Oconee County’s Patch.com local news and information site is scheduled to go live tomorrow.
Jane Lee, the editor of the Oconee County site, said the plan is for the site to be made available to the public sometime between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
The Oconee launch will follow a successful launch of a site in Dacula on Dec. 17. A Barrow County site is scheduled to launch on Dec. 28, Lee said. The Athens site will launch after the first of the year, she added.
In all, AOL Inc., the web site owner, plans to launch 12 sites in the northeast Georgia region in coming months as part of the its national roll-out of the local web sites, according to Lee.
shows the service as available in 19 states and the District of Columbia.
AOL Inc., formerly known as America Online, is attempting to move from being an Internet service provider to an Internet content producer.
The web site will be both “interactive” and “hyperlocal,” Lee said, distinguishing it from anything else available in the market.
It will contain news produced by Lee and correspondents working for her as well as materials submitted by the readers.
Readers will be able to contribute to a calendar, post birth, wedding and other types of announcements, and place advertisements for such things as garage sales. AOL will not charge for these postings.
The company will charge for some types of reader contributions, such as job posting, Lee said.
The site also will have a directory of local businesses and governmental offices. Businesses can pay extra for a larger listing, similar to what they do in printed telephone directories.
Readers will not pay for access to the web site. AOL plans to support the site through advertising.
At present, Lee said she has lined up seven freelance writers to contribute to the Oconee site. She said she plans to cover governmental meetings and post stories to the site upon the meeting’s completion.
The two Oconee County weeklies, The Oconee Enterprise and The Oconee Leader, have web sites, but both papers give priority to their print products, which come out on Thursday.
Many county meetings are at the front of the week, with the Board of Education meeting on Mondays and the Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesdays.
On Dec. 13, a Monday, both papers had reporters at the meeting of the Oconee County Industrial Development Authority and the Oconee County Board of Commissioners. The meeting was from 4 to 6 p.m.
Both included stories in their Thursday, Dec. 16 editions.
Neither paper put the story on its web site.
The daily Athens Banner-Herald also wrote about the story in its Dec. 16 edition and put the story on its web site.
Perry Parks, a Georgia regional editor for AOL’s Patch.com project, told me in October that he planned to hire a professional editor for Watkinsville and Oconee County in November.
Lee, 47, told me on Saturday that she has been living in Oconee County for a little more than a month.
She is a graduate of the University of Georgia (in classics) and has worked as a journalist in Thomaston, in Upson County, south of Atlanta.
Lee said readers will have easy access to her telephone and email address via the web site.
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Online Media Daily on 12/21 released a projection by eMarketer that 2010 will be the first year in which online advertising exceeds advertising by newspapers, including for their online editions. eMarketer also expects online advertising to continue to grow and print advertising to decrease.
The Oconee County Industrial Development Authority, seeking guidance on what it should do next, spent two hours yesterday afternoon tossing out ideas to members of the Board of Commissioners.
Among the proposals put forward was adding roadways and other infrastructure to the Gateway Park, enticing companies now incubating at the University of Georgia to locate in Oconee County, and getting voters to approve liquor by the drink so the county can develop a convention facility.
Gateway Park, on SR 316 near the Barrow County line and envisioned as a technology park, is a project of the IDA. At present, it is undeveloped.
The commissioners present were less than committal about which projects they favor and what they want the IDA to do.
The ideas the Authority was pitching came for a survey of the members.
Leonard Meyers, acting as facilitator for the meeting, methodically went through the responses, encouraging members to elaborate and commissioners to respond. Meyers said about halfway through the session he was surprised how little comment his presentation was generating.
Those who did speak favored an activist and expansive role of county government in promoting development, consistent with the comments in the survey Meyers was summarizing.
County Attorney Daniel Haygood, who also represents the IDA, said the authority has been in existence since 1962, when it was approved by the citizens of the county under the authority of the state’s constitution.
Haygood said the IDA can receive gifts, it can borrow money, it can make intergovernmental agreements, and it has the powers of private corporations.
This latter power, according to Haygood, means the IDA can do such things as build a building “without having to comply with all the state law that a county would have to comply with.”
