In the Candidate Forum on April 14, Oconee County Board of Commission candidates Sarah Bell and Penny Mills took the position of outsiders and critics.
In their opening comments, Bell said the county does not have a “Commission that listens well,” and Mills said the Commission “needs to be more proactive about transparency.”
Oconee County water and sewer customers likely will get a reprieve, at least temporarily, from the annual water and sewer rate increases of recent years.
Oconee County Utility Department Director Wayne Haynie told the Board of Commissioners at a budget hearing last week that he is not asking for a rate increase as part of his budget request.
Oconee County Board of Commissioners candidates Penny Mills and Sarah Bell stated unambiguous opposition to the proposed pipeline down Calls Creek, while candidates Mark Thomas and Mark Saxon took more nuanced positions on the issue Thursday night.
The four were speaking in the first of two candidate forums to be held before the May 24 election. More than 100 people turned out for the meeting at the Community Center in Veterans Park.
Oconee County Utility Department Director Wayne Haynie has said in recent meetings that the proposed sewer line down Calls Creek is not a new idea, and he is right.
The county has had that sewer line in its long-range plans since at least 2005.
The county’s proposal to run a sewer pipe down Calls Creek through a string of residential neighborhoods has become a prominent issue in the May 24 Board of Commissioners election, since the Commission will have to make the final decision on whether to go forward with the project.
Behind this specific concern, however, is the larger issue of how the county–and the commissioners in particular–should handle growth.
David Titshaw, a commercial appraiser with The Boswell Group, has sent members of the Friends of Calls Creek an email saying that people living along the creek should be anxious about the impact of the proposed sewer line on the value of their property.
“You and your community are right to be concerned with the after effects of any proposed easement, particularly sewer,” Titshaw wrote.
Oconee County’s Code Enforcement Office has issued a building permit for the fourth of five planned buildings at the restaurant, retail and office complex being developed on Old Macon Highway across from the Athens Ridge student housing complex.
The new building, which will overlook McNutt Creek just downstream from the old mill dam, is for a restaurant, according to the building permit.
