Oconee County, GA Politics

The always entertaining North High Shoals city council electoral process became all the more interesting with longtime incumbent Violet Dawe drawing opposition for her many term held post. New father Joseph Latner of Plantation Road will be running against Violet for her seat. There is also an open seat, vacated by Fred Johnson, where newcomers Sarah Donegan will be running against Stephen Arnold. Post 3 (currently vacant) will feature David Lawrence vs Scott Wilson Post 4 (currently held by Fred Johnson) will feature Stephen Arnold vs Sarah Donegan and Post 5 will have the incumbent Violet Dawe vs Joseph Latner (borrowed from Steve Holzman's blog ) "I think it is great that we have young people willing to run," said Dawe. "For the longest time we never had any candidates." She especially enjoyed her most recent term on the council, saying it was her favorite. "We got a lot done with the two other council members (Fred Johnson and Steve Holzm...

This is a great small city with a strong local contingent of active parents, homeowners and folks looking for the quiet, secluded, rural life. Seems some people are upset over recent election activity and are not real happy with the new person elected to the city council. Now let me be the first to admit, newest city council member Steve Holzman and I are friends and serve on the Oconee County Democratic Committee together, but this irrational fear of him on the part of some previously elected officials is irrational, unwise and cowardly. I would strongly suggest that Mayor Jeff Thomas need not resign unless he is actually tired of working for the city. I would also suggest that Council member Eddie Cape need not attempt to dissolve the city unless there was some other reason that a little bit of discontent over three registered Democrats being on the city council at the same time. It takes much more than one upset city council member or a resigning Mayor to dissolve a city council. It...

Steve Holzman is a good man and is worthy of your support if you are reading this and live inside of the tiny town of North High Shoals. I think he is running against Wade Thomas for the unpaid position. He writes letters to the Editor supporting his town and loves the out of doors. Holzman is an accomplished web master and maintains the real site free of charge for the Oconee County Democratic Committee. He loves Krimson Black's restaurant almost as much as I do, and I think he eats there more oftenn than I do as well.

The contrasts in the council meetings between two towns in Oconee County were evident last night. No one but two reporters were at the largely uneventful Bishop council meeting which was over inside of 40 minutes last night. But it was so packed in North High Shoals with the topics of referendums, recalls and revolt over a variety of issues including having people live on your farms, playing loud music late at night, having a new elementary school next to the city park, bush hogging greenspace next to your neighbors, who will represent your community on stakeholders' zoning plans, how you will deal with discontent over suing the city unsuccessfully to stop a subdivision being built next door, and how will your city hall building be painted by whom and at what rate? There was not an empty seat in the historic community City Hall in need of a couple coats of paint and scraping - how very odd - lots of people made sure their government addressed their concerns last night. There was de...