Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'm calling to order the Columbia County Board of Commissioners January 20th, 2026 meeting to order on purpose at this time so that Connie had to run to her seat. Please pray with me. Father, we just thank you for the uh blessings you bestow on our county, our state, and our nation. Pray protection for first responders, and those law enforcement officers who are on the street every day to protect us. I pray that you be with us during this meeting and give us strength and wisdom. Amen. Amen.

Please stand for the pledge. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Let the record show we have a full quorum of commissioners. Commissioners, you have the minutes from the January 6, 2026 meeting in your packet. If you had a chance to review them, I'll accept a motion to approve them. Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to approve as presented. Second.

Any questions? All in favor, raise your right hand. Motion carries. I see no changes to the agenda. Have one thing, Mr. Chairman. I have one one item for your consideration, Mr. Chairman. We actually had a last minute appointment uh to the tree board. Commissioner Malier's John is it Migus Migus. Uh anyway, that was not reflected earlier. So if you will accept that additional name for the one item we have under I1A1. So it's not an additional vote. No, no, sir. It's just an additional name to the backup that you already had. Got it. I just want to make that public.

Seeing no special recognitions or uh declarations, I go straight to the consent agenda. Commissioners, items on this agenda. This agenda has been through the necessary have been through the necessary committees and receive the necessary votes to be placed on this consent agenda. If they still meet with your approval, I'll accept one motion to do so. Mr. Chairman, I make a motion to accept all of the consent agenda items as presented. I'll second questions. All in favor, raise your right hand. That motion carries. On to the debate. And I believe Vice Chairman Couch, do you have one item? Yes, sir. I make a motion to approve the reappoints and appointments as listed to the appropriate boards and committees.

Second, including the one tree. Any questions? There's a motion and second on the floor. On favor, raise your right hand. That motion carries. No legal matters or request for by excuse me, request for review by committee. So, we go straight to our public comments. And I'm looking at Brenda Hydeman.

Please state your name and address the record. And you have five minutes, ma'am.

Brenda Hydeman, 104 Hot Springs Court. Thank you. Commissioners, I'm concerned about the data centers and the amount of electricity and water they consume. The electrical grid can get overwhelmed during peak summer and winter use. Water is another concern. About 20 years ago, there was an extended drought and residents had odd even watering days. This was a climate event and not preventable. What happens when another drought occurs? and data centers are in use. All Colombia County residents have to deal with those issues. I don't want to have to worry about how many times a day I can flush the toilet and be restricted to two minute showers. I don't want to have to set my thermostat to 85 degrees in the summer or 55 degrees in the winter. I won't be cool enough in the summer or warm enough in the winter. Summers here are hot. Tonight will be very cold. It's not likely that data centers will cur curtail electric and water use. The equipment is expensive and can't be damaged by overheating. Will data centers shut down? Not likely. rationing and restrictions will have to happen because if there's not enough electric and water, there's just no other option. There are other states that use electric and water rationing restrictions as well. Not only private lives will be affected, businesses will suffer as well. All require electric and water in some manner. Homes will be monitored for daily power and water use if they exceed

restrictions. Fines or cut offs will happen. Businesses can be forced to shut down during peak hours or charged higher fees or both. The same will apply for water use. Think about electric vehicles. People who use medical equipment, work from home, recreational activities, electric bikes, golf carts. How will schools, clinics, food stores be affected? How do hotels, restaurants, car washes, laundromats operate with water restrictions? Businesses will leave the area. Data centers ultimately affect all Colombia County res all Colombia County residents, not just those threatened by a data center next door. Rationing and restrictions can become permanent. Quality of life will be affected in a negative way from threats of outages or water shortages. And the future, 5, 10, 20 years, our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren will be raised and forced to live with these restrictions as a fact of life. It's a type of freedom loss. How will data centers make life better for Columbia County residents now or in the long term? How are we able to exist just fine today without data centers in our county? How why create problems unnecessarily? A solution will have to be found for a problem that didn't have to exist. Don't create more problems to find unhappy solutions for. A mistake was made that needs to be fixed. Reverse your course and don't build the

data centers. It's not too late. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Daniel Lanning. Good evening. My name is Dan Lanning. Uh I live at 825 Rolling Brook Lane off Lewisville Road, um District 4. Um I'd like to pass out something real quick to each of you if that's okay. I made 10 copies. So I think all the way around we can get there.

