Deborah Gonzalez, an Athens attorney, has announced that she will seek the Democratic Party nomination for Georgia House District 117, which includes three Oconee County precincts.
Regina Quick, a Republican, currently represents the 117th in the Georgia House of Representatives. Quick, also an Athens attorney, has not said if she intends to seek re-election in 2018.
The Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee working on the Oconee County Comprehensive Plan update will have a chance tomorrow (Tuesday) night to summarize its conclusions from a two-hour meeting it held late last month.
At the end of that wide-ranging discussion, Justin Crighton said the citizens had agreed that the county “needs to find a way to move truck traffic through the county without sending it downtown.”
Athens native Brian Kemp, seeking the Republican Party nomination in the 2018 gubernatorial election, told a gathering of Oconee County Republicans late last month that his experience as a small business owner sets him apart in the campaign.
“I have been a conservative, small business owner for over 30 years,” Kemp, who currently is Secretary of State, said. He said he is seeking the governor's office to “take that small business owner’s mentality and be the next CEO of the state.”
Oconee County Commissioners last (Tuesday) night approved a $49.9 million Fiscal Year 2018 budget based on a projected increase of 6.2 percent in sales tax revenue and an 18.4 percent growth in real property tax revenue.
The budget assumes the Commission will hold its millage rate steady at 6.68 and that growth in real property value will produce the increased property tax revenue.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night is expected to give final approval to a Fiscal Year 2018 budget that is 3.4 percent greater than the budget for the current fiscal year, but the county has not yet provided detailed information on how revenue will grow to meet the budget increase.
The two primary sources of funds for the General Fund Budget, which makes up 54.0 percent of the overall budget, are sales taxes and property taxes.
A committee of the area regional transportation body last week added $19.2 million to its 2040 Long Range Transportation Plan at the request of the Georgia Department of Transportation to cover a range of projects, including several in Oconee County.
To accommodate the addition of the projects, the Committee eliminated the controversial Daniells Bridge Road Extension and flyover of SR Loop 10 from that same Long Range Plan, meaning it is no longer a part of the active projects in the Long Range Transportation Plan.
An empathetic response by the North Oconee Rotary Club to a member’s statement of concern about possible discrimination against her Chinese-born, adopted daughters after the November election has had an unexpected outcome.
A group, calling itself Oconee Progressives and claiming nearly 300 members, has emerged.
