Oconee County, GA Politics

Elder Mill Covered Bridge, Rose Creek, Oconee County, Georgia 1 , a photo by Alan Cressler on Flickr. Great shot of our best local treasure

Subject: Rose Creek Stewardship CLEAN UP! Hi Friends! Here is your friendly reminder about our Rose Creek Stewardship Roadside (and creek) litter clean up as a part of Keep Oconee Clean and Beautiful Commissions GREAT OCONEE CLEAN UP!   Click on that link to see the story I wrote for Patch, and why Melvin Davis wants us to step up our efforts for this event.  It's an interesting story! The event takes place all over Oconee County on April 21st, but because I will be involved in those efforts on that day, I have scheduled our ROSE CREEK STEWARDSHIP clean up the Sunday before, on April 15. I HOPE YOU WILL PARTICIPATE IN BOTH EVENTS, but at the very least, let's get our area litter free! I am hoping that you will meet me at The Covered Bridge at 2:00 on Sunday April 15 and we can sort out the rest of the details from there. I will have safety vests, bags, gloves (I think) and pick up sticks, and also orange cones to help keep us safe in our efforts...

  Graffiti tags near Elder Bridge causes letters to be written and photos to be taken. The following are letters from Angela Helwig and Bill Zorn that have been minimally edited. I am all for protecting Elder Mill Covered Bridge by all means necessary. Subject: RE: elder bridge EMERGENCY!!!! Mr. Zorn (and all), As Director of Keep Oconee County Beautiful Commission, I receive e-mails from Keep America Beautiful regarding their various programs.  One that I have mostly ignored is their "Graffiti Hurts" campaign.  I see now that I was mistaken to believe that it would not be a problem here. Here is a link to the Graffiti Hurts website:  http://www.graffitihurts.org/.  It contains a lot of information including prevention, task force creation, best practices, etc.  There have been grants available the past few years from KAB for this program.  According to the KAB website, "In 2011, KAB expanded the national grants program and added one additio...

Many thanks to Watkinsville Mayor Joe Walter, Oconee County Chair G. Melvin Davis and Oconee County State Bank owner Amrey Hardin for voting to include Elder Mill Bridge and the neighboring Mill, the largely unused railroad line and the Apalachee River as regionally important sites by the Northeast Georgia Regional Development Commission Wednesday at the Holiday Inn in Athens. Oconee County Observation blogger and UGA Journalism Professor Lee Becker as always goes the extra mile in covering the event(s) that the local media largely ignored or ignores. Oconee County Observations: Four Resources in Oconee County Get Regionally Important Designation Posted using ShareThis

Elder Mill Bridge Park Forum from Lee Becker on Vimeo .

Please attend this non-partisan forum tonight if you can. Woven brightly,  Daniel J. Matthews, Jr. Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 11:25:55 +0000 Subject: [oconee] Elder Mill Bridge Park Forum Tonight   The panelists at tonight's Elder Mill Bridge Park Forum will be Dr. Russ Page, Peggy Holcomb, and Wayne Provost. Dr. Page will talk about his efforts to preserve the Elder Mill and its surrounding land; Ms. Holcomb will talk about the tourism implications of such a park; Mr. Provost will talk about governmental aspects of creating and maintaining a park. The forum is tonight, Thursday, March 25th, from 7 - 9 pm at the Watkinsville Library. Thanks! Jonathan Veit __._,_.___

What a wonderful turnout of people of all ages, stages, colors, political persuasion, religions, even nationalities. Biggest thanks should go to the person who wrote the below letter, Melissa Steele Subject: A Rose Creek Thank You! Dear Friends, Words are inadequate for me to express my graditude to all of you for your participation in my Rose Creek clean-up project.  I am honored that you thought enough me to listen to my request in the first place, then chose to become involved, step up, and make an effort to make a difference.  And make a difference you did!  Together we picked up 85 pounds of trash, and a combined 220 pounds of glass, plastic, and cans, ALL recycleable!  How 'bout that!!! The most important thing we did together, however, was raise awareness in our community and in our own hearts. Now as we open our eyes any time we are outside, we will all notice the trash on the roads, riverbanks, and wherever humans tread, and in many cases ...

