Starbucks.
The roadway to Home Depot then will be extended across SR Loop 10 to connect to Daniells Bridge Road near Chestnut Hill Road.
Work on the $13.5 million northern loop is expected to start soon and be finished by Dec. 31, 2011.
That roadway, which will provide access to the proposed $76 Epps Bridge Centre shopping mall next to Lowe’s, will dump traffic onto Daniells Bridge Road long before the second overpass or flyover to Home Depot is built. The county has said that construction of that flyover is at least 10 years in the future.
In the meantime, the county plans to spend $400,000 to make Daniells Bridge Road three lanes wide from the Oconee Connector nearly to Chestnut Hill Road. This upgrade will not eliminate the blind curve but simply run a center turn lane through it.
QuikTrip is counting on the traffic generated by Oconee Connector Extension, and its representatives told the Board of Commissioners on June 2 that it should not be required to plant the 14 shade trees required on the site by the county’s Uniform Development Code (UDC) because the trees would make it too hard for drivers to see the site and its signage.
County Planner Krista Gridley said she had been reviewing landscaping for three years for the Planning Department and that developers frequently ask to be allowed to plant fewer required trees. She said during those three years no exceptions had been granted.
After a 50-minute discussion, Commissioners Chuck Horton and Jim Luke voted to turn down the request. Commissioner John Daniell voted against the denial motion, saying he didn’t want to force the developer to plant the trees as required by the code. Commission Margaret Hale missed the meeting because she was sick.
The 1.3 acre tract currently is wooded and slopes into a ditch below Daniells Bridge Road and the Oconee Connector. The gas station will have entrances and exits on both the Oconee Connector and Daniells Bridge Road.
When construction is completed, the gas station will contain a 4,555 square foot convenience market and 16 fueling positions.
QuikTrip also said at the June 2 meeting that the site was not big enough to accommodate the number of parking spaces required by the UDC unless the county agreed to allow it to put eight of the spaces inside the 30-foot parking setback from the roadway rights of way on the Oconee Connector and Daniells Bridge Road.
Daniell and Luke agreed to that request even though Public Works Director Emil Beshara had said in the staff report on the project that he objected to the intrusion into the buffer at the Oconee Connector entrance. "A vehicle backing out of either of the spaces in question may interfere with entering traffic," he said in the report.
The Commissioners stipulated that only employees are to be allowed to use the parking spaces in the setback on the Oconee Connector, presumably with the view that employees are better at backing out of parking spaces without interfering with entering traffic than patrons.
The property is owned by JJMB, LLC & Paul Keller Jr., 1010 Prince Ave., Athens, which also owns a half acre on the southeast corner of the intersection and 3.5 acres on the southwest corner of the intersection, according to county tax records.
The 47-acre tract listed for sale on the northwest side of the intersection is owned by Deferredtax, LLC, of Lawrenceville, according to Oconee County tax records. The tract actually is made up of three different parcels and contains all of the frontage on SR 316 between the Oconee Connector and Virgil Langford Road.
The 4.5-acre tract on the southeast corner of the Oconee Connector intersection with SR 316 also is listed for sale and is owned by 316 Holding Group, also with the same 1010 Prince Ave., Athens, address as the owners of the property to be used for the QuikTrip. That 4.5-acre tract is separated from the QuikTrip site by the Oconee County Barber Creek Fire Station, which has entrances and exits both onto the Oconee Connector and Daniells Bridge Road.
Adjoining both the 316 Holdings Group property and the Fire Station is the 6.3-acre site of the SpringHill Suites by Marriott, scheduled to open this summer. That site was rezoned back in 2007, at the same time as the site across the road where the two seven-story buildings were to be built.
The seven-acre site just east of the hotel is owned by Glades Commercial Properties LLC of 2500 Daniells Bridge Road, according to tax records. Glades also owns the 1.7-acre site that is listed for sale just east of the Office of Information and Instructional Technology (OIIT).
According to the Georgia Secretary of State database, Carl R. Nichols is the registered agent for Glades, which owned the hotel site, the OIIT site, and the site of the Exchange office building behind the 1.7 acres site listed as for sale.
The OIIT site is owned by the county itself through the Oconee County Development Authority.
The property on which the St. Mary’s Heart and Vascular unit sits is owned by 316 LLC of Watkinsville. According to the Secretary of State records, Jeff B. Bell is the agent.
The 17-acre site across Daniells Bridge Road now listed for sale is owned by Daniells Bridge Partners, LLC., with the same address as 316 LLC and also with Jeff B. Bell as agent.
