SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Georgia’s highest court on Tuesday upheld an election in which coastal residents voted overwhelmingly last year to block their county government from building a launch pad to launch commercial rockets into space.
The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously rejected a legal challenge by Camden County commissioners seeking to void last March’s referendum. Officials argued that Georgia’s state constitution does not allow citizens to veto decisions made by district governments.
The court strongly disagreed, ruling that the wording of the state constitution “clearly grants the electorate powers to overrule and amend” county ordinances and resolutions. Judge Carla Wong McMillian’s opinion said that the county’s interpretation of the same provisions “would violate well-established principles of constitutional interpretation.”
The court’s ruling could be the final blow to Camden County’s pet economic development project. Commissioners-elect for the 55,000-person district on the Georgia-Florida line have spent the last decade and more than $11 million building the Camden spaceport. They say the project would not only bring economic growth through rocket launches, but also attract related industries and tourists.
Opponents say the project poses potential environmental and safety risks that outweigh any economic benefits. The county planned to build the spaceport on an industrial site formerly used to manufacture pesticides and munitions.
The proposed trajectory would send missiles over Little Cumberland Island, home to about 40 private homes, and neighboring Cumberland Island, a federally protected wilderness visited by about 60,000 tourists each year. Local residents and the National Park Service have said they fear explosive backfires raining down fiery debris could start wildfires near homes and people.
In March, opponents forced a referendum on the project after collecting more than 3,500 petition signatures from registered voters who said they wanted the spaceport on the ballot.
The result was a major defeat for the spaceport. The final tally showed that 72% of voters were in favor of stopping the project, overriding the commissioners’ previous decision to buy land for the spaceport.
Despite the project’s defeat in the election, county officials had attempted to advance the project while their legal challenge was pending in the state Supreme Court.
The owner of the 1,600-acre site where the county planned to build the launch pad announced in July – four months after the referendum – that he would no longer offer the land to the county. Camden County Commissioners then filed a lawsuit to force the landowner to sell.
The district commissioners said in a statement that they respect the court’s decision.
“The future of Spaceport Camden remains a decision of the Camden County Board of Commissioners and as such will be discussed at a future meeting,” the commissioners’ statement said.
Jim Goodman, a spaceport opponent who was elected to the county commission last year, said he hopes the court ruling will finally persuade his fellow commissioners to abandon a spaceport funded and operated by Camden County.
“I don’t know if the county board has an appetite, but there would probably be some tar and feathers if they tried,” Goodman said. “I think the citizens have finally woken up and had enough.”
However, Goodman said he suspects county officials may seek a private developer to take on the spaceport project.
The lawsuits in the Georgia Supreme Court had nothing to do with job growth or security. Instead, it was about how much power the state’s constitution gives people to override decisions made by their county governments.
The Georgian constitution provides a means by which citizens can call special elections to make “amendments or repeals of (county) ordinances, resolutions or regulations”. To force a referendum, citizens must collect petition signatures from at least 10% of a county’s registered voters.
Camden County attorneys unsuccessfully argued that the state constitution limited the scope of these elections, allowing voters only to alter the powers and responsibilities assigned to county governments by state statutes.
The Association County Commissioners of Georgia, which represents elected officials in the state’s 159 counties, joined Camden County to contest the referendum. Both Camden County and the association said allowing voters to directly overturn decisions made by county officials could result in cases where a single issue is repeatedly authorized by a county and then overturned by voters.
The Supreme Court dismissed that argument in its ruling, saying: “There is little evidence that such a parade of scares would occur, as it is unlikely that a county’s governing body, composed of elected officials, would routinely.” The electorate disregards the will of the federal government.”
Both sides in the battle for the spaceport acknowledged that the power of the citizen referendum was rarely used in Georgia.
Advocates for spaceport critics collecting signatures for the referendum noted that it took about two years for enough people to sign their petition to force a vote on the project.
