Liberty County leaders are going to devote more attention to some issues and concerns across the community.

Leaders from across the county gathered at St. Simons Island for the annual community-wide retreat, the first in two years after Hurricane Helene canceled the 2024 session. Leaders typically select three topics to take on as a community at the sessions and this year, attendees chose literacy, homelessness and water and sewer capacity as three pressing concerns to tackle.

“A lot of these issues are not easy things to take on,” said Hinesville City Manager Kenneth Howard.

But, Howard said, what he has learned over the years that a commitment to stick to addressing the issues is critical.

With literacy, leaders agreed on a number of goals, including increasing grade level reading capability by 10%, expanding early learning opportunities from birth to pre-kindergarten and building a literacy-focused community.

Among the ways to help boost literacy in the county, particularly among young people, include expanding Bright from the Start and establishing mentorships. Attendees also called for the establishment of a literacy resource center, referring to the former traveling resource bus that once visited neighborhoods with books, school supplies and internet access.

The Chamber of Commerce is working to provide book vending machines in all the schools, and Liberty County Development Authority CEO Brynn Grant cited a Macon effort, Read United, that paired AARP members with young readers twice a week for a year. That push led to a 30% increase in reading proficiency for the youngsters involved.

There is a growing number of homeless in the Hinesville population, city leaders pointed out. Howard, whose start with the city included tackling homeless issues, pointed to Hinesville’s Next Step program, which he started as a pilot program.

Now the city devotes $1 million a year in its budget for the homeless and six people, funded through grants, working to help those who are homeless or not adequately housed.

Another need is that for attainable housing, housing that is within the economic reach of people.

“It’s going to take commitment to address the problem,” he said. “Enacting an ordinance to get rid of them isn’t addressing the problem.”

Some of the problems governments and entities face, Howard said, include a lack of resources and a lack of providing mental health care.

“We need to form an alliance, if you will,” he said. “Let us look at it differently than we have in the past.”

The top three priorities from the last retreat in 2023 were youth enhancement programs, county branding on the 250 Project, a celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary of its founding.

Between Hinesville, Riceboro and Liberty County, more than 90 young people took part in the summer employment program, getting exposed to the working world for a month as part of the youth enhancement programs.

Attendees pondered creating a water-sewer authority that would oversee water and wastewater across the county but ultimately decided on a countywide solution. They also pushed to reconvene the defunct water resources council. A technical committee, comprised of local engineers, has looked at what is currently available in water and wastewater capacity and what will be needed.

Hinesville’s green well zone in Long County will pump about 1 million gallons a day for the city’s westside and bids will go out later this year to expand its water reclamation facility from 2 million to 4 million gallons per day.

The now shuttered International Paper mill in Riceboro drew as much as 10 million gallons per day out of the ground. What happens to that water is still a question and leaders are meeting with the state Environmental Protection Division.

“There is no easy, simple answer,” Grant said.

The company has negotiated severance packages with its employees.

Howard noted some of the initiatives that have sprung out of the communitywide retreat, including bringing higher education to Hinesville and Liberty County, the creation of the consolidated planning commission, starting Liberty Transit and the Mid-Coast Regional Airport.

“We’ve done a lot of wonderful things,” county commission Donald Lovette said. “But there is still room for improvement.”

“This is unique,” Howard said. “Let’s not take it for granted. There are many counties and cities that don’t even speak to each other.”

The retreat also was the last for Howard, who is retiring after nearly 40 years of public service. Howard has spent the last eight years as city manager and was assistant city manager for 22 years.

“He is going to be leaving us in a much better place than he found us,” Hinesville Mayor Karl Riles said.

Howard announced his impending retirement in July.

“I have had a tremendous career,” he told the retreat’s attendees before the sessions ended Friday afternoon. “I have been blessed to have served. I’ve been in city and county government for 40 years. I have done my time, and I’ll be around. Thank you for all you have given me.”