Oconee County, GA Politics

Authority keeps drought restrictions; raises cost to fish | Online Athens

Lee Becker once again effects positive change on the Oconee County, Georgia government with repeated and successful Open Records requests making more public and noticed. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Lee Becker < lbbecker@mindspring.com > Date: Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 9:51 PM Subject: County Agrees to Follow Open Meetings Law To: lbbecker@mindspring.com Dear Friends, Without admitting any wrongdoing in the past, Oconee County has informed the state's Attorney General that it plans to notify the public of meetings of its Drought Contingency Committee and of meetings of other advisory committees in the future in keeping with the state's Open Meetings Law. Documents provided by the county in response to an open records request I filed on May 13, 2008, showed that the Drought Contingency Committee met on Feb. 19, 2008, and approved an increase in water rates for residential users of the county. The county did not provide any evidence of advance notice of ...

Diane Cronin is a concerned homeowner in the Eastern part of Oconee County, much closer to the river than Watkinsville. She has battled clear-cutting developers tearing virgin forests and rare old growth tree thickets to no avail, but now she has State Representative Bob Smith in her sight . Her rage stems from Smith's approach to the exceptional and historic drought crisis, which is give back to landscapers the right to water the lawns. Even the slightly yellowed lawn at Athens Academy's Slaughter football field has survived the drought and frost reasonably well. Now I do not know if the fine landscapers at Athens Academy or elsewhere have used lake water or gray water to keep their fields and lawns reasonably hydrated. I hope no more area landscapers have to deal with the drought to the point of going out of business, but I also know the plans for the Charmar closing were in works for years. Athens-Clarke and Oconee counties are forever joined at the hip legislatively, ec...