“The big one, and this is the one you are all here to really think about and talk about,” said Haygood, “is encourage or promote expansion and development of industrial facilities and commercial facilities in Oconee County to relieve possible unemployment.”
Haygood said the IDA can acquire or build a building and even provide the furnishings and machinery for it.
The IDA also can accumulate funds year to year, he added, and can negotiate tax abatements for businesses seeking to expand or locate in the county.
Haygood introduced Jim Woodward, an attorney at Miller & Martin law firm in Atlanta, who said his speciality is counseling governments on bond sales.
Woodward added “an additional benefit for governments” of the IDA.
“You can borrow money without a voter referendum,” he said.
Haygood said the county can dedicate property taxes to pay for bonds and projects of the Authority.
Commissioner Margaret Hale was unable to attend the meeting, and Commissioner Chuck Horton came in with only about a half hour remaining. He apologized and said he was attending another government meeting.
Commissioners John Daniell and Jim Luke and Commission Chairman Melvin Davis sat through the entire two-hour session.
“We need somebody to come back to us and say here is what you can do in Oconee County,” Daniell said. “If you want this type of business, you’ve got to do this. If you want this type, you’ve got to do that.
“After we have all the options on the table, that is when the Board of Commissioners have got to raise their hands and say, all right, let’s go down this road.”
Commissioner Jim Luke turned to Chairman Davis at one point and said of the IDA:
“They are sitting here asking us, what do you want us to do? We’re saying, figure it out and tell us.”
Horton said the county should not waste its effort going after companies not interested in coming to Georgia.
“I think you’ve got to look at where money currently is going and where you have a legitimate chance of getting some of that money,” he said.
BOC Chairman Melvin Davis, who is a member of the IDA by virtue of his BOC role, was more determined to push forward with a directive for IDA.
He introduced Tom Griffith, whom, Davis said, he had invited to the meeting.
Griffith, founder of Golden Pantry Food Stores, based in Oconee County near Bogart, said the county needs to purchase what is called the Orkin property, a piece of land at the U.S. 78 and SR 316 interchange and stretching into Clarke County, and have it available for development.
Griffith also said the county should put “one person” in charge of leading the development effort in the county and “trust” him to go forward. That person, he said, should be Davis.
The Industrial Development Authority has five members.
Chuck Williams, president of North Georgia Bank, is chairman, and he opened the meeting last night, which was held from 4 to 6 p.m. in the courthouse in Watkinsville.
The IDA meets at 4 p.m. on the second month of each month.
Other members are BOC Chairman Davis, Oconee Chamber of Commerce President J.R. Whitfield, Watkinsville Mayor Joe Walter, and Rick Waller. Waller and Williams are appointed by the BOC.
The county also has a Development Authority, which consists of the IDA and six additional members, four of them at-large appointments of the BOC.
The meeting was last night was attended by two reporters from The Oconee Enterprise, one from the Athens Banner-Herald, and even one from The Oconee Leader.
About a half dozen citizens also attended.
Williams said at the end of the meeting he felt some progress had been made and that the “ball is now in the court of the IDA.”
“I would ask that we keep the dialog open,” he said.
The Oconee County Planning Commission took only 10 minutes tonight to agree that developer Frank Bishop should be allowed to increase the maximum square footage of his proposed but as yet unstarted Epps Bridge Centre on Epps Bridge parkway.
Bishop, through his representative, Philip Cranmer, told the commissioners tonight he needed the additional 42,185 square feet of space because of an “increased interest in retailers locating in this area." He said “we wanted to make sure we can accommodate those interested parties.”
Bishop has not submitted any construction drawings for the $76 million project and gave only vague indications of how the extra space would be spread around the 22-building complex, located west of Lowe’s.
The documents Bishop did submit list one tenant, Georgia Theatre Company, which, according to the documents, will occupy an 80,000 square foot building at the rear of the complex. The building will have 16 screens and seat 2,992, according to the submitted documents.
The state currently is building the Oconee Connector Extension, which will provide five of the six proposed entrances to the shopping center. The sixth is off Epps Bridge parkway itself.
