Oconee County Commissioners voted last (Tuesday) night to refund sewer capacity for four undeveloped subdivisions in the county, significantly reducing the need for increased sewage treatment capacity in the county.
The decision will make those four housing projects, including the massive Parkside and Westland subdivisions, unbuildable as zoned, since they require sewage capacity for the intensive development proposed.
Oconee County Utility Department Director Wayne Haynie is scheduled to ask the Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night to approve his upgrade plans for the Calls Creek wastewater treatment plant, but he says those plans do not include an effluent pipeline down the creek.
In fact, Haynie told Jim McGarvey of Friends of Calls Creek in an email message on Friday that the county is no longer planning a sewer line down Calls Creek.
Oconee County department heads, at the invitation of Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell, met for two days last week at Stone Mountain in what Daniell said was an effort at “team building.”
In the first day of the session on Thursday, former County Administrative Officer Alan Theriault led the group through a discussion about the budget process, communications, morale “or any other item important to the group,” Daniell said. Neither he nor current Administrative Officer Jeff Benko attended that session.
Tevis Architects, hired to do an assessment of the Oconee County Animal Shelter, is recommending that the county replace the entire facility, located at 1171 Branch Road in the far south of the county.
In a report dated Jan. 9, 2017, Tevis said that the while renovation of the existing facility was possible, “it would be far less costly to build a new facility.”
Plans for a restaurant in the historic home at Hog Mountain Road and Hillcrest Drive just west of Butler’s Crossing are moving forward.
Abe Abouhamdan of Abe Consulting presented a preliminary site plan and site development plans to the Oconee County Development Review Committee earlier this month that included the restaurant.
Oconee County Library Friends, following a record used book sale in the autumn, is preparing for its Winter Sale from Feb. 2 to Feb. 4.
The Winter Sale will be held at the Watkinsville Library itself, rather than at the Civic Center, as was the case in September.
When a video surfaced in April of 2015 showing Oconee County discharging black water from its wastewater treatment plant into nearby Calls Creek, then Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin Davis told the public the county had become aware of “an issue” at the plant and had it under control.
Oconee County Utility Department Director Wayne Haynie presented a very different view on Wednesday at a Board of Commissioners work session as he was making the case to abandon the existing technology used at the Calls Creek plant in favor of a new design for the plant upgrade.
