A Slightly Salty Interview with Tybee Island Mayor Shirley Sessions (with a little input from her sister Sandy)

The first year we moved back to my husband’s hometown, we lived out at his family’s beach house on Tybee Island to get our bearings. Accepting that I would be raising my California hippie kidlets in the South was already a dazzling shock, and landing in this quirky coastal community of less than 3,000 full-time residents was simultaneously surreal and comforting.

One day, as my toddlers and I were gathering our forwarded mail at the post office and trying not to cry because someone at the IGA had sneered at me when I asked if they carried organic milk (I probably deserved it; it was 2006, and I was not in California anymore,) I met a gregarious lady with short magenta hair and intense blue eyes who overheard me say we’d come from near San Francisco. Sandy McCloud sensed I was a weird, sad fish out of water and invited us to the American Legion for something called the Tybee Prom, which turned out to be a benefit for the Humane Society and a helluva good time. 

Soon after, I met Sandy’s sister, Shirley Sessions, who asked me smart questions and always looked dressed for a fabulous art opening, even if she was just going to Spanky’s for chicken fingers. With their spiky haircuts and boundless kindness, the sisters became like mermaid fairy godmothers, introducing me to good folks and steering me clear of petty ones, and even after we’d moved into Savannah I still ran into them all over the place. 

Like me, they were Tybee transplants, though they’d grown up much closer in Atlanta and been on the island far longer. Sandy had left a big city radio career and got into real estate after migrating to the coast; when she’s not brokering beach houses you can usually find her volunteering at Hospice Savannah and doo-wopping with her 1950’s cover band, The Girlfriends. 

Shirley had been contract manager for AT&T and moved into social work as the volunteer director at United Way of the Coastal Empire and became highly involved in Tybee’s historic preservation efforts. In 2019, she was elected the first female mayor in the City of Tybee’s history, and in 2020 became internet famous for her stalwart leadership during COVID, standing up to Gov. Brian “I Just Learned COVID Was Contagious Yesterday” Kemp when he wanted to reopen the beaches during quarantine.

Sandy and Shirley are best friends, and you rarely see one without the other. They’ve traveled together to New York and Paris, and live right across the road from each other on the island’s north end. Even though they’ve known each other since the womb, they don’t seem to ever run out of things to talk about and often finish each other’s sentences, conspiratorially whispering one minute and cackling with laughter the next. 

I’ve been meaning to catch up with Shirley to talk about how her mayoral reign has fared since its tumultuous debut, so we met at The Deck Beach Bar & Kitchen on a busy afternoon last week. I was delighted to see Sandy’s red hair follow her inside, the two of them looking cool and collected as tourists wandered in with sunburnt faces and sandy feet. We had a two-hour chat about the island’s short-term vacation rental controversy, the effects of climate change, and wild biker chick outfits back when Tybee was known as the Redneck Riviera. 

***

JLL: I thought I was interviewing the mayor, but I got both of y’all! I love how supportive you are of one another. 

Shirley: Well, my sister is not only the one who talked me into running for mayor but she also was the influence that got me to Tybee. It was back in the ‘80s, and I was supposed to go to a music festival on Jekyll Island and Sandy said I had to stop here.

Sandy: My husband, Bob, and I came out here and ended up at the old DeSoto Hotel. [Revered local author, calligrapher and naturalist] Mallory Pearce was there drawing pictures and doing bird calls, and I just thought it was the funkiest, fun place. There was the old Shipwatch Lounge...I told her she had to go. 

Shirley: That was it. After that we just came to Tybee every year for a girls’ weekend.

Sandy: Back then we used to sit on the north end of the island when you could literally shoot a cannon and you wouldn't hit anybody for miles. There was nobody there! And we’d fantasize, how we could live at Tybee? 

So in ‘94, I put an ad in the paper saying I was looking for a house—I didn’t know anybody, I wasn’t a realtor back then and there was no internet. This man called me out of the blue and said he had a house on T.S. Chu Terrace that was $120,000 and completely furnished with a duplex. That was a lot of money back then.

Bob and I came down to look at it but it was just so much to get involved with. But I kept saying, oh my God, it’s such a nice place. And Shirley was like, let’s get it together! 

Shirley & Sandy.

Shirley: We moved out here full-time to our own places in ‘98, and that’s when a group of Tybee citizens were trying to save the old DeSoto, which had been bought and the plan was to raze it and build it to zero setback. The effort was led by [beloved Tybee Island Historical Society director] Cullen Chambers, who was behind the restoration of the Tybee Lighthouse and the Tybee Post Theater, and here was this old Southern hotel that had gotten us here in the first place, so I had to get involved with that. 

