Michael Ransom, who is seeking to become chair of the Oconee County Board of Education, will be on the ballot in two places when early voting for the Nov. 5 election starts on Tuesday.
First, his name appears as the Republican Party nominee for “County Board of Education Chairman, Post 1,” in the first of the three School Board races near the end of the ballot. He is unopposed.
The two candidates for open Post 5 on the Oconee County Board of Education offered differing views about issues facing the Board from the beginning of their separate 45-minute long video interviews.
Katie Green and Brock Toole both said they wanted to be on the Board to provide service to the community.
Adam Hammond and Sheri Ward Long, candidates for Post 4 on the Oconee County Board of Education, agreed on many issues in separate, 45-minute long interviews.
Hammond, the Republican Party nominee, and Long, running as a Democrat, said there is a need for more transparency in the way the Board interacts with the public.
Oconee County Superior Court Judge Lisa Lott on Monday dismissed a lawsuit seeking to force the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration to stop registering voters and seeking to force the Board to hold a hearing on a challenge to the registration of 228 persons on the voting rolls.
Lott issued her ruling dismissing the lawsuit filed by Suzannah Heimel after a 50-minute hearing that focused on requests for dismissal by Oconee County resident Susan Noakes and Common Cause Georgia and by Oconee County itself.
Oconee County Commissioners on Tuesday night, in a short agenda-setting meeting, tentatively agreed to spend an additional $116,311 to cover increased design service costs for the Bear Creek Water Treatment Plant expansion.
The initial estimated cost for the design services, approved by the Board in November of last year, had been $2,298,279, but in May the contract cost increased to $2,786,779, and Oconee County’s portion of the cost increase is 23.8 percent, bringing the total cost to the county to $663,532.
Oconee County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard has rejected the request by Townley Family Partnership LLLP for a review of the decision by North High Shoals Council to deny the Townley petition to deannex 175.8 acres from the city.
Haggard ordered that the Council’s ordinance passed on April 15, 2024, prohibiting the deannexation of any parcel of land in the Town exceeding 15 acres “should be affirmed.”
Data analyst and blogger Charles Hayslett divides the state of Georgia into two parts that he calls Atlanna and Notlanna, and he says the two parts differ in terms of population, population health, economics, educational attainment, and politics.
The gap between the two parts of the state is large, Hayslett said, with Atlanna generally doing well and Notlanna not.