Um I put together just a couple things. Uh I I would like to speak about the data centers for just a minute as this will be a direct impact uh to my family and so many people that live around me. We live across the street, excuse me, from the proposed bird tract um data center. And so I' I've I'm a numbers guy and I I like to just think about things. So tonight I just like to talk about a few things about the scale of these data centers and compare them to a few other things. Again, my hope is that the five of you are still having discussion about this, if you're allowed to discuss in advance, that you're still talking to your constituents, still considering um you know, the people that live around these three different areas. So, real quick, data centers and buildings, what's been proposed on all the resoning requests. As far as buildings go, I can I can gather there's about 16 million square feet of buildings. Um I labeled those out. And then with substations, what I can gather on what they've drawn on their maps about how big they are, we're looking at about 1.8 million square feet. Those are numbers that are hard for me to even understand. Um if someone said, "I'm going to give you a million dollars," I don't know if I'd understand that yet, you know. Um so when someone says 18 million square feet, that's hard to conceptualize. Um but what we can see is that 18 million square feet mathematically is about 415 acres of buildings and substations. If you pack them next to each other with no space, no matter the height, we're looking at 415 acres. Now, if you flip to the second page and third page, um I'm a visual learner myself, too. So, if the second page is looked at, and I'm sorry for those I didn't do this in advance, so y'all could see this to get them on the board. Um the red square is 415 acres of Columbia County land. The blue square is about 4,500 acres of Columbia County land. If you flip to the third page, which is like 3% of our entire Columbia County um land mass is about that 4,500 acres. If you go to the third one, it's zoomed in to see that a

little closer. You can see where we are right now. Um hopefully you understand the map. Uh this is Evans downtown. You see the Town Center Park, you see Memorial Gardens. This red square, same red square as the other one would extend all the way to Walmart. Uh it go that direction to Good Ways, that direction to Goodways, that direction to Goodways. It's huge. 415 acres is a big space of land for all these buildings. And then you can see the actual footprint of all the land that's being sold or reszoned. Um all the way from Gibbs Road to Blue Ridge Drive, Owens Road all the way up. I don't have a road. It's like Deer Run is up there if you're familiar with that road. This is a big space because it's in a rural area. We sometimes just think, oh, thousand acres, no big deal. 500 acres, 300 acres, somebody owns 75 acres, you know, that's just a number. But then when we combine that to something else, it becomes a reality. And so I just for you tonight, I wanted to show you this because sometimes we just need to think a 275,000 foot building, it's a big building, you know, that's a super Walmart. A 715 or 717,000 square foot building for Pumpkin Center, that's beyond anything we can really fathom. you know, the Amazon is only, I think, 600,000 square feet and that's three stories. So, the footprint is very small relative to what it's holding. Um, if we do the comparison to homes, I've been told by multiple people that by doing data centers on these three properties, we're eliminating maybe 4,000 homes, maybe 5,000 if we push it, um, from Columbia County. If you look at the right column on that first page, um if you take 18 million square feet, which is the developable building, brick and mortar, plus the substations, um if you build 2500 foot homes, you could build 7,235 homes on that 18 million square feet.

That's more than could actually get in there. If you said, well, we build big homes, 3,000 feet, we're still at over 6,000. If you're like, well, we big really big homes, 4,000 square foot homes, that's still 4,500 homes that can fit in those data centers and substations. So, by saying that we have eliminated all these homes, yes, we have we've eliminated people, but we're still developing the land in a much greater capacity than we are when we develop homes. Now, I know there's roads and infrastructures and other things that we're not accounting for in either of these. But if you look at the actual square footage of it, these data centers are much bigger than the homes that we would put on them. The other difference is that the speed of building from what I've heard is much faster with data centers than what we would anticipate with normal residential growth. the bird tract when when it was considered what we were going to do before this was like a 15 to 18 20 year buildout to do that many homes. So you're only averaging a few hundred homes a year maybe on a good year. Um whereas if you build one data center in that bottom right corner in any of these three properties, you know, the pumpkin center ones, that's 239 homes. So if they build one data center a year, that's like 240 homes. They're probably going to try to build more than one at a time. Um, I don't know if you have estimations for when these will be complete buildup, but I bet it's faster than 15 to 20 years because they will want to recoup their money. So, I don't know if this is helpful at all to you. Um, it's helpful to me uh just to see these things. We see a box on a drawing and we don't have a scale for that. We think, well, it could be a house, it could be a data center, but one is, you know, 250 times the size of the other one. So, thinking visually this way, I hope that can help you make a decision in two weeks. Um, one other thing I would just like to say is that um

I know you're way past five minutes, so please pick up your pace just a touch. Can I say one more thing? Yeah, I want I want to let you finish.

