City Council Update

First of all, we had an extremely busy night at Watkinsville City Council tonight. Thanks as always to those who attended the meeting. A quick recap for those of you who couldn't make it:

• The Atchley family, who reside in the historic green home on South Main Street, won the Beautiful Yard of the Month award. It is well deserved -- they have been landscaping and growing a beautiful garden in their driveway. This is one of the oldest homes in Watkinsville, originally built in the late 1700s or early 1800s, I think.
  
• Two-term councilman John Walsh tonight announced his official resignation as he has moved out of the city. The council appointed Christian Lake resident and former Realtor(R) Henry Norman to take his place. John served the city ably, and we look forward to putting Henry to work as well. Henry's background in public safety and real estate should bring a lot of strong and complimentary skills to the council. I have known Henry since going through Leadership Oconee in 2004 and can testify that he is a very strong leader and great thinker. He will fill the term through Dec. 31, although if elected in November to the post (he has declared his candidacy), he will continue on as a council member for a 2 year term. We are all excited to have a resident of Christian Lake -- our largest subdivision in the city -- on the council.
  
• We had a lengthy discussion of SPLOST priorities. Samantha Purcell and I provided recommendations on significant upgrades and improvements for Harris Shoals Park (including improvements of existing facilities, a new young children's playground, recycling bins, new restrooms, stream bank remediation, etc.) as well as funding allocated for Rocket Field and our newest park (along Barnett Shoals Road) at a later date. We will likely finalize these items at our next meeting and work through a delivery schedule.
  
• As I expected, the council unanimously opposed the four-laning of Simonton Bridge Road from the Oconee County line to 3rd street. There was discussion of what improvements may or may not be necessary (Kate McDaniel had suggestions as well), but the council was in agreement that the proposed MACORTS long range plan would not be good for the city. See yesterday's entry for more background on this and for details on how to offer your opinion on Simonton Bridge and other proposed future road improvements.
  
• We also kept the millage rate the same (city taxes will fall due to slightly lower property valuations), and adopted ordinances to deal with franchise fee issues and flood damage prevention.

As always, would welcome any input on these or any other issues!

Retreat!

Apologies for the late notice, but the Watkinsville City Council is having its first planning retreat in many years (if ever) tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Ashford Manor. The public is of course invited. Items on the agenda include discussion of SPLOST funds (focused on roads, sidewalks, greenspace, infrastructure, and public safety investments), the County Courthouse situation, annexation, and many other "big picture" topics it is difficult to discuss at regular meetings. Citizen input is encouraged -- feel free to comment or e-mail with items if you cannot make it.

SPLOST Turnout

As of 7:50 this morning, only 3 people had voted at the Watkinsville East Precinct. The contrast to the jammed polls of November could not have been more stark.

While my son did enjoy the empty building and took the opportunity to show off his nascent football skills to the poll workers, it doesn't say much for voters in Oconee County to have such a small turnout. SPLOST will raise as much as $3 million for sewers, sidewalks, greenspace, playgrounds and public safety investments in the City of Watkinsville (and $37 million for the rest of the county).

Information (and some opinoions) can be found here, here, here, here, and here. The Chamber of Commerce has also weighed in in favor of SPLOST. As I have said before, it is a no-brainer.

SPLOST in the OC

The Oconee County SPLOST vote is approaching on March 17, exactly two weeks from today. Some background on SPLOST: it stands for Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax. It is pronounced suh-plah-st; only in Athens-Clarke do they use the SPEE-lost pronounciation, which struck me as weird when we moved back to Oconee in 2002. SPLOST dollars can be used for capital improvements, but not ongoing government expenses.

At any rate, the run-up to this SPLOST has been very quiet. The first SPLOST vote I can remember in Oconee was when I was a kid, and it was anything but quiet. Although I was too young to vote, I was certainly a lobbyist on behalf of the county. I cared because it was to pay for the John T. Brannen building, aka the "New Gym," at Herman C. Michael Park.

You see, Oconee didn't generate nearly as many sales tax dollars then (our big retailers were Bell's, Oconee Sporting Goods, our four Golden Pantries, and A.J.'s), so there was a big campaign to get folks to vote for the extra 1% sales tax that SPLOST entails. I made significant contributions to the cause with daily purchases of Mountain Dew ($.39 per can) and Skittles ($.33 on sale) at the old Golden Pantry at the "4-way stop." I typically rode my bike up there or walked in the summer, or walked over there from OCHS -- now Oconee Middle -- during the school year.

So anyway, the SPLOST passed, and all of us amateur basketball players reaped the benefits as we moved from the "Booster Club Gym" in downtown Watkinsville -- now dubbed "Rocket Hall" -- to a shiny new gym at Herman C. Michael Park. The person in charge of herding the teens at the "New Gym" was Dan Matthews, who was known to jump into a full court game every now and then to teach us kids a lesson. Since then, many notable county projects have been funded with SPLOST dollars, including the new Veteran's Memorial Park.

So recently the ABH, Lee Becker and Wendell Dawson have taken a hard look at upcoming the 6-year, $40 million SPLOST referendum, and you can read the blogs for their perspective on the county's priorities. Overall, SPLOST is a valuable tool that removes significant burdens from property owners, particularly if it isn't used to fund projects that require significant ongoing general fund dollars. These kinds of "legacy" projects can be tempting for governments, but should be avoided as SPLOST investments as they create a significant ongoing operating cost that cannot be funded with future SPLOST dollars. Most of the stuff on the list passes the smell test.

One thing that hasn't received a lot of focus is that this is the first SPLOST in which Oconee County's four municipalities are participating. Watkinsville will recieve 7.99% of the proceeds, or approximately $3.2 million. Most of these funds will be used for sidewalks, greenspace and roads, which will require limited ongoing maintenance funds, but are in much demand from our citizens. Potential sidewalk locations include Harden Hill Road, Simonton Bridge, and/or VFW drive. Playground improvements, new sewer lines (not sexy, but very necessary to improve our industrial park), and greenspace acquisition are also on the table.

Bogart will get $1.6 million, New High Shoals $668,000, and Bishop $220,000. For our small cities, this funding boost is truly a game changer, allowing some flexibility with tight budgets and the ability to better serve citizens.

As alluded to by Dawson and Becker, there are likely other issues at play in the background, but in my mind, a vote in favor of this SPLOST is a no-brainer. While we may all quibble over details, the good far outweighs the bad in this proposal.