Oconee County BOE Selects Three Men with Long Ties to Community as Post 5 Finalists

Women, Critics Passed Over

In selecting its three finalists from among the 17 applicants for the open Post 5 position on the Oconee County Board of Education, the board chose three men with long ties to the community.

And the board rejected all three female applicants as well the only three who, in their applications, offered even mild criticism of the board and Oconee County schools.

The board also rejected the only applicant with a Ph.D., the only applicant with a medical degree and both candidates with law degrees.

The board also rejected the only applicant who had labeled himself a Democrat. That was when he ran unsuccessfully for the Post 5 slot less than two years ago.

Two of the three selected applicants have extensive business experience, while the third is a retired Oconee school teacher and administrator.

The four members of the board who made the decision include a businessman with experience in restaurant franchising, a businessman who operates a trucking company, a teacher and a staff member at the University of Georgia. All but the teacher are men.

Tom Breedlove, who resigned from the Post 5 slot in May, was a land planner who worked in development.

Breedlove and the other four board members were elected as Republicans.

These three finalists–Joseph Bagley, Michael Burnette and Glenn Townsend–will be interviewed by the board on at a meeting starting at 7 p.m. on Sept. 2. Board Chairman David Weeks told me in early July that he expected the board to makes it decision in late September or early October.

Seventeen Oconee County residents filled out an application form by the deadline on July 15.

The board released the names immediately, but it did not release the application forms. Those forms list name, educational and employment background, school and community activities, reasons for requesting appointment to the board, and length of residence in Oconee County.

Sixteen of the 17 appeared before the board on Aug. 2 and gave three-minute introductions of themselves. Applicant Alan Alexander, one of the two attorneys, could not attend, and Weeks read a statement from him. Most applicants summarized what they had put on the application form.

The board has put the application forms of the three selected applicants on the web for public review.

I requested and received the full set of applications. I summarized their responses in a spreadsheet.

The length of residence of the 17 applicants ranged from less than one year (Michael Brown, 9 months) to 33 years (selected applicant Burnette).

The applicant with the second longest tenure in the county was selected applicant Townsend with 26 years.

Among those selected, Bagley was a relative newcomer, with nine years of residence. But he attended high school in Commerce and did his undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia.

Bagley is vice president of development for Lassiter Properties, Inc. According to his application, he currently directs the development of two major retail centers for Lassiter. Based in Morrow, southeast of Atlanta, Lassiter owns and operates timberlands in the U.S.

Burnette, according to his application, has been a store manager for more than 20 years with Tires Plus and has been area manager for the company for the last eight years.

Townsend, who served as an assistant principal in the Oconee County school system from 1992 to 2008, is now retired. Prior to moving to the Oconee system, Townsend was an administrator and teacher in the Clarke County school system.

Townsend began his teaching career in Commerce, following a short stint as graduate assistant football coach at the University of Georgia.

Bagley said he has two children currently in the Oconee County school system, while Burnette and Townsend did not indicate if they have children in the schools. Burnette’s application was one of the briefest, consisting of less than 11 lines of hand-written comments to the three open-ended questions.

“My background in accounting and 20 years in the business field will be instrumental with current economic times,” Burnette wrote.

Bagley also wrote that his experience in business would be an asset and said that he and his wife “are proud to tell folks that our sons are part of the Oconee County School System, and I believe that this system is well on its way to maintain the status as one of the best systems in the country.”

Townsend said he is “knowledgeable of many school policies + procedures, and am familiar with many of the policies and procedures of the Oconee System.” He added: “I am a ‘team’ person, and would love to be able to contribute to the current B.O.E. and its decision making.”

Only three of the applicants even hinted at criticism of the current board or system.

Kirk Dunham, a financial adviser, wrote: “While I believe that our school system in Oconee County is very good, I also believe that there is room for improvement in several areas.”

Dunham did not elaborate, but he did list communication, measurement of performance and development of personnel as areas he would like to focus on if he were appointed.

William Rakosnik, who said he was in upper management, was even more circumspect, saying he believed in “consensus building and a team approach to problem solving.” He added: “I do not believe that excellent schools and a reasonable tax rate are mutually exclusive goals and will work toward achieving both.”

Franklin Shumake said “We need school board members who will look, listen, and learn what our parents, students, teachers, administrators, and community citizens want in our schools.” He added that “we need to go beyond personal agenda items and focus on what is best for the students in our schools.”

Shumake, a retired Oconee County school administrator, said the county needs school board members who can communication with and coordinate with leadership groups in the community, such as the county commissioners, city leaders, and civic and business leaders.