Oh, yeah. Cool. Um, something for you to consider is just the when these are under construction, if they actually do go ahead, um, from what we've seen in other data centers is that construction workers aren't necessarily always local. they're brought in. And so if we have large volumes of building going on at one time, a we may not be helping our employment rate in the county, that would be something to consider and look at. B, where are all these people going to be housed? So, hotels, rentals, different things. That's a difficult situation because if they make a a good standard of living being construction worker coming in and they rent a home and they're willing to pay more, what does that do to our rental market in Columbia County for people who may be struggling to be able to afford rent and are they upcharging our rental and things like that? So, thank you for your time. I I apprec I'm sorry for going over but Oh, m Mr. Lang, just just one second and and I do appreciate that. This is great. I think that it would be very helpful to see the data centers on on a on a big board and and the houses on a on a big board. But have you considered two and a half cars per house?

What that that what that would do in the in that rural area? I I'm I'm really I'm being serious. Absolutely. To me, that would that would scare me uh greatly. And uh I have a story I want to tell you. Sure. Let this is over with. I don't want to bore everybody, but I want to share something with you when we when we get done. But, uh, the the cars part of it scares me the most. It does. And and I think and the h and housing because data centers won't have that. That's right. Um, I mean, they had some, but I think what was like 4.6% was the bird tract of like what it would have been if it was full out. The only thing I like to think about with that is um, when when those numbers are put together, it's at full buildout for both.

That's right. So, you know, Bird and and these others aren't going to put 5,000 homes in at one time. That's right. So, that would give us time to increase the infrastructure. Do I want that many cars? No, I don't want anything. But, um, you know, but yeah, it's definitely one of those impact situations that that we've considered as neighbors, like, you know, what does that look like? And the noise, too, you know, can we be assured that the noise isn't going to be 70 dB at my neighbor's property because it can his touches it, you know? Um, I think those are all difficult and hard to work through. I think you need to consider how many children are going to need to to go to a school,

right? Oh, we're we're considering all that. I I I think it's not an eitheror. Also, at the same time, I mean, I think we can there could be a third option. So, um, it's a lot, but I do think thinking about how fast growth happens, I don't know if you have a projection on these data centers as to how fast they'll grow, but I guarantee you the housing wouldn't grow as fast as the data centers. So we'd have time to get there. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Howard Johnson.

Good evening. Howard Johnson, 252 Silver Maple Road. Um, I'm pulling double duty tonight. Um, so if I go a little over, please indulge me. Um, to begin with, I'm going to read a statement prepared by Miss Karen Parm, who was unable to attend tonight. I'm speaking tonight to correct the public record regarding how more than 40 library books were relocated from the young adult fiction room in September 2024. There is a growing narrative that former library director Mary Lynn Mayor acted on her own when those books were moved. That narrative is false. The email record shows that Miss Mayor initially pushed back against removals, stating that the age-based guidelines adopted in September 24 were not enough to move the books that were under reconsideration at the time out of the young adult room. She used an AI based tool along with other traditional professional sources to assess whether the books under reconsideration would still be considered PG-13 under the guidelines. After she shared that assessment with community services director John Luton, Dr. Sandra Carowway Carowway, then chair of the library advisory board, responded by sending a link to the Booklooks website and suggested that they look at that site. Following that exchange, it was later stated in staff meetings that Booklooks was being used as the only source to evaluate material. Booklooks was an ideologically based database with non-professional reviews. Its use in a public library for shelving placement is completely unacceptable. Miss Maynor also stated in staff meetings that she was told she had to follow the directives coming from the then advisory board for not only the books under reconsideration but that she was also to go through all of the areas for minors using book looks starting in the young adult room. The spreadsheet Miss Mayor used to track the books to track the books moved even had the book looks ranking for each assessed book on it. She stopped when the state librarian advised that the changes the county sought would have to go through the regional library board which occurred on December 10th, 2024 and Mary Lynn Mayor

