Oconee County Commissioners Made Appointments Inconsistent With Governing Agreements

When the Oconee County Board of Commissioners on Feb. 12 followed Chairman Melvin Davis' lead and made appointments to four regional boards, it both replaced people and reappointed people whose terms had not yet expired.

And while Davis said the appointments were required based on intergovernmental and related agreements, he and the commissioners actually went counter to those agreements in making some of the appointments, an examination of those agreements and other documents shows.

Davis and the Board also missed the opportunity to put citizens in important positions on two of those boards as allowed explicitly by the agreements Davis referred to.

By lumping the appointments together, Davis and the commissioners provided a cover for the only real change of significance.

Former Commissioner Chuck Horton, who unsuccessfully challenged Davis in the July 2012 Republican primary, was removed from two boards on which he could have continued to serve as a citizen. In neither case is it clear his term even had expired.

For more on these appointments, go to Oconee County Observations.