A forum on Elder Mill Bridge is scheduled for 7 to 9 p.m. on Thursday at the Oconee County Library in Watkinsville.
Russ Page, a land-preservation activist and proponent of a park on land surrounding the bridge, Peggy Holcomb, director of tourism for Oconee County, and Wayne Provost, strategic and long-range planning director for the county, have agreed to speak, according to forum organizer Jonathan R. Veit.
Though the forum is intended to be a non-partisan, informational event, it has been endorsed by the Oconee County Democratic Committee, of which Veit is chairman.
According to Veit, Page will talk about the land surrounding the bridge and his efforts to preserve it. Holcomb will talk about the impact of creating the park on tourism, he said, and Provost will talk about “the governmental processes and jurisdictions and hurdles involved.”
In 2007, John Gentry, director of Parks and Recreation for Oconee County, presented the Board of Commissioners a plan for a 580-acre park that would incorporate the wooden, covered Elder Mill Bridge, the nearby Elder Mill itself, and surrounding land, including the historic W. Joe Elder cemetery.
The BOC refused to spend any county money on the project. In January, 2.3 acres of land just used by many visitors to the area to access the shoals of Rose Creek beneath the bridge went onto the market and quickly under contract. What the new owner plans in terms of allowing public access is unclear.
At the town hall style meeting held by the BOC on Feb. 16, Page asked the commissioners about their level of commitment to the proposed park. All five of the commissioners said the county should attempt to purchase the mill, but only Commissioner Margaret Hale spoke in favor of county involvement in a broader park.
Chairman Melvin Davis said on the day of the town hall meeting in an interview on WGUA that there was “not a huge amount of conversation taking place (about the park) but there is a group of folks that desire that.”
At the meeting on Thursday night, each of the three speakers will be given about 15 minutes to talk, Veit said. Then the audience will have the opportunity to comment and ask questions.
The Upper Oconee Watershed Network has put out a special call for volunteers who are interested in monitoring water quality in Oconee County as part of the 13th Annual River Rendezvous scheduled for March 27.
Jessica Sterling, a board member helping to organize the event, said in a recruitment flier sent out last week that UOWN plans this year to focus on streams in Oconee County that have not previously been investigated or have been monitored infrequently.
Included will be Rose Creek and perhaps Little Rose Creek, according to Dave Wenner, another board member and an Oconee County resident.
Wenner said Rose Creek has not been included in past Rendezvous monitoring events but he hopes to take advantage of the recent focus on the creek, which flows beneath the wooden, covered Elder Mill Bridge, and start gathering data on the quality of water.
Nearly 50 people turned out on March 6 for a cleanup of the area around the bridge, which has been proposed as the centerpiece of a county park.
Wenner said he hopes that Barber Creek sites also will be monitored. UOWN has some data on Barber Creek from past years and will be able to track changes across time.
Volunteers will gather at 9 a.m. on the 27th at the Sandy Creek Nature Center off U.S. 441 just outside the Athens Loop. The session will include training in water sampling and assignment of sites.
A light breakfast and coffee also will be included.
Volunteers are advised to wear waterproof shoes and dress for the weather. Children accompanied by an adult are welcome.
The volunteers, who will head to sites in Clarke and other surrounding counties, will return before noon with their samples.
According to Sterling, UOWN will use the water samples to identify polluted streams that require immediate attention and to monitor long-term trends in water quality.
Wenner said he hopes to have enough volunteers to gather data from four or five Rose Creek sites and six or seven Barber Creek sites. Portert Creek, Wildcat Creek and Calls Creek are other streams in Oconee County that could be sampled if enough volunteers show up.
Often volunteers live along a creek or have a special interest in it, Wenner said.
UOWN identifies sites that can be accessed from public rights of way, such as where bridges cross the creeks.
Persons interested in volunteering can contact Sterling at jessica.sterling@gmail.com or 706 338 9052 or Wenner at dwenner@uga.edu or 706 769 6036.
Last month’s Oconee County town hall meeting showcased the gap between the views of the members of the Board of Commissioners and those in the county who have been trying to preserve the area around Elder Mill Bridge.
The commissioners are focused on preservation of the mill.
The citizens are focused on preservation of the area around the bridge, including the mill.
The commission is content with the status quo for the bridge.
The citizens say the status quo is untenable.