resigned the same day. Taken together, this makes clear that the relocation of the books in September was not a unilateral decision by the former director. This history is important. On January 6th, 2026, the newly formed Columbia County Library System adopted a more moderate collection development policy that was established in se than that than what was established in September 2024. The new policy focuses on professional review sources. I asked that the 40 plus books that were moved in mass in September 2024 be reassessed and returned to the young adult room. However, at that library meeting, I was advised that those books would not be reviewed under the new policy unless members of the public submitted individual reconsideration requests for each title. That decision, though, is based on the claim that the September 2024 moves were made unilaterally by the former director. That claim is false, and everyone in that library meeting in counter in county leadership knows it's false, too, but is now being used to delay review of those books under the current policy. In effect, the so-called new policy is being treated as though it only applies to newly challenged books, while the results of the flawed 2024 policy are being preserved. I also want to make one broader point because it applies not just to the library, but to other major issues this county is facing right now, including data center development. In my coverage of the data center projects in my opinion column, I have been very fair. I have repeatedly stated that the county followed the law. I have also said that I believed these plans were put in motion in good faith to lower property tax bills for homeowners. But my trust has been repeatedly destroyed by what has happened with the library. When leadership is shown to misrepresent basic facts and rewrite history, it becomes incredibly difficult to continue giving the benefit of the doubt. And that is also partially why people in communities like Appling and Harlem are so mad. They are being told to just trust county leadership about massive industrial projects that were largely put in motion before the public ever had

a meaningful opportunity to weigh in. I'm going to close with a question I raised last year after a commissioner or commissioners repeatedly falsely told the public and news media that a book was shelved in a children's section when it was not. I ask this. If county leadership is willing to misrepresent where a book is shelved, what else is it willing to misrepresent? It saddens me to have to fact check my own local representatives. You are my neighbors. I still have to see y'all out and about. I would very much like to be able to say that even when we disagree on policy, all of the commissioners on this board are honest, but I cannot say that right now. Unfortunately, this county keeps acting like Lucy with that damn football, and I'm getting real tired of kicking the ball in good faith. Thank you. End quote. Um, so now this is Howard Johnson speaking. Um, and firstly,

four minutes and 40 seconds for his word. So, thank you, Mr. Duncan. I'll be brief. Um, firstly, Commissioner Malier, I want to thank you for taking the time a few weeks ago to join us at uh the Sassy Stitchers. Um, the ladies were absolutely tickled pink to have you there. Um,

Mr. Chairman, we call him Howard and that's his like his formal name, but everybody else calls him Whitney. Whitney. There's some more that we can talk about about me oneon-one at full transparency up here. Um, so my next request and again all of the commissioners are welcome to join us at the Sassy Stitchers. I'm afraid I would bleed when I get around tools. So, so um, one thing I one thing I'll say, crochet starts with a slip knot, which is something that I was taught in Boy Scouts many years ago. So, really, um, crochet is a very manly hobby. Um, it's fancy knot tying. It is a dull needle damage yourself,

but I do encourage the rest of you to come and attend. Um, specifically because I do believe that once you see a little bit more of the community building that is available at the library, you'll be more amendable to my future request, which is going to be to increase the funding to the library for various programs. Um, Commissioner Couch, I'm going to ask you specifically to try and make um make time to visit us sometime before March 6th. um the cut off for qualifying uh for the election this year. I would love to

specifically because the thoughts that go uh will be kicked around in that room are the only primary that I particularly care about. Um now I've lost my train of thought. I had something that I wanted to bring up today. I'm over my time. I'm sure I'll be back. Have a good evening. Thank you. Or Whitney, sorry. Marina.

Five minutes starting now. Whatever you say.

Okay. You sure about that? So, Marlina Berseron, 2545 Willow Creek Court. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. Mike, I'm sorry you didn't share your story. I would have liked to have heard it. I have a third option that the gentleman brought up. Instead of a data center or a large subdivision, how about we resurrect the green space mission and put that land in conservation for green space. Now, I didn't come here looking for trouble. I came because I'm always looking for a good story. And forgive my voice, it's uh horse from cheering for the Hooser's victory last night. So, I care about stories, especially the ones where characters, fact or fiction, rise above their time or their circumstances in selfless ways to protect people. I don't like it when stories are hidden, dismissed, or discredited. And especially when elected officials join in discrediting somebody's truth, somebody's story, or somebody who's honestly seeking some facts about a situation. And I think the data center story being the biggest data center in the United States going in Colombia County is a pretty big story. I do not need any of you to protect me or my family from library books. I need you to protect our clean air, our clean water, our land, our natural resources, our storm management, which is supported by established trees and wetlands and the flood planes that surround the wetlands, especially in our areas of higher topography, which all these data centers would be going into. Also, 415 acres of imperous surfaces. We know we're going to have increased rainfall. We have no idea how to predict what that will do to the surrounding communities. Lastly, so I want to propose something. Um, it's apparent to me and to many other people

that there are certain rules, regulations, and limitations that apply to some people, but not to everyone. And that's just not right. And also, we know that local business owners have hoops and hurdles that they have to jump through. We should not be able to ramrod a huge data center, the biggest in the country, in less than a year. So, I would like all of you and everybody listening to go look up HB528, SB34, and HB559. Those are the first You're talking too fast. I can't write that fast. Sure. HB what? It'll be on the YouTube as well. HB528. Yeah. Okay.