The Planning Commission’s unanimous recommendation is scheduled to be on the agenda of the Board of Commissioners at its Jan. 4, 2011, meeting.
Planning Commission member George Rodrigues, who represents Watkinsville, asked Oconee County planner Brad Callender if there was going to be any change in the amount of paved parking area as a result of the increased size of the shopping center.
Callender said the increase would be about three percent.
Rodrigues had complained about the amount of impervious surface in the complex back when it was before the Planning Commission in 2008.
According to the documents submitted with the rezone modification request by Bishop’s Oconee 316 Associates, LLC, the Atlanta company developing the project, tree canopy on the site now covers 35 percent of the site.
Bishop plans to clear 100 percent of the land but replant tress so that 34 percent of the site will be covered by trees within five years of build-out of the center and 40 percent of the land will be covered “at tree maturity.”
According to the submitted documents, the project will take about six years to build out once construction begins.
Bishop also plans to put two streams on the site in pipes and to fill wetlands on the site. He has been given permission to do this by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is allowing him to mitigate these damages on a site Bishop purchased in Greene County.
Planning Commissioner member Bill Ramsey asked where the mitigation site was and if it was going to be “downstream from here.” Greene County is south of Oconee County.
In addition to the increase in total square footage for the project from the 444,056 approved in 2008 to the 486,241 requested, the Planning Commission also recommended that the BOC grant Bishop three additional exceptions to zoning regulations.
Bishop wants to increase the number of lots that will use a private access road, modify the minimum front and side yard setbacks for parking areas, and modify the setbacks between buildings.
The 42,185 increase in square footage will allow Bishop to add the equivalent space of 80 percent of the Kroger’s across Epps Bridge parkway from the planning shopping center.
Or, about the size of four Trader Joe’s, also located across Epps Bridge parkway from Bishop’s complex.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners tonight approved a modification to an earlier rezone that could result in the United States Department of Agriculture relocating its offices from the county Government Annex on Greensboro highway south of Watkinsville to near the USDA farms on Hog Mountain road.
The modifications would allow Allen Giddens of Gainesville to purchase a vacant lot (below) in Twelve Oaks Office Park, build a single-story building and lease the building to the USDA.
Prior to the unanimous vote tonight, buildings in the five-lot office park could not be larger than 2,800 feet of ground coverage. The BOC vote increased the amount to 5,600 square feet.
The USDA currently is renting space on a monthly basis in the Government Annex for its Farm Service Agency and for its Natural Resource Conservation Service. The county had a lease with USDA for the space, but the lease expired earlier this year.
In May the county began discussing the possibility of renovating the Government Annex to accommodate county space needs. It told the USDA after those discussions began that it would have to leave.
County Administrative Officer Alan Theriault told the BOC tonight that the county has informed USDA it can stay. In that circumstance, the county and USDA would have to renegotiate the lease.
Theriault told me after the meeting that the USDA was paying about $10,000 a year for use of the Government Annex space and has not told the county what it plans to do in the future.
Giddens told the BOC tonight he has an option to purchase the lot in the Hog Mountain road office park from Robert and Joanne Fine of Bishop. Giddens said the option runs only through the end of this year.
Giddens said he submitted a bid to USDA earlier this year but has not heard if it will be accepted. He said he hopes to hear in the next few weeks.
“If we don’t get the bid, the project will not go forward,” he said.
The proposal calls for use of 4,100 square feet of the 5,500 square-foot building Giddens said he plans to build. He said the additional space would be available to the USDA for future expansion.
Giddens told the Board the USDA specified it wants a one-story building. He told me that the cost of an elevator for such a small building would increase the price by $100,000, making it too expensive for him to build.
Total estimated cost of the proposed building without the elevator is $400,000, according to a letter Giddens submitted to the county along with the rezone application.
The rezone the BOC approved in March of 1993 for the office park specified that the buildings must have a brick exterior, be built “in a Georgian style” and be one and a half stories or two stories in height.
The BOC tonight added the requirement that Giddens modify his submitted plan to add dormers at the front of the building to give it the appearance of being a story and a half in height.
The Board also added the stipulation that the change it was making to allow Giddens to build a single-story building did not apply to another unbuilt lot in the subdivision.
