Oconee County Schools has embarked on $54.6 million in construction projects since the passage of the Education Local Option Sales Tax referendum by voters in March.
Included is a $3.4 million addition to Colham Ferry Elementary School that already is underway.
Oconee County Schools also has issued a request for proposals for a $3.1 million addition to High Shoals Elementary School.
The 10 county Northeast Health District added 2,558 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Friday and six new confirmed deaths from the disease.
The 2,558 added cases of COVID-19 and six deaths compare with the 1,964 new cases and five confirmed deaths added in the week ending Aug. 13.
The average of 365.4 new cases per day for the week ending on Friday compares with the average of 280.6 new cases per day for the week ending on Aug. 13.
Two of the county’s four municipalities will have elections on November, with qualifying in Bishop, North High Shoals, and Watkinsville completed on Wednesday.
Qualifying in Bogart continues through the end of the day on Friday. As of 11 a.m. on Thursday, no one had qualified for the two open Council seats. (Update: As of 4 pm on Friday, David Kilpatrick Jenny Bridges and Greg Maddox qualified. The top two vote getters will assume the two seats, held at present by Kilpatrick and Bridges.)
In Bishop, no election will be held because only one person qualified for mayor and for each of the four Council seats.
Oconee County Schools added 10 new COVID-19 cases from Friday until noon on Monday, according to data released on Wednesday in response to an open records request filed by parents.
On Friday, Oconee County Schools had reported a record 48 active cases.
According to the records released on Wednesday, the schools now have recorded 66 cases of the disease since the beginning of the school year on Aug. 4.
The Oconee County Planning Commission on Monday recommended approval of a revised plan for development of a 90-acre shopping center and accompanying continuing care retirement community on U.S. 78 between Dials Mill Road and Pete Dickens Road.
The proposal involves a significant reduction from the original plans in the amount and nature of the commercial development and a marked expansion of the residential retirement community component.
One consistency is a proposed 65,000-square-foot grocery, which more than anything caused concern among residents of Belfair subdivision who spoke at the public hearing on Monday. The subdivision abuts the project.
The Judicial Council of Georgia on Friday unanimously and without discussion accepted the recommendation of its Workload Assessment Committee that no change be made to the boundaries of the Western Judicial Circuit made up of Oconee and Clarke counties.
Chief Judge David T. Emerson of Douglas County, representing the Workload Assessment Committee, told the full Judicial Council that a change in the boundaries of the Western Judicial Circuit would not “improve the administration of justice” in the two counties.
The Workload Assessment Committee had reviewed a possible boundary change for the Western Judicial Circuit at the request of Marcus Wiedower and Houston Gaines, who represent Oconee County in the Georgia House of Representatives.
Oconee County grew at nearly three times the rate of the state as a whole from 2010 to 2020, and it became more diverse in the process, according to data released late on Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The data are at the Census Block level, as is required for redistricting, but they also provide the first look at how larger units such as counties have changed.
Oconee County’s 2020 population was 41,799, up from 32,808 in 2010. That is a growth of 27.4 percent.
