OPINION: The Lawsuits Are Dead. The Politics Are Just Getting Started in Columbia County
A judge closed the cases. The county’s lawyer opened the campaign
Cross-posted with Garden City Gossip
Opinion | Political Analysis
Columbia County, GA – Before last week, I had never been inside one of the courtrooms at 640 Ronald Reagan Drive. It looks like a…. courtroom. Wooden benches, dark wood furniture, boring government floors, incredibly bright white walls with nothing on them. The place was pretty sleepy last Thursday afternoon. A security guard joked that I might have to walk around in my socks after my boots set off the metal detector.
A handful of observers attended anyway: County Manager Scott Johnson, District 3 Commissioner Mike Carraway, and Planning Services Division Director Scott Sterling. Cambrey Wood, the Democrat running for Commission Chair, who publicly called for a moratorium on data centers, was also there, along with a few residents who were opponents of the data center approvals. For a set of data center lawsuits that would be dismissed in under thirty minutes, it was a decent showing.
Gregory P. Guido Jr., the Harlem resident who filed three petitions in Columbia County Superior Court challenging the data center rezonings and a rock quarry approval, read his argument aloud from his seat, while Judge Sheryl B. Jolly listened. The county’s attorney approached the bench and laid out the case for dismissal. Then it was over. All three petitions dismissed on the same grounds: lack of legal standing of the petitioner and wrong method of filing. It was a quick hearing.
I covered these filings a couple weeks ago too. At the time, I flagged that O.C.G.A. § 5-4-3, the statute Guido cited, is explicitly marked repealed in the current Georgia Code, that the quarry petition acknowledged the 30-day filing deadline already passed, and that land-use litigation is usually procedurally unforgiving, even for attorneys. So, the dismissal wasn’t a surprise. It was a predictable outcome of filings with identifiable problems from the start.
Some folks characterized the dismissal as the good ol’ boys club protecting their own. I’m going to push back on that narrative. The filings had identifiable problems from the start and the court treated them accordingly. Whether the Columbia County good ol’ boys network makes deals outside of public meetings, at the 1790 Club or the golf course, is a separate question, and not one that could be answered during this case.
Austin Rhodes said on his radio show that Guido was lucky Judge Jolly didn’t sanction him for filing a frivolous lawsuit. I’m skeptical of that framing. Frivolous has a specific legal meaning: baseless and brought in bad faith. A pro se litigant filing a procedurally defective case using a repealed statute is wrong, but I don’t think it rises to the level of bad faith.
The county’s attorney made an observation during his remarks that stuck with me though. He said that rezoning decisions are among the most politically contentious decisions a commission makes, implying this was a matter for politics, not the courts. The political landscape heading into May and November is no less contentious than it was when I first covered these cases a couple weeks ago.
The May 19th Republican primary for Commission Chair features a race between the current District 4 Commissioner Alison Couch and Grovetown Mayor Gary Jones, who resigned his mayorship to enter the race after having previously endorsed Couch. Some of her supporters have characterized his entry as backstabbing. Jones said publicly that he can’t undo the data center approvals already made, won’t vote for more, and has implied he’d look into anything that looks shady. So far, Gary Jones has not responded to my request for an interview. Some Jones supporters have been circulating what they describe as an informal anti-data center ticket, though how consistently that position is held across all the candidates they’re promoting is not clear from their public materials.
District 4, the commission seat covering Harlem and Appling, the areas closest to the proposed developments, in addition to Grovetown, will not have a primary. Republican Al Reeves, and Democrat Samantha Rockwood will face each other in November. According to their campaign websites, neither candidate has made an explicit public statement on data center development, which is notable given that District 4 is ground zero for resident frustration on the issue.
District 1 has a crowded Republican primary between Alex Griffin, Bobby Timmerman, and James Van Meter, with Democrat Michael Jordan running in November.
The courts have dismissed the cases against the county. The county’s own attorney basically said to take it to the ballot box. This cycle is shaping up to be more competitive than usual in Columbia County, which is a good thing regardless of where you stand. One politician told me recently that they disagreed with contesting every race because of how much it costs to run. Fair point. Campaigns are expensive. If nobody ever runs against the folks crowned at the 1790 Club though, we won’t benefit from considering different ideas and views. Competition brings more people to the voting booth, and elected officials who have to earn their seats are more attentive to the people who put them there.