Publix Supermarkets Inc. is seeking a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dredge and fill a tributary of Barber Creek so it can build a shopping center on roughly 45 acres at the intersection of Mars Hill Road and the Oconee Connector.
The shopping center, across from the QuikTrip convenience store and gas station, is to include a Publix Super Market and additional retailers, hotels, restaurants and service providers, according to the permit application.
The Georgia Secretary of State Office will send notices to the addresses of 1,177 inactive voters from Oconee County next week as part of the state-wide effort to clean and update the voter files.
Across the state, according to a news release from the Secretary of State Office issued Wednesday, the notice will go to 313,243 inactive voters.
Tax collections for the Oconee County Education Local Option Sales Tax were down more than 2 percent in August compared with August of last year, marking the fifth time in the last six months that the education sales tax revenue had been lower than a year earlier.
Over the first 20 months of the current tax, called ELOST V, the average monthly change over a year earlier remains positive at 7.8 percent, but the trend line since October of a year ago has been negative.
Oconee County is an excellent opportunity for Democrats, Michael Thurmond told a gathering of party members at the Bogart Library earlier this month, because of the demographics of the county.
The county has one of the highest educational levels in the state and in the southeast, Thurmond said, and the college educated, and particularly college-educated women, are being targeted by Democrats nationally.
Oconee County reported its second sewer spill of the year to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division last week after a sewer force main break in a wooded area behind Cooperville subdivision off Union Church Road south of Oconee County High School.
According to a news release from the county, the Oconee County Water Resources Department was notified of a sewer odor in Copperville subdivision at about 11 a.m. on Oct. 14, 2019.
The Georgia Department of Transportation has abandoned its plans for a truck bypass of Bishop, moving the funding for the project into “long range,” according to Project Manager Bruce Anderson Jr.
GDOT made the decision because of a “lack of public consensus for the proposed alignment within Bishop,” Anderson said.
The Watkinsville Mayor and Council got push back–including from one member of its Advisory Board–last week on its still tentative plans to allow Extra Special People to construct a Miracle League Field and splash pad on four acres at Harris Shoals Park.
Vicki Soutar, chair of Oconeewaters and a member of the Harris Shoals Park Advisory Board Executive Committee, told the Mayor and Council that the proposed project would have significant negative impact on the park’s environment.
