Oconee County, GA Politics

Pat Priest does an amazing job organizing a wide array of events in both Athens and Watkinsville. If there is a volunteer of the year award, she deserves it. Please try to attend as many events as you can on our nation's birthday and be thankful we live in such a great country and county.  The big news here is actual voter registration at Eagle Tavern and Bell's going on, which is the only way to perpetuate real change and coalition building beyond the forthcoming primary. The next PS My current grammatical pet peeve of the moment are the people who insist on needlessly adding an apostrophe in the word veterans as far as the new park name is concerned. If the park belonged to one Veteran and we wanted to talk about his park, we could reference a "Veteran's Park" but anything short of that should never have an apostrophe in this circumstance.  Veterans are Veterans and I am glad some candidates took the political opportunity to further expoit them in a conven...

Have a good and safe Fourth of July! Woven brightly, Daniel J. Matthews, Jr. Hello Everyone-   This Saturday, the market will have sungold and brown berry cherry tomatoes, Better Boy and other varieties of slicing tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, long Asian cucumbers, beans, okra, plums, squash, potatoes, watermelon, fresh-cut flowers, Homemade pies: Lemon, coconut, apple, peach, sweet potato, banana-nut bread, snickerdoodle cookies, strawberry-pecan muffins, a variety of pound cakes, jams and preserves, handmade greeting cards, and homemade soaps, baskets, blankets, and scarves, boiled and fried peanuts and pork skins. Please join us for the July 4th celebration in downtown Watkinsville beginning at 10 a.m. when several market vendors will also be selling fresh produce, baked goods, and other items as usual, along with live music, free watermelon, popcorn, ice cream, old-fashioned cokes and root beer, and lots of activities for kids. ...and on Saturday, July 5th at...

 See you there Friday? July 4th (Friday) : Rack of Spam [Rhythm & Blues] Rack of Lamb is no imitation lunch meat-- they're the real soul, and they've got all the standards and 70's grooves to prove it. When Rack of Spam takes the stage with their punchy saxophones, white-hot vocals, sparkling trumpet stings, and fist-pumping drums, you'll be awash in your favorite soul tunes before you know it. Borrowing the gospel flare of Aretha and the unmatched heat of Little Richard, Rack of Spam then adds their own funky flavor to create a brand new, yet still classic, soul experience. Since 1981, these skilled musicians have shared their style of jazzy, exhuberant, energetic soul with their faithful fans. Come and hear these awesome bandmates-- a full dozen of them-- fill the Ashford Manor lawn with the inescapable sounds of soul. Ima...

Johnny Pritchett deserves your support for many reasons listed here in this article and in the fact that he is a fine leader ready to build consensus and I greatly urge you to vote for him over incumbent Jim Luke.

 We are almost at a fever pitch of political news as we approach our nation's birthday. I will come out with official endorsements very soon but anyone with a little knowledge and looking out for our best interests will have come to the same conclusions I have. The following was sent in by former Board of Commissioners chair Wendell Dawson and contains segments sent in to him by Lee Becker See Today's Athens Banner-Herald - Oconee County Living - for discussion of all BOC candidates.   7-2-08 Athens B-H (Oconee Living) reports on Oconee Chair and BOC races   The Athens Banner-Herald http://onlineathens.com/stories/070208/oconee_20080702001.shtml . July 2, 2008 . Davis, Bell vie for leadership of Oconee commission . By Adam Thompson . Oconee County residents, if they elected Sarah Bell chairwoman, would get lower taxes and an ethical leader who wouldn't hesitate to slash government spending, according to the first-time candid...

Great piece of reporting from Lee Becker once again about the lack of ethics in our day-to-day governmental operations Dear Friends, Landscape Architect and Land Planner Ken Beall and Oconee County Commission Don Norris have some common interests. They both serve on the Board of Directors of North Georgia Bank, where they and their five colleagues represent the interests of bank shareholders by overseeing loans and other aspects of bank operation. Both also are involved in rezoning property for development in the County. Beall represents landowners and developers who want to rezone. Don Norris votes on those requests as a Commissioner, most of the time approving them. For some, this close relationship might be seen as a conflict of interest. Not so for Don Norris. Beall has been before the Board five times since January alone. Don Norris has recused himself not once. For more detail on this story, go to my blog at www.oconeecountyobservations.blogspot.com . Lee

WSB Television led off their 5:00 pm newscast this evening with news of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation digging up the yard of a home in Walton County near the Gratis community. Apparently a home was searched, a bomb was found and detonated, and forensic recovery teams set up tents to sift through potential evidence. I heartily commend the GBI for their efforts in trying to solve the Moore's Ford Bridge lynchings of two African-American couples 62 years ago. This is just the most recent in a string of racially divisive news events in the past week in Northeast Georgia including a noose displayed from a business in Oglethorpe. I do not equate the SCV or most people bearing a St. Andrews cross with terrorist groups but instead like the DAR a semi-historic heritage group.

