Two things will be different about the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners’ first meeting of July 2023. First, it’s being held on a Wednesday, July 5, and second, the 5:30 p.m. meeting will be the first in the expanded boardroom at the county’s newly renovated North Main Annex.

The commissioners displaced themselves from the annex for eight months during which Lavender & Associates, as construction management contractor, undertook the $1.9 renovation and expansion. Meanwhile, the commissioners and the planning and zoning board held their public meetings first at the Recreation Department’s Honey Bowen Building and – when summer day camps began there – most recently at the Bulloch County Center for Agriculture.

Now they return to the annex, where an expansion of the commission chambers was just one aspect of the renovation. But it was the part that required knocking out a brick exterior wall to take in about 800 square feet of former parking lot space and extend the roof on the north side of the building. Also on that side, a former portico that already had a roof has been built in as a smaller conference room.

Bulloch residents can see other aspects of the renovation when they visit office and service counter areas, such as those where county employees issue various permits.  But the commissioners’ meeting marks the return of public meetings to the building and the debut of additional public seating near a more accessible entrance.

Of course, the meeting is on Wednesday simply because the usual Tuesday was the Fourth of July.

Five zoning and land use requests top the agenda. Previously recommended by the Planning and Zoning Commission for approval with conditions, these propose a subdivision at Anderson Cemetery Road and Clinton Road, a manufactured home  park on Eagle Boulevard, the placement of a single duplex in an otherwise single-family home  zone at Dodd Circle and the rezoning of 44.5 acres on Highway 46 owned by Timmy and Julie Rushing for a recreational vehicle park.

Among other items on the agenda for commissioner approval are agreements involving the Development Authority of Bulloch County and two manufacturers, Hanon Systems and Ecoplastic America.