Oconee County Commissioners Approve One More Gas Station and Convenience Store for SR 316

Competition by Tree Clustering

After a four-month delay, the Oconee County Board of Commissioners on March 1 cleared the way for the county to get another gas station and convenience store.

This one—slated to be a RaceTrac--will be at the intersection of Mars Hill Road and U.S. 78, diagonal to an existing BP Station. Both the existing BP and the proposed new RaceTrac are just a short distance from the U.S. 78 intersection with SR 316.

The BOC actually approved the rezone for the gas station and convenience store at its regular meeting on Nov. 2, but the approved plans did not fit the 2.4-acre lot and could not work unless the county set aside a zoning rule.

The developers wanted to reduce the buffer between the property and the adjoining property on Mars Hill Road, zoned for agriculture, from 50 feet to 13 feet.

Insert RaceTrac on right, as
Mars Hill Road meets U.S. 78.

The concept plan submitted with the rezone shows parking and a driveway extending into the 50-foot buffer.

Jon Williams of Williams & Associates, representing RaceTrac Petroleum, Inc., asked the Board in November to approve the rezone, even though it didn’t fit zoning rules, but to table action on a variance request to allow the intrusion into the buffer.

Williams said he was “contractually obligated to continue with the rezone” request and was asking the Board to help him by dealing with the rezone even though he did not have a resolution to the variance issue.

The BOC went along with Williams’ request.

The Commission was scheduled to take up that variance request at its meetings in December. Williams again asked for and got a postponement.

The same thing happened in January and February.

On Feb. 15, Troy W. Porterfield Jr. of Monroe, who owns the adjoining 20-acre plot at 4060 Mars Hill Road, sent the county a letter saying he had met with the applicants “and reviewed their plans.”

He said he didn’t need any buffer at all between the incompatible rezones, and that is what the BOC approved on March 1.

The November BOC vote changed the zoning for the 2.4-acre lot from Industrial to B-2, or Highway Business District.

The property is owned by Southeastern PVC Pipe Mfg., Inc. Kenneth Orkin is named as the representative of Southeastern PVC Pipe Mfg. in the rezone submittal.

Orkin, of Marietta, is the CEO of Southeastern PVC Pipe Mfg. Inc., according to the Georgia Secretary of State corporation database.

The lot has never been developed, according to planning documents, and is wooded. It is a separated parcel of what is often referred to as the Orkin Tract. The bulk of that 384-acre tract, considered a prime development site in the area, lies north of SR 316 and west of U.S. 78.

The proposed convenience store will be 7,600 square feet in size and have a brick façade, according to the plans submitted by Williams.

The gas station will have 18 fueling positions under a canopy.

The property is proposed to have entrances on both Mars Hill Road and U.S. 78.

In addition to the buffer variance, Williams also wanted to reduce the number of required trees on the developed site and to cluster them, rather than spread them across the green space on the property.

Williams wrote in planning documents that the change was “to allow for enhanced visibility of an upscale commercial development.”

Williams was allowed by the BOC to cluster his trees, but not reduce their number. Commissioner Chuck Horton voted against the tree variance request but for the rezone.

Commissioner John Daniell recused himself from all the votes on the project, including the repeated tabling of the buffer variance request, because the company he works for, Boswell Oil, does business with RaceTrac.

As recently as June of 2009, the BOC dealt with a similar problem of a planned gas station and convenience store that did not fit the lot for which it was proposed.

QuikTrip was before the BOC with its plans to build a gas station and convenience store on a 1.3-acre lot at the intersection of Mars Hill Road, the Oconee Connector and Daniells Bridge Road.

That station and store are three miles from the proposed RaceTrac and also just off SR 316.

QuikTrip asked for—and got—permission to put some of its parking spaces in the 30-foot setbacks from the Oconee Connector ansd Daniells Bridge Road.

QuikTrip also said it needed to have fewer trees and have them clustered so drivers on could see the facility.

The BOC said the station could not reduce the number of trees and could not cluster them.

QuikTrip has generated a lot of traffic despite the trees and how they are planted.

By the end of the year, according to the schedule Williams submitted with the rezone application, RaceTrac will join QuikTrip in the heavily gas-stationed and convenience-stored area around SR 316.