It is no secret that I am a staunch supporter of Ashley Hood and her candidacy for the Post 3 seat of the Oconee County Board of Education. I first met her writing for the Athens Banner-Herald's Oconee Living section some years ago and asked her the questions about what she loved about Oconee County. I met her again when she was pregnant and taking on subdivisions and the Board of Commissioners. I handed her my card and told her if she ever ran for office that I would support her. Few people have made as favorable and continued positive impression on me for their leadership skills and community consensus building ability as Ashley Hood. She has a firm grasp of what needs to be done to protect and serve our children, including four of her own in the Oconee County School system. In the crass and corrupt world of politics, it is refreshing to find someone with a fresh perspective and not beholden to special interests or the powers that be. Ashley Hood is that person we need for our c...

Go ask a question tonight and tomorrow in Athens Woven brightly, Daniel J. Matthews, Jr.  For those of you interested in working for Senator Obama's campaign,  here's information below about an Athens-area meeting tomorrow at 7 in  downtown Athens.    And tonight's the political match-up with Broun v. Fleming and Cowsert  v. Malcolm at 7 PM at the Melting Point, also in Athens. Should be  interesting!    Stay cool! (But get fired up!)    Pat Priest  Member,  Oconee Democrats    Hello Athens-area Obama Activists!    The Obama campaign has arrived in Athens, and we are ready to work in  order to turn Georgia blue this November. We are currently operational  on the top floor of 220 Prince Avenue, directly above the Athens-Clarke County Democrats office. This campaign has always been about working  from the ground up--engaging more people than ever before in the  democratic pro...

Dr. Rich Clark of the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute spoke eloquently Sunday evening at the Oconee County Library in Watkinsville about polling and the many factors and evolution of this political tool. He took a dry topic and brought it to life, focusing on the history and how Hamilton Jordan used made up numbers to hoodwink the media at the onset of Jimmy Carter's Presidential campaign. Clark is running in the Oconee County Board of Education race for the Post 5 race against the winner of the Republican primary between Tom Breedlove and Kyle Martin. 10th district congressional candidate and Oconee County native Major Bobby Saxon also spoke briefly at the beginning of the event. Saxon and Clark are the only two Democratic candidates appearing on your ballot locally, and you will not have to vote for them in next week's primary.

The latest from the de facto leader of the Oconee County Democratic committee - Pat Priest Woven brightly, Daniel J. Matthews, Jr. Just a reminder that tonight (Sunday) at 7 the Oconee Democrats are hosting our Sunday Series conversation with Dr. Rich Clark about polling and politics. That's at the public library on Experiment Station Road. Dr. Clark runs the Carl Vinson Institute's Peach State Poll that keeps tabs on public opinion in Georgia -- and he's also running as a Democrat for School Board in Oconee, so we thought you should meet him! I also wanted to tell you about a challenge the Oconee Democrats' book group is issuing to people in Oconee and beyond. We're asking people to read both Senator McCain's autobiography AND Senator Obama's and then meet to talk about first McCain's ideas and background (in August) and then Obama's (in September). Join us if you can. We'll be getting m...

The latest from Tony Glenn concerning Oconee County government following his lead Woven brightly, Daniel J. Matthews, Jr.   I'm actually a little late getting this notice out, but if you have not already seen the link on the Oconee County home page ( www.oconeecounty.com ), they have officially started webcasting the BOC meetings.   The county is currently using Vimeo, as we have been doing for our videos of the BOC meetings and recent forums.  As long as they continue to use Vimeo, I will add their videos to the channel that I already have set up ( www.vimeo.com/OconeeBOC ).   I offer my thanks to the BOC for acting so quickly and getting their webcasting service up and running.  Be sure to thank Administrative Officer Alan Theriault and the entire BOC for their support of this community service.  Also thanks to Alan Thompson from the ABH for his coverage of the topic.   Ok folks, now that they have made the effort...

Here is some interesting information about the race between Dr. Paul Broun, Jr. and Barry Fleming for the U.S. Congressional race in the 10th district of Georgia. Not sure if this appeared in the Athens paper yet, but the comments are particularly embittered from an Augusta angle. Another well written story from Blake Aued at the Banner-Herald.

Dozens of strangers sat down and talked about what brought them together yesterday in nearly 4,000 living rooms across America. The Livsey house in Christian Lake subdivision in Watkinsville was just one of those locations yesterday where Renee so graciously opened her house to host more than a dozen people to discuss with each other what made them want to get together on a hot Saturday afternoon. Republicans, former Republican candidates in Oconee County, students from Republican families, senior citizens and IBM employees are emblematic of the wide array of individuals who desire to rise above the level of hatred, intolerance and mediocrity clogging America's political process to form community groups and organize a movement to make this country a much better place for all of us. Who could possibly be a catalyst for such divergent individuals to come together to talk about what we need to do to improve all of our situations (especially in this most red county of the red state of ...