Democracy and Sapelo

Sunday Solutions — Sept. 10, 2023

We’ll take a little extra space today to talk about why citizens can feel disenfranchised even when they vote. Lack of transparency, understanding and bureaucratic inertia often collide to create mistrust, cloudy decisions and cost taxpayer money in the long run at local, state and national levels. Democracy Day is Sept. 15. Let’s look at some points of order.

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Sapelo community faces zoning challenge

In a public hearing on zoning changes Thursday night, residents of Sapelo Island’s Gullah-Geechee community did what few communities do: They showed up. Nearly 200 people crowded the McIntosh County Courthouse in a display of unity in opposition to a proposal that would specifically affect Hogg Hummock, the small community of the dozens of descendants of Black enslaved workers who have occupied and owned the land for more than a century. The county’s Planning and Zoning commissioners were clearly unprepared for the crowd that assembled in opposition to the planned rules the community, also called Hog Hammock, which would mandate minimum sizes for lots, greatly expand the allowable square footage for homes, end agricultural use, allow for inns and a marina. And, the wording would erase historic recognition or protection in county zoning for the last surviving Gullah-Geechee community on the coast. The most obvious complaint: Residents felt they had no voice in the changes.

After 35 speakers (all in opposition) and nearly 3 hours, 3 members of the 5-member commission voted 3-0 to make some adjustments to the proposal, including decreasing the dwelling sizes allowed and disallowing inns or a marina. Then it sent the measure on to the county commission to consider 4 days later at its Monday work session, promising the crowd that county commissioners would see — before it met — copies of the hearing’s minutes, statements, submitted statements and letters from school students who’d toured the island.

Also, we’d love to show you at least some of the meeting, the residents’ questions and the county attorney’s defense of the zoning panel whose members were unable to answer specific questions about the proposal they were about to approve. However, no recording exists. The public at the public meeting in the public county courthouse was prohibited from bringing in phones, cameras, purses or anything that might be banned from a court proceeding by order of the McIntosh County Sheriff. It could not be viewed live, and neither will Monday’s county commission’s work session or Tuesday’s regular meeting. Some full county commission meetings are recorded and posted later to view for a fee. The First Amendment Clinic at the University of Georgia School of Law says blocking recording of a public meeting by the public is an open meetings law violation — it’s sending a letter to the county sheriff and commission chair on The Current’s behalf to alert them to that.

One note for representation: The Thursday meeting was scheduled for 5:30 p.m. when the ferry — the only transportation back to Sapelo and Hogg Hummock — was set to leave for the day. The state decided to hold the ferry until the end of the meeting so island residents could stay and speak.

How did it all come to this? There are some mysteries, but here’s a story from The Current’s Mary Landers on what we do know. Monday’s county commission meeting is set to be a work session with no public input. It’s possible for the zoning proposal to go to a vote at Tuesday’s monthly commission meeting. If you are interesting in attending or contacting a commissioner, background and information are provided in the story.

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Georgia’s rural-metro fissure becomes chasm

Charlie Hayslett, a respected analyst for health and economic strategy in Georgia, has returned to writing for his terrific web site, “Trouble in God’s Country.” It’s always a fascinating look at the relationships of data, politics, economics, public health and other factors in the state — especially those affecting the rural parts of the state’s 159 counties, which he calls “NotLanna.” Lately, he’s been looking at the wide disparities in per capita income (PCI) to help elected leaders and the rest of us to understand the state’s divisions through distribution of income and poverty.

In what’s often touted to be “the best state to do business,” Hayslett’s analysis makes some jarring points. Nationally, there are 778 counties in the lowest 25% of per capita income; Georgia has 105 of them — more than any other state. Looking at the bottom quartile for poverty, Georgia scores again with 87 counties with poverty rates that range from 5.3% to 34%. Hayslett dissects the most recent data to show counties, regions and various types of income. His work and explanations take into account some recent gains and shine light on how much there is yet to do. Here’s a link to his very deep dive illuminating why the fractures in Georgia come from different perspectives of equity that must be bridged before other gaps can be filled.

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From the week

• State awards first grants under new rural housing program: Infrastructure money will flow to speed new developments in two cities and three rural counties in the state.
• Research: Paper ballots good, but accurately hand-counting them is next to impossible: A University of Wisconsin expert says speed and accuracy take a hit with hand-counting with long ballots used in U.S.
• Georgia craft brewers look to legislature to ease sales restrictions: As small business brewers pop up, state law limits what they can sell from their property and many say that cuts their options to grow.

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Are you on the leaderboard?

How did you fare on last week’s news quiz? PK32 scored 10 of 10 for the second week in a row! Want to challenge PK32? Test your news knowledge with a few short questions that pertain to stories we published earlier in the week. Here’s the leaderboard from the week:

First Place (10/10): PK32 (two weeks in a row), Eric, Squeeze
Second Place (6/10): FRANWS4, Mike, EWH
Third Place (5/10): Mimi, Bill, LAJ, Vicki

And here’s the link to this week’s quiz. Good luck!

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Your second cup: Ship project sinks

The Navy’s answer to modern marine warfare was to be the Littoral Combat Ship, designed for fast moves and better mine sweeping, among other needs has become a boondoggle costing billions in taxpayer dollars. The “little crappy ships,” as they are nicknamed, are now being mothballed early because of fatal design flaws that created engineering points that corrode the ship’s engines from within and never allowed weapons systems to work. However, the problems were known early, yet the inertia of military bureaucracy and home-state politics kept the projects alive to pay for even more ships than the Navy ordered. Here’s ProPublica’s thorough explainer that illustrates the effects when process and project failure meets political power.

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NOTE: This week we say good-bye to Dow Jones News Initiative data intern Kailey Cota, our final summer staffer to leave us. She’s headed to great work in South Carolina, and we’ll cheer her every step of the way. We’ll also miss her quiet smile and thorough efforts to find people to give real meaning to gray data sets.

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