Southern Land Exchange LLC, the agent for the 17-acre site, is headquartered at 1551 Jennings Mill Road. Secretary of State records list Steve Ebbert as the agent. Tax records list Steve and James Ebbert as owners of the seven-acre hay field at the corner of Daniells Bridge Road and Hog Mountain Road that already has been rezoned for commercial and office park development.
Developer Mike Thornton owns three tracts totaling five acres on the north side of Daniells Bridge Road opposite Founder’s Boulevard. The tracts, one of which contains a cell tower, are listed for sale.
Zaxby’s Holdings owns the 6.4 acre vacant lot east of Founder’s Boulevard, and Thorton owns three additional tracts on the south side of Daniells Bridge Road. Two of those are west of the blind curve and the other is on the east side of the curve.
The Board of Commissioners rezoned nine acres on the north side of Daniells Bridge Road just east of the blind curve on Dec. 2, ignoring the 400 plus petitions submitted by neighbors opposed to the rezone. That property was owned by Dolores Lance and Dorothy Anglin.
The BOC found the unspent $400,000 in Special Purpose Local Options Sales Tax funds to cover the widening of the road as a way of justifying the rezone.
Reuben Moss and Thomas Kittle live on and own the remaining properties on the north side of Daniells Bridge Road up to Chestnut Hill Road. Moss’ property is 2.5 acres. Kittle’s 20- acre tract extends to and along Chestnut Hill Road itself.
The BOC votes on the QuickTrip variance requests on June 2 as well as on the rezone of the tract in the blind curve on Dec. 2 confirm what the developers in the county already seem to know:
Everything is negotiable when it comes to development in Oconee County.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Some Use Alternatives to Oconee County Established Media
Something to Ignore
While most voters in Oconee County get their news about what is going on in the county from newspapers–with The Oconee Enterprise being the top specific source–a number rely on email and other Internet sources for their news.
That’s according to the poll two of my students and I conducted just after the March 17 vote on the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, which voters overwhelmingly approved.
In our survey of 128 registered voters whose names we drew scientifically from the county registration list at the beginning of February, 29 percent volunteered the name of The Oconee Enterprise as their "primary sources of information about news and events here in Oconee County?"
Twenty-two percent listed the Athens Banner-Herald, 20 percent listed The Oconee Leader, and 34 percent simply said "newspapers." Radio was listed by 9 percent and television by 2 percent.
And 7 percent listed Internet sources.
The sample is relatively small, but the odds are good because of the way we drew the sample that had we interviewed all registered voters we would have gotten results similar to these. Specifically, we would expect between 3 and 11 percent of the respondents to mention the Internet.
I mentioned in a posting on June 3 that I felt the local media were having trouble figuring out how to respond to citizen news sources, and I used as an example response by the traditional media to the report I did late on the night of May 23 about a secret meeting called by Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis for Dec. 1 of last year.
Neither the Enterprise nor the Leader has written about that secret meeting yet. The Banner-Herald wrote about the meeting in a story on June 1 and criticized the county government for holding the meeting in an editorial on June 2.
Neither in the story nor in the editorial did the Banner-Herald mention that it had learned about the secret meeting from a citizen blog.
Former Banner-Herald reporter Adam Thompson, who wrote the paper’s story, told me in an email message he sent me on June 4 that he had revealed that he had learned about the secret meeting from my blog in the story he wrote, but the editors removed the reference from the story before it was published. (Thompson has left the paper to go to law school.)
Not only here, but across the country the media are struggling with how to navigate in a world where they no longer are the only sources of information.
One option some have followed is for the established media to create an electronic portal for interested citizens to enter inorder to monitor what is being distributed by all sources in the community, including those of the established media.
In other words, someone who wanted to know what was being reported about Oconee County would go to this portal and then find there what had been written by all the media, by citizen journalists and by commentators.
I even suggested this strategy for Oconee County to editors at the Banner-Herald a number of years ago. They expressed interest bud did not follow up.
Instead, the Banner-Herald has continued to develop its Onlineathens site, using materials mostly from the newspaper. Two of the nine people in our survey who mentioned Internet sources mentioned this site.
The Enterprise has recently launched a web site and has been promoting the site through its paper edition. For example, the June 18 edition of the paper noted that two of the seven stories on the front page were "Seen First" on the paper’s web site.
The paper saves its best stories for the paper edition, however, and does not make available the full paper electronically.
In fact, editor Blake Giles bragged in a column in the April 30 edition of the paper that "You will not read this column online. Someone has to fork over 50 cents for the privilege of reading this masterful prose."
