EDITORIAL: Rep. Steven Sainz Proposes Legislation to Amend the City of Woodbine Charter, Invites Public Input

By State Representative Steven Sainz (R-St Marys)

(634 words)

I want to clarify a few facts. On January 31, I contacted the City of Woodbine through its official email system requesting a written explanation for why the city had not completed required annual audits and what the plan was to return to compliance with state law. I followed up again after receiving no response. To date, I have not received an official written response from the city administration addressing those questions.

Only two elected officials have contacted me directly. Early in the process, Mayor Knight reached out to our legislative delegation for guidance and asked what tools may be available to help restore compliance, based on items addressed in her Tribune & Georgian editorial. After this, one council member, upset by the notice that action may be necessary, indicated that the city had previously provided all financial records to an auditing firm and was only waiting for that firm to complete the audit. As of two days ago, I learned that the city has only now started the process of engaging an auditing firm to complete up to five years of audits. They have also hired a lobbying firm at the cost of thousands of dollars to taxpayers, instead of picking up the phone and talking to our delegation directly.

Let me be clear. Amending a city charter is not an ideal solution. However, when a local government has been out of compliance with basic financial transparency requirements for this long, it becomes my responsibility as the state representative for Woodbine to act on behalf of the citizens and taxpayers of the city. The change in power structure was not out of a direct request from any elected official; it was a result of the review of the issue and the structure that got us here. My office had specialized legal counsel review the charter, which made it clear that ambiguity in the 1996 charter has led to confusion about responsibility for basic and legally required actions, such as properly conducting audits.

Doing nothing is not an option. The last public entity in my district that failed to maintain proper audits ultimately experienced significant financial misconduct that cost taxpayers millions of dollars. I will not allow that risk to go unaddressed.

I appreciate Senator Hodges' partnership as my office initiated this request. We are in agreement that the priority here is accountability and transparency for the taxpayers and citizens of Woodbine, while working cooperatively with our local stakeholders.

We remain fully willing to work with the mayor, city administration and every member of council to resolve this cooperatively and restore compliance as quickly as possible. We understand that serving a local government is an important and often unrewarding process, and we are here to help, not criticize. The draft legislation below was shared with city officials as of Wednesday when it was first provided to us.

The mayor has requested that we review and potentially refine the legislation so that any additional powers are specifically focused on addressing audit compliance. We are currently reviewing that request. I have not yet received any feedback from council. Instead, it appears city council has retained an Atlanta lobbying firm to assist them as this issue moves forward. That is certainly their prerogative. However, I would have recommended speaking with the legislative delegation directly before spending thousands of taxpayer dollars from an already small city budget.

The goal of the proposed legislation is simple: to ensure Woodbine meets the same legal transparency requirements that every municipality in Georgia-and every taxpayer-deserves.

I encourage all interested parties to review the draft legislation linked here and provide feedback at [email protected]. Please include your name and primary residence in your email so we can ensure we are highlighting input from city residents.

The proposed legislation may be found here.

Representative Steven Sainz represents the citizens of District 180, which includes Camden County, as well as a portion of Glynn County. He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2018 and currently serves as Chairman of the Interstate Cooperation Committee. He also serves on the Appropriations, Appropriations Subcommittee on Human Resources, Defense & Veterans Affairs, Economic Development & Tourism, Governmental Affairs, Public Safety and Homeland Security and State Properties committees.

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