Russ Page, who worked back in 2007 on plans for a park that would incorporate Elder Mill, Elder Mill Bridge and land around both, asked the first question of the five members of the commission at the Feb. 16 session.
“Do you think it is important, that part of the county, and saving that part of the county, the area immediately surrounding the bridge and the mill?” Page asked. “Number two, what is your plan to do something about it, if you do think it ought to be saved?”
Page asked, in the case in which the county wouldn’t do anything to preserve the area, would it support a citizens’ effort to preserve the area?
BOC Chairman Melvin Davis was the first to answer. He said the county only had $27,000 available to spend from the just-completed 2004 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.
“I would like to see from a personal standpoint the Elder Mill secured if we could get it some way or another,” Davis added. “That would be an asset for the county.”
Commissioner Chuck Horton went next, and he said “We are very interested in the mill, but you have got to have somebody who is willing to sell it to us…We were always committed to that mill, to try to get it as a historical place.”
“I think all of us have said we would like to save the mill,” Commissioner Jim Luke said next. Of the park proposal, he added, “I just don’t see any way we can undertake a project like this in the near term.”
“It would be nice to get the mill,” Commissioner John Daniell said. “Again, it is not for sale. It is also being preserved right now. It is not like it is a rush.”
Commissioner Margaret Hale spoke last, and her view was the exception. “I am supportive of this park and the future it can bring and the historical value it can bring to the county, but, as my other colleagues have said, there is no funding for this,” she said.
All of the commissioners said they would support citizens who wanted to try to do something on their own to preserve the area and create a park.
The commissioners' response on funding is technically correct and incomplete.
It also does not make clear that the commissioners explicitly have assigned acquisition of property to preserve the area around the bridge and the mill a lower priority than other recreation and park projects in the county.
As recently as December, the Board voted to spend $94,000 for playground equipment at Herman C. Michael Park, which is located across Hog Mountain road from the new Oconee Veterans Park. The new park has new playground equipment in place.
As Chairman Davis explained at the meeting, the county allocated $5 million from the 2004 SPLOST (approved in 2003), for parks and recreation.
The county made the decision to spend $4 million of that to retire a general obligation revenue bond used to create Veterans Park, though the resolution for the SPLOST did not obligate the county to that amount.
The county also has taken in $631,266 more than it projected from the 2004 SPLOST, and it has earned interest of $861,049 on the amount collected as of the end of January of 2010, meaning it is today sitting on at least $1,492,315 in unspent and unallocated money from the 2004 SPLOST.
County Finance Director Jeff Benko has told me that the county can spend that money however it likes, meaning, if Benko is correct, all of it could be used for parks and recreation.
If even 20 percent of those funds were set aside for parks and recreation, reflecting the ratio of the original SPLOST ($5 million for parks and recreation out of $25 million), the county would have $298,463 at present to spend for that purpose.
County Parks and Recreation Director John Gentry, in a letter to the commissioners written on Aug. 23, 2007, said that it was his priority that the county start investing immediately in the proposed Elder Mill Park.
“My recommendation to you first and foremost is to fully support the conceptual plan” for the park, Gentry wrote. He also said he recommended committing $233,500 immediately to start moving on the land acquisition for the project, which would take 15 to 20 years to complete.
Gentry said that $452,000 in SPLOST 2004 funds “is not earmarked for any particular project at this time” and that these funds could be used for the new park.
He said that plans were to use this money for “additional site amenities…for the OCC and other parks” in the county” and that committing the funds to the new park “would delay purchasing some of these items with SPLOST 2004.”
If the BOC was unwilling to spend SPLOST funds to start acquisition of land for Elder Mill Park, Gentry said the county could use monies from other tax sources for the project.
OCC stood for Oconee Community Complex, which is now called Oconee Veterans Park.
The BOC rejected Gentry’s proposal and refused to commit any SPLOST or general funds to the project.
Mary Mellein, a long-time citizen activist and president of the Keep Oconee Clean and Beautiful Commission, waited until late in the meeting to follow up on Page’s first question about the park.
She was concerned that development around the bridge would threaten the bridge itself.
“You’ve talked about the mill but you haven’t mentioned the covered bridge. It is my understanding there is willing land owners around that bridge. If we lose that land, we lose the bridge because the bridge cannot accommodate traffic even if it is broken up into very large lots. And it would be a sad thing to lose.”
