Liquor-by-the-drink legislation is now on a fast track, with the Oconee County Board of Commissioners scheduled to give an ordinance its first reading on Tuesday night and approve the law on Jan. 6.
County Clerk Jane Greathouse released the agendas for both meetings just before 4:30 on Friday, and the county web site contains a notice of the meetings and a draft of the ordinance commissioners will consider.
The Oconee County Planning Commission is scheduled to take up three rezone requests tomorrow night, the largest of which in terms of financial impact is likely to prove the least controversial.
After asking that its request be tabled in October, Oconee Medical Holdings LLC is seeking approval tomorrow of a rezone of a little more than 14 acres at Jennings Mill Road and Virgil Langford Road for construction of Phase III of Three Sixteen Professional Quarter.
The Watkinsville City Council voted unanimously last night to put a referendum allowing the sale of liquor by the drink in the city’s restaurants on the ballot in a special election on March 17.
The Council took the action after Mayor Charles Ivie informed the five council members and the public that he had concluded that the city could not determine precisely how city voters had cast their ballots in the county-wide referendum on Nov. 4.
Anyone who turned out at the called meeting of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners last night expecting a discussion of how the county is going to address future space needs would have been disappointed.
What the small group in attendance heard instead was presentations by an elected official and by representatives of eight county departments of what their current space use is and what they think they will need in 2035.
Georgia Department of Transportation officials have corrected two errors in materials provided to those who attended the informational meeting at the Civic Center last week.
The documents distributed at the meeting said that Mars Hill Road lanes could be closed from 2 to 4 p.m. on weekdays from the southern intersection of Windy Creek Drive to Hog Mountain Road.
Liquor by the drink is likely to be a topic of conversation at both the Watkinsville City Council meeting on Wednesday night and at the Oconee County Board of Commissioners meeting next Tuesday evening.
Watkinsville City Clerk Julie Sanders told me on Friday that while the topic is not an agenda item for Wednesday night’s meeting, based on her conversation with Mayor Charles Ivie, she expects the topic to be part of the mayor’s report.
When the Oconee County Industrial Development Authority meets in January, it will have a newly appointed member.
That person is Mark Thomas, who has been serving since Oct. 13 even though he was not appointed officially until Nov. 11.
