By Bill Rauch Recognizing that river and coastal flooding in recent years has caused multiple injuries, the loss of lives, and extensive property damage throughout South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster has empaneled a statewide Floodwater Commission and named Beaufort County Council Vice Chairman Paul Sommerville to it. The commission is chaired by Tom Mulliikin, the… Keep Reading
By Bill Rauch It’s my hope that 2019 will be the year the lines between our local governments become less rigid. Yes, great progress has been made since the 1990s, when Beaufort County’s municipalities sued each other over their growth plans, and the county government and the school district were at constant war over turf.… Keep Reading
By Bill Rauch This may be deep blue Northern California, where all the men wear beards, locally-grown pot is purveyed in local “commissaries,” and the black-tail deer will practically eat out of your hand because it’s been so long since someone took a shot at one, but where is the place the desperate people who… Keep Reading
By Bill Rauch The recent fiasco that was the second reading of the Pepper Hall development agreement reminds us again that just because Beaufort County buys land using Rural and Critical Lands money doesn’t mean the land will be forever wild. Hardly. The public may think so, but it is not so. Of the 24,000… Keep Reading
Hundreds of search and rescue personnel comb through the ashes of California wildfires By Bill Rauch The first thing you notice, way before you get to the destruction, is the smoke. Descriptions of top shelf Syrah wines sometimes use the word “smoky” to describe subtle differences between vintages. This smoke is the wretched cousin to… Keep Reading
By Bill Rauch Here’s an opportunity to beat swords into plowshares. Beaufort County is in the final stages of preparing a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the 80-acre tract on Washington Farm Road in the Lobeco area of northern Beaufort County that the government bought under its Rural and Critical Lands program. Respondents will be… Keep Reading