The Effingham County Board of Commissioners chambers were at overflow level Saturday morning.
More than 100 residents flocked to the county administrative offices to air grievances, ask questions and hear a comprehensive presentation on the recently announced OpenAI data center proposal in the county.
The meeting lasted four and a half hours, with three of those hours devoted to public comment, during which residents overwhelmingly opposed the proposal. Public commenters cited concerns about transparency, infrastructure demands and OpenAI's accountability.
“I don’t feel our community will be the same after this,” said resident Raymond Carver.
The meeting provided a formal forum for residents
to address the board specifically about the proposed data center. The workshop also came just one day after U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock toured the project site and criticized the lack of transparency surrounding the project's planning.
The announcement of the center was made on July 22 to the surprise of residents after approval of a 50% tax incentive package brokered by the Effingham County Industrial Development Authority.
Outside Saturday's meeting, a handful of residents picketed with anti-data center signs amid a light drizzle. The Protect Effingham Alliance also staffed a tent. Inside, the meeting was at times lively, with residents in the audience responding aloud to commissioners' comments and groaning at officials' remarks.
One attendee was voluntarily escorted out after yelling comments from the audience. The individual shouted objections to commissioners’ comparisons to existing data centers given the size of OpenAI’s Effingham proposal. The attendee’s removal followed an exchange earlier in the meeting where a resident was reprimanded for shouting from the audience.
“This is built up energy,” said Carver, who was up for public comment during the disruption. “…This is the pressure that people feel about their investments, which is their property.”
The first hour and a half of the meeting was devoted to a county presentation covering the project’s scope. The presentation included the site’s concept plan, the project’s timeline and plans for mitigating resident concerns related to water demand, power demand and noise pollution.
The project is now moving towards steps within the county government after the initial incentives that landed the project were led by the ECIDA. The county will now be responsible for approving preliminary site plans and a water and sewer agreement with OpenAI.
“Moving this point forward, if it meets the federal, state and local ordinances and law, the project will proceed,” Effingham County Manager Tim Callanan said during the presentation.
One key component of the project outlined by Callanan was OpenAI’s incentive package and payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) plan. The inventive package provides OpenAI a 50% property tax abatement for 15 years, but the company’s PILOT is still expected to produce $27 million in revenues for the county at full build out in 2032.
The PILOT program is a central facet to the county’s “Project Zero” aimed at eliminating county residential property taxes. OpenAI will begin making payments on the value of the undeveloped property next year.
“This is the first step in the county’s plan for Project Zero,” Callanan said.
One common grievance among attendees was that they were not consulted and had no say in the proposed data center before it reached this stage of planning. The county was first contacted about the project in January 2026 regarding infrastructure, according to the project timeline presented Saturday.
There were staff meetings related to the project from February through the summer, including a “community leadership visit” to an OpenAI site in Abilene, Texas, attended by some commissioners, officials said.
District 2 Commissioner Roger Burdette, a project proponent who was on the site visit, admitted the lack of transparency was a mistake. Burdette went on to apologize for not informing the community sooner.
“Part of transparency is admitting when you’re wrong, and I was wrong,” he said. “I should have put this out.”
Evan Lasseter is the City of Savannah and Chatham County government reporter for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at ELasseter@savannahnow.com.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Residents continue pushback on OpenAI data center at latest meeting
