Camden County residents vote against buying property for Spaceport Camden

CAMDEN COUNTY, Ga. — In an overwhelming majority vote, Camden County residents voted to reject plans for the county to buy property to build a rocket launch pad.

The unofficial results came in late Tuesday night after a referendum posed the question: Shall the resolutions of the Board Commissioners of Camden County, Georgia authorize the Option Contract with Union Carbide Corporation and Camden County’s right and option to purchase the property described therein be repealed.

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More than 5,500 residents turned out for vote.

“Most people that come to this hotel come to go to the island. They’ve been doing it for years,” Riverview Hotel front desk manager George Lee said.

In Historic St. Marys, Lee said tourists come to see Cumberland Island.

“We want to definitely protect that, keep it pristine,” Lee said.

He said that is one of the reasons he voted “yes” on the referendum asking voters if they wanted to repeal a contract to purchase property for the future Spaceport Camden.

Money was another concern of his.

“This spaceport I don’t think is going to make our taxes go down any lower,” Lee said.

Across town, realtor Cheryl Smith said space exploration is their eventual goal either way.

“If you look at the potential recovery of that investment and what it would mean to the county, it would be a game-changer,” Smith said.

In Tuesday’s county-wide referendum vote, more than 70 percent of voters voted “yes,” which actually means “no” to the spaceport.

However, county officials are determined to fight it in court.

We received this statement from the county:

“The ability of a bare minority of registered voters to trigger a referendum election is among the key issues that the Georgia Court of Appeals determined should be decided by the Georgia Supreme Court.”

“Camden County is assessing the results of last night’s outcome on the future of Spaceport Camden and is working to determine the best way to preserve taxpayers’ investment in the recently issued Launch Site Operator License while the Georgia Supreme Court reviews the legal issues surrounding this election.”

County officials have spent a decade and more than $10 million pursuing the spaceport which is strategically positioned in Camden County to be one of the most important commercial spaceports in the U.S.

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The fight isn’t over for either side.

“We are absolutely thrilled at the overwhelming 3 to 1 win for the citizens who voted against purchasing the highly contaminated Union Carbide property. We have likewise been astounded at the contempt with which the County Commissioners have treated the citizens of Camden County in preventing us from exercising our Constitutional Right to question our government,” Jim Goodman said.

Goodman plans to appear in court on behalf of 3,800 people who signed a petition against the building of the spaceport.

We also received this statement from Camden County resident Steve Weinkle who is critical of the spaceport:

“On March 8, 2022, opponents of the purchase of the Union carbide property necessary for Spaceport Camden won a resounding victory by winning more than 72% of the votes. The lop-sided vote indicates that Camden citizens are unwilling to fund the speculative development called Spaceport Camden. After spending more than $11,000,000 from the County’s General Fund and pursuing an almost exclusively space-focused development agenda, the County and its spaceport consultants have acquired nothing more than a launch site operator license requiring the spending of many additional millions of dollars, additional substantive and expensive environmental reviews, and that is approved for a fictional rocket that is not under development. In fact, to meet mandated human safety and environmental protections, Camden’s rocket must be smaller than any existing rocket. The FAA recently wrote that Camden’s rocket is not expected to be developed “in the foreseeable future.”

Virtually all the millions already spent have left Camden County and Georgia, providing no local jobs or economic benefits.

Spaceport Camden:

• Has No Known Rocket;
• Has No Known Clients;
• Has Unknown Future Costs;
• Serves No Useful National Purpose;
• Has Hundreds of Acres “Off-Limits” To Avoid Unexploded Military Ordnance;
• Obligates Taxpayers to Cleanup Union Carbide and Thiokol contamination;
• Obligates Taxpayers to Make a Deal with Bayer CropScience for the Contaminated Land;
• Threatens Cumberland Island National Seashore on EVERY Launch; and,
• Has not Produced a Single Camden County Job.
• Camden voters tired of all the expenses with no foreseeable benefits and voted overwhelmingly to stop the waste.

Camden County insists that their license has value although it does not allow a single launch. To protect that license, elected officials have initiated lawsuits against the petition submitters and the Judges who have ruled against the County. They are now at the Georgia Supreme Court hoping the Court will overrule the will of the voters.

Elsewhere, that is considered political suicide.”

You can find the unofficial results here.

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