The free weekly Leader also has a web site, and it has gotten more complete as the paper has developed. But the paper always has been and remains the primary product.
Newspapers around the country generally have not been successful in gaining enough revenue from advertisements sold on their web sites to offset the losses they suffer if advertisers pull out of the print product. Advertising rates for the print products are based on circulation figures, so keeping print readers is important. Paid circulation papers such as the Enterprise and the Banner-Herald also gain revenue from sales.
So instead of embracing the new world in which everyone can be a journalist, the established media have treated the citizens as competitors for their readers. One way to deal with competitors is to hide the fact that they exist.
I’ve been experimenting with what is known as a content aggregator called Topix as one way to do what the local media have not seen fit to do themselves.
Aggregators are sites that gather information from multiple sources and provide links to it on one site. In other words, it is the kind of portal I recommended to the editors of the Banner-Herald. Topix has been around for a number of years and is owned by McClatchy newspapers and other media companies.
Topix now is set up to search for content and aggregate it by county, and it has a site for Oconee County. Its RoboBlogger searches sites for stories that contain a reference to Oconee County and assembles links to the stories onto one page. That page is accessible to everyone, and there is a version for mobile devices.
RoboBlogger is software, but Topix also invites citizens to be editors. I’ve signed on as an editor, and, at this point, I’m the only one for Oconee County. Others can join, of course. The selection criteria is unspecified, and there may not be any other than nomination. In my self nomination I said my only expertise was that I was doing a news blog myself.
I’ve been trying to train RoboBlogger to search the Enterprise and Leader sites as well as this blog and others I know of in the county. It already searches the Banner-Herald site. In addition, I’ve been adding things myself as I come across them. That is what an editor is empowered to do.
In our survey, 27 percent of the respondents said they learn of news in Oconee County via word of mouth.
Topix is designed to allow those who know something to share it, possibly helping the whole community become better informed in the process.
By the way, former Banner-Herald reporter Thompson told me he had a quote from state Rep. Bob Smith attacking bloggers in his story on June 1 about the Dec. 1 secret meeting, which Smith attended. The editors removed that quote as well.
Smith uses old and new media to spread his message to his constituents, as he should.
Now citizens have ways of spreading their messages as well.
Smith is joined by the editors of the three local newspapers in their dissatisfaction with that change of relationships.
While most voters in Oconee County get their news about what is going on in the county from newspapers–with The Oconee Enterprise being the top specific source–a number rely on email and other Internet sources for their news.
That’s according to the poll two of my students and I conducted just after the March 17 vote on the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, which voters overwhelmingly approved.
In our survey of 128 registered voters whose names we drew scientifically from the county registration list at the beginning of February, 29 percent volunteered the name of The Oconee Enterprise as their "primary sources of information about news and events here in Oconee County?"
Twenty-two percent listed the Athens Banner-Herald, 20 percent listed The Oconee Leader, and 34 percent simply said "newspapers." Radio was listed by 9 percent and television by 2 percent.
And 7 percent listed Internet sources.
The sample is relatively small, but the odds are good because of the way we drew the sample that had we interviewed all registered voters we would have gotten results similar to these. Specifically, we would expect between 3 and 11 percent of the respondents to mention the Internet.
I mentioned in a posting on June 3 that I felt the local media were having trouble figuring out how to respond to citizen news sources, and I used as an example response by the traditional media to the report I did late on the night of May 23 about a secret meeting called by Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis for Dec. 1 of last year.
Neither the Enterprise nor the Leader has written about that secret meeting yet. The Banner-Herald wrote about the meeting in a story on June 1 and criticized the county government for holding the meeting in an editorial on June 2.
Neither in the story nor in the editorial did the Banner-Herald mention that it had learned about the secret meeting from a citizen blog.
Former Banner-Herald reporter Adam Thompson, who wrote the paper’s story, told me in an email message he sent me on June 4 that he had revealed that he had learned about the secret meeting from my blog in the story he wrote, but the editors removed the reference from the story before it was published. (Thompson has left the paper to go to law school.)
Not only here, but across the country the media are struggling with how to navigate in a world where they no longer are the only sources of information.
One option some have followed is for the established media to create an electronic portal for interested citizens to enter inorder to monitor what is being distributed by all sources in the community, including those of the established media.
In other words, someone who wanted to know what was being reported about Oconee County would go to this portal and then find there what had been written by all the media, by citizen journalists and by commentators.
I even suggested this strategy for Oconee County to editors at the Banner-Herald a number of years ago. They expressed interest bud did not follow up.