RaceTrac will have the advantage of clustered trees--quite a plus, according to Williams--in its competition for the attention of potential customers.

Oconee County Land Use Committee Discusses T-SPLOST Projects, Hears of Citizen Concerns

10 Years and $1.5 Billion

Twenty citizens showed up at the Oconee County Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee meeting tonight, voicing concerns about the widening of Mars Hill Road, the lack of county planning for transportation options for people who cannot drive, a proposed extension of Daniells Bridge Road to fly over SR 10 Loop, and other transportation matters.

The occasion was a public discussion by the Land Use Committee of county priorities for funding by a Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, which is expected to be on the ballot in August of 2012.

One citizen said, regardless of what the county proposes, that he plans to vote against the sales tax, which would add a penny for every dollar spent to the existing seven-cents-per-dollar sales tax already in place in the county.

He also said he would work to get others to vote against the tax as well.

The 14-member Committee used the first half of the two-hour meeting to learn what the county is doing to prepare for the tax and what projects a committee of county officials thinks should be on the county’s priority list.

Those officials have identified seven major construction projects and nine smaller projects, called safety improvement projects, as the county’s priorities.

The Committee was not asked to take any action on the list, and it didn’t take any.

Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis, who joined the Committee for the discussion, did indicate that the BOC will take up the list at its March 29 agenda setting meeting. The BOC reviewed the list at its March 1 meeting, but it also took no action.

The final county list is supposed to be turned over to the state for review on March 30.

Wayne Provost

Before that time, the four county officials who made the list reviewed tonight will consider another list or lists from the four cities in the county and incorporate the projects of the cities into a final list for presentation to the BOC.

The four officials are Davis, Wayne Provost, director of strategic and long-range planning for Oconee County, County Administrative Officer Alan Theriault, and Public Works Director Emil Beshara.

Provost and Beshara led the discussion at the Committee meeting tonight.

The list of major projects consists of the widening of Mars Hill Road and Experiment Station Road from SR 316 to Watkinsville (three phases), construction of a grade-separated interchange for SR 316 and the Oconee Connector, the widening of Jimmy Daniel Road from Mars Hill Road to the Clarke County line, the construction of an extension of Daniells Bridge Road with a flyover of SR 10 Loop, and the widening and reconstruction of US 441 to four lanes from the Watkinsville bypass to the Madison bypass.

The safety improvement projects are for Astondale Road, Barnett Shoals Road, Bob Godfrey Road, Clotfelter Road, Colham Ferry Road, Hodges Mill Road, Salem Road, Simonton Bridge Road, and Mars Hill/RockyBranch/Virgil Langford roads.

Bob Isaac, a member of the Committee, raised questions about the Daniells Bridge Road extension and its impact on the residential area along that roadway before citizens were given a chance to speak, and several of those citizens spoke of similar issues.

The project description calls for construction of an extension of Daniells Bridge Road from just north of the Chestnut Hill Road intersection to Jennings Mill Parkway, at Home Depot, across SR 10 Loop.

The new roadway would be four lanes wide, but it would intersect with the existing Daniells Bridge Road, which is only two lanes wide at that point.

Beshara and Provost said the project would include improvements to Daniells Bridge Road, though they are not included in the project description.

Beshara also said that he expected the project, if it involved improvements in Daniells Bridge Road from the extension back to the Oconee Connector, would cost about $30 million, rather than the $10 million price tag for the extension and flyover shown on the project list.

Ralph Johnson, who lives near the Chestnut Hill Road intersection with Daniells Bridge Road, said that the description in the project list and the cost estimate should match with what is really needed. I also live just off Daniells Bridge Road, and I made a similar suggestion to the Committee.

Provost and Beshara defended the existing description and cost estimate as being reflective of what the county has proposed in similar discussions in the past.

Residents of Windy Creek expressed concerns over how the widening of Mars Hill Road will affect access to their subdivision.

One woman, who said she cannot drive because of poor eyesight, asked what the county was doing to include people who do not drive in its transportation planning.

None of the projects on the list dealt with public transit, and only a few of them included sidewalks and bike lanes.

