Category: News

Pre-trial motions resumed this morning in what’s described as a complicated Oconee County legal dispute involving a Lake Keowee town home project. Should the case titled Stoneledge at Lake Keowee Owners’ Association against IMK Development Company reach trial, the trial  might take three weeks and make for the longest Oconee civil trial since 2008 when the  accident at BASF, the […]

If your view today of the mountains is smoky, there’s good reason. The Forest Service in North Carolina has announced a prescribed burn of 850 acres southwest of Sylva. The burn site is near the border of Macon and Jackson counties. Smoke may be visible at times, and visitors should avoid the area of the Nantahala Ranger District during the […]

A 52-year old Westminster man has been arrested and charged with grand larceny and burglary second degree. According to the Oconee Sheriff’s Department, the case involves break-ins and thefts on two occasions at 397 Battlecreek Road in Long Creek. During the first incident, between February 1 and March 13, Charles Stephen Haynes is accused of taking $2,200 worth of rolled […]

Walhalla’s James Brown Elementary is losing its principal to an administrative position in the district offices. The county board of trustees this week approved the appointment of Michelle Grant as the new director of Federal Programs and Professional Development. Grant succeeds Steve Hanvey. Hanvey’s appointment as Assistant Superintendent of Instruction, like Grant’s appointment, takes effect July 1.      

By order of a circuit judge, there will be no trial of the civil pleadings of a man who claims that, while an Oconee County jail inmate, he was beaten by a fellow prisoner. Rickie Joe Moore had sued the Oconee Detention Center, and the case got as far as a jury strike during last week’s term of Common Pleas […]

Without dissent, Westminster City Council voted last night to surrender control of its municipal elections to the county’s elections office. It’ll mean that the county office, located in the county administrative complex in Walhalla, would assume responsibilities for advertising and conducting the elections. As Joy Brooks, the county elections director, explained during last night’s city council meeting, by allowing her […]

In Seneca today, it will be training only! The Oconee Sheriff’s Office plans to conduct SWAT training from 9 a-m to 5 p-m today at the old brick building near the location of the former Performance Chevrolet dealership, across from Oconee Lanes. Today’s exercises are for training only. No public action is required.

The new hierarchy of the Westminster Police Department told city leaders last night that a stepped-up effort to rid the city streets of drugs can have financial benefits as well. Chief Dean Awalt and Assistant Chief Rory Jones told the mayor and council that, as the result of a pair of drug busts, the police stand ready to inherit two […]

The Westminster mayor last night said his city should not get into the business of permitting a gun firing range on a small section of property on the city’s rodeo grounds on S. Bibb Street. Mayor Rick McCormick spoke last night after a firearms instructor, Helen Shepperd, requested the mayor and council look into the legality of allowing a firing […]

Members of Oconee County Council envision a one-cent capital project sales tax as a beneficial new tax that would create an alternative source of revenue for a county that relies on the property tax. During a committee meeting, council members last night agreed to bring up the idea during their next regular meeting. That idea could lead to a referendum […]