Oconee County, GA Politics

AGENDA CITY OF WATKINSVILLE April 15, 2015 CALL TO ORDER QUORUM CHECK MINUTES 1.       March 18, 2015   APPEARANCES 1.       Mack Guest – business license – Dutch Properties, LLC – 109 Barnett Shoals Road 2.       Amber Hatley – business license – Amber Hatley Photography, LLC – 10 N Main Street 3.       Chad Sutton – business license – Sweetwater Pools & Supplies, Inc. DBA ASP of Athens – 1021 Industrial Boulevard, Ste. E 4.       Williams & Associates for Extra Special People (ESP) – variance request – 181 VFW Drive 5.       Williams & Associates for ESP – building permit – 13,887 sq. ft. building – 181 VFW Drive 6.       Mike Thornton – demolition permit – vacant house – 18 S Main Street ADMINISTRATION 1.       Marc...

Ashford Manor expands downtown Watkinsville presence | Online Athens

Ashford Manor Bed and Breakfast just doubled in size with the announcement that Dave Shearon and Mario Castro will be moving in their neighbor's to the south where Mike and Nona Thornton lived with their family. Anyone who attended the Daughters of the American Revolution's dedication of the pocket park in front of Jittery Joe's knows how far that property stretches. Dave and Mario will live upstairs and the downstairs will function as another meeting and event space. They are having a party to celebrate the 60th birthday of David Shearon's birth on March 25th as a fundraiser for the Dancing with the Athens Stars Team 6 with the unveiling of their new digs. Should be quite the soiree.

Many Georgia restaurant fans will fondly recall Harry Bissett's in downtown Athens at 297 East Broad Street. This longtime New Orleans themed Cajun eatery has closed since the first of the year primarily due to lack of payment of taxes, but a host of other ills had tainted this recent convert to chain, and series of poor business decisions doomed the once grand dame of the Athens seafood restaurant. Along come Mike and Nona Thornton of Watkinsville with a plan to resurrect the style and substance of Bissett's with their new N ew O rleans ' N A thens restaurant called NONA in the same Broad Street location that was once a bank in Athens.  Contrary to recent reports in the Oconee Enterprise newspaper, Thornton in not in bankruptcy over the development  behind the Oconee County Campus of Gainesville State College on Bishop Farms Parkway South by Georgia Aquatics Center (although proceedings have begun against his partner in the project and the bank has refused to finance ...