The final list that the county submits to the state will be reviewed by the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission and the Georgia Department of Transportation before going to what is called a regional roundtable.

The roundtable will select projects from the 12-county region--Barrow, Clarke, Elbert, Greene, Jackson, Jasper, Madison, Morgan, Newton, Oconee, Oglethorpe and Walton–to be pitched to voters in the tax referendum.

The majority of those voting from the 12-county region must approve the tax for it to be put into place in 2013.

If passed, the tax would remain in place for 10 years and generate an estimated $1.5 billion for transportation projects for the region, according to Provost.

Oconee County Land Use Committee To Review Transportation Priority List

Unclear If BOC Involved

The list of seven road projects that the Oconee County Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee will review on Tuesday night was produced by a small group of county officials to represent to the state the county’s transportation funding priorities through 2013.

The county still must address any requests from its four cities and create a list to go to the Georgia Department of Transportation by the end of the month.

Ultimately, the Oconee County list must be meshed with lists created by 11 other counties in Northeast Georgia to produce a unified list to go before voters in August of 2012.

The expectation is that voters will be asked at that time to approve a sales tax increase of one cent on the dollar to fund transportation projects in the 12-county region.

If voters in the region approve, the sales tax in Oconee County would increase to eight cents on the dollar.

Wayne Provost, director of strategic and long-range planning for Oconee County, told me on Friday that he, Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis, County Administrative Officer Alan Theriault and Public Works Director Emil Beshara produced the list of projects that will be before the citizen committee on Tuesday night.

He said the group met and exchanged information before agreeing on the seven projects.

Provost presented the list to the BOC at its regular meeting on March 1, but the BOC took no action.

The Land Use Committee meeting on Tuesday is the first chance that the public will have to react to the proposed road projects.

Most of the projects on the list have been on other lists of road priorities for the county.

The widening of Mars Hill Road and Experiment Station Road from SR 316 to Watkinsville is at the top of the list. The project has been broken into three phases, and these three are listed as the top three county priorities.

The first phase–and top priority according to the list–is the widening of Mars Hill Road from SR 316 to Hog Mountain Road in Butler’s Crossing.

The second phase is the widening of Experiment Station Road from Hog Mountain Road to the US 441 bypass around Watkinsville.

The third phase is the widening of Experiment Station Road from the bypass to Main Street in downtown Watkinsville.

The widening will be to four lanes and will include sidewalks and bike lanes. Total cost of the three phases is estimated at $66.6 million.

The fourth project is a new interchange for SR 316 and the Oconee Connector, using grade separation, meaning traffic on one of the roads would be a different level from traffic on another. The cost is projected at $25 million

The fifth project on the list is the widening of Jimmy Daniel Road from Mars Hill Road to the Clarke County line to four lanes, with sidewalks. The project is expected to cost $10.6 million.

The construction of an extension of Daniells Bridge Road is the sixth project on the list, and it would include a flyover of SR 10 Loop to connect the existing Daniells Bridge Road with Jennings Mill Parkway where it dead ends at Home Depot.

The extension, according to the project description, would begin just north of the Chestnut Hill Road intersection with Daniells Bridge Road and consist of four lanes and sidewalks.

It also would include signals at the intersection of Daniells Bridge Road Extension with the existing Daniells Bridge Road and at the Daniells Bridge Road and Chestnut Hill Road intersection.

The project, expected to cost $10 million, does not include any upgrades to the existing Daniells Bridge Road, which is two lanes wide at that point.

The final project on the list is the realignment, widening and reconstructioin of US 441 to four lanes from the Watkinsville bypass to the Madison bypass. The cost of this project is estimated at $175 million.

According to Provost, the county has final say on the list that must be submitted by March 30.

Provost said he isn’t sure if the list will go back to the BOC for a vote at its March 29 agenda setting meeting or will be forwarded without further public review after the meeting on Tuesday night.

The meeting of the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee, made up of 14 citizens from the county appointed by the BOC, is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Community Center in Veterans Park.

The County actually submits the list on March 30 to the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission, which then passes it to GDOT.