“The county owns the covered bridge,” Davis said in response. He again said the county lacked money to purchase the land around it.
Luke chimed in to say the county supported the 2007 proposal but was not willing to spend any money on it. “We just didn’t have money to put into buying” property because of commitments made to the other parks in the county, he said.
At present, the bridge carries a single lane of traffic across a gravel section of Elder Mill road. If the land around the bridge were developed, it would create additional traffic on the bridge.
Gentry, in his 2007 letter, recommended moving forward on land acquisition to make it possible to close that section of Elder Mill road to local traffic as a way of protecting the bridge.
Chip Chandler from Madison County was the third and last person to speak about the proposed park at the town hall meeting. He said the Watson Mill Park in his county was a “big draw” and suggested even some scaled-back park around Elder Mill Bridge could have positive impact on the economy of Oconee County.
Commissioners Hale, Luke and Horton again said the issue was a matter of money.
After the meeting, I talked one-on-one with Luke about the property just west of the bridge that had been owned by Al Cuming and went on the market in January.
Luke told me that the Cuming property was “not important” to the county. “It is across the creek from the mill,” he said.
He also said he didn’t think the county should have bought the Cuming property under any circumstance because it has a house on it.
In addition, Luke said, “the county doesn’t move that quickly.”
The scope of the proposed project clearly is an issue for many members of the commission. Luke said at the town hall meeting that the proposal he saw back in 2007 “scared me to death.”
That plan for the park was drawn up by Williams and Associates in June of 2007 and included 10 to 12 different properties, depending on how the properties are counted.
The park stretched from SR 15 to Saxon road, but at the center was the wooden covered bridge and the mill.
The bridge carries Elder Mill road across Rose Creek. Just to the east of the bridge, on the south side of Elder Mill road, are 6 acres owned by Charles Morgan. The mill sits on this site.
Just to the west of the bridge, on the south side of Elder Mill road, is the former residence of Cuming, who was a strong advocate for the bridge and who allowed visitors to the bridge to walk across his property to the shoals of Rose Creek just downstream from the bridge.
Cuming no longer lives on the property, which went under contract a few weeks after it went on the market.
Just north of the bridge, on both sides of the creek, is one of three linked parcels owned by Elizabeth Dolvin and conservator Ray Burress, according to county tax records. Total acreage for the three parcels is 260, but the parcel at the bridge probably is less than 40 acres.
The Watkinsville Garden Club has a small garden on this property at the eastern side of the bridge.
Ellen Vaughn, who has been with the Garden Club since 1972 and was president in 1991, told me in a telephone conversation in early February that the Club started the garden at the Elder Mill Bridge in 1972 to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
She said the Club received permission from the landowner to use the property. “We do have it is writing,” she said.
The county’s Scenic Preservation overlay district covers all of the property formerly owned by Cuming, much of the property on which the mill sits, about a third of the roughly 40 acre Dolvin tract, and the majority of a 23-acre tract owned by James Flanagan.
The county Unified Development Code severely restricts what owners of the affected properties can do, making these four properties of about 70 acres an obvious core for any park incorporating the bridge and the mill.
The Williams concept plan also included other properties for a total of 580 acres, which would make the park about the same size as the county’s two largest parks combined, Heritage Park with 275 acres and Veterans Park with 198 acres.
Tim Bryant of WGAU radio interviewed Chairman Davis on the morning of the town hall meeting and began with a question on the proposed park. “What are you hearing from your constituents on that?” Bryant asked.
“Well, I think if we had the money to spend, and was able to acquire that property or at least a portion of that property, I think that would satisfy and would, most of the citizens would appreciate that,” Davis said.
He again said it was a matter of money and that the mill was the priority.
“To be able to acquire another 200 acres at fully county funded, sources, might be more difficult at this point in time,” he said.
“Yes, that is one of the subjects we are hearing from the public,” Davis said. “Not a huge amount of conversation taking place but there is a group of folks that desire that and it is a good, worthwhile project if we had the funds to acquire it.”
Citizens who want to move forward with plans for the park even without county support have formed a group called Friends of Elder Mill and Elder Mill Bridge. Page, John English, Robert John and Melissa Steele make up the leadership of the group.
General interest in the area seems to be increasing.
