The Hard Labor Creek Reservoir Management Board has scaled back plans for the 16 million gallons per day (mgd) water treatment plant it has under construction on the reservoir in Walton County because of the anticipated low need for water from the plant.
The plans had called for installation of two 8 mgd pumps at the plant, but the Board agreed at its late October meeting to add a 4 mpd pump to handle anticipated low night-time peak demand of only two million gallons of treated water.
At first glance, it seems the blue wave that swept across the state and country on Tuesday bypassed Oconee County.
The Democrats had not put up candidates in four local races, so Republican County Commissioners Amrey Harden and Chuck Horton, Board of Education Member Ryan Hammock, and Board of Education candidate Kate Patterson swept into office with 100 percent of the counted vote in each case.
Oconee County’s representative on the state Transportation Board, Jamie Boswell, has not responded to state House District 121 Rep. Eric Gisler’s request for assistance in obtaining information on the proposed SR 15 Truck Bypass of Watkinsville.
Boswell said on Wednesday that instead “Jason Dykes out of the Gainesville office responded to Mr. Gisler based on info I received.”
At a time when Republican elected legislative leaders are proposing to cut property taxes and shift to sales taxes, voters in Oconee County on Tuesday night chose the opposite.
A proposal to renew the county’s Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (TSPLOST) failed, with 53.3 percent of the voters rejecting extension of the tax, which is set to expire on March 31 of 2028.
Voters in the northern part of Oconee County will be represented in Atlanta in January by someone not from neighboring Clarke County for the first time since Oconee County was split into two parts in House legislative redistricting in 2011.
Both Democrat Suzanna Karatassos and Republican Ward Black, on the ballot in tomorrow’s 120 House District race, are from Jackson County.
Only just more than a handful of people turned out for the Town Hall meeting House District 121 Rep. Eric Gisler called last month to discuss data centers, but he stuck to his plan of reviewing bills proposed in the last session of the General Assembly before stating his position.
The state currently is exempting data centers from paying both state and local sales taxes as a result of legislation passed in 2018 to bring data centers to the state, and Gisler offered that as a beginning point of his review.
Oconee County is set to add 54.1 acres to the 828.6 acres in the south of the county already shielded from development through its Farmland Protection program, bringing the total number of tracts covered by this type of preservation easement to 15.
Thad Padgett, Chair of the county’s Farmland Preservation Committee, reported to the Board of Commissioners at its meeting on Tuesday (Oct. 27) that the selection committee is recommending that the farm of Darryl Matthews, 2591 Astondale Road, be added to the list of protected properties.
