Category: News

At their meeting Monday, Seneca planning commissioners will invite public comment on a pair of zoning change applications.  The first hearing will be switch to residential zoning for 501 S. Fairplay Street, which once was a child care center.  The second hearing involves four city of Seneca lots adjoining the Shaver Recreation Center.  The city requests they be designated R-20 […]

  Chairman Julian Davis of the all-Republican Oconee County Council hopes a new COVID-19 economic package will emerge without a $600 dollar weekly benefit to those who are jobless, as a supplement to the regular unemployment benefit available from the states.  And the reason is the counterproductive effect that jobless checks as high as $1,200 week are having on employers’ […]

South Carolina Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) announced 740 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 27 additional confirmed deaths.  The latest death toll includes one Oconee County resident, who died Wednesday.  Eleven new Oconee County virus  cases are on yesterday’s report. This brings the total number of South Carolina confirmed cases to 132,565 and confirmed  deaths to 2,992. The total […]

Oconee County has approved budgets.  Now it has the tax mill rates to generate the monies to fund expenses.  The county council last night received the recommendations of the county auditor, ahead of preparing the 2020 property tax bills.  The council set un-incorporated tax mills for general operations at 80.3 and in-corporated millage at 77.4.  For school purposes, mills will […]

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), City of Columbia, and the University of South Carolina (UofSC) today announced its surge testing efforts to expand access to free COVID-19 testing in Columbia, S.C. “‘I’m glad to be in Columbia to represent HHS as these testing […]

The counters at the state Employment and Workforce office are reporting a significant decline in the claim week between September 6 and 12.  Although numbers are double what they were pre-pandemic, they dropped 830 in one week’s time.  And Oconee first-time claims fell from 159 to 50.

  Walhalla Mayor Danny Edwards will approach the South Carolina Attorney General for an opinion to clear up questions raised Tuesday night by Councilman Dennis Owens about whether the imposition of a curfew could violate the rights of someone permitted to carry a gun.  Edwards directed the following announcement this afternoon to Walhallans:  “Today I plan to ask the South […]

Oconee County school enrollment this week is pegged at 10,209.  It’s a four percent decrease from the 2019-20.  But Dr. Michael Thorsland, superintendent, says it’s not a surprise.  “We anticipated a drop this year as parents considered other schooling options due to the virus.”  Enrollment this year is divided between face-to-face instruction and at-home instruction.  A total of 78% of […]

Like many parts of the Southeast, Oconee County has encountered trouble absorbing today’s drenching–thanks to the northerly path taken by Sally.  Some of the area’s most flood-prone areas include the parking lot at Yuseff’s in Westminster.  Walhalla has deployed men and trucks to low-lying Sertoma Field where the waters of Cane Creek far exceeded the banks.  Over a near five-hour […]

  The state’s chief justice has decreed it’s time for court administration to return to as normal a schedule as possible, and Oconee will comply by holding a General Sessions Court jury term the week of October 12.  Clerk of Court Beverly Whitfield confirms to 101.7/WGOG NEWS that preparations have begun including glass partitions for the 12-seat jury box, as […]