Oconee County grew at nearly three times the rate of the state as a whole from 2010 to 2020, and it became more diverse in the process, according to data released late on Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The data are at the Census Block level, as is required for redistricting, but they also provide the first look at how larger units such as counties have changed.
Oconee County’s 2020 population was 41,799, up from 32,808 in 2010. That is a growth of 27.4 percent.
The 10 county Northeast Health District added 1,964 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Friday and five new confirmed deaths from the disease. Two of the deaths were in Clarke County.
The 1,964 added cases of COVID-19 and five deaths compare with the 1,371 new cases and three confirmed deaths added in the week ending Aug. 6.
The average of 280.6 new cases per day for the week ending on Friday compares with the average of 195.9 new cases per day for the week ending on Aug. 6.
From the beginning of classes and through just before noon on Thursday, Oconee County Schools has recorded 40 cases of COVID-19, all but three of them among students.
Seventeen of the 37 COVID-19 positive students were in kindergarden through fifth grade, 13 were in the system’s two middle schools, and seven were at the two high schools.
Two of the staff cases were at North Oconee High School, and the third was at Oconee County High School.
State and county election officials have removed 368 voters from the Oconee County registration list since the end of June as a result of routine maintenance of the list.
In addition, early this month county election officials sent notices to 432 Oconee County voters who have not had any contact with the county’s election system for at least five calendar years.
If those voters receiving the notice do not respond, they will be moved from active to inactive status and the countdown will have started for possible removal from the list.
Over the objections of two of Oconee County’s representatives, the Hard Labor Creek Reservoir Management Board on Wednesday voted to fund a lobbyist to assist in an application for $146 million in federal funds to build the reservoir’s water treatment plant and distribution system.
Oconee County has only three representatives on the seven-member Management Board and no representatives on the Walton County Water and Sewer Authority, which also agreed on Wednesday to spend the money in support of the application for federal funds.
Walton County Board of Commissioners Chair David Thompson, a member of the Management Board, said Walton County already has the application of the funds ready to submit and will go forward with or without the support of Oconee County, its partner in the reservoir project.
Tom Odom, less than nine months into his third, four-year term as chair of the Oconee County Board of Education, announced on Monday that he is stepping down from the Board on Sept. 1 for health reasons.
Odom said in a statement he read at the Board of Education meeting on Monday that he made the decision after an “unexpected health issue” caused him to consider his tenure on the Board.
Much of the rest of the meeting was devoted to tributes by other board members and by Superintendent Jason Branch, who praised Odom for long service to the school system and the community even before Odom was elected to the Board as chair in 2012.
Political scientist Charles Bullock, an expert on Georgia elections and politics, told Oconee County Republicans at their meeting last month that Joe Biden won the November election in Georgia and that a focus on election fraud in the race was incorrect.
Bullock said that there is always some evidence of minor irregularities in elections but that there was no evidence of any major fraud that would have changed the results last November.
Bullock, the featured speaker at the July meeting of the party, made his comments about Biden’s victory and the lack of significant fraud in response to a question after his formal comments to the group.