NEGRC represents the same 12 counties that make up the region for the transportation vote: Barrow, Clarke, Elbert, Greene, Jackson, Jasper, Madison, Morgan, Newton, Oconee, Oglethorpe and Walton.

The Georgia Transportation Investment Act of 2010, passed by the General Assembly last year, creates regions around the state for the purposes of passing what is being called a Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.

The regions have a great incentive to put the tax before the voters. If they do so, they not only get the designated projects funded, but the counties get additional revenues from the state for use for their own road projects.

And if the regions do not put the tax before the voters, or if the voters turn down the tax, the state will decrease the amount of funding it currently provides to the affected counties for their road projects.

The list that Oconee County will submit on March 30 is not constrained by the amount of money the tax will generate for the region.

A group called a regional roundtable will review the lists submitted by the 12 counties and decide which ones are to be put before the voters and at what levels, given the revenues the tax will produce.

The roundtable is made up of the chairman of the county commission in each of the counties and one mayor from each county.

Oconee County is represented on the Northeast Georgia roundtable by Davis and by Watkinsville Mayor Joe Walter.

The tax, if approved by voters in 2012, will run from 2013 to 2023.

Provost told me on Friday that he, Davis, Theriault and Beshara were constrained in creation of the list by the criteria set out by the state.

The project has to be “regional in character” and “deliverable in 10 years,” he said.

Four of the seven projects on the list, the three phases of widening of Mars Hill Road and the Daniells Bridge Road Extension, are on the priority list of projects for the Madison Athens-Clarke Oconee Regional Transportation Study (MACORTS)for Oconee County 2010 through 2015.

According to an outline of the seven projects on the priority list that Provost released to the BOC on March 1, the Mars Hill Road project is needed to accommodate additional traffic and provide a needed linkage between Watkinsville and SR 316.

The upgrade of the SR 316 and Oconee Connector interchange is needed because the “existing at grade intersection currently operates beyond design capacity.”

The widening of Jimmy Daniel Road also will improve the linkage between Watkinsville and SR 316 and West Athens, the document states.

The Daniells Bridge Road Extension “will remove a significant volume of local traffic” from the SR316/SR Loop 10 interchange and Oconee Connector/SR 316 intersection by providing an alternative route from Watkinsville to Athens and Epps Bridge Parkway, according to the document.

The widening of US 441 is needed to remove the last two-lane section of that roadway in North Georgia, Provost’s document stated.

Oconee County Commissioners Say No to Zoom Bait/St. Mary’s/Gordy Sewer Line Project

At Least for Now

The Oconee County Board of Commissioners tonight voted unanimously not to take any action on the proposed Zoom Bait/St. Mary’s/Gordy sewer line project.

The Commissioners did not rule out moving forward with the project at some point in the future, but it did not set any firm date to reconsider the sewer line.

The decision would seem to preclude the county accepting the $186,711 grant the county has been awarded by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs for the sewer line. Work on the project would have to be completed by Oct. 5 of this year under that grant.

The BOC took the action following a presentation by Jimmy Parker of Precision Planning Inc. of Lawrenceville and Oconee County Utility Department Director Chris Thomas, who recommended that the BOC move forward with a modified plan for a larger sewer line than originally proposed.

Parker, a consultant to the county, and Thomas estimated the modified plan would cost between $790,000 and $820,000, or about 20 percent higher than originally expected.

The modified plan increased the sewer line from 12 to 18 inches in diameter to allow for increased capacity of 3 million gallons per day, rather than 1 million gallons per day.

The larger line would allow the county to connect to sewer lines along McNutt Creek the county might build in the future.

The county began discussing the sewer line publicly in May of 2009. At that time, it was presented as a line to serve only Zoom Bait, a manufacturer of artificial fishing lures, and St. Mary’s Health Care System, both on Jennings Mill Road near the McNutt Creek border with Clarke County.

In November Thomas told the BOC that he also had been discussing the project with Atlanta Developer Frank Bishop, who had an option on the 114-acre Gordy tract, which also would benefit from the sewer line.

The Gordy property lies behind Lowe’s, WalMart and Kohl’s on Epps Bridge Parkway and will be open for development when the state completes the Oconee Connector Extension at the end of this year.

