Oconee County Commissioners Return Tomorrow Night To Controversy On Farmland Protection

In the past six months, the Oconee County Board of Commissioners has invested nearly two hours of public meetings to a controversy of its own creation about a program involving relatively small amounts of money and relatively few people.

The program has required the county to spend just a little more than a half million dollars, but it has received nearly $3 million in state and federal funds. 

With that money, the county has protected 485 acres of productive farmland from future development in what federal officials have termed a model program and a “conservation success story.”

The program has been run by a group of citizen volunteers who have worked in partnership with farmers and agricultural experts as well as with an area land trust. There have been no visible signs of controversy.

Tomorrow night, the Commissioners are set to replace that citizen group and disrupt the successful procedures so they can appoint a committee of their own to do a small part of the work–ranking farms whose owners express an interest in the program.

The story is complex, with lots of odds, ends, and contradictions. To learn more, go to Oconee County Observations.