Oconee County officials, in a meeting at the Civic Center last night, provided citizens with the first overview of projects under consideration for the proposed 2015 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum planned for the May 20 ballot.
The list contained some surprises.
The three Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate on Friday night asked those in attendance at the Oconee County Democratic Party gathering in Watkinsville to remember who had come to meet with them and, by extension, who had not.
“We shouldn’t anoint our candidates,” Steen Miles from Decatur said. “Every candidate should present their views before you, the voting public, and let them make their decision.”
Oconee County is projecting that it will receive $55 million from the proposed Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax to be on the ballot on May 20, up from the $40 million projected from the current SPLOST.
Revenue from the current 1 percent optional sales tax is running behind projections, however, and county officials now are expecting it will generate only about $35 million by the time it expires at the end of next year.
Best Buy is joining a lengthening list of Atlanta Highway retailers moving their operations to Oconee County’s Epps Bridge Centre.
Oconee County Code Enforcement issued a commercial building permit on Monday for a 30,299-square-foot-building for Best Buy to be located on the east side of the shopping mall, adjacent to Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Oconee County farmland activist Russ Page and Laura Hall from the Athens Land Trust have called a meeting for Thursday to push for inclusion of funding for farmland protection in the county’s 2015 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.
The meeting comes before two oportunities—on Jan. 13 and Feb. 10—for citizens to indicate what projects they want to have included in the language for the next SPLOST referendum, scheduled to be held May 20 of this year.
The Oconee County Code Enforcement Office issued a building permit on Dec. 20 for Gigi’s Cupcakes in Epps Bridge Centre.
The store will be located in the same building as Taqueria Tsunami Restaurant, opposite the University 16 Cinema. Carter’s and Lane Bryant also are in that building.
Oconee County voters seem to have softened their opposition to alcohol sales, according to a scientific survey of registered voters conducted in the county in the last two weeks of October.
Only about one in four want to keep the current restriction on Sunday sales of beer and wine in the county.