Of the three female applicants, two did not list current work outside the home. Roslyn Beckstead has been a teacher in the past, and DeeDee Gaines has worked in the health and wellness field.

Cindy Chapman currently is working as an office manager.

Michael Brown was the second attorneys who did not make the short list. (Alexander was the first.)

Gregory Zengo was the only physician on the list of 17 applicants. His practice is in Watkinsville.

Zengo had asked to be appointed to the board back in 2007, when Post 2 became vacant because of a resignation. Guest was appointed instead.

Richard Clark, who holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Connecticut and is on the public service faculty at the University of Georgia, also had applied for that opening.

Clark then filed as a Democrat to run against Breedlove in November of 2008. Breedlove had defeated Kyle Martin in the Republican primary for the Post 5 opening and defeated Clark in the general election.

During the Aug. 2 presentation to the board, Clark urged the board to seek diversity in making its selection and even said he would understand if he were passed over for someone with expertise in elementary or secondary education.

The other applicants were Britt Beaver, a teacher and coach, Mark Capobianco, a business owner, Gary Davis, a financial adviser, and Stuart McGarity, a financial representative.

The board opened the applications up to the general public after abandoning an earlier attempt to fill the slot from among the four persons who had filed to run for the two seats being contested in this year’s election cycle.

Chairman Weeks made that proposal to the board on May 19, and members Mack Guest, Kim Argo and Mike Hunter quickly accepted it.

Guess and Argo were two of the four persons who had qualified to run. The others were Mark Thomas and Carter Strickland. Thomas filed to challenge Guest for the Post 2 position as a Republican, while Strickland filed to challenge the winner of that contest as a Democrat.

Argo has filed to run for reelection to Post 3 as a Republican and received no opposition from her party or from the Democratic Party.

Strickland alone asked to be appointed to the Post 5 position, but the board rejected his application on June 14 and decided to seek candidates from the general public.

Weeks said at the time that the public had registered its complaint with the restrictions the board had placed on applicants.

Thomas defeated Guest in the July 20 Republican primary. Thomas and Strickland will face off in the November general election.

Guest is the owner of Lad Trucking in Watkinsville. Argo is a Walton County teacher. Hunter is on the staff of the School of Forestry at the University of Georgia. Weeks owns six local restaurants, including three in Oconee county.

Thomas is a contractor, and Strickland owns a media content management service company.

Strickland had been critical of the current board and of Superintendent John Jackson in two candidate forums in June.

I met with Board Chairman Weeks on July and asked him if Strickland’s party or his criticism of Jackson had been factors in rejecting his candidacy.

Weeks said these things had not been factors and that the board was open to applicants with points of view different from those of current members.

Oconee County Saturday Strolls at Harris Shoals Raised Money for Local Charities

Adult/Family Summer Camp

For the second year in a row, the Oconee Democrats raised more than $1,000 for local charities through its Saturday Strolls series.

Participants in the 14 guided walks, held this year from May 1 through July 31 at Harris Shoals Park in Watkinsville, contributed $1,130 to such charities as the Oconee County Cultural Arts Foundation and the state Botanical Garden in Clarke County, according to event organizer Pat Priest.

The stroll leaders designated a charity in advance, and each of those who joined the hour-long walk through the park donated $5.

Top draws were the May 1 stroll led by Brad Sanders, an expert on the Bartram Trail, and the May 8 walk led by Robert Wyatt, an adjunct professor of ecology at the University of Georgia.

Sanders talked about the exploration and writings of naturalist William Bartram, who traveled through Georgia and the south in the 18th century, while Wyatt helped participants learn how to identify trees and shrubs.

The Bartram Trail begins at the Georgia-North Carolina border in northeast Georgia, climbs to the top of Rabun Bald, descends into Warwoman Dell and then parallels the Chattooga River.

The Bartram trail walk raised $140 for the Bartram Trail Conference, while the walk led by Wyatt resulted in $135 for the Oconee Rivers Land Trust.

The stroll leaders led participants through Harris Shoals Park on Experiment Station road and used the natural and man-made features of the park to illustrate the talks. Strolls were nonpartisan and open to the public.

Strollers who joined artist Bob Clements and illustrator Bill Pierson on the July 3 stroll sat at the popular shoals of the creek and sketched after being given hints by Clements and Pierson on techniques.

Lawrence Stueck, an environmental sculptor and art teacher at Athens Academy, used the playground at the park, which he designed and helped build, to illustrate his talk about the role of play and playgrounds in child development and education.

