Watkinsville City Council Wants Oconee County Government Offices To Stay Downtown

The Watkinsville City Council last week interjected itself into the ongoing discussion about what to do with the existing Oconee County courthouse by unanimously passing a resolution stating that it believes county offices should remain in downtown Watkinsville.

The vote on Wednesday evening comes as the Oconee County Board of Commissioners is about to relaunch its discussion of the 2015 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum, now scheduled to be on the ballot in November.

The major uncertainty in those discussions is how to handle a request by Oconee County Chief Superior Court Judge David Sweat for $25 million in SPLOST funds for a new courthouse or judicial facility.

At its last discussion of SPLOST priorities–at a called meeting on March 3–Commission Chairman Melvin Davis proposed that no money from SPLOST 2015 be used for a new courthouse or judicial facility.

Instead, he proposed, all offices other than judicial ones should move out of the existing courthouse, and the county should use $2.7 million in unspent funds from SPLOST 2004 to make over the existing courthouse as a strictly judicial facility.

For more on this story, including details of the new SPLOST timeline and dates of meetings for citizens, go to Oconee County Observations.