Oconee County citizens get another chance tomorrow night to tell members of the Board of Commissioners what projects they want on the referendum for the 2015 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.
Under the revised timeline, the first of two public meetings will begin at 6 p.m. tomorrow in the auditorium of the Civic Center on Hog Mountain Road.
While liquor by the drink has played a prominent role in all three of the candidate forums, and was particularly central at the forum sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, it is likely that the issue will be resolved before the terms of the current commissioners expire at the end of the year.
Post 3 Commissioner Margaret Hale acknowledged that likelihood at the forum last night, when she said the issue probably will be on the ballot in November.
Oconee County voters will get a chance to vote on liquor by the drink if two of the challengers to incumbents John Daniell and Margaret Hale are successful in the May 20 Republican primary.
John Larkin, running against Daniell for Post 2 Commissioner, told about 40 people at a candidate forum last Thursday night at the Watkinsville Community Center that he would support putting a referendum on liquor by the drink on the ballot.
When the Oconee County Board of Commissioners began its overhaul of its farmland protection program 15 months ago, it did so, County Attorney Daniell Haygood said at the time, to make the process more transparent and to make sure the county was following state open records and open meetings laws.
Since that time, the Board assembled two different committees, one of which replaced a citizen committee that had been screening farms for the county’s program.
Candidates for the two slots on the Oconee County Board of Commissioners will have a pretty good idea in a little more than a week about what issues the politically active citizens in the community are most concerned about.
And those citizens will have an idea about which of those issues, if any, separate the candidates.
The Watkinsville City Council last week interjected itself into the ongoing discussion about what to do with the existing Oconee County courthouse by unanimously passing a resolution stating that it believes county offices should remain in downtown Watkinsville.
The vote on Wednesday evening comes as the Oconee County Board of Commissioners is about to relaunch its discussion of the 2015 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum, now scheduled to be on the ballot in November.
The developers of The Falls of Oconee project on Old Macon Highway have submitted revised preliminary site plans to the Oconee County Planning Department that eliminate access to the falls and the creek below it.
The falls are not natural, but rather were created by an old mill pond dam made of rock, and they are not on the Oconee, but rather are on McNutt Creek, a tributary to the Middle Oconee River.