SB 34. HB559. Those three pieces of legislation in addition to the moratorum that's being proposed right now for the whole state of Georgia on data centers will all help regulate require transparent reporting on energy and water consumption as well as property taxes. They will also reconsider the the tax incentive that that's being given as well as require data centers to pay for their own power as well as any infrastructure upgrades that they need. So I think all those things should pass before we build any more data centers because three is too many. So let's have a moratorum on data centers and maybe three is already not what our community needs. And I just want you to consider also um you know we're in the middle of the story and you can either be the heroes, the ones who work with the community members who are trying to find the facts and we can build something wonderful together and protect this beautiful place. It's not a sandbox where we're non-playing characters. That's called NPCs. The kids would say we're not NPCs that are just being tossed around. And it shouldn't be our fault for falling in love with the land and wanting to protect it. I invite you to consider, do you want to be the villain from half of the movies made in the 80s where they side with the out of town enterprises to destroy the resources and natural environment or do you want to be the heroes and work with us so we can have something sustainable? I really appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thank you, Marina. Marina, you're welcome to participate in my storytelling. Perfect. I did find one quote. I just wanted to end with this because again, I like stories. Um, this was uh this you can find this book at the library. It's called Two Sisters by Rosie White House. This is not just about the national anthem, but an assertion of a set of beliefs and an affirmation of what goes wrong when you abandon them. It is a lesson for local politicians everywhere. It shows how understanding the past can help shape the future. I hope you listen to your people, the constituents you are here to protect when going forward on whatever data center you decide to adopt.

Thank you. Thank you, Bob Anderson. If you will please sir, state your name and address of the record and take five minutes.

Bob Anderson, 409 Lewisville Road, Grovetown, Georgia. Sorry, have a bit of horarsseness right now. Uh I I want to talk to you. I don't have a lot to say and uh I probably don't know enough to ask good questions at this point. I I'd like to talk a little bit about the quality of life in rural Columbia County. Though I grew up in rural Columbia County when Colombia Road and Lewisville Road were b dirt roads, things changed. And I came back after growing up here 20 years after a career all over the United States because I love the quality of life in Columbia County. And I have not been disappointed. I appreciate the job that each and every one of you do every day in terms of maintaining that quality of life. You're about to make a decision though that is going to greatly impact that quality of life particularly for a area which used to be called Central C N T R A L in Colombia County. In fact, there was a school there called Central School right about where the five uh station sits now, right next to the old library. Yeah, my dad went to school there. But uh and and as several people had pointed out, uh I'd like to see it remain just like it is now, not changed at all. But my property and and it's not. I mean, it's not the same way it was when I grew up here. And it's going to change, but you know, we need to still maintain that quality of life. And there are more options than just the two

that you guys brought up a little bit ago. Several have already been brought up. But let me assume for a minute that you are making the decision on the data centers, the two additional because the one in the industrial park, I mean you have approved that. That's an industrial park. It was set up that way and that's what it's for. I I would just say as you look at the impact of probably 2,000 people that live right around and will be impacted directly by those data centers. As you make that decision, please be sure that you take into account all facets of how it affects them. you know, not just the tax base or that property tax is going to be better or less, but how's it going to affect those 2,000 people? Please look at the environmental aspects. One I am extremely concerned about is the noise. And again, I don't know what I don't know, and I hope to find out more by meeting with others. But I know that 70dB, which the county has put on the requirements, is loud. I mean, right now, I'm probably talking at 55 dB or maybe 50, 70. I would have to be shouting to even be heard. Environmental, water, all of that. You guys will look at that. Please look at that very closely. Please protect not only theund what is it 60,000 people

more maybe more than that in Columbia County now but those 2,000 people that are most directly impacted that live right around those data centers. I look to finding out more about this. I just kind of knew because I, you know, probably December the 3, I didn't know a lot a whole lot about a data centers, but I've been learning and I hope to learn more and I ask you guys to protect all Columbia County residents. I thank you very much.

Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Robert. Seeing no requests for review by committee, we'll actually go before public comments. No executive session. There's only one more thing we need to do. I make a motion to adjurnn. Second.