Members of the Stakeholders Committee updating the Oconee County Comprehensive Plan spent two hours last week reacting to a series of recommendations on four topics that will be covered by the Plan.
The recommendations were spelled out in sheets prepared by the staff of the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission, which is directing work on the 2018 Comprehensive Plan, and were based on earlier meetings of the Stakeholders Committee and its three subcommittees.
MACORTS, the regional transportation planning organization, has begun accepting public feedback on changes to its planning documents, including the removal of the controversial Daniells Bridge Road Extension and SR Loop 10 flyover from its long range plans.
The first of three public meetings on the proposed changes in the planning documents will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on June 26 at the Community Center in Oconee Veterans Park, 3500 Hog Mountain Road.
Deborah Gonzalez, an Athens attorney, has announced that she will seek the Democratic Party nomination for Georgia House District 117, which includes three Oconee County precincts.
Regina Quick, a Republican, currently represents the 117th in the Georgia House of Representatives. Quick, also an Athens attorney, has not said if she intends to seek re-election in 2018.
The Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee working on the Oconee County Comprehensive Plan update will have a chance tomorrow (Tuesday) night to summarize its conclusions from a two-hour meeting it held late last month.
At the end of that wide-ranging discussion, Justin Crighton said the citizens had agreed that the county “needs to find a way to move truck traffic through the county without sending it downtown.”
Athens native Brian Kemp, seeking the Republican Party nomination in the 2018 gubernatorial election, told a gathering of Oconee County Republicans late last month that his experience as a small business owner sets him apart in the campaign.
“I have been a conservative, small business owner for over 30 years,” Kemp, who currently is Secretary of State, said. He said he is seeking the governor's office to “take that small business owner’s mentality and be the next CEO of the state.”
Oconee County Commissioners last (Tuesday) night approved a $49.9 million Fiscal Year 2018 budget based on a projected increase of 6.2 percent in sales tax revenue and an 18.4 percent growth in real property tax revenue.
The budget assumes the Commission will hold its millage rate steady at 6.68 and that growth in real property value will produce the increased property tax revenue.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night is expected to give final approval to a Fiscal Year 2018 budget that is 3.4 percent greater than the budget for the current fiscal year, but the county has not yet provided detailed information on how revenue will grow to meet the budget increase.
The two primary sources of funds for the General Fund Budget, which makes up 54.0 percent of the overall budget, are sales taxes and property taxes.