Giddens was the only person speaking in favor of the proposed change tonight. No one spoke against, though I did ask the Board several questions about the proposal, including how the one-story structure meshed with the 1993 ordinance and whether the change applied to the other empty lot.
Twelve Oaks Business Park was designed when the adjoining Twelve Oaks subdivision was built early last decade. Both adjoin USDA farm land.
Two lots in the subdivision are used by Summer Hill Recreation Club for a commercial pool and tennis court facility under a Conditional Use Permit approved by the county in 1994. Summerhill also uses space in Twelve Oaks Business Park for parking.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners gave tentative approval last night to two new sewer projects that include an upgrade to the county’s only existing sewage plant and replacement of the main arterial line that feeds the plant.
The $1.9 million project will be funded in part through a loan from the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority (GEFA), the state agency that administers programs that provide financial assistance and other support services to improve Georgia’s environment.
The money actually comes from the federal government through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which provides funds for water quality protection projects around the country.
The county applied for and was awarded a $1.8 million loan for the project. GEFA already has indicated it will forgive $270,000 of the loan, which is not due until completion of the project or September of 2011.
The county either will pay off the 10-year loan when it comes due with monies already available, County Finance Director Jeff Benko told the commissioners last night, or it will pay off the $1.53 million over time at 3 percent interest, depending on which is more favorable to the county.
Benko said the county has collected fees from developers wishing to reserve capacity for sewage treatement that will allow the county to pay for the project and that money is invested and earning interest.
Benko told me after the meeting that the county also will seek additional loan money from GEFA, since the $1,939,057 total cost of the project is greater than the initial estimated budget of $1.8 million.
The commissioners last night gave initial approval to a bid of $1,233,809 from Southern Champion Construction Inc. of Stone Mountain for the upgrade to the head works of the Calls Creek sewage plant and immediately included a change order that would reduce that project’s total price by $84,500.
The commissioners also gave preliminary approval to a bid of $789,778 to Gary’s Grading and Pipeline Company of Monroe for a replacement of the main sewage line feeding that plant.
Approval of both bids will be on the consent agenda at the Dec. 7 meeting, meaning they will be approved without further discussion unless a commissioner asks that the items be removed from the agenda for further consideration.
Jimmy Parker from Precision Planning Inc. of Lawrenceville, acting as a consultant to the county, told the commissioners last night that the county’s application with GEFA was rated tops in the state, receiving a score of 93 out of 100 possible points, because of project needs and environmental impact and because of the compliance record of the county’s utility department.
“A lot of things your utility department has been doing spoke well in that application,” Parker said.
The Calls Creek sewage plant upgrade includes a new receiving well below the plant into which the sewage flows before it is pumped uphill to the treatment plant itself as well as screens to filter out heavy materials before they enter the plant.
That well will have a 5 million gallon per day capacity, although the plant itself is only permitted to operate at 0.67 MGD at present.
The county will use an existing emergency backup pump rather than buy a new one, as originally proposed, saving the $84,500 covered by the change order.
The upgrade also will include a septage receiving station that will preprocess the contents of septic tanks that haulers bring to the plant.
At present, the county does not have such a facility, though one had been incorporated into the plans for the proposed Rocky Branch sewage plant. Those plans are now on hold due to the drop in demand in the weak economy.
Chris Thomas, Utility Department director, said last night the inclusion of the septage receiving station at Calls Creek could make such a facility at Rocky Branch unnecessary.
The sewer line to be upgraded currently handles all of the effluent going into the Calls Creek plant and follows Calls Creek from near the county jail on Experiment Station road in Watkinsville to the plant itself.
The county will replace a 10-inch line with a 24-inch line and remove four aerial crossings of Calls Creek and Lampkin Branch, which feeds into Calls Creek. The new line will be entirely underground, flow by gravity and run a total of 5,500 feet.
The county also has received a grant of $187,000 from the state for an unrelated sewage project that would serve Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s Hospital Highland Hills on Jennings Mill road. That project is currently on hold while the county negotiates over easements.
Funding for that grant also comes from the federal government.
