Oconee Farmers Market To Launch on May 8; Strolls at Harris Shoals Start A Week Earlier

Watkinsville a Destination

Oconee County’s Farmers Market will launch its 2010 season on May 8 in the area behind and beside Eagle Tavern in Watkinsville.

Russ Page, one of the two members or the Board of Directors of the market, told me that the decision on the start date was made last evening in a meeting at the library in Watkinsville attended by himself and Board Member Jamie Swedberg as well as about a dozen vendors.

Page said about 25 vendors have expressed an interest in participating in the market this year.

 

Another event, launched last year by Oconee Democrats, will start in Watkinsville on May 1.

The Saturday Strolls, which last year began at the courthouse across the street from the Farmers Market, will be based this year at Harris Shoals Park on Experiment Station road.

Brad Sanders, an authority on the naturalist William Bartram, will lead the May 1 stroll and talk about the landscape Bartram saw when he visited the North Oconee River in the summer of 1773.

Robert Wyatt, adjunct professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, will lead the stroll on May 8, the date the Farmers Market gets underway. Wyatt will identify trees and shrubs on his tour.

Pat Priest organized the strolls last year and has done so again this year. The stroll lasts for an hour. Participants make a $5 contribution to the cause of choice of the stroll leader.

Contributions to the stroll led by Sanders will go to the Bartram Trail Conference, while contributions to the Wyatt stroll will go to the Oconee River Land Trust.

Last year's Saturday Strolls series raised more than $1,000 for non-profits in the area, according to Priest.

The series this year is scheduled to run through July 31.

The Farmers Market, which started in 2004 on the front lawn of Eagle Tavern and moved to the rear last year to accommodate more vendors, has helped make Watkinsville a Saturday destination.

Vendors frequently sell fruits and vegetables, fresh flowers, homemade baked goods, jellies, jams and preserves.

Other attractions in Watkinsville are the shops on Main street and The Granary Bakery and Country Store and Jittery Joe’s at the south end of downtown.

Big Easy, Krimson Café and Miss Gail’s, all at the Barnett Shoals and SR15 intersection, offer lunches.

Thomas Orchards, at the US 441 bypass west of downtown, already is open for the season selling plants and garden supplies, as well as the usual flavors of ice cream.

Jerry Thomas told me on Saturday he expects to have South Carolina peaches for sale in the middle of May and his own peaches available a month later.

Oconee County BOC Holding Occupancy Permit as Leverage on Storage Site

The Brick Facade Problem

When the Oconee County Board of Commissioners approved a second rezone request and conditional use permit for Oconee Safe Storage on Hog Mountain road on Dec. 1, it tried to use some leverage with the owner.

The Commission was upset that one of the buildings–the tallest and most visible from Hog Mountain road and labeled Building No. 5 on the plans--had a grayish-green metal rather than brick facade.

This was true despite the fact that the property owner, Rose Creek Development LLC, had promised to have brick facades on building exteriors facing Hog Mountain road when it asked for the original rezone for the site back in 2006.

The metal, rather than brick, had several of the commissioners upset, Commissioner Chuck Horton most notable among them.

To fix this discrepancy, the commissioners wrote into the zoning ordinance passed on Dec. 1 the requirement that “All building exteriors visible from public streets shall have brick or brick face facades.”

And to make sure Oconee Safe Storage managers got the point, the Commission said that the county would not issue a Certificate of Occupancy for the lower level of Building No. 5 until the brick facade problem was fixed.

Oconee Safe Storage has solved the brick facade problem rather simply.

It hasn’t asked for a Certificate of Occupancy for the bottom level of Building No. 5.

And the county has done the only things left open to it.

Nothing.

Passers-by on Hog Mountain road--as well as any of the often numerous cows and calves on the neighboring USDA pastureland--that happen to look are seeing metal rather than brick on the back and visible side of Building No. 5, though there is no evidence the cows and calves recognize the difference.