Steele organized a successful clean-up of Rose Creek, Little Rose Creek and Elder Mill road on March 6 that was attended by about 50 volunteers.
Jonathan Veit is organizing a public discussion of the proposed park for later this month as a way of keeping it on the agenda.
Veit also has organized an online petition regarding the park.
The full town-hall meeting is viewable on my Vimeo site. In addition, I edited the three exchanges involving Elder Mill into a shorter clip, also on my Vimeo site. (The embedded video above contains only answers.)
At least some pressure is building on the Citizen Advisory Committee for Land Use and Transportation Planning to come up with a recommendation for the Oconee County Board of Commissioners regarding the future of the county courthouse.
The committee meets again on Tuesday night, and Chairman Abe Abouhamdan has been pushing in recent meetings for the committee to reach some sort of decision. The group has heard from a wide range of county officials since it started deliberating on the issue in April of last year.
The BOC sent the matter to the citizen committee in March of 2009 to get citizen input.
At the town hall meeting on Feb. 16, Commissioner Jim Luke expressed disappointment that no citizen had asked about the issue at the first town hall meeting in October or again that night.
“I’m disappointed again that that question did not come up,” Luke said. “I know somebody has to have an opinion on that somewhere.”
While Luke said “We’re in no hurry,” he also said “I think it is going to be critical. I think what we do now is going to affect people 50 and 100 years from now.”
“I just can’t stir up anybody who has an opinion,” Luke said.
Luke said he didn’t feel it was necessary to give out his telephone number so people could call him, “since most of you know where I am.” Luke owns Luke Hardware in Butler’s Crossing and on Atlanta Highway.
“Come see me,” he said.
Luke attended the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee meeting in February but did not participate in the discussion.
The Committee has been struggling with four options it has identified: (1) Keep all government activities in one place, (2) Separate judicial and administrative activities, (3) Do nothing, and (4), Combine administrative operations with the Oconee County Board of Education.
Abouhamdan has said he hopes to have the committee vote on these at the meeting, which starts at 7 p.m. on Tuesday at the community center in Veteran’s Park on Hog Mountain road.
The Committee has not spent time talking about where joint or separate facilities might be located, but two locations were mentioned briefly by members of the Committee at its February meeting.
The two mentioned sites were land adjacent to the current courthouse and land adjacent to the property recently purchased by the Board of Education for future administrative offices. That second site is on North Main street north of the current courthouse but separate from it.
Luke told me in a conversation we had after the formal part of the meeting on Feb. 16 that he has another property in mind. He said the county could acquire land on the U.S. 441 bypass from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In an email message to me on Feb. 18, Luke elaborated on his comments in our conversation.
“The U.S.D.A. owns about 12 acres in the city limits, inside the 441 bypass and not being used for research,” Luke wrote. “I spoke to their director a couple of years ago and he seemed receptive to discussions.”
County tax records show three Southern Piedmont Experiment Station properties at the intersection of U.S. 441 and Experiment Station road that are separated from the main farmland and research facilities on the northwest corner of that intersection.
The largest of these–19.34 acres--is on the northeast corner and is largely inside the city limits of Watkinsville. Any court facility must be in the county seat. The property is separated from the jail by another piece of property owned by James P. Pallas of Hull.
Another, smaller piece of U.S.D.A. land is on the southeast corner of the U.S. 441 and Experiment Station road intersection. It is an oddly shaped 8.64 acre tract inside the city limits that borders Harris Shoals Park.
The third property, on the southwest corner, is outside city limits at present. It is 14.58 acres.
Luke said his concern with the available property around the current courthouse is traffic congestion. He said that makes the property on the bypass particularly attractive.
As of June 30, 2009, the county was sitting on just less than $4.3 million in unspent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenue from the levy passed back in 2003 that has been designated for “county facilities expansion and renovation.”
The BOC did vote last month to spend $170,000 from that fund on renovation of the Government Annex on Greensboro road south of Watkinsville.
County Finance Director Jeff Benko reported earlier this year that the county received $631,266 more in SPLOST revenues than the projected $25 million. In addition, he has indicated that the unspent money was earning revenue.
An open records request I filed on Feb. 14 shows that the county has earned interest of $861,049 on unspent funds as of January of 2010.
