Oconee County, GA Politics

Georgia Republicans and bloggers should be ashamed of their leadership. Woven brightly, Daniel J. Matthews, Jr. Subject: Georgia Republicans: The Party of Limbaugh and Erickson Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2009 10:44:12 -0600 From: news@tondeestavern.com   Georgia Republicans: The Party of Limbaugh and Erickson Every year, the Georgia General Assembly considers hundreds of resolutions honoring everything from wounded soldiers to peanut festival queens.  Most times, these resolutions pass unanimously.  But last week, Georgia Republicans in the House touched off a political firestorm when they voted...

Mailbox blast makes for a rude awakening | allison.floyd@onlineathens.com Hopefully this is just a prank, but they sure chose a large and difficult mailbox to explode. Sounds like we will be finding out more soon. Thanks to Sheriff Berry for his vigilance and service

Beyond The Trestle: Not. The. Point. Johnathan echoes my sentiments regarding our esteemed ex-chair's letter to the editor in today's paper.

Becky Vaughn: Oconee BOE deserves pay hike | Athens Banner-Herald Former two-time Oconee County Democratic chair, twice failed candidate for local office and current Washington DC lobbyist Becky Vaughn pretty much guaranteed her own future local political irrelevancy with a letter to the Athens Banner-Herald supporting the equally poorly timed chime for raises asked for by the new Oconee County Board of Education.  Whether deserved or not, the BOE remains stained by the demand rejected by the local legislative delegation, whether the rug was pulled out from under them or not. The times are not supporting pay increases for our political leaders and followers. The economy being what it is does not dictate that this is the time for raises for anyone. I do not doubt the veracity of what she stated in her letter, nor do I contest the need for the Board of Education members to be better compensated sometime in the future. State Representative Bob Smith emerged seemingly unscathed w...

Deep South Health: Oconee County Bureau: Ways to think about and deal with death Welcome to the wonderful world of blogging about Oconee County, Georgia

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE The Oconee County Democratic Committee will make plans to entertain Brig. Gen. David Poythress during their next regular monthly meeting 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 2nd in the Governmental Annex Building on Highway 15 in Watkinsville.  Other agenda items include planning out next Fourth Sunday Series on bicycle commuting, and discussing the day and timing of future monthly meetings. For more information call 706-769-1131.

The Oconee County Democratic Committee will host a meet and greet with Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Poythress on Sunday, April 19th, 3 - 5 pm , at Harris Shoals Park in Watkinsville. There will be ice cream, and we are working on getting a country music or bluegrass band. Anyone who knows a band who would work the event for free, please contact me. We have invited Democratic committees from surrounding counties to attend and help. So far, the response has been strong. Please begin spreading the word now through word of mouth, blogs, letters to the editor, and any other means possible. Of course, we will start contacting the newspapers soon. We will need volunteers to help with promotion, set up and staging, serving ice cream, and all the other things surrounding this event. If you wish to help, please contact me off the list serve. Also, expect this event to be a major agenda item at our April 2nd meeting. Thanks, and I look forward to your support with this major Democrati...

State Representative Bob Smith of Watkinsville has recently floated an idea to take over the operations of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport from that of the current amalgamation of Clayton County and the City of Atlanta, of which it currently stands. While I am not an Air Traffic Controller nor experienced in the day to day running of an airport, I can vouch for the State of Georgia's ability to try to cope with the traffic in metro Atlanta and can give them a grade for their efforts so far: F as in failing. It is funny how the Republican majority here in Georgia seems to be very anxious to yank control of the State Department of Transportation or the Airport at any given chance, but when it comes to funding those infrastructure improvements so desperately needed, the transportation issue is seemingly always last in line. For years an idea of an alternative airport has been kicked around for Jackson County and elsewhere, and this is no where near getting ready to taxi on th...

By nearly identical 2-1 resounding ratios, the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax passed (1039 to 400) and Michael Ward defeated Janet Jones (60 to 31) in Bogart in the special election Tuesday night in Oconee County, Georgia. The biggest shocker on this St. Patrick's Day Tuesday evening is that once again we are teased with the prospect of leaving Madison County itinerant State Senator Ralph Hudgens behind us as he claims he is running for State Insurance Commissioner, currently held by John Oxendine who is running for Governor rather poorly at the moment.

Georgia NORML faces hearing on UGA trademark - News javascript:void(0)

Go vote today if you live in Oconee County for the SPLOST referendum (essentially another penny on every dollar of purchases in Oconee to help our towns and projects through the unincorporated areas as well) or especially if you are a resident of the municipality of Bogart (which stretches into a tiny portion of Clarke as well) where there is a race between two candidates to replace Mayor Terri Glenn. Those candidates are Janet Jones and Michael Ward and I salute them both for having the nerve to serve as an elected official, a thankless task if there every was one. Just ask David Weeks . Thanks to Adam Thompson for writing the story in today's paper to remind me of this important municipal election in Bogart . Adam was treated poorly twice by a copy editor demon on Saint Patrick's Day. Must be that red hair. Happy St. Patrick Day, by the way.