In fact, it was the amount of space, not the metal facade, that brought Oconee Safe Storage back to the Commission on Dec. 1.

To date, the county has issued three Certificates of Occupancy for Oconee Safe Storage, a review of the file in Code Enforcement office shows.

The first was on Feb. 24 for 684 square feet of heated space–the office building.

The second was on Feb. 27, was temporary, and was for 50,810 square feet of unheated space–the eight storage buildings, including Building No. 5.

On March 30, 2009, the county issued a new, non-temporary permit for the eight storage buildings, including Building No. 5.

What caught code enforcement’s attention, according to B.R. White, head of the county Planning Department, was that the office building was actually 1,270 square feet in size, rather than the 684 covered by the Occupancy Permit issued on Feb. 24.

And, with the two stories of Building No. 5, the total storage space was 68,210 square feet, not the 50,810 covered by the permanent permit issued on March 30.

Code enforcement discovered that discrepancy when doing inspection before the occupancy permit were issued, White told me in December.

Until Oconee Safe Storage needs the extra space in Building No. 5 or has some other reason to want the new Certificate of Occupancy, passers-by–and the cows and calves on the USDA farms–will be looking at gray-green metal instead of brick on Building No. 5.

One of Two Businesses at Busy Oconee County Intersection Still Operating

Pine Straw and Fire Wood

All About Pinestraw still had its sign up today and was continuing sales at the intersection of US 441 and Hog Mountain road even though the location is not properly zoned for commercial activity.

Steve Hansford, director of code enforcement for Oconee County, has given Tyler McClure, 1050 Townside way near Bishop, until June 15 to begin the process of rezoning the property.

If McClure does not start the rezone process, he will have to close the business on June 15, according to a letter Hansford sent to McClure on April 6.

Hansford told McClure in the letter that he had made a mistake when he issued McClure a business license on Dec. 23, 2009.

“I believed that the whole property was zoned Business-B2,” Hansford wrote in his letter of April 6. “However, only a narrow strip across the front of the property is zoned B-2 and therefore, for you to operate a business at this location the whole piece of property will need to be rezoned.”

The pine straw retail and wholesale business is the second to pop up this year on property off a spur of Hog Mountain road left over when the intersection of that road and US 441 was reconfigured years ago.

The other business, selling firewood, has closed down its operation, Hansford told me yesterday, though a truck partially loaded with firewood was on the site today.

In the firewood case, Hansford had written on Feb. 24 to Sandy Callaway of S.C. Logging, 1080 Red Oak court, south of Barnett Shoals road near the Oconee River, asking for a copy of “your sales tax certificate for retail selling of firewood” or a letter from the Department of Revenue indicating that none was needed.

On March 2, Hansford followed that with a letter to Callaway saying that he had not received an answer to the Feb. 24 letter and that Callaway’s license would be revoked in 15 days if Hansford had not heard from Callaway.

In the second letter, Hansford said he needed “copies of your sales tax certificate, copies of your Liability and Workers Comp insurance and a notarized statement from the property owner giving you permission to operate a business on their property.”

I had filed an open records request for the files of Code Enforcement on these two businesses on April 9. The records, which I reviewed yesterday, did not contain any response from Callaway to either letter.

Hansford told me yesterday that the license had been revoked.

“He’s gone,” Hansford told me.

Code Enforcement had issued S.C. Logging a business license on Jan. 5, 2010, according to the file I reviewed.

According to county tax records, the property on which S.C. Logging was operating is owned by Colette Harben, 1841 Robin Hood road, off Hog Mountain road west of Butler’s Crossing. No part of the 3.5 acre property from which the firewood was sold is zoned for business.

In fact, according to B.R. White, planning director for the county, all the properties fronting Hog Mountain road on its north side between Welbrook road and US 441 are zoned AR-1, for agriculture and residential use, except a small strip at the front of the property being used by All About Pinestraw.

The property on the south side of Hog Mountain road is commercial and is occupied by the Racetrac gas station and convenience store.

