Writer: Lee Becker
Published September 22, 2021
Patch.com
Oconee County's Board of Education and Board of Commissioners have agreed to meet jointly on Sept. 29 in the small Oconee County Schools Board Room in what is being called a training session.
While the public is invited to attend–as is required by Georgia's Open Meetings Act–the notices on the web sites of both Oconee County Schools and Oconee County Government, state that "there will not be an opportunity for public comment."
Neither web site provides an agenda for the meeting, which stretches across the evening dining time from 5 to 8 p.m.
The meeting represents something of a victory for the Board of Education, which rejected the invitation of Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell to join the county commissioners in three Town Hall Meetings with the public at the end of last year and beginning of this year.
The School Board instead approved a proposal by then Board Chair Tom Odom that he approach the Carl Vinson Institute at the University of Georgia about conducting a training program for the members of the two Boards.
The announcements of the joint session does not indicate if the meeting will be moderated. It states only that the meeting will be a "joint planning session to include discussion on organizational structure and future planning."
The Board of Commissioners held its most recent Town Hall Meeting on Sept. 14 in the large theater of the Civic Center, which is jointly owned and operated by Oconee County Schools and the county government.
That Town Hall Meeting and all meetings of the Board of Commissioners are live streamed, while the Board of Education does not live stream its meetings. No links for remote viewing of the Sept. 29 joint meeting are provided in the announcements.