In the summer of 2009, the first year of the program, Oconee Democrats raised more than $1,000 through a series of 13 walks that began at the courthouse in Watkinsville. The first of those strolls was on Aug. 8, and the last was on Oct. 31.

In 2009, walk leaders included Oconee County native and Georgia House member Bob Smith, then Watkinsville Mayor Jim Luken and Oconee County Sheriff Scott Berry.

In launching the 2010 series, Priest, a local radio producer and writer, called the strolls a “weekly, hour-long summer camp for adults and families.”

In addition to raising the money for charity, Priest said at the end of the series, “I hope we raised awareness about the natural world.”

The 2010 series included discussions of birds, mushrooms, lichens and mosses, invasive species, native plants, the Oconee watershed and snakes and turtles. One stroll focused on nature photography.

Pictures in the slide show above were contributed by Priest, Wyatt, Chuck Murphy and me. Murphy is a local photographer and photo instructor who led the July 19 stroll.

Oconee County Cycling Group Seeking Support from Land Use Committee for Signage

Reception Not Warm

There is a chance–though a slight one–that the Oconee County Citizen Advisory Committee on Land Use and Transportation Planning will talk about bikes on county roadways when it meets on Tuesday night.

At its meeting on July 13, the committee voted to add a request from member Richard McSpadden that it discuss Share the Road signage as its next agenda item, once its finishes its ongoing discussion of the county courthouse.

At the meeting on Tuesday, the committee is scheduled to review for a third time a PowerPoint presentation prepared by County Strategic and Long-Range Planning Director Wayne Provost that the committee wants to show to the public.

The purpose of the presentation to the public will be to convince the public that the committee’s recommendation that the county build a separate judicial facility near the current county jail on Experiment Station road is a good one.

After a year of deliberation, the committee selected that option back on March 9 and plans to send its recommendation to the Oconee County Board of Commissioners after it has had its chance to tell the public about the recommendation.

Committee Chairman Abe Abouhamdan said at the July 13 meeting that he wants to give that public presentation at the September meeting. Then he would be willing to address the bike signage issue, but not before.

Biking has not had a warm reception from the Land Use and Transportation Committee in the past, and Abouhamdan made that point to McSpadden when McSpadden made his request.

The committee even discussed at its January 2009 meeting the possibility of asking the Board of Commissioners to ban bikes from some county roadways. That was before McSpadden was a member of the committee.

McSpadden, who said he sought appointment to the Land Use and Transportation Committee so he could represent biking interests, is president of the Oconee County Cycling Organization.

The organization is asking that the county install Share The Road signs on roads used by cyclists throughout the county and has identified four key roads it want to be the top priority.

These are Colham Ferry road from Watkinsville to Watson Spring Mill road, Simonton Bridge road from Watkinsville to the county line, New High Shoals road from U.S. 441 to SR 186, and Barnett Shoals road from Watkinsville to the county line.

McSpadden gave the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee a letter from the cycling organization asking the committee to endorse the signage request and recommend to the Board of Commissioners that the signs be installed.

Abouhamdan’s response was quick, indicating that the issue was complex, that the committee had spent a lot of time on bike issues in the past and would need a lot of time to consider the request, and that the committee had its plate full with the courthouse issue.

He also pointed out that the committee meets for only an hour each month, so it can only handle so many issues. Even though it is rare for the committee to have much more than a majority of its 14 members attend a meeting, discussion often is lengthy.

Provost chimed in that the county Public Works Department needs to be involved in any such discussions.

Finally, McSpadden made a motion that the request from the Oconee County Cycling Organization be the next item on the agenda once the courthouse was out of the way. Courtney Gail seconded the motion, and the motion passed.

According to McSpadden’s letter, the group would like to have four signs, two on each side of the road, on each of the four roadways identified. Total cost was estimated at $720, and the letter said the group “is ready to partner with the county to fund and install the signage.”

According to the letter, the Oconee County Cycling Organization is a local, non-profit group “dedicated to increasing bicycling safety and improving bicycling infrastructure in Oconee County.”

The Land Use and Transportation Committee is scheduled to meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the community center in Veterans Park on Hog Mountain road.

Oconee County Board of Commissioners Set to Spend Sales Tax Surplus for Sewer Project

Keeping the Bait

The Oconee County Board of Commissioners is expected to vote tomorrow night to spend an additional $400,000 to build a sewer line to serve two future customers along McNutt Creek on the northern border of the county.

The board put the decision on tomorrow night’s consent agenda at its meeting on July 27. That means the board will vote without further discussion unless one member asks that the item be removed from the consent agenda.