The county’s unified development code allows logging on AR-1 property, but not a temporary sawmill or a chip mill. Support activities for forestry would require a special use permit on an AR-1-zoned property.

The property with the pine straw operation is owned by Toccoa 85 L.P. of 1040 River Run outside Bishop. According to the Georgia Secretary of State database, the registered agent for Toccoa is George Howington of the 1040 River Run address.

White said he assumed that the strip of commercial land at the front of the 1.7 acre property had been classified as business earlier and had been affected by the US 441 widening.

I asked White about the firewood and pine straw operations when I visited him on April 9. I told him I passed the sites nearly every day, had not remembered any rezone for the area and was curious about them.

White told me that his office had received an inquiry about the firewood sales back in January and he had referred the matter to Code Enforcement.

The Planning Department and Code Enforcement both operate out of the Courthouse Annex building across the street from the main courthouse building in Watkinsville.

Deanna Ruark of the Planning Department confirmed at the end of the day on Friday that McClure of All About Pinestraw has not yet started the process for a rezone of the property on which he is operating.

Four Resources in Oconee County Get Regionally Important Designation

List Can Change

The Council of the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission voted unanimously today to include Elder Mill, Elder Mill Bridge, the Athens Line and the Apalachee River on the list of 25 Regionally Important Resources for the 12-county region.

The four Oconee resources were granted special status that will require the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission to take them into consideration when it reviews development projects with regional impact that are within a mile of the resources.

Melvin Davis, chairman of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners and a member of the NEGRC Council, had expressed reservations about the inclusion of the Athens Line–the rail line connecting Athens to Madison–on the RIR list, but he did not voice those reservations publicly at the meeting today.

Watkinsville Mayor Joe Walter, the municipal representative of Oconee County on the Council, had already voted for the Oconee County proposals as a member of the Planning Advisory Committee that screened nominations and presented the recommendation to the Council today.

The third Oconee County member of the Council–designated as a citizen representative–is Amrey Harden, president and CEO of Oconee State Bank.

Davis, Harden and Walter sat together at the luncheon meeting at the Holiday Inn in Athens. None of them spoke during the brief discussion of the 25 nominated resources prior to the vote.

At the Oconee County BOC meeting on March 30, Davis expressed reservations about designation of the Athens Line as a regionally important resource because, he said, such a designation might have an adverse effect on future development in the county.

Commissioner Jim Luke first raised the issue of the Athens Line at the March 30 meeting, and Davis spoke in support of him.

Commissioner Chuck Horton said he was concerned that landowners were not consulted in the designation process, and Commissioner Margaret Hale said she was concerned that she hadn’t been informed of the designation before the April 30 meeting.

Jerry Roseberry, a Newton County representative on the Planning Advisory Committee, presented the Committee’s recommendations to the full Council and reassured the group that nothing had changed about the basic nature of the NEGRC review process as a result of the RIR designation.

NEGRC reviews remain only advisory to counties, he said.

In addition, Roseberry told the group that resources could be added or removed from the list in the future.



Though Oconee County officials could have submitted resources for possible inclusion on the RIR list, none of them did so.

Tony Glenn, acting on his own, submitted the Athens Line proposal. The Friends of Elder Mill and Elder Mill Bridge submitted the Elder Mill and Elder Mill Bridge nomination.

Glenn and Russ Page, who spearheaded the Elder Mill and Elder Mill Bridge nominations, attended the meeting today, but neither of them spoke.

The Athens Line runs from downtown Athens to Madison in Morgan County so was listed as a resource for all three counties.

The Apalachee River was listed as a resource for Barrow, Greene, Morgan, Oconee and Walton counties.

Three Oconee County Representatives to Decide Regionally Important Resource Nominations

County Owns Bridge

The three Oconee County representatives to the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission Council will have a chance to vote on Thursday to accept or reject the proposal of citizens in the county that Elder Mill, the Elder Mill Bridge and the Athens Line be officially designated as Regionally Important Resources.

