McKillip Pays Visit to Oconee Commissioners

Georgia State House Rep. Doug McKillip of District 115 dropped in on the Oconee County Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday evening to assure citizens that he will be available to help them in the wake of the of Rep. Hank Huckaby.

Huckaby left his position in House District 113 late last month after the University System Board of Regents position.

McKillip said he didn't want constituents to feel like there was nobody for them to go to if they have concerns.

Also at the meeting, the commissioners voted to postpone the decision regarding laying out $5,000 for their third of the cost for that would take a closer look at properties' cost of services as related to tax revenue.

The software was developed by University of Georgia's Jeffrey Dorfman, a professor of agricultural and applied economics.

“I don't want to spend $5,000 if it's not what we want,” said Commissioner Margaret Hale.

Hale said the commissioners should sit down with the and the development authority – the other entities who have each already committed $5,000 – before making a final decision.

She added the organizations should take a closer look at the benefits of the software to make sure the software would be useful to the county, and to outline any tweaks that may need to be made to the software.

Rick Waller spoke on behalf of the development authority, calling the software a “viable tool.”

He said three employees from the development authority hadn't seen Dorfman's presentation about the software due to turnover. He asked the commissioners if all the entities could find a time to sit down and review the software together with Dorfman.

“We were pretty impressed with the data that comes out of this model,” Waller said.

Further discussion was postponed to an undetermined date.