McIntosh County has spent more than half a million dollars defending its 2023 rezoning of Hogg Hummock, a small neighborhood on Sapelo Island that’s home to a Gullah Geechee community.
That rezoning is the subject of today’s referendum in McIntosh, which asks voters if they want to repeal the new ordinance, which allowed larger houses to be built in the enclave to increase the rural county’s tax base. Longtime residents, many of them descendants of people enslaved on Georgia’s sea islands, feared the resulting gentrification and higher property taxes would drive them out of their homes and sweep in wealthy developers.
Through open records requests, The Current GA gathered attorneys’ invoices and county purchase order summaries from October 2023 through November 2025. The payments, connected to Sapelo-rezoning-related lawsuits, add up to $518,275 and continue to accumulate in a county where the 2026 fiscal year budget comes in at about $21 million.
The Cumming-based firm of Jarrard & Davis collected $464,256 of the legal fees. The firm represented the county in its losing Georgia Supreme Court case challenging the legitimacy of the referendum as well as in ongoing litigation in which residents sued the county claiming the zoning amendment violates state law and their constitutional rights to due process and equal protection. The county spent another $54,020 at the Perry-based firm of Walker, Hulbert, Gray & Moore to represent Probate Judge Harold Webster, a county employee who the county sued over his decision to approve the petition-driven referendum in 2024.
None of the five McIntosh County commissioners responded to a request for comment about the spending.
Josiah “Jazz” Watts, one of the main organizers of Tuesday’s referendum, has a long list of projects he would have prioritized over legal fees.
“Half a million could have gone into the community center (on Sapelo),” said Watts, a multigenerational Sapelo descendant and community member who also serves as a Justice Strategist for One Hundred Miles. Residents have clamored for a modern medical clinic at the center, which now operates a a bar and grill.
“Our roads need servicing,” Watts said. “Our culverts need repair so that after heavy rains the roads are not being flooded.”
The tally of legal fees includes costs through November, 2025. While the Supreme Court case has been decided, the case that residents brought against the county, Grovner v. McIntosh, continues. Court-ordered mediation broke down after two days of in-person negotiations in December. The two sides expect to file a joint status report by Feb. 7 to Sr. Judge F. Gates Peed in McIntosh County Superior Court detailing the outcome of the referendum and proposing next steps for this case.
By Friday evening, more than 900 of the county’s approximately 10,000 registered voters had cast their ballot early on the referendum. Voting continues through 7 p.m. Tuesday. Results are expected by late Tuesday.
“I feel strongly that voters are going to send them a message and the question is, are they going to hear the message and take action?” Watts said.
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