One of those representatives, Watkinsville Mayor Joe Walter (mayor@cityofwatkinsville.com), already voted on March 1 for the citizen proposals as a member of the Planning Advisory Committee that screened nominations for the 12 counties that make up the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission.

Melvin Davis (mdavis@oconee.ga.us), chairman of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners, expressed reservations about designation of the Athens Line–the rail line connecting Athens to Madison–at the BOC meeting on March 30.

The third member–designated as a citizen representative–is Amrey Harden (aharden@oconeestatebank.com), president and CEO of Oconee State Bank. He was not at the April 30 meeting when Davis was joined by Commissioners Margaret Hale, Chuck Horton and Jim Luke in raising questions about the vote of the Advisory Committee.

Luke and Davis were concerned that the designation of the rail line might limit future development in the county. Horton was concerned that landowners were not consulted in the designation process. Hale was concerned that she hadn’t been informed of the designation before the April 30 meeting.

The Council meeting will start at noon at the Holiday Inn in Athens and is open to the public.

If the Regionally Important Resources designation were to be approved by the full Council, it would mean that development projects in Oconee County classified as having impact beyond the county borders and falling within a mile of Elder Mill, Elder Mill Bridge or the Athens Line would have to take the RIR designation into consideration.

By state law, projects with impact outside the borders of a county have to be reviewed regionally. In the case of Oconee County, that review is under the jurisdiction of the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission.

Projects are judged to have regional impact based on their characteristics. For example, an Oconee County commercial project of more than 175,000 gross square feet would have to be reviewed, as would an office project of more than 125,000 gross square feet.

Housing projects with more than 125 lots or hotels with more than 250 rooms also would fall under NEGRC review jurisdiction.

NEGRC released reviews of three Oconee County projects in 2008 but none since that time.

The Meadowlands on US 78, a large commercial development project that also includes a retirement community, was given a favorable review, as was the Presbyterian Village, another retirement community, on Experiment Station road between Butler’s Crossing and Watkinsville.

Epps Bridge Centre on Epps Bridge parkway was given a negative review.

The Oconee County BOC approved all three projects. Construction has not begun on any of them.

In July of 2009 the Georgia Department of Community Affairs directed regional commissions throughout the state to identify the “important natural and cultural resources in the region” and then develop a plan for protection and management of the identified resources.

The plan “must include a listing of best practices” to be considered by developers for designing new projects to be located within one mile of a Regionally Important Resource.

NEGRC would take that plan and the Regionally Important Resource list into consideration in reviewing Oconee County projects in the future.

The RIR map is the first step in creation of the Regional Resource Plan.

Though Oconee County officials could have submitted resources for possible inclusion on the RIR list, none of them did so. Oconee County citizens submitted the two projects considered by the Planning Advisory Committee.

Tony Glenn, acting on his own, submitted the Athens Line proposal. The Friends of Elder Mill and Elder Mill Bridge submitted the Elder Mill and Elder Mill Bridge nomination as one project, though the Advisory Committee decided to list the mill and the bridge separately.

Glenn, who lives is Farmington, wrote in his nomination that the 32-mile Athens Line was part of a Macon to Athens rail line that went into full service in December of 1888. The train depot in Farmington is the only intact original structure of its type remaining on the line, Glenn wrote.

The line is inactive from Bishop to Madison, and Glenn said the inactive section “could provide a multi-use path and linear park for residents and visitors” in northeast Georgia and that the active part of the line “could be maintained for transport while having a parallel multi-use path.”

The Friends of Elder Mill and Elder Mill Bridge nomination said the “covered bridge and mill combination is important to the State of Georgia and especially to Oconee County and the Heartland Tourist Area.”

“Our goal is to set up a public park of at least 32 acres,” the group said in its nomination. Included would be the mill and land near the bridge.