The weather was near perfect Saturday morning for a large contingent of people to perform the back breaking work of picking up a sadly amazing amount of garbage both on the sides of Elder Mill Road and in both branches of Rose Creek in far southern Oconee County, thanks to organizer Melissa Steele.   The fine folks of Antioch Church allowed us to gather in their fellowship hall and hear from Steele as well as people from the Altamaha Riverkeeper and locals organizing a forum later in the month.  After signing a waiver and receiving instructions, we headed out to pick up garbage. It was astonishing the amount of crap people carelessly toss out the window of their passing vehicles. We found coolers, tires, bottles and cans of every kind, large pieces of metal and the requisite cigarette wrappers and coffee cups. We filled up two large black plastic garbage bags, one with recyclables and others with generic trash of the un-recyclable variety. Equally astonishing is the fact...

Please consider signing this petition to ask the Oconee County Board of Commissioners create an Elder Bridge Park around our crowned jewel Elder Mill Covered Bridge. Woven brightly, Daniel J. Matthews, Jr. To: oconee@yahoogroups.comFrom: jveit@bellsouth.net Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 03:32:13 +0000 Subject: [oconee] Online Petition to Create an Elder Bridge Park   At our last meeting, we discussed efforts to advance the creation of an Elder Bridge Park surrounding the Elder Covered Bridge. One of the things we decided to do was create an online petition where people could sign up to support the idea. I created this petition tonight. http://www.ipetitio ns.com/petition/ elderbridgepark/ I tried to find a petition site that wasn't too filled with advertisements. Unfortunately, that isn't very easy. Please send the link to this petition to as many people as you know who are supportive of the idea of creating and Elder Bridge Park. We also decided that we would host...

Oconee County Democratic Committee members and Republicans, and every political stripe in between ought to be part of Melissa Steele's Rose Creeks clean ups this Saturday morning down Highway 15 at Antioch Church Fellowship Hall on Antioch Church Road some eight miles south of Watkinsville. I do not have the waiver attached but I am sure Melissa will bring some on Saturday morning. To: Oconee County Democratic Committee  Sent: Mon, March 1, 2010 8:47:32 AM Subject: [oconeedemocrats] Creek clean-up   Did the committee talk about the creek clean-up that Melissa Steele is organizing? I sent out information about it some time ago to Karen to pass along to high school-aged Young Dems -- and to Kelly Manley, who oversees the Young Dems at GSU, but the date has crept up on me to talk about it among ourselves. I meant to bring this up at the monthly meeting -- If you guys will let me know if you'll attend, I'll pass along a rough count to Melissa. I...

Rose Creek cleanup slated for March 6 (this was borrowed from the Oconee Living section of the Athens Banner-Herald's February 24, 2010 issue A cleanup organized by local artist Melissa Steele along Rose Creek and Little Rose Creek is planned for Saturday, March 6. Volunteers are asked to meet at 9 a.m. in the parking lot of Antioch Christian Church on Antioch Church Road for breakfast. Signs with balloons will be posted to help volunteers find the location. The church is located about 8 miles south of downtown Watkinsville along Georgia Highway 15. Volunteers will gather inside the church fellowship hall. “We will provide breakfast, parking and restrooms, and give a brief safety talk, select teams and ferry volunteers to dropoff locations, pick them up later, return them to the church and their vehicles,” Steele said. To help plan food, people who want to help with the cleanup of these two streams are asked to call Steele at (706) 255-8528 or send an e-mail to mechanted7...

Melissa Steele is an Oconee County artist seeking to clean up the waters around Rose Creek and Elder Mill Covered Bridge Saturday, March 6, 2010. To possibly sponsor the breakfast at Antioch Christian Church at 9:00 that morning, email or call Steele at mechanted757@gmail or on her cell phone at 706-255-8528.