Instead, the Banner-Herald has continued to develop its Onlineathens site, using materials mostly from the newspaper. Two of the nine people in our survey who mentioned Internet sources mentioned this site.
The Enterprise has recently launched a web site and has been promoting the site through its paper edition. For example, the June 18 edition of the paper noted that two of the seven stories on the front page were "Seen First" on the paper’s web site.
The paper saves its best stories for the paper edition, however, and does not make available the full paper electronically.
In fact, editor Blake Giles bragged in a column in the April 30 edition of the paper that "You will not read this column online. Someone has to fork over 50 cents for the privilege of reading this masterful prose."
The free weekly Leader also has a web site, and it has gotten more complete as the paper has developed. But the paper always has been and remains the primary product.
Newspapers around the country generally have not been successful in gaining enough revenue from advertisements sold on their web sites to offset the losses they suffer if advertisers pull out of the print product. Advertising rates for the print products are based on circulation figures, so keeping print readers is important. Paid circulation papers such as the Enterprise and the Banner-Herald also gain revenue from sales.
So instead of embracing the new world in which everyone can be a journalist, the established media have treated the citizens as competitors for their readers. One way to deal with competitors is to hide the fact that they exist.
I’ve been experimenting with what is known as a content aggregator called Topix as one way to do what the local media have not seen fit to do themselves.
Aggregators are sites that gather information from multiple sources and provide links to it on one site. In other words, it is the kind of portal I recommended to the editors of the Banner-Herald. Topix has been around for a number of years and is owned by McClatchy newspapers and other media companies.
Topix now is set up to search for content and aggregate it by county, and it has a site for Oconee County. Its RoboBlogger searches sites for stories that contain a reference to Oconee County and assembles links to the stories onto one page. That page is accessible to everyone, and there is a version for mobile devices.
RoboBlogger is software, but Topix also invites citizens to be editors. I’ve signed on as an editor, and, at this point, I’m the only one for Oconee County. Others can join, of course. The selection criteria is unspecified, and there may not be any other than nomination. In my self nomination I said my only expertise was that I was doing a news blog myself.
I’ve been trying to train RoboBlogger to search the Enterprise and Leader sites as well as this blog and others I know of in the county. It already searches the Banner-Herald site. In addition, I’ve been adding things myself as I come across them. That is what an editor is empowered to do.
In our survey, 27 percent of the respondents said they learn of news in Oconee County via word of mouth.
Topix is designed to allow those who know something to share it, possibly helping the whole community become better informed in the process.
By the way, former Banner-Herald reporter Thompson told me he had a quote from state Rep. Bob Smith attacking bloggers in his story on June 1 about the Dec. 1 secret meeting, which Smith attended. The editors removed that quote as well.
Smith uses old and new media to spread his message to his constituents, as he should.
Now citizens have ways of spreading their messages as well.
Smith is joined by the editors of the three local newspapers in their dissatisfaction with that change of relationships.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Oconee County BOE and BOC Budgets Differ
How Deep to Dip
As the Oconee County Board of Commissioners has struggled to find ways to cut about $5 million from its 2009-2010 budget, the Oconee County Board of Education passed a budget with no fanfare that is slightly larger than the one approved a year ago.
The BOC will take up its budget again on Tuesday night with the intent of passing a final document before the deadline of the end of the fiscal year on June 30. The BOE adopted its budget on June 8.
Both the BOE and the BOC budgets are heavily dependent on local property and sales taxes, though the state funds about half of the BOE budget.
A comparison of the two budgets shows the difference between the basically flat budget approved by the BOE and the greatly reduced budget under review by the BOC results from increased federal funding for Oconee County schools, the projections of tax income being used by the two boards, and a greater willingness on the part of the BOE to dip deep into reserve funds.
The 2009-2010 BOE budget projects that the local schools will receive $25,390,505 in the coming fiscal year from local property taxes, or $32,259 more than was projected for the current fiscal year.
The BOE budget projects receiving $5 million in revenue from the 1 percent local educational sales tax, or Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax. The 2008-2009 budget projected revenue of $4.4 million.
The BOE budget includes $28.5 million in state funding. That figure had been $31.2 million the year earlier.
The budget approved by the BOE on June included $1.7 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (federal stimulus) funds and an additional $3 million in federal instructional grants.
The current fiscal year budget did not include stimulus money, but it did include $1.8 million in federal instructional grants.
The budget the BOE approved for next year draws $1.5 million from its reserve funds to balance the budget, leaving $8.8 million in the reserves. The $1.5 million is a little less than the Board drew from the funds last year to balance income and expenditures.
