The City of Woodbine retained the Firm to provide legal services and training to the City Council to help it navigate a conflict over what is required and what is wanted for the governing of the county seat of Camden County in Southeast Georgia.
The 2020 COVID Global Pandemic wreaked havoc on governments of at all levels and of all sizes. The location of the County Government for Camden County, Woodbine is home to 1,062 people. The City operates with a very small staff led by a professional city manager. Because of the pandemic, the City fell behind in getting its annual audits complete. South Georgia generally was hard hit by the Pandemic because there are not many healthcare facilities and those that exist were quickly overrun by patient demands. Those challenges also confounded local governments across the region in providing essential services to citizens and being able to ensure it completed required financial checks.
In the closing days of the 2026 session of the Georgia General Assembly, a bill to fundamentally alter the mechanism of management of the City cross-over from the House to the Georgia Senate. Local Senator Mike Hodges objected. He insisted training on governance and an expert review of the City’s Charter with recommended changes should precede any wholesale rewrite. Our firm was retained by the City to fulfill Senator Hodges requirements and provide assistance to the Governing Authority and the City Manager on how it should approach governance as well as what good governance changes should be considered by the Governing Authority and the General Assembly.
On May 28, firm founder Chris Balch attended a special called meeting of the Woodbine City Council and provided an overview and framework from which governance, that is the best practices and best avenues for accomplishing the goals and desires of the community, ought to be viewed. Relying on storytelling and scholarly research on leadership and governance from the last 30 years, Chris provided an interesting and entertaining framework from which the City Council should build together.
In August, the firm will present to the Council an updated and modernized City Charter that will bring Woodbine into alignment with the recommended models by the National Civic League, the National League of Cities, the Georgia Municipal Association and other national and international organizations deeply involved in local government for the best and most efficient way to manage the competing and often overwhelming options facing cities of all sizes.
We are happy to lead this project and look forward to helping Woodbine successfully navigate its next century of existence.
