Incumbents Chuck Garrett and Connie Massey handily defeated challengers Rebecca Billings and Carolyn Maultsby in Watkinsville Council races on Tuesday.
Garrett received 67.1 percent of the vote to Billings’ 32.9 percent in the race for Post 1.
Massey received 71.9 percent of the vote to Maultsby’s 28.1 percent in the Post 2 election.
In a brief meeting last week, the Oconee County Board of Commissioners tentatively approved spending $547,220 as the county’s share of the cost of design services for the upgrade of the Bear Creek Water Treatment Plant in Jackson County.
The Upper Oconee Water Basin Authority has awarded a $2.3 million contract to Jacobs Engineering Group, an international professional services firm with offices in Atlanta, for the upgrade of the water treatment facility from 21 million gallons per day to 42 million gallons per day.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the Northeast Health District added 141 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Nov. 1, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.
The Department of Public Health reported the Northeast Health District had added 146 cases in the week ending on Oct. 25.
Twenty-eight Watkinsville voters cast a ballot in the final day of early voting on Friday, the largest number that has turned out on any day in the three weeks of advance voting leading up to Tuesday’s Election Day.
A total of 224 of the city’s voters has participated in early voting, and three more have returned an absentee ballot, meaning that just 9.6 percent of the 2,369 eligible voters have cast a ballot so far.
A Georgia Department of Transportation project team has identified the potential need for a nearly four-mile-long detour during construction of a grade-separated, diamond interchange on SR 316 at Jimmy Daniell Road.
Traffic on Jimmy Daniell Road wanting to access westbound SR 316 could be required to travel north on Jimmy Daniell Road and then New Jimmy Daniel Road, westbound on Atlanta Highway, and then southbound on U.S. 78 to reach SR 316.
The owner of the property on Hog Mountain Road that will surround the planned new entrance to Oconee Veterans Park is asking the county to allow for a multi-use commercial development of the 25-acre site.
Proposed are small-scale business and commercial buildings to accommodate small shops, cafes, and services that will be accessible to users of Oconee Veterans Park as well as to the residents of the future Parkside residential development.
Data recently released by Oconee County Schools show that college entrance test scores systemwide were largely unchanged in 2023 from a year earlier, and that the graduation rate fell slightly for the second year in a row.
The data also show that in each case--ACT scores, SAT Scores, and Graduation Rates--North Oconee High School students scored higher than students at Oconee County High School.
