Find your public meetings, agendas
January 13, 2025

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Welcome aboard! This is a list of public meetings and agendas to help you follow the work of officials you’ve elected.

How much should taxes rise?

There’s a big money question before counties, schools and cities might be asking three times right about now: Should annual home property tax increases be capped at the rate of inflation?

The Georgia Legislature nudged counties, cities and school boards toward “yes,” with a vote last year on House Bill 581. Tax discontent is pretty potent in politics.

So, now, Georgia’s local governments are under a cap, unless they opt out by March 1, 2025 — a process that requires three public hearings. 

For supporters of it, a cap means relief for homeowners who are beset by greedy local tax assessors getting more money through the back door of higher valuations, and gentrifiers and new developments driving up property values.

For opponents, a cap is a way to starve public services of money — while delivering the biggest benefit to the owners of the priciest homes. Shaving a few percent off the value of a modest home might be worth a few hundred dollars. On a mansion with acreage, a cap reduces a tax bill by a lot more.

Some counties, including Chatham and Effingham, already limit property tax rises in various ways, to protect residents from valuation shocks, as long as the homeowner resides in the property. Homeowners aged over 62 or 65 can also generally claim higher property tax exemptions statewide.

Kingsland City Council’s agenda for January 13 includes a discussion of the question.

Bryan County Schools definitely want out. The system estimates that if a cap had been in effect in 2024, the schools would have missed out on enough money to pay 35 teachers for a year. 

Bryan County Schools have two meetings left of three required to opt out of the cap. Scroll on down for details on those and other public meetings from about 50 public entities we track along the coast. As always, if there is a public entity you’d like to see, let us know. We’ll try to add it. This list depends on what local governments offer on the internet.

Bryan County

Bryan | County Commission and Planning & Zoning 🖥

Bryan County Board of Education | 🖥

Bryan County Development Authority

Richmond Hill | City Council 🖥

Bulloch County

Bulloch | County Commission 🖥

Development Authority of Bulloch County

Camden County

Camden | County Commission and Election Board 🖥

Camden County Board of Education

Kingsland

St. Marys | 🖥

Chatham County

Bloomingdale

Chatham | County Commission 🖥

Chatham Board of Elections

Garden City

Pooler

Savannah | 🖥

Savannah Economic Development Authority

Savannah-Chatham Board of Education | 🖥

Thunderbolt

Effingham County

Effingham | County Commission and Planning Board 🖥

Effingham County Industrial Development Authority

Glynn County

Glynn | County Commission 🖥

Glynn County Board of Education | 🖥

Jekyll Island Authority

Liberty County

Hinesville

Hinesville Development Authority

Hinesville Downtown Development Authority

Hinesville Housing Authority

Liberty | County Commission 🖥

Liberty Consolidated Planning Commission

Liberty County Board of Education | 🖥

Midway

Walthourville

McIntosh County

McIntosh and Darien post some schedules only via The Darien News.

McIntosh and Darien streams for Darientel subscribers only | 🖥($)

Darien

McIntosh

This list starts with an automated collection and is checked and edited by a human. But agencies may announce new meetings, change meeting times or cancel them, sometimes without any online notice. Some publish calendars in more than one place with different information.  Some rely on Facebook posts which may require a login to read and cannot be collected automatically. 

You may want to call ahead and verify the meeting time and place, especially for smaller agencies.

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Maggie Lee is a data reporter for The Current. She has been covering Georgia and metro Atlanta government and politics since 2008, contributing writing and data journalism over the years to Creative Loafing,...