The Commissioners tonight were being asked to rebid the sewer line project, since the initial bids had expired.

Commissioner Chuck Horton made the motion not to take any action, and the motion was seconded by Commissioner Margaret Hale.

Commissioner John Daniell said he did not want to see all discussions come to a halt, and Chairman Melvin Davis, who has been the proponent of the project, crafted a compromise motion that allows the county to revisit the project in the future.

Commissioner Hale said the commissioners need to “put this to bed” and come back to it later without the pressures of the grant.

The Commissioners tonight also heard a report from Wayne Provost, director of strategic and long-range planning for the county, on proposed priorities for transportation projects in the county.

These are the projects that the county is hoping will be funded if voters in August of 2012 approve an additional 1 percent sales tax for transportation projects.

Provost said the county is proposing that the widdening of Mars Hill Road from SR 316 to Watkinsville be the top priority, followed by a grade separated interchange for SR 316 and the Oconee Connector, a widening of Jimmy Daniel Road, a flyover of SR Loop 10 for Daniells Bridge Road, and a widening of US 441 to four-lane through the county, including a bypass of Bishop.

Citizens will get a chance to review and discuss these priorities at the regular meeting of the Land Use and Transportation Planning Committee on March 8.

That meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the Community Center in Veterans Park on Hog Mountain Road.

Oconee Farmers Market Set to Launch April 16 in Downtown Watkinsville

Vendors Say They Will Be Ready

Oconee Farmers Market will launch its eighth season on April 16 in the open space behind Eagle Tavern in downtown Watkinsville.

The market will operate from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. each Saturday through the fall. Last year, the market closed at the end of October.

At a meeting of vendors on Feb. 17, several indicated they would have early produce, plants, baked goods and hand-made soap ready for the market by April 16. That meeting, attended by 21 vendors and six board members, was held at the Oconee County Library in Watkinsville.

The Board of Directors of the Market confirmed the April 16 launch date for the market at a meeting it held on Feb. 24 at the home of Debbie Beese, market treasurer.

Last year, the market opened on May 8.

Beese, Page at Feb. 17 meeting.

At one point last summer, 35 separate vendors were selling at the market, Russ Page, president of the Board, reported at the Feb. 24 meeting.

Vendors have been paying 5 percent of their sales each week to support the market. The Market does not get any governmental support other than free use of the space behind Eagle Tavern.

The market began operation in 2004 in the front yard of the Eagle Tavern across from the courthouse but moved to the rear of the Tavern in 2009 to allow for more vendors and because the county sodded the grass in front of the historic tavern.

This year, Watkinsville has agreed to close First Street behind Eagle Tavern to create additional space for vendors.

Each vendor will have an assigned space this year. Several members of the Board of Directors will take turns serving as market manager, handling the assignment of space and accommodating new vendors who join the market as the growing season progresses.

The Board agreed at the Feb. 24 meeting to launch a promotional campaign to support the Market. The campaign will include both paid advertisements in the local media as well as a free announcements.

I am a member of the Board, representing consumers.

Oconee BOC Chairman Davis Discussed Third Beneficiary of Zoom Bait/St. Mary’s Sewer Project More Than Two Years Ago

Documents Tell Time Line

In early 2009, months before Oconee County launched publicly what was called the Zoom Bait/St. Mary’s sewer line project, Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis had identified a third interested party.

Atlanta developer Frank Bishop could be involved in the project, Davis wrote to county Utility Department Chairman Chris Thomas in an email message on Feb. 7, 2009.

The public, however, didn’t learn about Bishop’s potential involvement until 22 months later, and only then because the other four members of the Commission refused to move forward with the project.

At a May 14, 2009, hearing, when the project was first presented to the public, Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s were mentioned as those to be served by the sewer project, according to the official public minutes.

On May 26, 2009, the Board of Commissioners unanimously passed a resolution to seek federal funding through the Georgia Department of Community Affairs for the sewer project.

The proposal named only two businesses to be served by the sewer line: Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s.

On Aug. 5, 2009, Davis even wrote a letter to Commissioner Mike Beatty of the DCA listing only Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s as known beneficiaries of the proposed sewer line.