The current year’s BOE budget was based on $70 million in revenue; the new budget, prepared under the direction of Oconee County Assistant Superintendent for Financial Operations Randy Morrison, projects total revenue of $71.3 million.
For the county, BOC Chairman Melvin Davis proposed a budget of $34.7 million to the commission. The four commissioners requested additional budget reductions that are expected to be finalized on Tuesday night. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at the courthouse in Watkinsville.
County Finance Director Benko has estimated that the county will receive $12,338,000 in property tax revenue this coming fiscal year, rather than the $12,943,730 projected revenue in the current fiscal year budget. He is projecting $5,069,733 in Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenues for the coming fiscal year, compared with $5,150,474 in the current budget.
The proposed budget projects revenues of $6,308,849 for the Utility Department, while the current budget projected revenue of $6,533,854. This Utility Department revenue projection is dependent on the Board of Commissioners approving as yet unspecified sewer and water rate increases.
Davis proposed drawing $921,734 from the reserve, compared with just under $2 million a year earlier. The other four commissioners proposed more cuts in spending to bring that figure down to $613,234. At least some commissioners want to cut even more.
The county has $11 million in the reserve, but it tentatively has set aside about $6 million for right-of-way acquisition for Mars Hill Road expansion. If that amount is considered encumbered, the result of the budget proposed by Davis would have been to draw down the reserve to about $4 million.
Benko told me that in an email message on June 13 that there are only rough guidelines on what is the proper amount that should be in a reserve fund. He said the range of those guidelines is from 25 to 40 percent of the budget.
With a total county budget of just under $35 million, that range would be from just under $9 million to $14 million.
How deep either the school district or the county actually will have to go into reserves will depend in part on how well Morrison and Benko will have projected revenues.
As the Oconee County Board of Commissioners has struggled to find ways to cut about $5 million from its 2009-2010 budget, the Oconee County Board of Education passed a budget with no fanfare that is slightly larger than the one approved a year ago.
The BOC will take up its budget again on Tuesday night with the intent of passing a final document before the deadline of the end of the fiscal year on June 30. The BOE adopted its budget on June 8.
Both the BOE and the BOC budgets are heavily dependent on local property and sales taxes, though the state funds about half of the BOE budget.
A comparison of the two budgets shows the difference between the basically flat budget approved by the BOE and the greatly reduced budget under review by the BOC results from increased federal funding for Oconee County schools, the projections of tax income being used by the two boards, and a greater willingness on the part of the BOE to dip deep into reserve funds.
The 2009-2010 BOE budget projects that the local schools will receive $25,390,505 in the coming fiscal year from local property taxes, or $32,259 more than was projected for the current fiscal year.
The BOE budget projects receiving $5 million in revenue from the 1 percent local educational sales tax, or Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax. The 2008-2009 budget projected revenue of $4.4 million.
The BOE budget includes $28.5 million in state funding. That figure had been $31.2 million the year earlier.
The budget approved by the BOE on June included $1.7 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (federal stimulus) funds and an additional $3 million in federal instructional grants.
The current fiscal year budget did not include stimulus money, but it did include $1.8 million in federal instructional grants.
The budget the BOE approved for next year draws $1.5 million from its reserve funds to balance the budget, leaving $8.8 million in the reserves. The $1.5 million is a little less than the Board drew from the funds last year to balance income and expenditures.
The current year’s BOE budget was based on $70 million in revenue; the new budget, prepared under the direction of Oconee County Assistant Superintendent for Financial Operations Randy Morrison, projects total revenue of $71.3 million.For the county, BOC Chairman Melvin Davis proposed a budget of $34.7 million to the commission. The four commissioners requested additional budget reductions that are expected to be finalized on Tuesday night. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at the courthouse in Watkinsville.
County Finance Director Benko has estimated that the county will receive $12,338,000 in property tax revenue this coming fiscal year, rather than the $12,943,730 projected revenue in the current fiscal year budget. He is projecting $5,069,733 in Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenues for the coming fiscal year, compared with $5,150,474 in the current budget.
The proposed budget projects revenues of $6,308,849 for the Utility Department, while the current budget projected revenue of $6,533,854. This Utility Department revenue projection is dependent on the Board of Commissioners approving as yet unspecified sewer and water rate increases.
Davis proposed drawing $921,734 from the reserve, compared with just under $2 million a year earlier. The other four commissioners proposed more cuts in spending to bring that figure down to $613,234. At least some commissioners want to cut even more.
The county has $11 million in the reserve, but it tentatively has set aside about $6 million for right-of-way acquisition for Mars Hill Road expansion. If that amount is considered encumbered, the result of the budget proposed by Davis would have been to draw down the reserve to about $4 million.
