A collision course for Putnam County’s Lake Oconee area voters in District 3 appears in the making for the third week in September.
At one end, moving slowly forward on the calendar since early spring is the Putnam County Board of Commissioners’ rewrite of the county’s short-term rental (STR) ordinance, which likely will impose a long-term impact on the future character of Putnam’s lakefront properties in particular.
At last Friday’s first monthly meeting, commissioners held the legally required public hearing for their final draft of the STR ordinance, plus added a couple of changes, including a reduction in the proposed number of STRs permitted from 400 to 350 licenses.
The actions and commissioner comments set the stage for final passage of the ordinance at the commission’s Sept. 19 mid-month meeting, a Tuesday evening.
Meanwhile, working backward from a Nov. 7 election for the District 3 commission seat, voluntarily vacated early last month by Alan Foster, is a schedule of deadlines dictated almost entirely by state election laws.
(See the “Call for Special Election” legal ad on page A5 of this edition of The Eatonton Messenger.)
With the central, if not the only, issue in the election focused on the pending STR ordinance, the point here lies in the qualifying period for candidates: a two-and-a-half-day opportunity beginning Monday, Sept. 18 to noon on Wednesday, Sept. 20.