And on July 27, 2010, Country Economic Development Director Rusty Haygood and Utility Department Director Rusty Haygood told the public that the sewer line was for Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s and no other known users existed.

Only on Nov. 2, 2010, did Bishop’s involvement become public.

Utility Department Director Thomas told the BOC at a meeting on that date that he and Chairman Davis had met with Bishop on July 7 to discuss the sewer project.

Thomas also said that Bishop had an option on the largest piece of property that the sewer line would cross, the 114-acre tract owned by the Evelyn & Frank Gordy Family.

Bishop is scheduled to build a shopping center on a 70-acre tract across from the Gordy tract once the state finishes a roadway designed to open the two pieces of property for development.

Construction on that roadway, called the Oconee Connector Extension, is well underway and is, according to county Public Works Director Emil Beshara, scheduled to be completed before the end of the year.

Oconee Connector Extension

The Zoom Bait/St. Mary’s/Gordy sewer line project currently is on hold, in part because the four commissioners have said they were as much in the dark about the known beneficiaries of this project as the public.

On Tuesday night, however, the commissioners are scheduled to make a decision on whether to go forward with the $773,000 project.

Davis’ early involvement of Bishop in consideration of the sewer project came to light only because the Commissioner Chuck Horton asked county Administrative Officer Alan Theriault to provide the commissioners with background correspondence on the project.

I asked Theriault for a copy of the materials he provided to the commissioners. I picked those up on Feb. 10.

These documents and others I have obtained over the last year have allowed me to create a time line for the project.

In the Feb. 7, 2009 memo, Davis told Thomas that he had met with a representative of St. Mary’s about planned expansion of its facility on Jennings Mill Road to include a hospice and Alzheimer’s and dementia center.

“Would Zoom Bait, Frank Bishop and St. Mary’s all be involved in this project?” Davis wrote. “Should the county absorb part of this cost?”

Bishop’s rezone for his $76 million Epps Bridge Centre on Epps Bridge Parkway near Lowe's had been approved by the BOC in October of 2008, and he already had sewage treatment for that property.

Zoom Bait, on Jennings Mill Road across from St. Mary’s, had gotten a rezone in late 2004 to expand the warehouse for its facility, which manufactures fishing lures, and Zoom Bait had said it didn’t need any sewage treatment for the expansion.

The documents show that Thomas sent Davis an email message on March 4 of 2009 indicating that he was having trouble even getting in contact with someone at Zoom Bait to talk about sewers.

St. Mary’s had gotten a modification of its zoning in August of 2005, and the county had granted it ample sewage treatment capacity in December of 2008.

But the future developer of the Gordy tract would benefit greatly from the proposed sewer line, which would be fed by gravity and thus not require expensive pump stations.

The DCA grant, however, had the best chance of success if it could show that the project was crucial to keeping Zoom Bait and St. Mary’s in the county and to retaining jobs of their low-income employees.

The DCA even worked with the county to fine-tune the argument that Zoom Bait might move “operations to China or off-shore...if the public sewer in not provided,” according to the documents Theriault assembled.

One thing, however, did seem not quite right to the DCA.

In the proposal, the county stated it wanted to put in a 12-inch line to serve Zoom Bait and St. Mary.

DCA Program Manager Andy Card thought an 8-inch line would be sufficient for the two businesses, but the county responded that the larger pipe was needed because of the modest slope of the sewer line.

The DCA awarded Oconee County a grant for the sewer line in October of 2009, but DCA agreed to pay only half of the then projected cost.

The county went forward with the project, without bringing it back to the BOC for further discussion at an open meeting.

When those bids came back in May of 2010, the costs of the sewer line had doubled to the $773,000 figure.

The cost overrun brought the project back to the BOC in July of 2010.

Two other problems kept it there.

First, the property owners to be served by the sewer wanted the county to pay for easements to cross their property.

Second, the bids expired last fall, and, despite efforts by Davis to go forward even without further discussion by the BOC, the other four commissioners were unwilling to rebid the project.

They were unhappy with the negotiations over the easements and with the emergence of Bishop as a player. Commissioner Horton said he first learned of Bishop’s involvement on Oct. 25 and only from Bishop himself.