Sandy: She still has the old placards with the little song I wrote about saving the Desoto!

Shirley: But it didn’t work [sighs]. The developers brought in the wrecking ball the first Saturday of January in 1999 and tore it all down. The whole community came out to watch with tears in their eyes. This was also the period when you started seeing condominiums being built, trees being clear cut…when the hotel went down, that’s what really sparked my interest in changing things. 

We participated in different committees to help rewrite some of the land use code ordinances, and I was appointed to the planning commission. In ‘99, I decided to run for City Council. That year, there were 19 people who ran for six seats, and we all got along really well. After the election was over, the six people that won, along with the other people who had not won, had a big party at the American Legion and we all danced together. It was so different then. 

Ms. Mayor reflects on decades of public service

You served on council for eight years, until 2009. Why did you come back on after a ten-year hiatus?

Well, in 2018, a council member had left in the middle of a term, and the deal was the council and mayor could appoint someone. [Former mayor] Jason Buelterman and a couple of other council members encouraged me to come back. Then in 2019, Jason announced that he was not going to run again and encouraged me to run for mayor. 

Sandy: When Jason first reached out to Shirley we were actually getting ready to go to Paris, and the whole time we were there I was like, you gotta run, you gotta run! And she kept saying, no no, but I convinced her! At the time she was working with me so she put her real estate license on inactive—which she didn't have to, but she chose to, even though she makes $800 a month as mayor and gives most of that to the United Way. 

Even though she's not a realtor anymore, there are people in the real estate business who think she should be their spokesmouth, whether it’s for short term rentals or development or whatever. I tell them that she was elected by people to represent the island's best interest, not to lobby for one group. Frankly, I think a well-managed short term rental is a better neighbor than a lot of old timers around here. 

Ooh, now it’s getting salty. Let’s talk about STVR regulation. 

Sandy: Well, you asked me and I'm not the mayor. Shirley has her opinions and I have mine. Look, I love Tybee, I want people to come here. But they let the [short-term vacation rental situation] get out of control, the lawmakers on the island were not paying attention to the zoning laws or the master plan. Shirley started bringing it up in 2004, everybody poo-pooed it. But she brought out the zoning codes and said, see what it says right here? 

Shirley: Basically, the land use codes don’t address short term vacation rentals. They do address bed-and-breakfasts, which are very different because you have to get a license, you have to go before planning commission. You have to get a survey, you have to have a parking plan. But for STVRs there was no regulation whatsoever for the residential areas. The recent legislation is still in the process of being addressed. 

Sandy: The problem is the people who live here, they don't want it—until they want to sell their house and then they want to cry about it. The problem too is with the management companies—not all of them, some are much more responsible—nobody wants to be respectful and just have two people per bedroom and an appropriate parking plan. In my opinion, if they had done that from the beginning, we wouldn't be having any discussions about this. 

I’ll tell you, I’ve seen three-bedroom houses sleeping 18 people, three full-size beds in the garage, trundle beds in the dining room, anything to cram more people in. I showed one house that had a bunk bed and a TV in the laundry room!

It’s hard to get owners to be considerate of their neighbors when they live in Texas or wherever and have never set foot in this town. But again, if they're well managed and people are respectful, sometimes as a resident I find short-term rentals a lot easier than permanent neighbors—at least I know they’re leaving.

STVRs are complicated, OK?

The 2020 Census showed that Tybee’s full-time population is 2,928, a slight decline from 2,988 in 2010. Does it still feel like a close-knit community?

Shirley: I think the thing that has remained constant is, even though there's divisive issues, the people on Tybee are still the best treasures. Whether we agree with each other or not, when push comes to shove, we're there for each other.

I think the [decline] may have had something to do with the Census being done during COVID, and I think it will come back. COVID changed so much with people being able to work from anywhere. Why not work from the beach? 

And keep in mind we have more daytrippers and more visitors than ever—Memorial Day weekend there were 93,000 people on the island! 

Sandy [cracking up]: Speaking of which, I remember Memorial Day weekends back in the 90s when the biker gangs would come and hang out at the bars. One time Bob and I walked down to Fannie’s—which was just one level at the time, by the way—and there was a motorcycle lady who had fashioned some kind of a thong out of a garden hose up her butt and two shells as her top. Bob was like, stop staring at her, you’re going to get our asses kicked! That was what Tybee used to be like—the Redneck Riviera! 