The board will fund the sewage line largely from excess 2003 Special Purpose Local Option sales tax collections and interest on funds collected but not spent from the tax. The 2003 SPLOST is now expired and has been replaced by a 2009 SPLOST.

The total cost of the sewage line project is expected to be $773,000, and the county received a grant from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs to cover $186,711 of that amount. To receive the Community Affairs grant, however, the county had to commit another $186,711.

The board earlier voted to take this amount from SPLOST funds, meaning surplus SPLOST funds will cover $587,000, or three-quarters, of the total cost.

When completed, the sewage line will provide service to Zoom Bait, a manufacturer of fishing lures, and St. Mary’s Highland Hills Retirement Village and its new adjoining Center for Alzheimer’s and Dementia Care. Both Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s are on Jennings Mill road.

Zoom Bait now is on a septic system, while St. Mary’s sends its sewage to Athens-Clarke County for treatment.

The sewage line will be gravity fed and follow McNutt Creek to an existing sewage pump station near Kohl’s. From there, the effluent will be pumped either to the Land Application System treatment facility on Rocky Branch road or to the Calls Creek Sewage Plant in Watkinsville.

The county collected $631,000 beyond the projected $25 million from the 2003 SPLOST and also has earned and is earning money on unspent SPLOST dollars.

At the July 27 BOC meeting, finance director Jeff Benko said all of the projects listed in the ballot language for the 2003 SPLOST were fully funded, so the board can do what it wants with the roughly $700,000 he identified as excess revenues as long as the board stays within the broad confines of the SPLOST language.

That 2003 ballot initiative listed $6 million for water and sewage projects, $6 million for road, $5 million for recreation and cultural affairs, $4.6 million for county facilities, including the courthouse, $1.5 million for fire stations, $1.3 million for paying off debt on the jail, and $0.6 million for the emergency operations center.

At the February town hall meeting, a number of individuals urged the county to find some funds for preservation of the area around the Elder Mill Bridge, but the Board said it had no money for that purpose.

Even if 20 percent of the $700,000 had been set aside by the county for recreational and cultural affairs, it could have allocated $140,000 for Elder Mill or other park and recreation projects. The $5 million initial allocation was 20 percent of the $25 million total.

But the excess funds are probably much higher than the $700,000 figure Benko used on July 27.

In addition to the $631,266 more the county had taken in than it projected from the 2003 SPLOST, it had earned interest of $861,049 on the amount collected as of the end of January of 2010, I learned from an open records I filed earlier this year.

That means the county earlier this year was sitting on at least $1,492,315 in unspent and unallocated money from the 2003 SPLOST.

At the meeting on July 27, however, Benko said the excess funds were only $700,000.

The board made its decision on July 27 to go forward with spending most of that money without soliciting or taking comments from the citizens present. Nothing on the agenda suggested that the board would be discussing how to spend the SPLOST excess funds.

At the meeting, Oconee County Economic Development Director Rusty Haygood and Utility Department Director Chris Thomas made the request to the board for allocating the additional money to the sewer line project.

Haygood told the Board that the initial estimates of the cost of the project had proven to be wrong.

When the county asked the Georgia Department of Community Affairs to fund the project in June of 2008, the estimated total costs were $373,422.

When the Department of Community Affairs awarded the grant in October of 2009, it said it would pay half that cost.

The county put the project out for bids earlier this year and got a low bid of $640,000. Additional engineering, administrative and easement costs will bring the total figure to $773,000.

When the new figure came in, the county asked the state if it would contribute more, and it declined, Haygood said.

Haygood told me after the meeting that Zoom Bait, which employs about 125 people, “had been approaching the county requesting sewer service for some time.”

When St. Mary’s added the Alzheimers and dementia facility this year, “the circumstances surrounding the grant appeared to be favorable to get state assistance with the project,” Haygood said, resulting in a June 18, 2009, grant application.

The money the county received is federal Housing and Urban Development funds passed through the state.

Zoom Bait, 1581 Jennings Mill road, sits just east of the existing Jennings Mill overpass of SR 10 and is hemmed in by SR Loop 10 and McNutt Creek. The plant has little room to expand its septic system, Haygood said when I talked to him by telephone on July 30.

Zoom Bait manufactures soft plastic fishing lures at the facilty, which has no sign at its entrance and only a small sign over the entrance door.