The records also show that the county transferred $8.5 million to purchase two Certificates of Deposit in June of 2009. The interest income upon maturity is not reflected in the figures I obtained, Benko informed me today.
Benko told me that one of the CDs is for $7.5 million and is for 12 months. The other was for $1 million and was for six months.
Benko said he has checked with the county attorney and that the BOC has complete discretion in how it spends the $1.5 million in excess funds. He said this was the way excess funds from an earlier SPLOST were handled.
Two events are in the planning that will highlight Elder Mill Bridge and the land around it, which at least some people in the county feel should be set aside as a county park.
Melissa Steele has set for Saturday her cleanup of Rose Creek, including sections upstream and downstream from the covered bridge, as well as of Little Rose Creek, which feeds into Rose Creek south of the historic bridge.
Jonathan Veit has tentatively set March 25 as the date for a “town hall forum” to discuss creation an Elder Bridge Park.
Veit also has created an online petition that people can sign to support creation of a park around the wooden bridge.
Steele is expecting between 30 and 35 people to show up for the Saturday morning cleanup, which will begin at 9 a.m. with a breakfast at Antioch Church Fellowship Hall on Antioch Church road, 8.4 miles south of downtown Watkinsville off SR 15.
After breakfast, the volunteers will get a safety briefing, maps and further instructions before being divided into teams and heading out to designated sites on Rose Creek and Little Rose Creek or on Elder Mill road itself, which crosses the two creeks.
Steele and others involved in organizing the event will provide bottled water, sunscreen, hand sanitizer, bug spray, gloves and trash bags.
“You will get your feet wet if you are going to be on one of the creek teams,” Steele wrote in an email message to volunteers on Monday, “so be prepared for that with shoes you don’t mind getting wet.”
Steele is advising volunteers to bring along a fanny pack or day pack, dry socks and shoes, and a hat. She also recommends long sleeved shirts and long pants. “There are lots of briars and stickers along the creek,” she noted.
Volunteers are asked not to bring dogs.
Each volunteer will be required to sign a liability waiver, based on the one used for the Rivers Alive stream cleanup program in the state.
The cleanup will be moved to March 13 if it rains this Saturday.
Anyone with questions should call Steele at 706 255 8528 or email her at mechanted757@gmail.com.
Veit said the scheduling of his town hall forum is not settled but “it will happen.”
Although the activity has been approved by the Oconee County Democratic Committee, of which Veit is chairman, the forum is nonpartisan and open to the public, Veit said. He is currently lining up speakers.
“We urge the Oconee County Board of Commissioners to make every effort possible to acquire the land surrounding the Elder Covered Bridge in an effort to create an Elder Bridge Park.
“Acquisition of the land surrounding the bridge would enable both tourists and Oconee County residents to enjoy the historic covered bridge and the shoals on Rose Creek. It would also represent a critical first step toward implementing a 2007 plan for a county park in the area. Given the scenic and historic values of the Elder Bridge area, and tourism dollars it could produce for the county, it should be a high priority for preservation.”
Veit said in an email message he sent out on Monday that he “tried to find a petition site that wasn’t too filed with advertisements. Unfortunately, that isn’t very easy.”
After signing the petition, the signer is asked to donate to support the online site itself, but it is possible to close the page without making any contribution.
Veit can be reached at Victory Communications in Watkinsville at 706 255 0222.
Oconee County Commissioner Chuck Horton has decided to take the lead in studying the stream and wetland mitigation resolution before the Board and said he plans to report back to his colleagues on his findings.
Horton made the announcement of his intention during the section of the Board of Commissioners meeting last Tuesday night that is set aside for the comments of commissioners.
“Just to let folks know, I’m doing some homework and will do some research on the mitigation issue,” Horton said. “As soon as I find some of that out I’ll certainly share it with everybody.”
As Horton noted, the issue had come up at the town hall meeting the commissioners held at the Civic Center on Feb. 16, when more than a half dozen citizens spoke out in favor of it.
The resolution would put the Board of Commissioners on record with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as favoring restoration of streams and wetlands in Oconee County or upstream from the county when the Corps grants permits allowing the piping, filling or other alteration of streams and wetlands in the county.
When the Corps issues permits, it require mitigation of that damage, usually by restoration of streams and wetlands damaged through such things as pasturing, dredging or earlier construction. At present, the restoration should be in the North Oconee River watershed, but not necessarily in the county.