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Lee and Tony are good people and their opinions should be held in high esteem and regard. Woven brightly, Daniel J. Matthews, Jr. Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:22:49 -0700 From: southoconee@yahoo.com Subject: SPLOST vote To: aglenn@uga.edu I'm chiming in with some others to remind everyone to vote on the SPLOST referendum.  If you haven't voted already, please do so tomorrow, Tuesday, March 17th.   If you want to review some details associated with the SPLOST, I point you to Lee Becker's blog: http://www.oconeecountyobservations..blogspot.com/ .  Lee references other sources of info as well.   Here are some relevant details I've taken from Lee's posting on this issue.   -  County voters first approved SPLOST taxes in 1985, after the Georgia General Assembly authorized the tax that year, and they have approved renewal taxes in 1987, 1991, 1995, 1999, and 2003.   -  These monies have been used for Heritage Park on U.S. 441 in the sout...

I would well imagine that many voters in Oconee County, Georgia are becoming less and less enamored with their government after the last six months of secretive and buffoonish behavior on behalf of some of our less distinguished leaders. I was all set to let their ridiculous actions on everything from playing hide the court house and molesting softball coach to paying two superintendents at a time to lets remove the airport from control of Atlanta to a variety of other ills cloud my judgment and persuade my into voting against the SPLOST proposals on face value just as my way to thumb my nose back at the poor performance of Oconee County Board of Commissioners chair G. Melvin Davis, Oconee County Board of Education Chair David Weeks and State Rep. Bob Smith. None of these folks are above blame or reproach. But one curious thing happened which changed my point of view: the municipalities are finally getting their share of the SPLOST pie . So that means that the county seat of Watkinsvil...

If you are hungry, and are part of the reported 8% of Oconee County households who do not have enough food for your family, please consider attending this important food distribution if your income does not exceed the stated limits. Food distribution planned Thursday | Athens Banner-Herald

Bob Smith is a tool. Who he is a tool of in this act is open for debate, but he has never once tried to act with authority toward the airport in Athens, so why should he take on the world's busiest airport is beyond me. But I do know this much: never has there been a worse idea out of Oconee County. DeCosta calls airport authority bill 'irresponsible' - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

Oconee County State Representative Bob Smith, fresh after shooting down an ill-advised and poorly timed raise proposed by the Oconee County Board of Education and helping the charter of North High Shoals get to the Legislature, has cashed in that good will with a harebrained idea of the State of Georgia taking over Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta, the world's busiest airport. This is an idea who should have never seen the light of day. Lawmaker: State should take over Atlanta airport | ajc.com

Critics: Stem cell bill would hurt Ga. business - Forbes.com

Let David Weeks, Tom Breedlove, Mack Guest and cohorts know what you think of their raise idea. --- On Thu, 3/12/09, Rich Clark <richclark32@yahoo.com> wrote: From: Rich Clark <richclark32@yahoo.com> Subject: Special Board of Education Meeting announced To: "Rich Clark" <richclark32@yahoo.com> Cc: "Janet E. Clapp" <clapp@charter.net> Date: Thursday, March 12, 2009, 11:51 PM In case you missed it, the Oconee BoE announced late this afternoon its intent to hold a public meeting on Monday, March 16th, at 5 p.m. for the expressed purpose of hearing from the public on the issue of Board member compensation.  In the Oconee Enterprise, BoE Chairman David Weeks said, "I don't feel that our side has been told. We want a chance to tell how it all happened."  So possibly this is more of a dialogue.    Because there is not much time to advertise this public meeting, please share the news with anyone who may be interested.  ...

Those who wish to comment on the possibility of three convenience stores selling beer and wine inside of the city limits just as 90% of the rest of county does already are counseled to attend the next two Watkinsville City council meetings for the reading of the proposed beer and wine retail ordinance on the second Wednesday of the month. Councilman Brian Brodrick, realizing the mathematics making reasonably certain his defeat in opposing the measure, instead took the tact of making the measure the best it could by tightening what he thought were a few holes in the conservative document. City Attorney Joe Reitman conversed with Brodrick and addressed other concerns through out the evening. Reitman works for a dozen different municipalities including Bogart which now allows beer and wine sales (but evidently does not do so yet). He cobbled together the latest proposal from some of those and refined from the time when Watkinsville recently allowed beer and wine sales in restaurants (now ...