Voters Overwhelmingly Reject Spaceport Camden Plan
by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
Camden County voters overwhelmingly rejected the Board of Commissioners plan to buy 4,000 acres of land to build a spaceport near on the Georgia coast for small-satellite launch vehicles.
Unofficial results show that 4,168 residents or 72.12% voted to rescind the board’s resolution to purchase the land from Union Carbide. Only 1,611 residents or 27.88% voted to affirm the board’s decision.
The referendum was ordered after Spaceport Camden opponents submitted signatures of 10 percent of the county’s voters. The reference was allowed under a provision in the Georgia constitution.
Camden County, which has spent $10 million on the spaceport project, has argued that the referendum was not legal under the state constitution. Last Friday, Superior Court Judge Stephen Scarlett denied a county motion to cancel the referendum on those grounds. The county is appealing the ruling.
In a special meeting held after the courtroom setback, the Board of Commissioners filled five vacant seats on the Spaceport Camden Authority. Opponents of the project raised concerns that the board would ignore a negative vote and transfer the right to purchase the land to the authority. Commissioners did not answer when asked by a resident whether that was the purpose behind filling the seats.
Rep. Steven Sainz, who represents Camden County in the Georgia legislature, posted a video on Facebook saying this was not the purpose of the spaceport authority when he co-authored legislation that created it. The authority was created to work with companies that decided to launch from the spaceport. To date, the county has not announced any tenants.
Supporters of the spaceport say it will bring high tech jobs and tax revenues to the county. Opponents claim the benefits have been overstated, and that visitors to Cumberland Island National Seashore and private homeowners in the area would be at risk from launch failures.
8 responses to “Voters Overwhelmingly Reject Spaceport Camden Plan”
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Hopefully this vote will be able to stop it. This spaceport was always a bad idea.
A small coterie of leftist trustafarian NIMBYs have gamed the initiative process to try getting their way in the same way they used influence to get their private island named a national game preserve. Gin up a single-issue election that a few people care passionately about and most folks rather less so and you get this “great victory” of “democracy” in which about 1/8 of the registered voters get to call the tune.
This is just one more instance in which public infrastructure almost invariably has to yield to the wishes of the well-off and connected. Here in L.A. there are some odd lacunae in the freeway system which have existed for decades because to make the missing connections would involve taking the property of the political contributor class instead of that of the working class or the poor.
If Cumberland Island hosted housing projects full of welfare clients instead of the “compounds” of the idle rich, the former would have been turfed out with alacrity and the Camden Spaceport would already be a going concern.
Indeed. A going concern with no known rocket approved for launch. From what I can gather, the era of the “trustafarians” as you call them ended long, long ago. Can you please give some data showing that they indeed had anything to do with this particular issue? I assume you have such since you keep making these claims every single time this issue comes up.
The Wikipedia entry for Cumberland Island says that heirs of the Carnegie and Coca-Cola fortunes still own land and estates on the island.
Yes, but what evidence do you have that they had anything to do with this issue?
Who else would be making all the fuss? Do you have any evidence anyone else was behind all the resistance to the spaceport?
I don’t know, maybe the same type of environmentalists that are trying to shut down Boca Chica? Maybe people in the county who realize what a boondoggle that sort of space port is? I’m curious as to why you feel this space port is necessary. There are no known launchers for it.
On Thursday, the Georgia Supreme Court denied Camden County’s request to issue an emergency stay to stop the certification of the election results. Camden County is attempting to nullify the special-called election provided by a section of the Georgia Constitution. Local citizens recognized that spaceport deception is a real thing and that the promised economic development benefits are rare, expensively induced, and never cover the acquisition, development and operating costs. Politicians are easily fooled by traveling spaceport salesmen. And the FAA is complicit by awarding Spaceport Camden a site license amounting to little more than a participation trophy. What was FAA/AST thinking (or drinking) when they issued a LSOL approved only for a tiny fictional rocket that they do not anticipate in “the foreseeable future?”