Mary Landers, The Current
Last month, when a Superior Court judge halted a McIntosh County referendum meant to protect Sapelo Island’s Gullah Geechee community, he sided with local officials who believe that the vote’s $20,000 price tag was a waste of taxpayer money.
Yet in July and August this year, the county commissioners spent nearly double that amount in legal fees fighting the civic action backed by thousands of county residents, according to public records reviewed by The Current.
Additionally, the county has racked up more than $130,000 in a second legal case related to the same zoning issue at the core of the referendum debate. The second case argues that the commissioners violated the civil rights of the Sapelo community, descendants of emancipated West African slaves, in the decision last year to allow larger homes within the traditional community known as Hogg Hummock. Seven elderly people died last Saturday when the ferry ramp on Sapelo Island buckled and pitched them into the sea, a tragic ending to a day where hundreds of people visited Sapelo to celebrate the Gullah community’s cultural heritage.
The county’s legal fees for defending its controversial zoning decision surpass the amount McIntosh budgeted in fiscal year 2024 for its Juvenile Court, and approach the amount it planned to spend on emergency management services. The legal bills do not include September, which included a one-day hearing and judicial order to halt the planned Oct. 1 referendum. And legal bills are sure to grow, as the Sapelo advocates take the issue to the Georgia Supreme Court for a decision on whether the referendum can resume.
At least 826 McIntosh residents had cast ballots in special election to either approve or repeal the zoning ordinance made last year. County commissioners say the decision will bring in more property taxes. Sapelo residents say the commissioners disregarded their concerns that the change would destroy the historic integrity of their community. They also believe that the commissioners violated Georgia public meetings laws in the process.
The zoning dispute is the latest in a history of legal battles between Sapelo residents and the county, which two years ago settled a civil rights suit by promising to provide better services to the island community, including fire and health care.
After losing the zoning decision, Sapelo residents and descendants decided to embrace a state constitutional right allowing citizens to petition via local referendum to overturn unpopular decisions made by local officials.
They collected more than 1,800 signatures — more than the amount required by state law to trigger the county referendum.
In July, Probate Judge Harold Webster approved the petition and allowed the vote to move ahead.
The special election’s ballot posed one question to voters: Did they want to repeal zoning for Sapelo’s Hogg Hummock passed in Sept. 2023? The zoning allows bigger, taller houses in the community that descendants of the island’s emancipated people have called home. The change is expected to bring more property tax revenue, but residents fear that will price them out of their generational homes.
The McIntosh County Commission immediately challenged the decision made by the Probate Court judge, arguing both that the referendum wasn’t legal and that it would waste taxpayer money.
In July, the county directed Cumming-based attorney Ken Jarrard of Jarrard & Davis LLP to prepare and argue its case. The firm specializes in representing Georgia counties and municipalities and was already working for the county to defend its zoning decision. Jarrard’s fees are $350 an hour, according to invoices reviewed by The Current.
From July 12, 2024, through Aug. 30, 2024, the county accrued $38,296 in referendum-related legal fees, the invoices show.
The total does not include legal bills for September, when Superior Court Senior Judge Gary McCorvey heard oral arguments about the case.
The idea that Sapelo Islanders were costing the county too much money was a theme throughout the Sept. 20 hearing.
Jarrard argued that the probate judge’s decision to hold the special election was “effectively writing checks on McIntosh County’s checkbook.”
“That gives us a concrete, particularized interest to ensure that we’re following the law,” he argued. “The highest ideal that a county government can uphold is to protect the public purse. Georgia law is very clear that the county government does not have a general or constitutional right to spend money. It has a legitimate basis to spend money. So if we are, in fact, funding an illegal election, that’s illegal.”
During the hearing in McIntosh’s courthouse, the attorney for the county election board estimated the cost of staffing the Oct. 1 special election to be between $20,000-$30,000 (The McIntosh Board of Elections had intervened in the case, siding with the county.)
In his ruling to halt the referendum, Judge McCorvey said he believed the special election did not comply with the state constitution’s home rule provision for local referendums. His 16-page decision also cited the burden of costs on the county.
“Under the Probate Court’s order for the special election, McIntosh County has to spend thousands of dollars to finance such election. According to the Board of Elections, staffing the polls on election day alone will incur $20,000 or more, and, during early voting already underway, additional substantial costs have already been incurred,” McCorvey wrote. “McIntosh County has the duty to avoid wasting public funds and must be afforded some remedy to challenge the decision to hold an election ordered erroneously through Ga. Const. Art. 9, Sec.ll, Par. I (b) (2).” (Reference is to the home rule referendum provision of the constitution.)
Sapelo descendant and community activist Jazz Watts opposes the zoning and is frustrated at county elected officials. He scoffed at the county invoking fiscal responsibility as its motive.
“So you’re spending taxpayer money, more taxpayer money than it would have been to have a special election, in order to not allow people to exercise their constitutional right via the Georgia State Constitution?” Watts said in an interview with The Current. “And the irony of it is that they’re like, ‘Okay, we feel like this is a waste of taxpayer money.’ But you’ve already spent upwards of $170,000 literally trying to silence people’s voices.”
Watts criticized county officials for taking zoning advice for the historic community from a non-descendant landowner on Sapelo while refusing to engage fully with the Gullah Geechee residents.
“I expect them to do their jobs, you know,” Watts said. “This isn’t complicated. And they chose not to, and probably because they didn’t want to hear what we have to say.”
The county’s challenge to the referendum is one of two legal battles underway about Sapelo zoning.
Attorneys from the Southern Poverty Law Center and Attorney Jason J. Carter, Jimmy Carter’s grandson, of the Atlanta firm Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore are fighting the county decision on civil rights grounds.
In this ongoing case, titled McIntosh County v. Grovner, the county has spent $132,423 in legal fees with Jarrard & Davis through August, according to invoices reviewed by The Current. That amount is certain to increase. SPLC Attorney Miriam Gutman expects oral arguments on the pending motion to dismiss to be scheduled before the end of the year.
The plaintiffs’ initial complaint was dismissed in March on a procedural error. They refiled in May asking the court to reverse the zoning for a number of reasons, including that it “discriminates against the historically and culturally important Gullah-Geechee community on Sapelo Island on the basis of race.”
This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with The Current