Benko told me that in an email message on June 13 that there are only rough guidelines on what is the proper amount that should be in a reserve fund. He said the range of those guidelines is from 25 to 40 percent of the budget.
With a total county budget of just under $35 million, that range would be from just under $9 million to $14 million.
How deep either the school district or the county actually will have to go into reserves will depend in part on how well Morrison and Benko will have projected revenues.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Oconee BOC To Hash Out Budget and Power Relationships
And Power For Prince Avenue Too
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners meet on Tuesday night to hash out two seemingly unrelated issues, the 2009-2010 fiscal year budget and rules of governance for the Board itself.
In fact, the two issues are tightly linked.
The four commissioners, starting back in February made it clear they wanted to have a strong hand in fashioning next year’s budget.
In the end, BOC
Chairman Melvin Davis submitted a budget he and Finance Director Jeff Benko agreed on, leaving the four commissioners either to accept it or try to reshape it in public.
The four commissioners have taken the bait, but so far they have been unable to agree on exactly what changes need to be made in the budget that Davis said in his letter to citizens is conservative yet provides "for the continuation of our basic governmental needs."
These budget issues will dominate the first part of the meeting, which starts at 7 p.m. in the regular commission meeting room at the courthouse in Watkinsville.
In the second part of the meeting–officially labeled a work session--commissioners are to examine as yet undisclosed proposals from County Attorney Daniel Haygood to clarify the powers of the commission chairman and of the other four commissioners.
This is an issue the chairman and four commissioners have been struggling with for years, mostly behind the scenes. It broke into the open on Sept. 25 when the board held a working session at the courthouse on the topic.
The Board has held two subsequent meetings at the Community Center in the new Veterans Park on Hog Mountain road, on May 6 and 19. These are now available for viewing at my Vimeo site.
An editorial in the June 11 issue of The Oconee Enterprise, which generally shows great fondness for Davis, accused the commissioners of "jealousy" of Davis and new Commissioner John Daniell of "idealism warring with his adding machine." (Yes, that really is what it said.)
The editorial concluded with the admonition to "Leave the budget and Melvin Davis alone."
Not to be out done, the Athens Banner-Herald gave Johnathan McGinty, a former reporter and editor at the paper and current blogger, space in the paper on June 16 to attack the four commissioners for the "absurdity of trying to pinch pennies" by making more cuts in the budget Davis put forward.
McGinty also talks about a DeLorean "minus Michael J. Fox" in a kind of one-upmanship with the Enterprise’s "adding machine."
McGinty wants the Board to go along with Davis’ proposal to use part of its $11 million Fund Balance to make the budget work. Davis originally proposed that the county draw $921,734 from that fund, but Benko, in response to the four commissioners, has cut the amount of the draw to $613,234.
McGinty uses the figure of $10 million for the surplus, but Benko assured me in a conversation on May 29 that the figure is $11 million. The problem, according to Benko, is that not all of that is unencumbered.
The county used $6 million of that to front the right of way purchase for the Oconee Connector Extension that will open up land for commercial development on Epps Bridge Parkway. The state reimbursed the county, but it has set the money aside for a similar purchase arrangement of right of way for widening of Mars Hill road in the future.
To keep even more money in the Fund Balance, Daniell has proposed that the county stop paying $35,000 to John McNally, who has a contract with the county to serve as executive director of the Keep Oconee County Beautiful Commission.
Mary Mellein, chairperson of the Commission, sent an e-mail message round the county today saying the action essentially would eliminate the Commission. According to Mellein, the Oconee County body must be affiliated with the National Keep American Beautiful Inc, and to be such an affiliate, it must have a full-time executive director.
At the June 2 meeting, when the cut in McNally’s position was last discussed, the Board voted to refund $26,000 to Prince Avenue Baptist Church in code enforcement fees, retroactive to last year. So the Board spent nearly McNally’s salary doing a favor to the church and its advocate, businessman, developer and landowner Mike Power.
That’s not the only irony of this budget discussion. The Oconee County Board of Education, with hardly any public attention, passed its budget on June 8. That budget is for $75 million and also is balanced by drawing on reserves.
The budget being considered by the BOC is only for $34.5 million, yet it has generated, in relative terms, a lot of attention.
And while both the BOE and the BOC have held the tax rate steady, homeowners can expect to pay about $200 more next year in property taxes because the state almost certainly will not be providing funds to the county for Homestead Tax Relief.
