Oconee County Schools has issued a request for proposals for construction of new, third middle school, with responses due on Nov. 11.
Fred Ricketson, director of facilities for Oconee County Schools, told members of the Board of Education at their work session last month that 11 potential bidders had participated a pre-bid conference and he expected five actual submissions.
The 10-county Northeast Health District added 836 new cases of COVID-19 in the two-week period ending on Friday, and 14 new confirmed deaths from the disease.
One of those added deaths was of a 41-year-old male in Oconee County without a chronic condition.
The Department of Public Health did not issue a Daily Status Report last Friday, the day after the holiday, making the two-week comparison necessary.
The average number of added cases in the two weeks since Nov. 19 was 59.7 per day on Friday, compared with 59.3 in the week ending on Nov. 19.
The redistricting maps passed by the Georgia General Assembly do not have much impact on Oconee County, Representatives Houston Gaines and Marcus Wiedower told Oconee County Republicans on Monday.
The only change is the switch of the East Oconee Precinct from Gaines’ district to Wiedower’s district, they said, using those words, indicating that they plan to run for re-election next year. Both are Republicans.
Oconee County’s Republican Party is giving Oconee County citizens a chance on Monday night to hear from their two representatives in the Georgia House, Marcus Wiedower and Houston Gaines, regarding the just completed redistricting in the state.
Gov. Brian Kemp is the featured speaker at the meeting, scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m. at Hadden Estates at DGD Farms, 1112 Cliff Dawson Road, but the two representatives are scheduled to give what is being called a “redistricting update” as well.
Oconee County Commission Chair John Daniell didn’t make any mention in his opening comments at the Town Hall Meeting on Tuesday of voter rejection on Nov. 2 of the proposed Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.
He bragged in those first comments about recognition the Water Resources Department and the Parks and Recreation Department have received and discussed the contract the county has signed with Charter Communication to expand broadband in the county.
Daniell also updated the audience on a number of road projects, including at U.S. 441 and LaVista Road, at three intersections on Hog Mountain Road west of Butler’s Crossing, and along Experiment Station from Butler’s Crossing to the U.S. 441 bypass.
With a population of 41,799, Oconee County is too small to have its own House District.
Clarke County, however, has enough residents to have two districts of its own, with 9,649 residents left over.
With the addition of those 9,649 residents from Clarke, plus another 8,063 from another county, such as from the area around Statham in Barrow County, Oconee County could be whole and dominant in a House District, as it was prior to redistricting in 2011.
If Oconee and Clarke joined in a Senate District, they would need fewer than 21,000 residents from another county, such as Madison or Barrow or Walton, to form a Senate District.
The outcome of the latest round of redistricting is quite different from the outcome just described.
The 10-county Northeast Health District added 415 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Friday, up from the 290 cases added a week earlier, and 10 new confirmed deaths from the disease, down from 11 added last week.
Two of the confirmed deaths in the last week were in Clarke County.
The average number of added cases in the District was 59.3 per day on Friday, up from 41.1 added cases per day for the week ending Nov. 12.
