Beth McIntyre, currently executive director of the Piedmont Regional Library System, will become executive director of the Athens Regional Library System effective March 17.
The Athens Regional Library System Board of Trustees on Thursday selected McIntyre after a search by its Personnel Committee to replace Valerie Bell, who stepped down as executive director of the Athens Regional Library System at the end of last year.
The Oconee County Library Board of Trustees on Monday approved the placement of a sculpture by Lawrence Stueck, a Watkinsville environmental sculptor and art teacher, at the Oconee County Library in Wire Park.
The artwork, labeled “You Are Here,” is multidimensional to reflect the intersection of the United States, Georgia, and Oconee County.
From the very beginning of the Oconee County Board of Education meeting on Monday evening, there was no doubt whom the Board was going to elect as its new chair.
When the five Board members, one after the other, entered the Board public meeting room from the smaller executive board meeting room, Ransom took the chair position, next to Superintendent Jason Branch.
Oconee County School Board Member Michael Ransom said he contacted Board members Amy Parrish and Ryan Hammock before he decided to announce on Jan. 2 that the Board intends to opt out of the statewide homestead exemption approved by voters on Nov. 5.
Ransom said he made the opt out decision after the Dec. 9 meeting of the Board and that he received the approval of Parrish and Hammock for the decision.
Oconee County Commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved Tony Townley’s request for rezones for a 120-lot residential subdivision on 300 acres north of Hog Mountain Road between Rocky Branch and Hodges Mill roads.
It also approved, again unanimously, a request by Dixon Family Trust of 2012 for a special use allowing the Trust to add 10 rental cabins on part of 356 acres it owns that front on Hog Mountain and Lane Creek roads.
The Oconee County Board of Education does not intend to join in a homestead exemption approved overwhelmingly by voters--statewide and in Oconee County--in November that would limit increases in the assessed value of property that is a homestead.
Taxing authorities in the state are allowed to opt out of what is referred to as a floating homestead exemption based on inflation designed to limit increases in the assessed value and tax of homestead property.
After Oconee County moved its nonjudicial offices to the new Administrative Building at 7635 Macon Highway north of Watksinville in the summer of 2023, it designated as excess property two buildings it had been using near the Courthouse and another on SR 15 on the south of the city.
When the Oconee County Library moved to Wire Park earlier this year, the county also designated that property an excess. It put all four properties up for sale.
