Data Center Politics, Woodbine Recall

Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026

Good Morning! In the news today: Data centers go center stage at state Democratic convention in Savannah; Woodbine residents flay city council over lack of financial accountability; and Buddy Carter gives a hint about his post-congressional future. Finally, we note several things you may have missed. Questions, comments, or story ideas? You can reach me at craig.thecurrent@gmail.com.

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NEWS: POLITICS

GA Democrats: The anti-data center party?

Except for the party’s candidate for governor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, no speaker at Saturday’s state Democratic Convention in Savannah received a more rousing response than Peter Hubbard.

The reason? Data centers.

Describing what he called “Republican socialism,” Hubbard, who is running for reelection to his District 3 seat on Georgia’s Public Service Commission, accused GOP state lawmakers “giving away billions of our dollars of tax revenues in exemptions to huge data center companies, leaving everyday Georgians to foot the bill.”

OpenAI’s proposed $20 billion data center in Effingham County, he said, “will require the power of three Atlantas and a whole lot of water, too.”

When Hubbard asked for a show of hands of those “concerned about unchecked data center growth right here in Georgia,” nearly every one of the thousand or so people in the ballroom shot up their hand.

Yet to what extent the Georgia Democratic Party is becoming the state’s anti-data center party isn’t clear. Opposition to the Effingham County data center project, The Current’s reporters say, number as many Republicans as Democrats, all angry about what they say is a lack of transparency and accountability by local officials. But as Hubbard showed, data centers have become a potent issue and major talking point for Democratic candidates, in particular.

A focus on data centers isn’t without electoral perils for Democrats. A key constituency — organized labor — tends to welcome the construction jobs they create. Also, they play well where people are desperate for jobs. Finally, by attacking them, Democratic candidates like Hubbard are likely to spur AI companies and their political action committees to spend billions of dollars to defeat them.

Perils or not, there’s no denying the anger and the electoral potential it holds. Just look at those raised hands.

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NEWS: GOVERNING

City faces charter challenge

Good governance — more specifically, the lack of it — was the subject of a town hall in Woodbine last week, as dozens of residents questioned city council members over why the city hasn’t filed an audit of its finances since 2020, The Current’s Daneen Khan reports.

The residents appear to mean business: They’re gathering signatures on petitions that call for a recall of three of the council’s five members, citing their failure to move with urgency to detail the city’s finances and put in place a more transparent accounting system.  

The officials in charge of clarifying and documenting the city’s budget problems say the issues arose from staffing shortages rooted in the pandemic. during the pandemic. None of the council members who attended the town hall addressed the recall petitions.

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NEWS POLITICS

‘Future opportunities’

Since U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter lost his bid for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in the first round of primary voting in May, Coastal Georgians have wondered about what’s next. He’ll leave office in January, making way for either Republican Jim Kingston or Democrat Amanda Hollowell.

In his latest Sunday newsletter, buried deep into a summary of his activities last week, the six-term congressman from St. Simons gives the clearest indication to date of his plans — or, at least, his ambitions.

He writes that he was at the White House on Thursday to “meet with officials to discuss future opportunities within the Administration.” An ambassadorship? A cabinet post? A White House staff job? He doesn’t say.

It’s a staple of almost any speech Carter delivers in his home district that Coastal Georgia is “where I’ve lived all my life, where I intend to live the rest of my life.” With his latest remarks on his post-Congressional future, it’s safe to say it won’t be full time any time soon.

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NEWS: UPDATES

6 things for your radar

• Chatham County Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley, who presided over the 2021 trial that ended with the conviction of three White men for the shocking murder Ahmaud Arbery in Glynn County, is stepping down from the bench at the end of the month, The Current’s Craig Nelson reports. No illness or scandal spurred the decision, the 57-year-old Walmsley said. Instead, he plans to take a job with Robbins, an Atlanta-based law firm specializing in litigation and regulatory law. Gov. Brian Kemp will appoint a successor to fill out Walmsley’s term.
• The Savannah Police Department says six employees have been placed on administrative leave after an internal audit found potential misuse of the department’s Flock Safety license plate reader system, WSAV reports. Elsewhere, rogue officers have turned the nationwide camera system into a tool for stalking.
• A decisive week for a new zoning ordinance for the Hog Hammock District on Sapelo Island? The McIntosh County Planning & Zoning Commission meets this evening to consider the latest version of the ordinance after a public hearing. Read the Q&A that details what the ordinance will and won’t allow for new building in the Hogg Hummock community 
• The Chatham County Commission decides against cutting the millage rate for Chatham Area Transit despite earlier threats by the commission’s chairman, Chester Ellis, to do so, Savannah Agenda reports. The commission also directs county officials to hire an outside firm to conduct a forensic audit of CAT to determine whether city-funded services, including the fare-free DOT shuttle and Savannah Belles ferry are fully paying their own costs. An earlier examination of CAT by county auditors directed by Ellis found no financial mismanagement, despite this insistence that the board has mismanaged and misallocated funds.
• Police departments along the coast have reactivated its school zone speed cameras. Some are active throughout the school day, while some are only for a few hours each day. Check juridictions along your local route for the rules there.
• “A civilization reveals its true character not by how efficiently it creates billionaires, but by whether ordinary people can eventually get off the hamster wheel of endless work.” (“America’s Retirement Nightmare Has Arrived,” The Hill, Aug. 1, 2026)

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Editor’s note: In last week’s Soundings, we reported that the announcement of a proposed data center in Effingham took place the same day that Gov. Brian Kemp and Southern Company CEO Chris Womack attended President Trump’s ceremony hailing his “ratepayer protection pledge.” That was incorrect. The data center announcement occurred July 22; the meeting took place July 23. The story has been corrected.

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