Vote for Maxey if you want to pave the entire county

Listening to Mike Maxey on NewsTalk 1340 WGAU AM this morning was an interesting and ear-opening experience. He is younger than me, so I salute him for running for Post Four on the Board of Commissioners against Chuck Horton. He has lived here his whole life, so I am a carpetbagger compared to him (I've been here since the early 1990s).

To listen to him though on Tim Bryant's show, we are an anti-business bunch on the BOC and have a bloated budget needing to be sliced in Oconee County. Look folks, we have a volunteer fire department. That is going to need to change sometime in the next couple of decades. We have more people coming to his county every day, so we need to have an equal increase in government infrastructure and planning.

I think Mr. Maxey's experience on the planning commission proves he is part of the problem, not part of the solution. We have three thousand empty lots in various subdivisions and developments right now, so I think we need to let the infrastructure and growth catch up with the overwhelming onslaught of unbuilt tracts peppering the county.

No one wishes more than I do that we would have a perfect balance of lots, homes, people to live in the houses, people to build and pave and grade those lots, sidewalks for kids to go to school and parks, but we do not have that at ALL.

I am not saying we need to stop growth at all costs, but we do need to have better planning, smarter growth and more connectivity between our businesses and homes.

A brief sidebar to illustrate my position. Last week I decided to spend close to a thousand dollars on 10-ply tires here in Oconee County for my ridiculously big red pick up truck. After a soccer game, we parked the truck at one of the area tire dealers at Butler's Crossing and he told me how long it would take to get the four new tires on my truck with the specialty tires coming from Loganville. So we had a couple of hours to kill at the various stores in the area. We walked to the other tire place where Bulldog 103.7 FM was having a remote with a couple of multi-million dollar open wheel racing cars and a simulator for the kids. We took our lives into our own hands and feet crossing Hog Mountain Road several times to go to various stores and check out the car show in the Middle School parking lot. People talk about how much 316 is a death trap, well for goodness sakes, even crossing with the lights in your favor at Butler's Crossing is like playing Russian Roulette with traffic. This is one of our major intersections and pedestrians take their chances if they walk from point A to B. Tires Plus did get me my tires quicker than they promised and we even walked the ghost town development behind Publix. I think this is emblematic of what is wrong with the direction Oconee County has been going the last several years: build, build, pave, build, build, but don't connect anything or even give a passing thought to how it will or will not fit into the neighborhood or effect traffic or impact housing costs or taxes. This would seem to be an oversimplified approach of Mr. Maxey's prescription for our governement, and one that has not been working very well. Butler's crossing and the schools is already a traffic nightmare twice a day and is only going to get worse with the opening of various businesses in the area. I hope all the businesses and shopping centers do well, but I have my doubts based on the rapid fluctuation of various restaurants and what not in the immediate area in the last six months.

Assessments do not need to continue to rise, in my humble opinion. Nor do I want an increase in the millage rate, but I am also not wanting to slash our already spartan governmental services.

I am only a home owner and not a business man looking to profit from my role in government. Mr. Maxey has a right to run and I appreciate him taking the time and effort to serve his county government, just like his Granddaddy did. I just fundamentally disagree with him on the supposed anti-business stance of Oconee County. Have you driven down Hog Mountain Road lately? There are so many developments and strip malls and construction I lose track of it all.

Mr. Maxey seemed particularly disturbed because of a grocery store was denied by the BOC and he also cited another example. I commend him for citing specific instances of our supposed anti-business slant, but I am also reasonably sure that the Board of Commissioners would not have rejected the proposed anchor of a grocery store chain for a better reason than just a strip of land needing rezoning. I will have to ask George Rodrigues or Bill Yarborough next time I see them what the story is behind that.

What is going to move in the old CVS location? That Bell's shopping center is looking rather dead these days.