So despite all the talk about holding the line on tax rates and moderate or non-existent property value growth, taxes are going to go up for most people.
That’s the reality of the front part of the BOC meeting on Tuesday. The reality for the back part is that BOC Chairman Melvin Davis has a lot of power regardless of what rules the others members put in place.
But those other four members have the ability to check that power, as they also have demonstrated with the budget.
Friday, June 05, 2009
Voters Not Well Informed About Oconee SPLOST
So Who Really Voted?
Only about one in five of the registered voters in Oconee County closely followed the discussions about the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax before it was approved by voters on March 17, and only half even knew that the vote was for renewal of a tax already in place.
Only 6.6 percent of all registered voters cast a ballot on March 17, so these findings–from a survey of registered voters conducted by two graduate students and me just after the election–are hardly surprising.
Rather they confirm the success of the county officials in running a low-key campaign for the tax initiative and holding the election at a time when relatively few voters were likely to show up at the polls. Research around the state has shown–and the experience of the county with tax votes has confirmed–that approval is likely if turnout is low.
Of the 1,457 voters who cast their ballots at the March 17 special election, 71.2 percent approved the tax. The county had 22,113 registered voters at the time of the election.
In our survey of 128 registered voters whose names we drew from the registration list at the beginning of February, 16.9 percent said they did not even know about the SPLOST tax until they received the survey sent them in the mail the day after the election.
Another 63.7 percent said they paid some attention to discussions about the SPLOST tax before the elections, "but I did not follow the discussions closely."
Only 10.5 percent told us they "paid quite a bit of attention to the discussions" about SPLOST and 8.9 percent said they "followed the discussions very closely."
Only 53.6 percent of those who returned the survey answered affirmatively (correctly) this question: "As far as you know, did Oconee County collect a SPLOST tax of 1 cent on the dollar even before the March 17 vote?" A few (4.0 percent) said the county did not have such a tax, and 42.4 percent said they did not know the answer.
The sample is relatively small, but the odds are good (19 out of 20) that had we interviewed all registered voters rather than the sample our answers would have been within plus or minus 8.8 percent of those we received.
In fact, we conducted the study as a methodological exercise to determine our success in completing interviews–in this case through the mail–with the sample of voters we selected. The two students were Nicoleta Corbu, a visiting Fulbright Scholar from Romania, and Qingmei Qing, a doctoral students from China.
Both worked with me in the Cox International Center in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.
We sent the survey to 500 voters selected from the full list of voters by chance, and the post office returned 39 questionnaires because the voter no longer lived at the address given. This means that 27.8 percent of those who received the survey returned it. This is comparable to return rates in many national telephone surveys.
Among our 128 returned surveys were 32 from voters who said they actually went to the polls on March 17, or, at 25.0 percent, a considerably higher ratio than for voters overall.
Among those 32 who said they voted, 30 answered the next question as to how they voted, and 21–or 70.0 percent–said they voted for SPLOST. That is very close to the 71.2 percent for the actual election.
That is the good news. But there is bad news as well.
The voter lists themselves are public records, since only if these kinds of records are open for examination is there any way to counter voter fraud. We have to know the list contains the names of real people.
Also public are records of whether an individual actually did vote, though, of course, how one voted is secret. Again, we have to be able to determine if those recorded as voting are real people.
Four of the 128 persons who returned our survey removed their names from the returns, making it impossible for us to match their names with voter files for the March 17 election, but 124 did not.
The 32 person who indicated they had voted were among these 124, and 29 of the 30 who indicated how they voted were among the 124.
The actual vote records, however, show that only 16 of the 32 who claimed they voted actually did vote. Of the 16 who actually did vote, 14 had told us how they voted. Nine said they voted for the SPLOST, or the equivalent of 64.3 percent.
In other words, if we simply wanted to match our results with vote outcome, we would be slightly better off including those who told they voted but actually did not.
It seems that at least some of our respondents felt they should have voted but didn’t, and they corrected for that by giving us the wrong answer to our question on whether they voted.
But it seems they would have voted pretty much the same as those who did go to the polls had they actually participated in the election.
My two students and I completed these analyses just last week. We hope to discuss the results of our study and one we did for the November 2008 election in Oconee County at a scientific conference this fall.
Voters were much more honest in reporting on their voting behavior in the November election. And the sample again matched pretty closely the actual election outcome.
The survey is just one more piece of evidence that the SPLOST election may have been a success from the point of view of county officials who wanted the tax to be approved, but it has to be considered a failure if the goal was to get an informed electorate to the polls to make a considered judgment about whether the sales tax was good or bad for the county.