The Oconee County Citizen Advisory Committee for Land Use and Transportation Planning has delayed until at least January any decision on the Northeast Georgia Plan for Bicycling and Walking.
The plan, designed to increase the safety and prevalence of walking and bicycling, was developed by the staff of the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission in collaboration with its Regional Bicycle and Pedestrian Task Force. Six Oconee County representatives serve on that 32-member body.
The Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee reviewed and discussed the plan for 75 minutes at its Nov. 9 meeting and considered a resolution drafted by Oconee County staff that would have “recognized” the plan rather than “adopt” or “endorse” it, as NEGRC proposed.
The Committee voted 9-2 to consider the plan again in the future.
Twenty-five minutes later the Committee cancelled its December meeting, meaning the earliest it can discuss the plan again is at its scheduled meeting on Jan. 11.
*Develop “facilities and policies” to encourage walking and bicycling in Northeast Georgia.
*Generate “confidence and security” for people walking and bicycling through the region.
*Support bicycling and walking trips between neighborhoods and regionally important destinations.
*Foster “active lifestyles,” promote “community-based commerce” and reduce the environmental impact of motorized transportation.
The plan contains a proposed “Bicycle and Pedestrian Network” that includes SR 15 from Watkinsville to the Greene County line, US 441 from Clarke County to Morgan County, and Mars Hill road.
The plan proposes that SR 15 have a paved shoulder in the future and that US 441 have a separate path for biking and walking. Mars Hill road widening plans already include a bike lane.
The plan also lists greenways along the Apalachee, Middle Oconee and Oconee rivers and the Athens Line, the rail line running from Athens to Madison and now designated as a Regionally Important Resource by NEGRC.
The biking and walking plan is advisory. NEGRC has no enforcement authority.
Following the vote to postpone a decision on the Bicycling and Walking Plan, the Committee took action on a request from the Oconee County Cycling Organization to post Share the Road signs on four county roadways.
All 11 members of the committee agreed to recommend to the Oconee County Board of Commissioners that the signs be installed on the roadways if OCCO pays for the signage.
County Public Works Director Emil Beshara said he would put the signs on Simonton Bridge road at county expense, but he also wants to put up a sign that says bicyclists should Ride Single File on the road, even though state law allows bicyclists to ride two abreast.
Beshara said his sign would be yellow—meaning it was advisory—rather than white, which, he said, designates a requirement.
Beshara also said he already has put up Share the Road signs on New High Shoals road, one of the four roads for which OCCO had originally requested the signage. The others were Simonton Bridge road, Colham Ferry road and Barnett Shoals road.
The Athens Banner-Heraldreported on Nov. 15 on the Nov. 9 recommendation of the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee that the roadways be signed, but it made no mention of the discussion of the Plan for Bicycling and Walking in its story.
I did not attend the Nov. 9 meeting, but I did watch a video of it made for me by citizen Sarah Bell.
The Committee first viewed a PowerPoint presentation about the Bicycling and Walking Plan by Nina Kelly, a planner with NEGRC, and then discussed biking in the county. Little was made of walking, and almost nothing was said of the actual details of the plan.
NEGRC included two sample endorsement resolutions as part of the appendix to the bicycling and walking plan.
In one, Oconee County would endorse the plan. In another, the county would adopt the plan.
Wayne Provost, director of Strategic and Long-Range Planning for Oconee County, offered the Committee a third resolution that he said he had drafted. It merely recognized the plan.
The two resolutions proposed by NEGRC said the county recognized the “need to promote non-motorized transportation options to improve air quality and public health.”
Provost’s rewrite said the county “recognizes the potential for non-motorized transportation options to improve air quality and public health.”
Provost said he offered the revision because of “a skepticism of central planning” on the part of local government officials.
In fact, BOC Chairman Melvin Davis sent the other four members of the Commission an email message on Oct. 1 telling them he thought “the Board should give strong consideration to supporting the ‘Recognition” resolution” rather than the two from the NEGRC.
Committee member Richard McSpadden spoke out against Provost’s resolution.
“Let’s either have the leadership to say we endorse the plan or we don’t,” he said. “I want this committee to take a leadership stand and push the county into thinking strategically about where we want the county to go.”
