Politics & Government
Audience At Oconee County Meeting On Mars Hill Road Land Use Voiced No Support For Project
GDOT also announced that the road will be closed Wednesday and Thursday.
About 40 people showed up last Thursday night at a meeting in Veterans Park to learn about county plans for development of Oconee County’s Mars Hill Road corridor, and none gave evidence of being there because of happiness with how things are going as the two-lane road is widened to four lanes.
Bill Ross, hired by the county as a consultant, told the residents as the meeting got underway that he wanted to hear from them, but he also said the meeting would last only an hour.
He then took up nearly 50 minutes outlining what he called findings of the “Mars Hill Road Land Use Study.”
What he did hear when he finally stopped to listen was mostly critical.
“We also have been told, over and over again, that they’re looking at the future, and this whole corridor being a commercial corridor,” one woman said. “It already is 200 times worse than we expected it to be,” she added.
The Georgia Department of Transportation made an announcement Monday morning that isn’t likely to make people feel better.
Mars Hill Road is expected to be completely closed during periods on Wednesday and Thursday as workers put in place beams for one of the two new bridges across Barber Creek.
For more on the story, go to Oconee County Observations.
Pictured: Bill Ross.