County Commission Chair Tells Citizens To Pressure School Board

Oconee County is willing to modify its plans for the parent entrance to Malcom Bridge Middle School, but that will be possible only if citizens put pressure on the Board of Education to consider alternatives, Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell said last week.

Daniell said the proposed modified R-Cut design is good but not the best option, and the originally proposed roundabout, rejected by the Board of Education, is better.

Daniell also presented a series of possible alternative designs to manage traffic at the school entrance, but these would require the Board of Education to grant easements and to modify the roadway on its property.

“It is going to take parents and property owners along that corridor to encourage the Board of Education to take a different stance,” Daniell said, and he encouraged those who are unhappy with the proposed design to write and call School Board members to make their case.

Daniell was speaking at the Town Hall Meeting last Tuesday, where the featured topic was improvements to the Malcom Bridge Road corridor, including at the entrances to the school campuses.

The 10 citizens who showed up in person and the half dozen who were online did raise other questions, but the entrance to Malcom Bridge Middle School dominated the meeting.

Daniell and the three other commissioners present said, in response to a question, that there was no interest in defunding police in Oconee County.

Daniell also said the county had considered several sites inside Watkinsville for expansion of the library and for a new county administrative building–including sharing undeveloped land owned by Oconee County Schools–before settling on the selected site north of the city border.

For more on this story, with a video of the Town Hall Meeting and pictures of the roadway options, please go to Oconee County Observations.