District Attorney Ken Mauldin’s announcement last week that he would resign on Feb. 29 rather than retire at the end of his current term in December has scrambled plans for the election of a successor and given Gov. Brian Kemp control over the outcome.
Before that announcement, Deborah Gonzalez and Brian Patterson were contending for the Democratic nomination for district attorney in the May 19 Democratic primary. No one has declared for the Republican Party nomination.
Oconee County’s expenditures and revenue for the first half of the 2020 Fiscal Year were on target with one exception, county Finance Director Wes Geddings said Tuesday in making his quarterly financial report to the Board of Commissioners.
The exception is sales tax collections, which were lower in November and December of 2019 than they were a year earlier, Geddings said.
Oconee County has abandoned plans to build a roundabout at the parent entrance to Malcom Bridge Middle School, cutting in half the number of planned or constructed roundabouts on Malcom Bridge Road between Mars Hill Road and Lenru Road.
Construction of the roundabout at the bus and staff entrance to Malcom Bridge Middle School and Malcom Bridge Elementary School will begin in spring and be completed before school starts in August, according to Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell.
Deborah Gonzalez and Andrew Ferguson used the opportunity of the meeting of the Oconee County Democratic Party last month to introduce themselves to those in attendance.
For Gonzalez, it was a matter of a re-introduction, and she said she was going to respond to the “first question most people ask me.”
The Oconee County Development Review Committee is in the process of evaluating plans submitted by Jones Petroleum of Jackson for a combination Burger King and a convenience store with 10 fuel dispensers at the northwest corner of Mars Hill Road and U.S. 78.
William B. Jones submitted to the county a preliminary plat and preliminary site plan on Jan. 7 for what is described as Phase 1 of the project, which ultimately could involve 32 acres owned by Jones and rezoned for commercial development by the Board of Commissioners in May of last year.
Oconee County commissioners on Tuesday night tentatively approved an agreement that will allocate to the city of Watkinsville 100,000 gallons per day of sewage treatment capacity from the county’s Calls Creek Water Reclamation Facility and provide another 100,000 gallons per day when that plant is expanded.
Watkinsville can use that allocated sewage treatment capacity as it sees fit, including for residential use at the proposed multi-use Wire Park development on Barnett Shoals Road.
The Oconee County Planning Commission has recommended that the Board of Commissioners approve the rezone request for just under 62 acres between Old Epps Bridge Road and SR Loop 10 for a large retirement community with 398 residential units.
The project, called Celebration Village Athens–Oconee Campus, will include in Phase 1 two three-story “concierge living” buildings, a three-story assisted living and memory care building, two four-story independent living buildings, and 32 independent living cottages.
