Important Announcements!
These are the most important opportunities coming up to get your voice heard.
Click each button below for more info and next steps:
TWO Chances to Speak Directly with the PSC! Sept 14 & 15
Data Center Town Hall — Sept 14
Mars Theatre, 106 S Laurel St, Springfield
Two PSC Commissioners, Peter Hubbard and Dr. Alicia Johnson, will be in the room answering questions about Project Camellia. This is a chance to speak directly with the people who make decisions about power contracts in Georgia. Come prepared with your questions about the Project Camellia contract.
Another confirmed panelist, Dr. Anne Mellinger-Birdsong, is coming from Atlanta to provide answers about how this data center and grid expansion could affect the children of our community. She is a pediatrician and health advisor for Mothers & Others for Clean Air.
Other confirmed panelists include Jeff Beauvais from One Hundred Miles and Rita Elliot from Effingham Georgia Green. This is a great chance to ask questions about the environmental effects of Project Camellia and the power grid expansion.
This is a FREE event at the Mars Theatre, hosted by Georgia Conservation Voters and One Hundred Miles. Please register here.
PSC Public Forum — Sept 15
Tuesday Sept 15, 9:30am to 12pm
Chatham County Administrative Building, 124 Bull St, Savannah
All five members of the Georgia PSC commission (who normally hold sessions in Atlanta) will be traveling to Savannah to hold their public session at the Chatham County Administrative Building. They want to hear from local residents because of what's happening with the data center projects here. Any member of the public is welcome to speak, limited to three minutes each. If you can't make it to the Mars Theatre event the night before, this is the formal version: every public comment will go on the record, and all five members of the commission will be present.
Why is it so important to talk to the PSC? The PSC needs to hear directly from residents how their decisions are affecting us. It is crucial to show up to events like these to show the PSC that people are paying attention. Two of the five PSC commissioners are up for reelection this November, so they need to hear from voters about what matters most to us. Ask for more accountability, transparency, and electricity decisions that don't add extra pollution to our communities just to support data center companies.
Effingham County Commission Meeting — Sept 15
Tuesday, Sept 15, starting at 4pm
Effingham County Administrative Complex, 804 S. Laurel St, Springfield
This meeting will have two different parts. Both are very important to attend!
4pm - Work Session: Data Center Ordinance
This first part will be a discussion only (no vote). The agenda just says “discussion and guidance regarding the development of a data center ordinance.” The county hasn't published what specific rules they're looking at yet. This is where future data center projects could be affected, but nothing decided here affects tonight's vote on Project Camellia's site plan.
The agenda doesn’t list a public comment period. If you want your view on the record, email your commissioner or bring a written comment for the Clerk before the 15th, rather than expecting to have a chance to speak at 4pm.
5 PM - Regular Meeting: The Actual Vote
This is the one that matters most. Item XI.1 is a vote to approve Octans GA's site plan for Project Camellia, the real decision point everyone's been waiting for. There's also a second item on the agenda (IX.3, a slope maintenance easement with Octans for the same road) but it's on the consent agenda, which normally gets approved with zero discussion. If you want that one actually talked about instead of quietly passed, ask a commissioner to pull it out before the vote.
One important thing if you plan to speak:
Your public comment has to be about what's actually on the agenda. If you want to speak about the site plan, tell them directly and reference item XI.1. If you want to speak about the easement, reference IX.3 specifically. General comments about Project Camellia that don't tie to a specific item may end up getting cut off.
A lot of people feel too nervous to speak in these meetings, but your attendance still makes a huge difference! Here are other things you can do that don't involve speaking:
Just show up. A packed room changes how a vote is approached by the county, whether or not you say a word. Your presence lets them know this matters a lot.
Ask a commissioner to pull item IX.3 before the meeting starts. An email or a quick request when you arrive. You don't have to speak at the podium to do this.
Write it down instead. Hand a written comment to the Clerk so it's part of the official record (or email your commissioner the same thing you would have said out loud) and ask them to submit it as correspondence.
Sit with someone who is planning to speak. They might be nervous too! Having a friend in the room, or even just in the seat next to you, helps more than you know.
Take notes. If you can't speak but you can listen closely, write down what's said at either session or record important moments with your phone. It's useful to us afterward even if you never approach the mic.
Send the meeting link to people in your life who don't know much about what's going on. This type of quiet work makes a huge difference to the movement, even if it seems small. Every tiny action adds up to help bring people together and get the word out, and get more support to protect our county. We are all so much stronger together!!
Ask Rincon City Council for a Moratorium — urgent!
There's no confirmed second data center project inside Rincon city limits, but we’ve heard from enough people in the construction industry that it's worth asking the council directly, before any new data center agreements are signed without public input.
A moratorium would pause new industrial/data center approvals for a set period so the city can put important rules in place first - instead of reacting to a deal after its done, the way the county did with Project Camellia.
This is a longer shot than the other emails on this page. City councils can move fast, and this kind of project may already be underway. Send your email anyway. A council that hears from ten people is different from one that hears from hundreds.
Copy and paste this into the "To" field:
kexley@rinconga.gov, jblackwell@rinconga.gov, tmilner@rinconga.gov, briley@rinconga.gov, tboyett@rinconga.gov, mtaylor@rinconga.gov, munderwood@rinconga.gov
Subject line: Request for Data Center Development Moratorium
Scroll below for a guide on how to write your message!
How to write yours
Please don't copy anything from this page. A hundred identical emails get counted as one comment. A hundred different ones get counted as a hundred. Yours should sound like you.
Here's the outline for your email:
1. Say who you are and where you live.
One sentence. Your name, your road, how long you've lived in or near Rincon.
2. Say what you've heard, and ask them to confirm or deny it.
Be honest that it's not confirmed. Something like: you've heard that another data center project may be planned inside city limits, and you'd like the council to say publicly whether that's true.
3. Ask for the moratorium - and say why, in your own words.
Pick what's true for you:
You watched how fast and quietly Project Camellia moved, and you don't want that to happen again without residents knowing first.
You want the city to set rules (water, traffic, notice requirements, buffers) before another project shows up, not after it's proposed.
You want a public hearing and a real comment period before anything gets signed, not announced afterward.
4. Say why it matters to you.
Two or three sentences in your own words what Rincon means to you. What you're worried will change if this keeps happening without any public input.