The county was not allowed by law to advocate for or against the tax, but it was allowed to promote participation and to run an information campaign to help people know about the election and about the details of the tax.
The county held the required public hearings and posted some basic information on the county web site. In other words, it did the minimum.
Only about one in five of the registered voters in Oconee County closely followed the discussions about the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax before it was approved by voters on March 17, and only half even knew that the vote was for renewal of a tax already in place.
Only 6.6 percent of all registered voters cast a ballot on March 17, so these findings–from a survey of registered voters conducted by two graduate students and me just after the election–are hardly surprising.
Rather they confirm the success of the county officials in running a low-key campaign for the tax initiative and holding the election at a time when relatively few voters were likely to show up at the polls. Research around the state has shown–and the experience of the county with tax votes has confirmed–that approval is likely if turnout is low.
Of the 1,457 voters who cast their ballots at the March 17 special election, 71.2 percent approved the tax. The county had 22,113 registered voters at the time of the election.
In our survey of 128 registered voters whose names we drew from the registration list at the beginning of February, 16.9 percent said they did not even know about the SPLOST tax until they received the survey sent them in the mail the day after the election.Another 63.7 percent said they paid some attention to discussions about the SPLOST tax before the elections, "but I did not follow the discussions closely."
Only 10.5 percent told us they "paid quite a bit of attention to the discussions" about SPLOST and 8.9 percent said they "followed the discussions very closely."
Only 53.6 percent of those who returned the survey answered affirmatively (correctly) this question: "As far as you know, did Oconee County collect a SPLOST tax of 1 cent on the dollar even before the March 17 vote?" A few (4.0 percent) said the county did not have such a tax, and 42.4 percent said they did not know the answer.
The sample is relatively small, but the odds are good (19 out of 20) that had we interviewed all registered voters rather than the sample our answers would have been within plus or minus 8.8 percent of those we received.
In fact, we conducted the study as a methodological exercise to determine our success in completing interviews–in this case through the mail–with the sample of voters we selected. The two students were Nicoleta Corbu, a visiting Fulbright Scholar from Romania, and Qingmei Qing, a doctoral students from China.
Both worked with me in the Cox International Center in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.
We sent the survey to 500 voters selected from the full list of voters by chance, and the post office returned 39 questionnaires because the voter no longer lived at the address given. This means that 27.8 percent of those who received the survey returned it. This is comparable to return rates in many national telephone surveys.
Among our 128 returned surveys were 32 from voters who said they actually went to the polls on March 17, or, at 25.0 percent, a considerably higher ratio than for voters overall.
Among those 32 who said they voted, 30 answered the next question as to how they voted, and 21–or 70.0 percent–said they voted for SPLOST. That is very close to the 71.2 percent for the actual election.
That is the good news. But there is bad news as well.
The voter lists themselves are public records, since only if these kinds of records are open for examination is there any way to counter voter fraud. We have to know the list contains the names of real people.
Also public are records of whether an individual actually did vote, though, of course, how one voted is secret. Again, we have to be able to determine if those recorded as voting are real people.
Four of the 128 persons who returned our survey removed their names from the returns, making it impossible for us to match their names with voter files for the March 17 election, but 124 did not.
The 32 person who indicated they had voted were among these 124, and 29 of the 30 who indicated how they voted were among the 124.
The actual vote records, however, show that only 16 of the 32 who claimed they voted actually did vote. Of the 16 who actually did vote, 14 had told us how they voted. Nine said they voted for the SPLOST, or the equivalent of 64.3 percent.
In other words, if we simply wanted to match our results with vote outcome, we would be slightly better off including those who told they voted but actually did not.
It seems that at least some of our respondents felt they should have voted but didn’t, and they corrected for that by giving us the wrong answer to our question on whether they voted.
But it seems they would have voted pretty much the same as those who did go to the polls had they actually participated in the election.
My two students and I completed these analyses just last week. We hope to discuss the results of our study and one we did for the November 2008 election in Oconee County at a scientific conference this fall.
Voters were much more honest in reporting on their voting behavior in the November election. And the sample again matched pretty closely the actual election outcome.
The survey is just one more piece of evidence that the SPLOST election may have been a success from the point of view of county officials who wanted the tax to be approved, but it has to be considered a failure if the goal was to get an informed electorate to the polls to make a considered judgment about whether the sales tax was good or bad for the county.
The county was not allowed by law to advocate for or against the tax, but it was allowed to promote participation and to run an information campaign to help people know about the election and about the details of the tax.
The county held the required public hearings and posted some basic information on the county web site. In other words, it did the minimum.
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