St. Mary’s, 1660 Jennings Mill road, had an agreement with Athens-Clarke County to treat the sewage from its retirement home, Haygood said. When it added the Alzheimers and dementia facility this year, Athens-Clarke agreed to take the additional sewage as well, but only on a temporary basis.

Haygood said the Oconee sewage line is simply a way of helping a manufacturer and a health care facility that have been in the county a long time. The county doesn’t want either one to leave, he said.

At the July 27 meeting, Haygood and Thomas were asked if there were any other likely customers who might use the sewage line once it is completed in the Spring of 2011. Haygood and Thomas said the existing line behind Kohl's will handle new developments.

Haygood confirmed to me in the telephone call that the line really is for Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s.

At the BOC meeting, Haygood was asked if he or Thomas had approached Zoom Bait or St. Mary’s and asked them if they would pay for the sewage line. Haygood and Thomas said they had not.

Haygood said in our telephone conversation that he would do that only if instructed to do so by the board.

Haygood said the new estimate is a high-end figure and is based on the assumption the construction will hit rock nearly the entire distance it will run. He said he is optimistic the project will come in under the estimate.

“I hate it, but we don’t have much choice, do we?” Commissioner Jim Luke said before agreeing to put the additional funding on tomorrow night’s consent agenda.

Lack of Oconee County Races Likely to Result in Low Turnout for Aug. 10 Runoff

July Voters Liked Republican Ballot

Only 33 voters had cast a ballot by the end of the day on Friday, the second day of early voting in Oconee County for the Aug. 10 Democratic and Republican party primary runoffs.

The counties were given leeway on when they started the early voting, based on their ability to get the ballots organized, and 13 voters had cast their ballots on the first day on Thursday.

Early voting continues through this week at the office of the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration, next to the courthouse.

Republican voters have a lot more reason to turn out for the runoff than do Democrats.

The Republican runoff ballot is headed by the contest for the nomination of the candidate for governor between Nathan Deal from Gainesville and Karen Handel of Alpharetta.

Republican voters also have the chance to pick between Sam Olens of Marietta and Preston Smith of Rome for attorney general, Ralph Hudgens of Hull and Maria Sheffield of Atlanta for commissioner of insurance, and John Douglas of Social Circle and Tim Echols of Athens for public service commissioner.

Democrats only have the contest between Gail Buckner of Jonesboro and Gorganna Sinkfield of Atlanta for secretary of state.

Voters who did not cast a ballot in the July 20 primary can vote in the runoff and can ask for either ballot. Those who voted on July 20 must pick the same party ballot for the runoff.

Real Clear Politics lists only one poll of Georgia voters–by Rasmussen–from after the July 20 primary, and that shows Handel beating Democratic gubernatorial nominee Roy Barnes by 1 percent and Deal beating Barnes by 6 percent.

That difference gives Democrats and Republicans who sat out the July 20 primary as well as those Republicans who voted, a reason to register their preferences.

With no local elections on the Oconee County ballot, however, turnout is likely to be light.

In 2008, with a runoff in the Oconee County Republican coroner contest and for U.S. Senate in the Democratic primary, 13.5 percent of the county's voters participated in the August voting.

According to the official Statement of Votes Cast for Oconee County completed on July 26, Oconee County had 22,225 registered voters on election day on July 20.

Fran Crowell from the Oconee County Board of Elections told me before the election that 2,111 of those were designated as inactive, meaning they had not voted in recent elections but could not be stricken from the rolls.

Of those registered voters, 6,628 cast a ballot on July 20. That’s 29.8 percent of the registered voters or 32.7 percent of the active voters.

The 29.8 percent figure falls between the 24.4 percent turnout figure for 2006 and the 36.4 percent turnout figure for the July primary in 2008.

Oconee County went to staggered terms for election of members of the Board of Commissioners and Board of Education this year, and the increase in turnout suggests the local elections helped boost participation.

Of the 6,628 voters, 5,804 (87.6 percent) asked for the Republican ballot and 824 (12.4 percent) asked for the Democratic ballot.

In July of 2006, only 65.5 percent of the 4,145 votes cast were in the Republican primary.

It seems likely the local Republican races, and the lack of any primary competition locally for Democratic candidate Carter Strickland for the Board of Education Post 2 position and for Suzy Compere for the Georgia State House 113th seat, increased the participation in the Republican primary.

In 2008, the Democratic Party did not have any local candidates running in the July primary.

For that primary, 90.1 percent of the 6,975 ballots cast in Oconee County were in the Republican primary.

Turnout was relatively consistent across the county’s 13 precincts. It was highest at 33.6 percent at Annex, in the center-east of the county, and lowest in Bishop, at 24.8 percent, in the center-west. These figures are with the absentee and early votes reallocated to precinct.

