It is unlikely that Rep. Regina Quick won any friends at the Georgia Department of Transportation last week with the comments she made at the special session with local governmental leaders organized by the Oconee County Chamber of Commerce.
But it was clear she was not trying to curry favor with the state’s transportation leaders.
“I have some concern that there is a great sucking sound coming from Atlanta, from the transportation office,” she said.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners tonight agreed to consider over the next three weeks changes in the draft ordinance presented to it that will allow for the sale of liquor by the drink in county restaurants.
Commission Chairman Melvin Davis recommended that the Board review the requirement in the draft ordinance that no more than 25 percent of the gross income at the restaurant be from the sale of alcoholic beverages.
The Oconee County Planning Commission tonight voted unanimously to recommend to the Board of Commissioners that it turn down a rezone request for a recreational vehicle storage facility at the corner of New High Shoals Road and Union Church Road.
The Planning Commission took the action after hearing from 19 people who spoke in opposition to the rezone request. No one other than the applicant’s agent spoke in favor.
Liquor-by-the-drink legislation is now on a fast track, with the Oconee County Board of Commissioners scheduled to give an ordinance its first reading on Tuesday night and approve the law on Jan. 6.
County Clerk Jane Greathouse released the agendas for both meetings just before 4:30 on Friday, and the county web site contains a notice of the meetings and a draft of the ordinance commissioners will consider.
The Oconee County Planning Commission is scheduled to take up three rezone requests tomorrow night, the largest of which in terms of financial impact is likely to prove the least controversial.
After asking that its request be tabled in October, Oconee Medical Holdings LLC is seeking approval tomorrow of a rezone of a little more than 14 acres at Jennings Mill Road and Virgil Langford Road for construction of Phase III of Three Sixteen Professional Quarter.
The Watkinsville City Council voted unanimously last night to put a referendum allowing the sale of liquor by the drink in the city’s restaurants on the ballot in a special election on March 17.
The Council took the action after Mayor Charles Ivie informed the five council members and the public that he had concluded that the city could not determine precisely how city voters had cast their ballots in the county-wide referendum on Nov. 4.
Anyone who turned out at the called meeting of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners last night expecting a discussion of how the county is going to address future space needs would have been disappointed.
What the small group in attendance heard instead was presentations by an elected official and by representatives of eight county departments of what their current space use is and what they think they will need in 2035.