Katie Sheehan, an attorney at the River Basin Center in the Eugene P. Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia, drafted the resolution after I talked with her about mitigation issues in the county.
I asked the BOC in April of 2009 to consider the resolution. At its meeting on May 5, it sent the resolution to the Citizen Advisory Committee for Land Use and Transportation Planning for review.
That Committee decided on Nov. 10 not to recommend that the BOC approve the resolution after Wayne Provost, strategic and long-range planner for the county, advanced a series of arguments against it.
Committee Chairman Abe Abouhamdan reported that vote to the BOC in November, but the full commission has not taken up the resolution for its own review.
At the town hall meeting, all five commissioners stated support for mitigation of damage to local streams and wetlands inside the county or upstream from the county, though they also raised questions about the resolution stating that preference.
Horton told me in a telephone conversation today that he has already spoken to people at the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission and the Georgia Department of Community affairs and “will try to educate himself” by talking to attorneys with expertise on the matter.
He said he also plans to talk to the Corps of Engineers and will work with county Administrative Officer Alan Theriault on the issue.
He said he is willing to talk to anyone else who is interested in the resolution.
I was not able to attend the meeting on Tuesday because of a travel commitment. The report on the meeting in The Oconee Enterprise, the only paper to cover it, did not mention Horton’s statement regarding the resolution.
The minutes of the meeting, released by County Clerk Gina Lindsey on Friday, included the comment by Horton about his plans to study the resolution and report back to the other commissioners.
The $605,000 the county plans to spend on Daniells Bridge road improvements in the next three years will be only a “patch,” Oconee County Commissioner Jim Luke said in response to a question from a citizen at the Feb. 16 town hall meeting.
That “patch” will not include bike lanes or sidewalks, Luke said. Such improvements will not be made until the county decides to bring the road up to state standards at some unspecified period in the future.
The question about the road came near the end of the meeting, when Karen Kimbaris asked about the construction underway on the Daniells Bridge road and Oconee Connector intersection and about plans for additional improvements to Daniells Bridge road.
“I was wondering if there has been any consideration to bike paths or any bigger shoulders for walking or paths, because our roads are so dangerous,” she said. “You can’t really ride anything on them.”
“We’re doing a patch,” Luke responded. “We committed $400,000 to try to make that road safe for people who have to travel it in automobiles. We don’t have any plan now to do a bike lane on that.”
Luke said the roadway would include bike lanes when it is brought up to state standards, but “I don’t know when that will be.”
BOC Chairman Melvin Davis was the only other commissioner to respond to the question. He said construction of the Oconee Connector Extension, also called the Jennings Mill Parkway, will include bike lanes, as will the proposed widening of Mars Hill road from Butler’s Crossing to the Oconee Connector.
Kimbaris also asked about the status of a proposed bike path from Athens to Madison, which has been talked about for years, but neither Luke nor Davis responded to that part of the question.
The $400,000 figure used by Luke in his response to Kimbaris was an old figure. The commissioners voted on Feb. 2 to commit an additional $205,000 on top of the earlier $400,000 earmarked for the scheduled Daniells Bridge road improvements.
That money is to cover widening Daniells Bridge road from its intersection with the Oconee Connector to just east of the blind curve at Lynn drive. When completed, the road will have three lanes, including a center turn lane.
Reconstruction of the intersection itself is underway to accommodate the QuikTrip gas station now being built on the northeast corner.
Standardization of Daniells Bridge road to three lane with turn lanes from the Oconee Connector intersection to Founders boulevard will be completed this summer, County Public Works Director Beshara said late last month.
Beshara said at that time he planned to wait to do work on the roadway beyond Founders boulevard until the proposed office park is built on Daniells Bridge road just east of the blind curve.
Beshara told the BOC at the end of 2008 when it approved the office park that Daniells Bridge road could not be upgraded to four lanes, as is planned for some point in the future, at its present location without additional right of way.
He also indicated that it would be better to create a new road behind the current houses on Daniells Bridge road, thereby straightening the roadway.
The county plans to build a flyover from Daniells Bridge road to behind Home Depot as part of a full loop around what it plans to be the county's prime commercial hub.
The loop is being built piecemeal, and the $605,000 “patch” is being made until the county decides what to do with the southern part.