This reallocation was done for the Statement of Votes Cast for Oconee County but not for the initial returns released by the Board of Elections and Registration.

Voters can and do skip races, but the local race for the 113th House Seat in the Georgia General Assembly got votes from 5,582 of the 5,804 Republican voters.

In the county's 13 precincts, Hank Huckaby got 46.8 percent of the vote, compared with 34.3 percent for Tommy Malcom and 18.8 percent for Kirk Shook.

The 113th District is made up of 25 precincts, and with the Clarke, Morgan and Oglethorpe county precincts included, Huckaby got 50.9 percent of the vote, avoiding the Aug. 10 runoff.

The 5,582 votes cast for the 113th race were more than the 5,570 cast in the Republican governor’s race or the 5,413 in the secretary of state contest.

The race between Mack Guest and Mark Thomas for Post 2 on the Oconee County Board of Education got 5,463 voters and the Post 3 Board of Commissioners race between Margaret Hale and Tammy Gilland had 5,431 votes cast.

Hale got 51.8 percent of the vote to Gilland’s 48.2 percent.

Thomas got 70.6 percent of the vote and Guest got 29.4.

Gilland carried three precincts, Bishop (61.0 percent), Malcom Bridge (55.8 percent) and Athens Academy (51.7).

Guest didn’t carry any precinct, but he ran strongest in his home precinct of Athens Academy (45.9 percent) and did worst in Antioch (16.9), where Thomas’ parents operate Hot Thomas Barbecue.

Meeting to Resolve Oconee County Courthouse Issues Postponed

Fine-Tuning a PowerPoint

A meeting scheduled for early tomorrow morning to allow some members of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners to sort out their differences on what to do about the courthouse, the Courthouse Annex and the Government Annex was cancelled late today when one of the key participants could not attend.

Wayne Wilbanks, hired by the county on June 29 to be project manager for renovation of the Government Annex on Greensboro road on the south side of Watkinsville, told County Administrative Office Alan Theriault late this afternoon that he concluded he could not be at the 9 a.m. meeting tomorrow in the Courthouse Annex because of a family matter.

The 9 a.m. meeting was to be attended by Wilbanks, Theriault, Commissioner John Daniell and Commissioner Jim Luke and was to be held in the Courthouse Annex.

The Courthouse Annex, which the county leases and which is often referred to as the Dolvin property, is across the street from the courthouse itself in downtown Watkinsville.

The BOC has tentatively agreed to vacate the Courthouse Annex and move offices currently housed there to the Government Annex.

That proposal was brought to the commission by County Finance Director Jeff Benko in May as a scheme to cut the Fiscal Year 2010-2011 budget, and Daniell was a strong proponent. Luke was a skeptic from the start, and he voiced that skepticism at the BOC meeting again on Tuesday night.

The meeting, scheduled for tomorrow and now tentatively rescheduled for Tuesday afternoon, was suggested by BOC Chairman Melvin Davis as a way of ironing out some of the differences.

Commissioners Margaret Hale and Chuck Horton have sided with Daniell, but Hale was quiet on Tuesday night and Horton’s support was muted.

Luke’s argument is that the move might not save any money and doesn’t reflect any long-term thinking about what the county should do with its courthouse needs.



In fact, a third option also is being discussed.

The Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee has ignored the discussion by the commissioners of the Courthouse Annex and the Government Annex and gone ahead with plans for a public presentation on its recommendation that the county build a new judicial facility.

The BOC asked the land use committee to review the courthouse after Davis forced discussion of it through a meeting he called in December of 2008.

County Strategic and Long-Range Planning Director Wayne Provost organized that meeting for Davis and then brought to the BOC a request that it issue a request for proposals for consulting services to move forward with planning for a new courthouse.

That was in March of 2009, and the BOC instead referred the matter to the land use committee.

After a year of meetings, the land use committee voted on March 9 to recommend that the county split its administrative and judicial operations, set the existing courthouse aside for administration, and build a new judicial facility somewhere near the jail on Experiment Station road on the north side of Watkinsville.

After making that decision, the land use committee started working on a presentation it wants to give to citizens at a public hearing to convince the citizens that the committee’s recommendation–which will be to the BOC–is the right one.

The land use committee in May asked Provost, who meets with the committee, to prepare a PowerPoint presentation, and at its meeting on July 13, it sent Provost back for a second revision to his show.

The stated view was that he hadn’t made the case strongly enough.