Both the mill, which is in private hands, and the bridge “remain vulnerable,” the group wrote.

The county has designated the area around the mill and bridge as a Scenic Preservation District and restricts owners from doing anything that conflicts with the county’s intent to preserve “the special character” of the area.

The county has made no effort so far to purchase any of that land. The county does own the bridge.

Gilland Reports Raising Nearly $5,000 for Oconee County Commissioner Race

UGA Connection Helps

Tammy Tate Gilland confirmed her intention to run for Post 3 on the Oconee County Board of Commissioners on April 1 when she filed a campaign contribution disclosure report indicating that she has raised $4,685 toward her campaign.

Though the first day to file for the office is April 26, Gilland has been accepting campaign contributions and was required to file the campaign contribution report.

Gilland listed $429 in expenses and a balance of $4,226 on hand. Most of the expenses were for stamps and office supplies.

Margaret Hale, who has held the Post 3 position since 2000, listed only $500 in contributions during the period covered--from the first of the year until the end of March--and indicated she has a balance in her campaign account of $223. She carried over $277 in unpaid expenses.

John Daniell, Post 2 commissioner, listed no contributions or expenses in his filing report. He said he has $54 on hand.

Hale and Daniell are the only two members of the five-person Commission up for election in the first election held since the county went to a split-term system. In 2008, Hale and Daniell were elected to two-year terms, rather than the usual four-year terms.

Hale and Daniell have indicated they plan to run for re-election. Daniell was elected to his first term in 2008.

Mack Guest, incumbent Post 2 Board of Education member, listed no income or expenses in his April 1 report. Guest indicated he is $1,206 in debt.

Kim Argo, incumbent Post 3 BOE member, also listed no income or expenditures and that she has a balance of $1,008 on hand.

Guest and Argo also were elected to two-year terms in 2008 in the first year the terms of the five BOE members had been staggered. For both, it was their first election to the Board, though Guest was serving out an unfinished term to which he had been appointed.

Gilland, a senior director in the Development Office at the University of Georgia, lists seven contributions of more than $100, totaling $2,000, and an additional $2,685 in contributions of $100 or less.

The largest single contributions were of $500 from Tom Landrum, the senior vice president of external affairs at UGA, and the same amount from Rhett and Julie Puder, listed as a psychologist and a physician on the report. Five of the seven contributions of more than $100 were from people listed as being affiliated with the University of Georgia.

Hale also works for the University of Georgia as an administrative specialist in the Library.

If Gilland files as a Republican, as is expected, she and Hale would meet in the Republican primary on July 20.

Hale, Daniell, Guest and Argo ran as Republicans in 2008.

The first opportunity for a candidate to file to run either as a Democrat or a Republic is at 9 a.m. on April 26 and the last opportunity is noon on April 30.

Since this is the first time Oconee County commissioners and BOE members have been elected in what normally would be an off-year, it is difficult to know how much attention and interest the election will generate.

Turnout for the 2008 primary was only 36 percent, but it was an even lower 24 percent in 2006, according to data released to me on Thursday by Pat Hayes, Oconee County director of elections.

In 2004, 40 percent of the registered voters turned out, but 42 percent voted in the July primary two years earlier.

In 2000, 45 percent of the registered electorate voted in the July primary, but it had been only 31 percent two years earlier.

Voters in Georgia do not register by party, so anyone can choose to participate in the primary.

My analysis of individual voting records for the 2008 July primary that I purchased from the Secretary of State’s office shows that 28 percent of those who chose to vote in the Democratic presidential primary in Oconee County in February of 2008 voted in the Republican primary in July of that same year.

Of those Oconee County voters who voted in the Democratic presidential primary in February, only 16 percent voted in the July Democratic primary, and the remainder didn’t vote.

Among Oconee County voters who voted in the 2008 Republican presidential primary, 62 percent voted in the July Republican primary. Less than 1 percent voted in the Democratic July primary, and the remainder didn’t vote.

