2025: A Year in Review

2025 was an unprecedented year. Programmatically, we achieved success in the Okefenokee Swamp and in the Georgia Supreme Court, siding with OHM and plaintiffs in the McIntosh County referendum. We engaged with the community to investigate plans for the port expansion and water deficits across the Savannah metro area. We expanded opportunities for wildlife habitat and protecting dark skies in McIntosh County; and we continued the fight for zoning protections that protect our rural character in Glynn.

Our victories are huge, and our work on projects can take years. But honestly, it doesn’t have to be this hard.

A good example is what is unfolding today in McIntosh County, where voters are finally deciding whether to repeal unjust zoning passed in 2023. This past December, OHM along with 11 residents of the Hog(g) Hummock Community and our lawyers came together with McIntosh County Commissioners, their lawyers, and a mediator. We spent weeks in mediation trying to agree upon a set of circumstances for zoning implementation and enforcement that would be acceptable to both the county and the Gullah Geechee descendant residents. Unfortunately, the negotiations failed. And the only reason there is a referendum being held today in the first place (or that the GA Supreme Court had to get involved to reinstate the referendum) is because the county pushed ahead with the harmful zoning decision in the first place—despite overwhelming community opposition and without any input from members of the Hog(g) Hummock community.

Similarly, just a few days before Christmas and despite the protests of dozens of residents, the mayor-elect, and a recommendation of denial from their own Planning Commission City Commissioners in Port Wentworth pushed through a very data-center friendly ordinance. While there are no pending applications for new data centers in the city, the new ordinance sends the message that the city is open for business. 

In Glynn County, you’ve likely heard about the unshielded, high mast lights near the I-95 Exit 42 interchange that are visible more than 10 miles away on Sapelo and Little St. Simons Islands. This issue, along with our work over the past seven years to advocate for Glynn County to pass new a new beachfront lighting ordinance on St. Simons, has enjoyed media coverage from across the country. Unfortunately, the Glynn County Commissioners still have not agreed to dim the lights. 

The solution to each of these issues could have been so simple. Literally. In McIntosh County it was three. In Port Wentworth it was four. And in Glynn County it still is four. Votes. A simple majority of each commission.  

Decisions made by your local governments are changing coastal Georgia more rapidly than anything else. OHM has now been around for 12+ years. We’ve made progress because in that time, we’ve built a network tens of thousands of people who take actions every day to help influence those decisions. They convene and attend community meetings; they talk to their neighbors and their County Commissioners; they write fact sheets and letters to the editor. They are leaders who are working to make sure the decisions made about their communities are reflective of the values of the people who reside within them. 

It is likely that if you are reading this email, you are one of those leaders. So, here is what I will say to you for 2026 and beyond. In addition to or maybe instead of what you are already doing, I ask that you seriously consider doing one or more of the following: 

1. Vote. 
2. Support a political candidate who you think will make good decisions if elected. 
3. Volunteer to serve on a Planning Commission. 
4. Run for a City Commission or County Commission seat.

OHM isn’t going anywhere. We’re going to continue going to the meetings and working with communities and partner organizations. But we’ve been doing that long enough now to see that some of you are ready to sit behind that table and vote for the protections our coast desperately needs. We can also see that we desperately need new people sitting behind those tables. If you choose to take this step, OHM and the members of our network are here to serve as resources to help you and the other elected officials who want to act to protect our coast. We’re here to work together.

If you’re like so many others who are looking at 2026 and thinking about what you can do to make a difference, just remember: We need more people to vote for the interests of our coast, and you have more power than you think. We all do. We just have to choose to use it.