The land use committee is scheduled to meet again on Aug. 10, review the revisions Provost has made, and then schedule a public hearing.

The goal isn’t to get public feedback, but to tell the public why the county needs to build a separate judicial facility near the jail.

These three options–vacate the Courthouse Annex and move to the Government Annex, slow down and develop a long-range plan before doing anything more, and begin to move forward with a new judicial facility–clearly are not all of those under consideration.

Chairman Davis, who prefers to work behind the scenes rather than on stage, has not indicated what he thinks should be done, though at the meeting on Tuesday he expressed concerns about the current course of action.

In April, he was the only member of the BOC who did not deny reviewing property for a new governmental complex, probably outside of downtown Watkinsville, that would accommodate both administrative and judicial needs of the county.

Davis was instrumental in getting $4.6 million into the 2003 SPLOST for “acquisition, construction, equipping and installation of expansions of the county courthouse, the county government annex building and county libraries.”

About $4.2 million of that 2003 SPLOST money remains unspent, and a big part of the question is what to do with it now.

Should the money be used to renovate the Government Annex, as Daniell has proposed, or to buy land for future needs, as Luke has suggested? Or move forward with plans for the new judicial building, as the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee has proposed?

The courthouse and Government Annex actually came up at three points in the meeting on Tuesday night, which lasted four hours in public session and additional time in executive session.

During the citizen comment session at the beginning of the meeting, Nancy Turnbull, who heads the Athens Technical College day class program, complained that she was being forced out of the Government Annex as part of the planned renovation and asked the county to help her find adequate space so she can continue to offer adult education classes in the county.

Later Shane Carson, who applied for reappointment to his position on the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee, criticized some of his colleagues for voting on the courthouse issue after missing many of the meetings at which it was discussed.

Finally, Wilbanks asked the BOC to approve his recommendation that Precision Planning Incorporated get a contract for initial design work for the Government Annex renovation.

Luke objected, and Davis called the now-cancelled meeting to try to get the differences ironed out before next Tuesday’s meeting.

In the meantime, Provost and the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee are working on a PowerPoint to show at some future meeting with any members of the public that show up.

Hard Labor Creek Reservoir Dam and Roadway Relocation Construction Now On Hold

Shovels Remain in Hand

All construction work on the Hard Labor Creek Reservoir in Walton County is now on hold with the exception of work on mitigation of the damage the planned dam and reservoir will do to streams and wetlands if the reservoir is built in the future.

Jim Luke, Oconee County commissioner and vice chairman of the Hard Labor Creek Reservoir Management Board, told me late last month that no formal vote ever has been taken by the Board to put construction on hold, but both counties have said to the Board that it should not move beyond the land acquisition and design stage on the project.

“The finance directors of both counties said the counties are not able to service more debt,” Luke told me in a telephone conversation on June 26.

Oconee County obligated itself in 2007 to pay the Walton County Water and Sewer Authority for a $19.5 million bond as its part of financing of the first phase of the project. Walton County borrowed roughly twice that amount.

The county has agreed to make semi-annual payments ranging from $309,486 to $1,228,500 over the life of the Hard Labor Creek bond, which mature on Feb. 1, 2038, according to Oconee County Finance Director Jeff Benko.

The principal, as of June 30 of this year, remains at $19.5 million, and interest on retirement is scheduled to be $17.9 million, according to Benko.

The debt for the Hard Labor Creek bond is part of a total debt of more than $44 million assigned to the Oconee County Utility Department. With interest, that debt goes to just less than $71.5 million.

At the May 25 meeting of the Board of Commissioners, Jimmy Parker of Precision Planning Incorporated (right), project manager for the reservoir, provided an update on the project.

He said the schedule calls for treated water from the reservoir to be available to the two counties in 2015. He acknowledged, however, that the date is now tentative.

“The schedule on this project is going to be based on the economic recovery and the demand for water in both systems,” he said. “I think the reservoir board is fully in agreement that they are not going to build a facility that is not warranted.”

The Oconee Enterprise missed the story, reporting in its May 27, 2010, edition simply that “Precision Planning engineer Jimmy Parker updated the BOC on the Hard Labor Creek Reservoir and a mitigation plan.”

The Athens Banner-Herald also did not report on Parker’s comment, though it did quote Luke in a story a month earlier as saying that the two counties have “started to drag our feet a little bit on the project.”

I talked by telephone with Parker on June 25 and with Luke on June 26, and both confirmed that construction work on the reservoir itself as well as on roadway relocation is frozen.

Parker said that all design work will be completed, but no dirt will be moved.