Planner Kelly told the Committee NEGRC expects each of the 12 counties in the NEGRC region to reach a decision on the plan by June.
After deciding to continue discussion on the plan in the future, the Committee turned to the signage issue.
In a letter written in July by McSpadden, who was then president of the Oconee cycling organization, the cyclists asked the county to sign the four roads and said the group “is ready to partner with the county to fund and install the signage.”
The county sent the request to the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee, which took it up at its meeting on Sept. 14.
At that meeting, Public Works Director Emil Beshara said he was concerned that installation of the signs might increase the county’s liability should an accident with a cyclist take place on a road with a sign.
Beshara conceded at the Nov. 9 meeting that the signage would have no effect on liability. State law specifies that bicyclists have the same right to the roadways as do drivers of automobiles, he said.
Beshara also acknowledged at the Nov.9 meeting that he had installed the signs on New High Shoals road this summer, even though he raised the objection at the September meeting.
The Committee dispensed with the signage issue in 10 minutes.
Citizens attending Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee meeting are allowed to speak only on issues on the agenda, and only after the committee has finished its discussion of those issues.
So Committee chairman Abe Abouhamdan recognized the dozen citizens present, mostly bikers, after the action on signage had already been taken.
Tony Glenn, an Oconee County citizen representative to the Regional Bicycle and Pedestrian Task Force, was present. He, among others, objected to the proposed signs telling bicyclists to ride single file.
The argument was that motorists would think riding two abreast was a violation of the law.
Beshara offered a counter proposal.
He said he would be willing to change the wording of the sign to Please Ride Single File.
Nearly a year of monitoring of multiple sites on Calls Creek in Oconee County by law students at the University of Georgia has confirmed what the Georgia Environmental Protection Division concluded based on single reading of the same creek back in 2004.
Calls Creek, at least at times and in some places, has fecal coliform readings that exceed federal standards, meaning that the stream is legally impaired.
The most likely culprits are failing septic systems and cattle.
The question now is what to do about it.
The UGA students, in a meeting tonight at the Oconee County Government Annex attended by about 20 people, proposed a series of activities.
These included continued monitoring of the stream, precise identification of the sources of the pollution, talking with the owners of the cattle and with owners of the septic systems about federal and state funding for compliance, and working with county and Watkinsville officials to determine what else can be done.
Lee Carmon, from the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission, who chaired tonight’s meeting, said she will follow up on these suggestions.
Carmon opened tonight’s meeting with some background of the work of the students and then turned it over to those students to report on the findings of the monitoring.
The monitoring project has been funded by a grant to the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs.
Students enrolled in a course directed by Laurie Fowler, associate dean, Odum School of Ecology, undertook the stream monitoring. Fowler was at tonight’s meeting.
In 2007, the state designated the 4-mile segment of the creek from where Lumpkin Branch meets Calls Creek near the county jail to the Oconee River as impaired. Calls Creek is roughly six miles long.
According to the report by the UGA students tonight, monitoring from March to the end of the summer confirmed problems with Calls Creek particularly in the area downstream from Oconee County’s Calls Creek sewage plant.
Many of the Watkinsville homes in this area are on septic, the students reported, and a small farm with cattle is nearby.
The sewage plant itself has not been identified as a source of the pollution, the student team reported.
As a result of the higher cfu levels near the plant, the students began monitoring additional sites in that area.
Again in September, October and November, the students found high levels at several sites, including those around the sewage treatment plant.
Calls Creek is particularly important because it flows through Watkinsville and other neighborhoods in the county.
Children wade in Calls Creek in many places, and particularly at Harris Shoals, a popular park in Watkinsville.
So far, the readings at Harris Shoals usually have not exceeded federal standards, according to the law students.
“There are kids and mommies playing in that creak about nine months out of the year,” former Watkinsville Mayor Jim Luken said at the meeting tonight. “It is terribly important to the local community that that is safe.”
Carmon said that concern would be incorporated into the future program.
“I would like to see us build some partnerships in the community so that the community will long-term take on this monitoring,” she added.
