Oconee County School Board Member Michael Ransom said he contacted Board members Amy Parrish and Ryan Hammock before he decided to announce on Jan. 2 that the Board intends to opt out of the statewide homestead exemption approved by voters on Nov. 5.
Ransom said he made the opt out decision after the Dec. 9 meeting of the Board and that he received the approval of Parrish and Hammock for the decision.
Oconee County Commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved Tony Townley’s request for rezones for a 120-lot residential subdivision on 300 acres north of Hog Mountain Road between Rocky Branch and Hodges Mill roads.
It also approved, again unanimously, a request by Dixon Family Trust of 2012 for a special use allowing the Trust to add 10 rental cabins on part of 356 acres it owns that front on Hog Mountain and Lane Creek roads.
The Oconee County Board of Education does not intend to join in a homestead exemption approved overwhelmingly by voters--statewide and in Oconee County--in November that would limit increases in the assessed value of property that is a homestead.
Taxing authorities in the state are allowed to opt out of what is referred to as a floating homestead exemption based on inflation designed to limit increases in the assessed value and tax of homestead property.
After Oconee County moved its nonjudicial offices to the new Administrative Building at 7635 Macon Highway north of Watksinville in the summer of 2023, it designated as excess property two buildings it had been using near the Courthouse and another on SR 15 on the south of the city.
When the Oconee County Library moved to Wire Park earlier this year, the county also designated that property an excess. It put all four properties up for sale.
Analysts asked by the Oconee County Democratic Party and by the Oconee County Republican Party to offer post-election assessments gave very similar interpretations of the outcomes of the Nov. 5 elections.
The experts said the margin of victory for the Republicans was small, that Georgia remains a swing state, and that elections are likely to be very competitive in the next election cycles.
The Oconee County Board of Education on Monday approved a Memorandum of Understanding with the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office and the county Board of Commissioners to provide school resource officers (SROs) for Oconee County Schools.
The Memorandum states that one resource officer will be assigned to each of the system’s two high schools for the remainder of this year.
Townley Family Partnership’s plans for a 120-lot residential subdivision on 300 acres north of Hog Mountain Road between Rocky Branch and Hodges Mill roads received a setback on Monday when the Oconee County Planning Commission recommended denial of a rezone for the project.
The 4 to 3 vote against the rezone request by the Townley Partnership came after its representative agreed to double the delay in the start of the project to 10 years and to add two segments of multi-use paths to the development to connect with the county’s Master Trail Plan.