“We want to get this in a shovel-ready position,” he said. Parker told the BOC on May 25 that the goal is to have the reservoir ready for any state or federal stimulus funding, should they become available.

Parker told me that roughly $33 million is left from the $60 million from the sale of the bonds by the two counties, and that that amount will allow the reservoir board to continue purchasing land for the project. He said roughly half of the 2,380 acres needed already have been acquired.

The remaining borrowed funds also will cover the $9.8 million that will be spent on mitigation projects, a figure that Commissioner Luke called “interesting” during Parker’s presentation.

Parker said that the dam and flooding for the reservoir will do significant damage to Hard Labor Creek and wetlands surrounding it, since they will be flooded.

“When you remove the ecological habitat provided by the streams and wetlands in this area, under (U.S. Army) Corps (of Engineers) regulations it is a requirement...we have to replace that habitat.”

While much of the mitigation is in Walton County, four of the sites selected for mitigation will be in Oconee County.

Wetland mitigation is being done on land near little Lake Oconee on the Apalachee River near Moores Ford road. That land is owned by the Walton County Water and Sewer Authority.

The Oconee County Board of Commissioners voted on June 1 to proceed with streambank mitigation construction on streams on the Rocky Branch sewage treatment site near North Oconee High School and at Veterans Park sites in July 2010.

Streams on these sites drain to Barber Creek, which is a tributary of the Oconee River, meaning the mitigation will take place out of the immediate watershed of the reservoir.

The Board of Commissioners also voted to go forward with streambank mitigation at Heritage Park in the spring of 2011. Streams in that park drain to the Apalachee, as does Hard Labor Creek itself.

The delay at the Heritage Park site is the result of discussions about how restrictions on use of streams that are restored as part of the mitigation project will affect the use of the park for horse and bike trails. The county will be required to place covenants that preserve the streams once they are restored as part of the mitigation process.

A similar issue was raised at the June 29 meeting of the Board of Commissioners when Interim Parks and Recreation Department Director Lisa Davol discussed possible development of a disc golf course in Veterans Park.

Commissioner Luke questioned whether it would be possible to build such a facility around streams that will be set aside as part of the mitigation process. That issue remains unresolved.

Financing of the Oconee County contribution to the Hard Labor Creek Reservoir project has been an issue from the time the Board Voted 3-2 in 2007 to join with Walter County on the project.

Commissioner Luke and Chairman Melvin Davis joined then Commissioner Don Norris in favoring the project, while Commissioners Chuck Horton and Margaret Hale opposed it.

Proponents of the project initially justified it based on projections that the county would double in population by 2015, bringing the total number of people in the county to 67,065. The current population estimate for the county is 33,230.

When those figure were challenged, Finance Director Benko came forward with projections that the costs of the project could be covered by growth in water sales.

First the drought with the restrictions on water sales and then the collapse of the local housing market made the water sales projections unrealistic.

As a result, the county has increased water rates on existing customers three times since April 1, 2008, with the most recent increase taking place on July 1. At the time Utility Department Director Chris Thomas requested the increase, he told the BOC it was necessary in part because of the debt for Hard Labor Creek.

The budget for the Utility Department for fiscal year 2010-2011 lists $6.4 million in income and expenditures, with $3 million of the latter for debt payment, including $924,000 in interest for the Hard Labor Creek bond.

In an email message to me of June 14, Oconee Finance Director Benko listed four bonds that have been issued for the Utility Department since 1997 and which have not yet been retired. (See Chart.)

They are for the Bear Creek Reservoir in Jackson County (1997), for payment of debt and future construction (1998), for the acquisition of land for the Rocky Branch sewage treatment site (2003), and for Hard Labor Creek (2008).

The total initial debt for these four bonds was just less than $54 million. The current principal on the bonds is a little more than $44 million, but the county also is obligated to more than $27 million in interest payments on that debt.

If the Utility Department cannot retire these bonds through revenue from water sales, sewage fees or other fees, the county has to cover them through other tax sources, such as property and sales taxes.

In the budget request Thomas submitted to the Board back in April, he projected $5,905,000 in water and sewage fee income for the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

The County has not yet released detailed departmental budgets for the fiscal year that began on July 1. [I asked for release of those budgets at the BOC meeting last night, but no member of the board or county staff responded to or even acknowledged my request.]

++

Jimmy Parker’s PowerPoint presentation is on the county web site.

I have recorded and edited a video recording of his presentation of the PowerPoint and have put it on the Oconee County Observations Vimeo Channel .