Another issue has been the nature of the arrangement between the two counties for sewage treatment.

The documents assembled by Theriault provide a complex picture of negotiations between Oconee County and Athens-Clarke County over the sewage treatment currently being provided by Athens-Clarke County to St. Mary’s.

While Oconee County has a contract with its neighbor for treatment of 25,000 gallons per day of sewage and is using only about 15,000 gallons per day of that capacity, Theriault, in a letter of March 16, 2010, informed Athens-Clarke County that an additional 750 gallons per day of sewage would result from the St. Mary’s hospice and dementia facilities.

Bobby Snipes, deputy manager for Athens-Clarke County, wrote to Theriault on March 26 that it would accept the additional sewage but only on a temporary basis.

Thomas wrote to Haygood and Theriault on May 18, telling them that Oconee County does not own the actual sewage line that transports the effluent from St. Mary’s across McNutt Creek to Athens-Clarke County. It is a private line for St. Mary’s.

I wrote to Theriault late in the day on Feb. 9 asking him if I could have a copy of the contracts between Oconee County and Athens-Clarke County covering the agreements on sewage treatment. The original agreement dates back to 1994, according to Thomas.

On Feb. 18, Theriault forwarded to me an email from Thomas saying that “records from that era are hard to decipher” and he was meeting with Athens-Clarke County officials to try to sort them out.

Thomas told me after the BOC meeting last night that he was still trying to get with Athens-Clarke County to compare notes and that he hoped to get me the documents soon.

At present, he said, he really isn't sure what the actual agreement between the two counties is.

OconeePatch Bringing New Competition to Oconee County Media Scene

Users Invited to Join Effort

Three big stories dominated news in Oconee County on Friday, giving the four media organizations active in the county the opportunity to showcase their resources and approaches to news coverage.

The Oconee County school system announced on Friday that a North Oconee County High School student had died the day before.

Oconee County Sheriff Scott Berry held a press conference to explain circumstances surrounding the death of a man who had been shot but not killed by a deputy on Thursday.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Agricultural Research Service confirmed that funding for the J. Phil Campbell Sr. Natural Resource Conservation Center in Oconee County is not included in President Barack Obama's 2012 budget.

The Athens Banner-Herald by the end of the business day on Friday had the story on Berry’s afternoon press conference on its web site, as did The Oconee Leader.

The Oconee Enterprise had the story of the press conference and the story of the death of the high school student on its web site by the business end of the day.

OconeePatch had all three, and it was the only one of the four to have video of Berry’s press conference.

OconeePatch followed up that strong day on Friday with a story very early this morning about a fire last evening in a business complex on Jennings Mill Road. The story had seven pictures from the scene.

As I post this, none of the other media has written on its web site about the fire.

Though the story about the death of a high school student certainly is important, the closing of the Campbell research center, if it happens, could have the biggest impact on Oconee County.

The large tracts of USDA farmland on Hog Mountain Road at Daniells Bridge Road and across from the Civic Center currently are surrounded by commercial and residential development, making the land valuable for and a likely candidate for nonagriculture use.

The OconeePatch story hardly scratched the surface of the story, relying on a spokeperson simply to confirm that funding isn’t in the proposed budget.

What is informative is how OconeePatch got the story.

I tipped the editor about it on Wednesday.

And that illustrates what really distinguishes OconeePatch from the other media sites.

It is a product of a small professional staff and of the community.

AOL, a national internet services company, launched the Oconee news and information site on Dec. 22. The company launched sites in Barrow County, Lawrenceville and Dacula within days of the Oconee launch.

A site for Athens is being built, according to Perry Parks, a regional editor for Patch responsible for Northeast Georgia. That site will go live in a month, he said on Feb. 7.

Parks was meeting that morning at my invitation with students in a basic newswriting and report class I teach at the University of Georgia.

The national media were reporting that morning that AOL had announced that it was buying the online site, The Huffington Post, as part of its expansion into online media content.

Patch, being rolled out around the country, also is part of the strategy.

Nearly 800 sites are active, Parks said, and most have been launched within the last fiscal quarter.

A Patch site allows users to upload comments about almost anything, to upload pictures that relate to stories, to provide announcements and certain kinds of advertisements without cost, and to become regular contributors.