Another way of looking at it is this: From among the nearly 6,333 Oconee County voters who case a ballot in the July 2008 Republican primary, 14 percent had cast a Democratic ballot in February.

Whether those “Democrats” will select a Democratic or a Republican ballot this year may be determined by the nature of other state and regional elections and by how much the candidates attempt to appeal across party lines. In 2008, there was little on the July Democratic primary ballot to encourage voters to select it.

Gilland lives at 1010 Hardwood court off Elder road near North High Shoals. Hale lives at 1901 Salem road south of Farmington.

Daniell lives at 1922 Elder road, or just north of Gilland.

Guest lives at 1070 Lake Wellbrook drive off Daniells Bridge road, and Argo lives at 1230 Bent Creek road near Hodges Mill road. Both are in the northern part of the county.

All members of the Board of Commissioners and Board of Education run at-large.

Public Phase of Oconee County 2011 Budget Process Begins

Parks and Rec in Lead Position

The budgeting process for the county for Fiscal Year 2011 moves into its public phase on Monday with the first of three scheduled meetings of department heads, elected officials and judicial officers with the members of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners.

The Monday meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. in the commission chamber at the courthouse with representatives of the Parks and Recreation Department, who will have 45 minutes to explain their budget request for the year beginning on July 1.

Also on Monday, the commissioners will hear from the Fire Department, the coroner and Animal Control. The meeting is scheduled to end about 8:30 p.m.

On Tuesday, the session starts at 9 a.m. with the Human Resources Department of the county and continues until the final session at 4:30 p.m. During the day the Board will hear from representatives of the Magistrate Court, Superior Court and Juvenile Court, the district attorney, planning, code enforcement, the library and others.

The final session starts at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday with the Utility Department, followed by the Public Works Department and the sheriff’s office. It ends with the Finance Department presentation starting at 7:45 p.m.

The budgeting process began on Jan. 26 when Finance Director Jeff Benko provided the Fiscal Year 2011 budget submittal plan to the BOC and is scheduled to end on June 1 with adoption of the budget by the Board at its regular meeting.

The Board will hold the first public hearing on the budget before its agenda-setting meeting on May 25 and the second public hearing before adoption of the budget on June 1. The first public hearing is scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m., while the second will be part of the regular meeting, which starts at 7 p.m.

Wayne Provost, director of Strategic and Long-Range Planning for the county, gave an indication of how difficult the budgeting process is likely to be at a meeting with citizens on March 25 to discuss citizen efforts to protect Elder Mill and the area around Elder Mill Bridge.

He said that “we think” that property values in the county have gone down 3 to 5 percent, personal property values are down 13 to 14 percent, and the 1-cent-on-a-dollar sales tax is producing 7 to 10 percent less than a year earlier.

These are the sources of revenue for the county’s general fund, which covers 57 percent of its spending.

Provost said the projection is that the county will need to cut $1 to $1.5 million from the county’s roughly $35 million budget for next fiscal year. The county also can draw down its surplus, which has been running at about $10 million, and increase taxes, but the BOC has been reluctant to do either.

The biggest categories of spending from the General Fund are for public safety and judicial operations, making up 41 percent of the total. Public Works accounted for 12 percent of last year’s General Fund budget and Parks and Recreation received 11 percent.

The Utility Department has its budget outside the General Fund since much of its operation is funded by its own revenue. The budget for the Utility Department in 2010 was 18 percent of all expenditures, compared with the 57 percent figure for the General Fund.

County officials frequently point out that only 27 percent of property taxes citizens in the county pay are under the control of the Board of Commissioners, and that 72 percent goes to the Board of Education and 1 percent goes to the state.

The Board of Education also is in the budget process and is struggling with decreased state revenue as well as the drop in the local tax base and in sales tax revenue.

The range of services covered by the BOC-controlled budget is quite broad--from roads to sewers and water to tax collection itself. The BOE budget focuses exclusively on education.