Turnout in early voting makes it likely that a relatively small number of Oconee County voters will have cast a ballot in the party primary runoffs by the end of election day tomorrow.
When early voting ended on Friday, only 2,244 of Oconee County’s 29,155 active voters had cast a ballot.
Another 282 voters had turned in an absentee ballot, bringing to 2,526 the total number of ballots received by the end of the day on Friday, or 8.6 percent of the county’s active voters.
The Georgia Hospital Association and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency reported on Friday that area hospitals had 14 COVID-19 patients, down from the 18 reported on Friday of last week.
The number of ICU beds in use was 63, up from 58 a week earlier, and the number of adult ventilators in use was 23, down from 24 a week earlier.
Jessica Fore and Charlie Bailey joined the Oconee County Democrats in person for the party’s candidate forum on Thursday night before the June 21 primary runoff.
Kwanza Hall, who, like Bailey, is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor, joined remotely via Zoom.
Dee Dawkins-Haigler and Bee Nguyen, candidates for the party’s nomination for Secretary of State, also checked in remotely.
The Georgia Department of Transportation released plans for the transformation of the SR 316 and Oconee Connector interchange on Wednesday that do not include access from the Connector to the proposed site of a Publix grocery.
The plans show the Oconee Connector flying over SR 316, as had been expected, but they also show an exit lane to the Oconee Connector for eastbound traffic that reaches far down the Connector, ending in a traffic light.
Costco is on schedule for an opening this fall.
Funding from the current Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) should be sufficient to begin construction of eight new tennis courts at Oconee Veterans Park by Fiscal Year 2025.
The existing tennis courts at Herman C. Michael will be converted to pickleball courts when new tennis courts are opened at Veterans Park.
The Oconee County Board of Education, at its final meeting of the school year last week, approved a $90.2 million Fiscal Year 2023 expenditure budget that includes salary increases for certified and classified staff and 19 new staff positions.
The budget is 4.0 percent higher than the $86.7 million Fiscal Year 2022 budget and includes, for the first time since before the pandemic, full state funding of the Quality Basic Education (QBE) formula.
The Oconee County Democratic Party will hold a forum on Thursday night with candidates for three of the five races on the Democratic ballot in the June 21 runoff election.
Jessica Allison Fore and Tabitha Johnson-Green, candidates for the Democratic Party nomination for U.S. House District 10, have agreed to participate.
Dee Dawkins-Haigler and Bee Nguyen, candidates for the party’s nomination for Secretary of State, also will join.