In order to comment, users have to subscribe to the site, but that is free. A subscription produces a “push” message from the site each day to the subscriber’s email box summarizing what is on the site.

A lot of what is on the OconeePatch site is very light, and it is quite conversational, in the style of Facebook and other social media.

Since its launch, OconeePatch also has written periodic summaries of what appears on local blogs, including on Oconee County Observations. Of course, I like that feature, as it helps me reach additional readers for what I write.

The backbone of the Patch system is a local directory that is designed to be a comprehensive listing of businesses and organizations in the service area, much like the traditional telephone book, but with pictures and additional information.

A basic listing is free, but a business can pay for an upgraded listing.

The Oconee site currently does not have any advertisements, but it is designed to contain them in the future.

At present, the site is being funded entirely as an investment by AOL. The depth of AOL’s pockets is the big unknown.

OconeePatch has no offices, no printing expenses, no mailing or physical delivery costs, and a software backbone operated and maintained by AOL.

So costs are relatively low.

“We’re building a business here,” Tim Windsor, editorial director of the South Region, based in Baltimore and responsible for Patch in Georgia, said when I talked with him by telephone on Feb. 4.

The goal now is to get an audience to the site.

“The expectation is that in order to sell an audience (to advertisers) you have to have an audience,” he said.

Windsor said Patch is happy with the rollout of the sites generally and with the rollout of OconeePatch specifically.

Since its launch, OconeePatch has had some rough spots.

The first editor, Jane Lee, lasted only into the new year. After a trial period, Stephanie Gross took over as editor.

She is the only full-time employee, though she does have a budget for correspondents. She works out of her home, currently in Clarke County, though, she told me earlier this month, she plans to move to Oconee shortly.

OconeePatch lagged far behind both the Enterprise and the Banner-Herald in coverage of Feb. 4 announcement by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance that it was closing North Georgia Bank and turning it over to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as receiver.

The FDIC put out a news release about 6:15, and the Enterprise and the Banner-Herald had the story on their web sites shortly after that.

At 8:17, former Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chairman Wendell Dawson put a note on Oconee Patch in the comment section about the closing. Dawson had the story on his web, Another Voice from Oconee County, shortly before that.

It wasn’t until about 11 p.m. that OconeePatch had a story of its own, and then it was a rewrite of media reports from other sites. Parks, who wrote the story, was clear about his dependence on Dawson and on The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for the story.

“Traditional media tends to have this sort of pushing back policy against other media providers, other information providers,” Parks said in my class on Feb. 7.

“We feel like it’s ok for us to acknowledge that we don’t have all the answers. We don’t know everything,” he said.

“Part of the whole idea of the digital atmosphere is that information flows so quickly and changes so rapidly that the very idea that you can be like the single source of intelligent information about a community is sort of antiquated,” he added.

I uploaded a picture to OconeePatch with the new BankSouth welcome sign the day after North Georgia Bank closed and becames a BankSouth branch.

I also put a link in the comment section of Patch on Feb. 6 to a story I had written on the closing and its implications for the county.

On Feb. 7 Patch followed with a report by two professional writers that expanded on some of the implications of the closing and linked to my blog report on the closing.

Neither Windsor nor Parks said they were authorized to provide information on traffic on the OconeePatch site.

Yao Carr, a sales representative handing the OconeePatch site, did give me information when I asked him about placing advertisements on the site for the Oconee Farmers Market.

I am a member of the Board of Directors for the market and am helping develop an advertising campaign for the upcoming selling season.

OconeePatch had attracted 2,600 unique visitors during the 30-day period ending Feb. 14, Carr told me. Time on site is averaging about 11 minutes, he said.

Carr said the growth rate has been strong and beyond expectation, which is consistent with what Windsor said as well.

The two local weeklies, at least, seem to be paying attention, as the coverage of Friday’s stories indicates.

By comparison, on Feb. 5, the day after the closing of North Georgia Bank, the Leader’s web site had as its top news story the announcement that Oconee County schools would be closed because of snow–on Jan. 13.

It didn’t have anything on the site about North Georgia Bank closing.