Ms. Mayor, you’d only been in office four months when COVID hit, and you made international news—and got a TON of hate—for defying Governor Kemp’s orders to reopen the beaches. How did you stand strong through all of it? 

Shirley: It was very stressful, but I was too busy trying to manage what we needed to do. When we closed the beaches, and I had the full support of our counsel—

Sandy: She got everybody to agree, OK? Getting any six people to agree on anything is hard, but she got everybody to agree to do it! 

Shirley: Well, the main thing I ran on for mayor was unity and trying to maintain respect on the council. They all have their own politics and opinions, but they have always been respectful to each other and to me. We had strategic planning meetings, and we had the support of not only the council, but the public, the businesses, the citizens—I mean, there were a few, you know, who weren’t on board—but most everyone was like yes, please, do this for us. 

At the time we knew so little about the virus, and it was terrifying. We went through two weeks of making plans, talking to the businesses, getting the residents to wear masks and stay at home. Then Kemp made that announcement, and we stood united on doing what was right for our citizens. 

Sandy: Oh, she got threats though. Some guy with a blocked phone number kept calling, you don’t know who the governor’s friends are, blah blah blah…it was scary, I was afraid for her. 

Shirley: I wasn't afraid. No way. Because I—and Council and our staff and our residents—we were doing what was best for our community. There were people who didn’t like it and wanted one person to blame, and that was me.

I think if I had already not had eight years on council it would have been harder. Back in 2000, I stood up for no more condos, no more heights, I would vote against variances, I was a preservationist and an environmentalist. It was about preserving the value of our historic properties; a lot of people called me a “tree hugger.” There were people who didn’t like it, but back then there was no social media, they had to get in your face or talk to you one on one or call—

Sandy [whispering]: Can I tell my favorite?

Shirley: Which one is your favorite?

Sandy: Oh, this guy called her because he got a ticket for being on the beach with an electric bicycle, which, of course, there are signs that say no electric vehicles all over the place… So he left her a message that went on and on, clearly he was cuckoo, and he said at the end, “you’re just one of those rich liberal cunts.” I’m sure he didn’t think she was going to call him back.

Shirley [shrugs and grins]: I call everybody back. I just said, hello sir, I'm returning your call to address the issue you’re having. And also, you called me a rich liberal cunt. But sir, if you talk to anyone who knows me, they will tell you I’m definitely not rich.

[entire table dissolves into enthusiastic cackling]

What do you think is the biggest challenge that Tybee is going to face in the near and long term future?

Shirley: Well, clearly for the next forever, we're always going to be challenged with the possibility of hurricanes, as well as beach erosion and climate change. We have so many good programs going on right now with resiliency and sustainability. We’re working with the Skidaway Institute, DNR, Corps of Engineers, the University of Georgia, and Georgia Tech in developing different types of projects that can be done on the marsh and the Back River that will help alleviate some of the climate changes we're already seeing. 

Senator Jon Ossoff has been great about helping us try to get more funds for beach renourishment. In fact, we just had a meeting with him this morning to talk about hurricane preparedness. 

Wait, whaaat? Senator McDreamy was here today? 

Shirley: We have a great relationship with him and his staff. We took them to the Tybee Island Marine Science Center for a tour, we took him out to eat at North Beach Grill, then we took them around the island to see the dunes that we've developed to protect from storm surges. We have these golf carts for the beach and he wanted to drive!

Sandy [swooning]: My god, he was so cute driving that little cart.

Shirley: We had a roundtable discussion, and here’s the thing: Tybee is doing everything right. We’re renourishing our beaches, we’re building up our sand dunes, we’re participating with the Corps of Engineers on a study of why the waves are getting more intense—we’re doing a lot of preparation.  

People get so caught up criticizing without looking at all of the things that Tybee has accomplished for such a small community. Our police department, our fire department, our public works—they are awesome. We have incredible non-profits, The Tybee Arts Association, the theater…it’s a place where people still work together in the face of disagreements and challenges. 

OK, last question. It's from Mark, so please don’t blame me. One-piece or bikinis?

Sandy [immediately]: Muumuus. 

Shirley [after a thoughtful pause]: I’m thinking nude beach. I mean, it’s Tybee, why not? 

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Keep it salty, Tybee ~ JLL

P.S. This year’s Tybee Prom is July 16—get your tickets here.

SO lucky to have two mermaid fairy godmothers