Parents of children in Oconee County Elementary School have started a second petition offering to help fund professional mold testing at the school.
Mandy Moreira, president of the Parent Teachers Organization at the elementary school, presented an earlier petition to the Board of Education at its meeting on April 21, asking the Board to conduct mold testing at the school.
The Oconee County Water Resources Department expects to begin this week replacing 1,000 feet of the force main sewer line that runs along an unnamed tributary to McNutt Creek that separates Tanglebrook subdivision and the Pinewood Estates South mobile home park.
The line, a crucial part of the county’s sewage infrastructure, has experienced three breaks in the last year resulting in the discharge of untreated sewage into the tributary.
Republican 10th District Congressman Mike Collins was in Oconee County three times in late April, but Oconee County Democrats missed out on opportunities to see him, while Oconee County Republicans had a different experience.
Collins was a featured speaker at the Republican Party’s Congressional District 10 Convention held at the Oconee County Civic Center on Saturday (April 26). Just more than 200 people attended.
The Oconee Count Planning Commission, in a 7 to 3 vote last week, sided with the county planning staff and recommended approval of a rezone request of nearly 50 acres on the north side of Barnett Shoals Road east of Watkinsville for a 12-lot residential subdivision.
The county planning staff recommended approval of the rezone only on the condition that lot size be at least three acres–a condition that the property owner opposed.
The Oconee County Board of Education on Monday night received a partial preview of its Fiscal Year 2026 Budget, showing $120.5 million in expenditures, an increase of 4.9 percent from the current Fiscal Year.
Chief Financial Officer Peter Adams told the Board that he will have a complete budget for it to review at its work session on May 5.
Agriculture in Oconee County, as well as in the rest of the state and country, faces a number of challenges--from population growth, climate change, cuts in federal funding, an aging farmer population, and a high suicide rate among farmers.
Agriculture remains important to Oconee County, however, with the farm gate value, or value of the cultivated product, at $64.4 million, according to the most recent annual estimate.
Oconee County Schools sent out a news release nine minutes after the School Board ended its session on Monday night announcing that Superintendent Jason Branch had told the Board that he is retiring on June 30.
School Board Chair Michael Ransom said on Tuesday evening that Branch informed the Board of his decision to retire as part of his personnel recommendations to the Board presented at the executive session at the end of the Board’s regular meeting.