Tony Glenn and Russ Page have done a lot toward saving Oconee County's crown jewel Elder Mill Covered Bridge. Here are some of the more germane recent message exchanges. Daniel J. Matthews, Jr. To: oconee@yahoogroups.comFrom: southoconee@yahoo.com Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:39:55 -0800 Elder Mill   At the meeting tonight I mentioned the following details regarding the County's Community Agenda, which is a component of the Comprehensive Plan.  An part of the Community Agenda is the Short Term Work Program, which is a year by year (2008-2012) check list of objectives that the county sets for itself.  See more below. Tony Subject: RE: Elder Mill Afternoon everyone, I want to thank Russ and the others individuals that spoke last night on behalf of the Elder Mill and Bridge.  Getting the Commissioners to publicly state their respective position on the Mill and Bridge was helpful. I wanted to bring everyone's attention to the fact that the Co...

I am all for playground equipment, but not at the cost of creating a park around one of our best tourist attractions. Someone really dropped the ball on this, and I suggest it is at the top of the Board of Commissioners food chain. From: Lee Becker   Subject: BOC Meeting and Elder Bridge To: lbbecker@mindspring.com     Oconee County Officials Explain Lack of Money for Elder Mill     Bridge Protection     http://oconeecountyobservations.blogspot.com/2010/01/oconee-county-officials-explain-lack-of.html *Playground Equipment Got Priority * *Dear Friends, * *That is the headline of the posting I just did. I'm not sure I can do any better in summarizing what the county said last night to explain why it won't do anything to protect land around the bridge. * *Go to http://tiny.cc/OCO * *Thanks * *Lee * -- Lee Becker Blog: www.oconeecountyobservations.blogspot.com Web: http://lbbecker48.googlepages.com/ -- Sincerely, Da...

I hope someone in the Oconee County Board of Commissioners office shows some leadership in securing Elder Mill Covered Bridge by purchasing Al Cuming's former exotic bird farm and home as well as the property on the other side of the stream with the Grist Mill .  There is an excess of nearly $10 million in unused SPLOST funds . The property has been put for sale by local real estate agent Norm Grayson , who lives in Oconee County as well. To paraphrase Watkinsville City Council member Brian Brodrick, this is a no-brainer . Everyone (or at least the vast majority not in the lunatic fringe) in Oconee County would support this positive governmental move and use the park. I am afraid this opportunity will not last very much longer, and I wish I had more confidence in my local government's ability to make the right decision quickly.  Please prove me wrong!

The Central School house was moved a couple miles down the road to Heritage Park a few years back too Heritage Park and it created a positive buzz of national media notoriety for Oconee County. Now the lack of action by the Board of Commissioners in the planning and budgeting for this facility is appalling but just more evidence of the disdainful practice of supporting something on the surface but denying important funds and infrastructure behind the scenes. Can't really call this lip service per se, but more of a bait and switch approach to appearing supportive to some thing that would be almost impossible to oppose, then behind the scenes making sure nothing gets appropriated or done on the project. The proposed park around Elder Mill Covered Bridge is another example of saying one thing and doing another.

The self proclaimed "troll under the Elder Mill Covered bridge" Al Cuming was injured the other day by truck. We have served many years together on various committees and worked for the Eagle Tavern and covered bridge near his house. He recently lost his wife after a long bout with Alzheimer's. I will repaste Angela Helwig's email here on it: In case you have not heard, Al Cuming was injured yesterday – struck by a car – breaking his hip. He underwent surgery this morning. Chairman Davis spoke to him this afternoon and according to Al, the surgery went well and he’s feeling much better. He will be leaving the hospital in a couple of days and will enter rehab for a while. His daughter Lynn is here with him for now. Once Al is finished with rehab he expects to be as good as new. Angela Helwig Oconee County Board of Commissioners P.O. Box 145 Watkinsville, GA 30677 (706)769-5120 www.oconeecounty.net Word has it that the BOC decided not to pursue the purchase of the p...