Oconee County, GA Politics

MINUTES OF MEETING OF MAYOR AND COUNCIL CITY OF WATKINSVILLE April 12, 2006 PRESENT: Mayor Luken, Council members Link, Purcell, Brodrick, Walsh and Walter. ABSENT: City Attorney Huff. VISITORS: See attached sheet. QUORUM CHECK: Mayor Luken acknowledges a quorum is present. Mayor Luken also asks those with non-emergency cell phones to turn them off or down. WATKINSVILLE BEAUTIFUL YARD AWARD: Dwayne Wilkes of 51 Barnett Shoals Road received the Watkinsville Beautiful Yard Award for the month of April from Delores Schofill of Circa Antiques and Gardens. MINUTES: Councilwoman Purcell moved and Councilman Brodrick seconded the motion to approve the minutes of the March 8, 2006 Council meeting as presented. Motion carried unanimously. REGINA BOSWELL: Councilman Link moved and Councilman Walter seconded the motion to approve a business license for R. Boswell & Associates d/b/a Oconee Catering at 112 Southland Drive. Motion carried unanimously. DELORES SCHOFILL: Councilwoman Purc...

Merritt makes good waves with local Barber Creek protest group

To the BikeAthens listserv: This afternoon, on my ride home from UGA, I’ll hit a major milestone: 10,000 miles as a bike commuter. I began commuting by bike from my home in Watkinsville four years ago, not long after my 41st birthday. One of the deep mysteries that I chew on while riding is how influential voices in our community (a local newspaper and a few politicians come to mind) can express so much concern about fuel prices, development patterns, and traffic, and at the same time aim so much hostility towards the notion of providing greater and safer public access to modes of transportation other than cars. Gradually, I think more and more people are starting to realize the connection between these problems that never seem to go away and the fact that our governments continue an almost single-minded focus on development centered around the automobile. I believe that the advocacy and educational work that BikeAthens has done over the years is a big reason why attitudes about alte...

Moore's Ford meets CSI?

This may be the only time Dick Cheney will be mentioned alongside Democrats Henry Wallace (my Iowa political hero #1) and Hubert Humphrey.

Phone-Jamming Records Point to White House - Yahoo! News

Let's remove the secrets after we have exposed them for a while. Archives OK'd Removing Records, Kept Quiet - Yahoo! News

E-Mails Show Abramoff's Donation Leverage - Yahoo! News

Another Dubai deal right here in our own state with tank parts made at Doncasters in Savannah and our Democratic Representative is not real happy about it. Funny how only Democrats seem to be raising Hell about this one. CFIUS is devious and needs to be destroyed.

Citizens for Oconee's Future, Inc. P. O. Box 1301 Watkinsville, GA 30677 Following is the text of an e mail from Lee Becker, Friends of Barber Creek with details of the issues to be raised at the hearing on the Barrow County proposal to dump treated sewer water into Barber Creek. Looks like Oconee and Barrow will turn little Barber Creek into a river of treated sewer water. Despite all the promises, citizens who live along or near this creek should be very concerned. Charles Baugh President Dear Friends: As many of you were informed by mail today, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Environmental Protection Division, will hold a public hearing on the Barrow County request for a permit to dump treated wastewater into Barber Creek. Our group produced more than 80 letters asking for this hearing. This is a sign of our success. Now we must be prepared to attend the hearing and present our case. The hearing on the Barrow County request will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Thursda...

Subject:Board of Commissioners meeting 4/4/06 Something unusual happened at this meeting. The Board had agreed at the Agenda Meeting to place the jail cost approval and funding method (lease purchase) on the consent agenda for this meeting. That meant there would be no further discussion. However when the consent agenda item came up there was considerable discussion resulting in the jail being pulled from the consent agenda. The wording for the motion to approve the jail price and funding mechanism was changed to approve the price and to authorize the Finance Director to come back to the Board with funding options. Folks, this indicates to me that some members of this Board are a little more independent than they have been in the past. If the Board does more than just go through the motions of looking at alternative funding options it will be good for the future considering all the spending that is planned. This lease purchase method of financing spending is just a way for the C...

Merritt once again nails Jim Ivey for malfeasance and fallout connected to his sleazy embezzlement of money from the Veterans Fund and how it residually threatens the ESP center in Watkinsville.

I saw Watkinsville Police Chief Lee O'Dillon coming into the bathroom of the Jefferson Hooters Cup race. He was the one person I had not talked to in person earlier today when cancelling the Bicentennial Bike Ride in Watkinsville. "I didn't know you were a race fan," said O'Dillon. To be honest, neither did I. Aside from an uncle who rehabilitated in our house in Des Moines growing up, I had not had much exposure to auto racing on any level. That bluegrass guy Rich won complimentary tickets from his musical connections on WMOQ out of Good Hope. Our kids cut up together at the same private school so we knew that this would be a good time for freebies for the kids. Grace and Jamie joined us to make four kids on parade. I salute any parent with more than one kid. We drove up in record time for four kids in the backseat in a BWW Rich was test driving. The place was packed with people in orange, mostly Hooters girls and Tony Stewart fans. There was some driver named Da...

Citizen group again successful 04/06/06