Items related to Oconee County’s planned Dawson Park dominated the crowded agenda of the Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night.
The meeting began with a nearly 50-minute long presentation and discussion with Kemper Sports about using the park for sports tourism.
Oconee County is considering contracting with Kemper Sports, a golf, sports, and hospitality company, to help it develop and market the planned Dawson Park for sports tourism.
Three representatives of the Northbrook, Ill., company attended the Tuesday meetings of the Oconee County Industrial Development Authority (IDA) and the Board of Commissioners to present their analysis of the sports tourism potential of Dawson Park.
With only five days of early voting remaining, traditionally Republican Oconee County is greatly outperforming traditionally Democratic Clarke County in ballots cast for the Dec. 9 House District 121 Special Election.
At the end of the day on Nov. 26, the final day of voting last week, 2,897 ballots had been cast in Oconee County, while only 567 had been cast in Clarke County.
The Oconee County Planning Commission, in a 4 to 3 vote, recommended to the Mayor and Town Council of Bishop that it deny a request that it rezone six acres on High Shoals Road next to the planned St. Aelred Catholic Church for use as a special events venue.
The Commission then, in a 5 to 2 vote, recommended to the Mayor and Town Council that it grant a variance to the property owner asking for the rezone for the event venue for a reduction in the buffer from 15 feet to zero feet between the event venue and St. Aelred Church.
If the Dec. 9 House District 121 Special Election is a turnout contest between traditionally Republican Oconee County and traditionally Democratic Clarke County, after six days of early voting, Oconee County is the hands down winner.
At the end of the first week of early voting on Saturday, 6.9 percent of the 27,045 eligible voters in the three Oconee County precincts in the 121st House District had cast a ballot.
Oconee County Republican Party Chair Kathy Hurley has been relentless in encouraging party members to vote in the Dec. 9 House District 121 Special Election.
At the party meeting on Monday, Hurley lamented the 41.2 and 41.8 percent of the vote that Democratic Public Service Commission candidates Alicia M. Johnson and Peter Hubbard respectively received in the county in the Nov. 4 election and said Republicans need to turn out to make sure a Democrat does not win on Dec. 9.
Mack “Dutch” Guest IV, running as a Republican in the Dec. 9 House District 121 Special Election, opted to have his 15-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son introduce him at the Monday night meeting of the Oconee County Republican Party.
“My dad is a really nice person who cares about everyone,” Sarah Beth, a freshman at Oconee County High School, said. “Voting for my dad would really help the future,” she added.
