Oconee County Commission To Review Bids For Construction Of Parkway Boulevard Extension At Tomorrow’s Mars Hill Overlay Work Session

Last Minute Addition

Oconee County Commissioners tomorrow morning will consider awarding a bid for construction of Parkway Boulevard Extension, the roadway that will open up additional land for expansion of the Epps Bridge Centre shopping complex on the Oconee Connector.

The item was added yesterday afternoon to the agenda for what is being billed as a work session for the commissioners. Originally, the purpose of the session, to start at 10 a.m. at the Courthouse in Watkinsville, was solely to discuss the proposed overlay district for the Mars Hill Road corridor.

Oconee County Commissioners Agree On Staff Salary Allocation, Discuss Future Changes In Animal Control Ordinance

Election Maneuvering

The Oconee County Board of Commissioners agreed last night to distribute unallocated salary money in the current budget differentially to address issues of pay compression within job classification categories.

The four voting commissioners unanimously approved the plan, developed by Commissioner John Daniell, rather than allocate money across the board, as advocated by Commission Chairman Melvin Davis.

Oconee County Commissioners To Discuss Staff Pay Once Again At Meeting Tomorrow Night

Merit Pay At Issue

The Oconee County Board of Commissioners will return tomorrow night to a topic that has bedeviled it since the beginning of the fiscal year on July 1–the allocation salary money to the staff.

The Board spent more than 50 minutes at its last meeting on the topic, and then another 1 hour and 45 minutes in a work session on Dec. 29, but it has yet to resolve how to spend the 1.5 percent pay increase approved on July 1.

No Route For U.S. 441 Widening And Bishop Bypass Exists, GDOT Tells Oconee County Citizen Committee

December Meeting

The two Georgia Department of Transportation representatives who attended the first meeting of newly appointed Sounding Board on the U.S. 441 widening project in southern Oconee County had a very clear message.

“There is no alignment set for this project at this time,” Brad Saxon, assistant state program delivery engineer, said near the beginning of the meeting.

Oconee County Issues Building Permit For Fifth Restaurant In Epps Bridge Centre

Grove Burgers

Oconee County’s Code Enforcement Office has issued a building permit for the build out of unit 510 of Epps Bridge Centre for Groove Burgers, which will become the fifth restaurant in the shopping center.

Work on the restaurant has begun and should be completed by Jan. 10, according to the permit, issued on Dec. 16.

Oconee County SPLOST Report Shows $9.2 Million In Unspent Funds From 2004 and 2009 Tax Collections

SPLOST 2015 Underway

Oconee County was sitting on $9.2 million in unspent funds in its Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax accounts on June 30, three months before the 2009 tax came to an end, according to the annual report the county is required to publish by the end of the month.

The money includes $3.6 million in collected but unspent revenue from the 2004 SPLOST and $5.6 million from the 2009 SPLOST, which went into effect in September of 2009 when the 2004 SPLOST expired.

Oconee County Legislators Said They Expect The Upcoming Session Of The General Assembly To Be Brief

It’s An Election Year

The upcoming session of the Georgia General Assembly likely will be brief, because 2016 is an election year and the legislators want to get home to campaign.

Two topics the legislators are likely to deal with are education and casino gambling.