The Oconee Patch web site is now fully under the editorial control of Rebecca McCarthy, editor of the Athens Patch site.
Stephanie Gross, who has edited the Oconee site since shortly after its launch in December of 2010, ended her association with Patch on Tuesday.
The roadway problems have occurred at a particularly inopportune time, as Caterpillar is planning a Grand Opening Celebration of its facility for the morning of Oct. 31.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners approved two bids last Tuesday night, one for $17,000 and another for $52,562.
The action was routine. County Finance Director Wes Geddings presented the six submitted bids to the Board with a recommendation at the Sept. 24 agenda-setting meeting.
Verizon Wireless has told county officials it will ask for a postponement of a decision on its request to put a 190-foot cell tower on farmland near the Eastville community.
The Board of Commissioners is scheduled to take up the request for a special use permit for the cell tower at its meeting tomorrow night, but Jennifer Blackburn, attorney for Verizon Wireless, told Oconee County Planner Brad Callender on Wednesday afternoon that she would like to defer the decision.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to decide Tuesday evening if Verizon Wireless can place a cell tower on farmland near the Eastville community over the objections of at least some residents in the area.
Three people spoke against the issuance of a special use permit for the cell tower at the Planning Commission meeting on Sept. 16. They were joined by about a dozen fellow citizens in the audience and said they expected others would have spoken out had they known about the plans for the cell tower.
Oconee County is going forward with the process of identifying and selecting farms for a farmland protection program even though there is no federal money to make the program work.
The local office of the United States Department of Agriculture, which administers the federal program, in July turned back $175,000 in federal funds that were available to the county for farmland protection this year, saying that the county “opted not to put a farm forward” for 2013 funding.
The Oconee County Industrial Development Authority received a cautious response last night when it delivered its report on industrial development to the county’s Board of Commissioners.
Commissioner Jim Luke said the report “was a great work in progress” but that he was concerned that the Authority was putting too much emphasis on creating industrial parks.
