Topics range from St. Helena CPO to single-use plastics
By Mike McCombs
The Island News
Members of Beaufort County Council held their second “Community Council Chat” Tuesday evening in Council Chambers. The first “chat” was held September 28 in Bluffton.
The event was billed as an opportunity for citizens to get to know Council and informally as questions, and it lived up to its billing. Around 40 people were present when the gathering go started at 6 p.m., but within the first 30 minutes, the attendance had swelled to more than 60 and extra folding chairs were added behind the last row of seating in Council Chambers.
The meeting was not televised or streamed, and there were no minutes taken. There was a sign-up sheet for those interested in speaking, but it was informal and those in attendance could sign up, even after the meeting had already started.
Speakers were limited to three minutes, but after everyone had spoke, those who had been cut off as their time ended were permitted to speak again for two additional minutes.
Council members attending the “chat” were Gerald Dawson (District 1), York Glover (District 3), Alice Howard (District 4), Anna Tabernik (District 6) and Chair Joe Passiment (District 5). District 2’s David Bartholomew was forced to miss the meeting because of illness. Tabernik ran the meeting.
No topic was off limits.
Right off the bat, Bishop Kenneth C. Doe of Bethesda Christian Fellowship on St. Helena Island expressed his gratitude.
“Thank you for upholding the law by upholding the Cultural Protection Overlay (CPO) District,” Doe said.
As the evening’s first speaker, Doe set the tone for many of the evening’s 25 speakers, as Pine Island and the fight over its development were a common theme. Many attendees carried signs, showing their support for protecting St. Helena Island and the CPO, while only a couple supported the proposed Pine Island development.
“Thank you on behalf off the Sea Islands and the Gullah/Geechee nation, …” said Marquetta Goodwine, more commonly known as Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation. “They are proud to know that this county has done the right thing by defending the CPO.”
Queen Quet also informed Council that the Gullah/Geechee Nation had submitted a proposal to the Army Corps of Engineers to “help raise causeways and retrofit ditches to help St. Helena Island” deal with rising seawater and a large number of low-lying roads. SCORE and the S.C. Department of Transportation (SCDOT) are also partners in the project, and the County will likely be included.
Cooperation is required because the causeways are owned by and the responsibility of the Corps of Engineers, while the roads belong to either the County or the state.
Janet McCauley, along with others, praised the Council for the willingness to have this kind of meeting.
“We recognize the tremendous amount of time you spend in meeting and in our communities, and it’s a thankless job,” she said.
McCauley was concerned about the increasing lack of decorum in public meetings.
“It’s not constructive problem solving,” she said. “We need to work together.”
Allison Davidow’s concern was a practical one.
“I sat three rows back at yesterday’s meeting,” she said. “It’s impossible to hear you folks.”
She questioned the “audio facilities for this particular room,” and said the person she could hear best at yesterday’s meeting was a Councilman who wasn’t even present. Instead, he was participating remotely on Zoom.
Stephanie Bolden Richards encouraged the Council to take action on the Lady’s Island Plan, expanding their concept of the “downtown area” of Lady’s Island – from the Woods Memorial Bride to the Sam’s Point Road/Lady’s Island Drive intersection – and viewing the surrounding larger area instead as a commerce zone.
The goal, she said, should be to zone and attract the type of businesses and services Lady’s Island doesn’t currently have to lessen the need to go off-island, thus decreasing traffic.
“Thank you,” Councilwoman Alice Howard said. “You have a good comprehensive idea of what could happen on Lady’s Island.”
Howard also stressed the need for cooperation in this matter with the City of Beaufort.
Mare Deckard was concerned about the responsibilities of the two County attorneys and whether or not Council was getting the best advice. Arnold Brown stressed the need for Council to have “good, trusted, reliable information.”
“If you don’t get good information,” he said, “it will make you look bad.”
Ernestine Atkins wanted to know why, 25 years after it was first on a County agenda, Airport Circle had still not been paved.
“We have asked the County to pave that road several times,” she said. “Each time a storm or high tide washes it down, they come and repair it.”
Gardenia Simmons-White made her case that Penn Center should be the home of a new Cultural Arts Center on St. Helena. Chris Campbell discussed emulating an Isle of Palms statute limiting single-use plastics.
Urbie West discussed his family’s inability to develop its land in Seabrook because of confusion about a conservation easement and the Beaufort County Northern Regional Plan.
Ronald Walsh asked Council to stop developers from illegally cutting trees on his Lady’s Island property.
And Beaufort County Board of Education member William Smith took Council to task.
“What time did this meeting start tonight?” he asked. “Six o’clock. Because people have jobs and had to have time to get here. What time do regular Council meetings start? Five. You just told me all I need to know. You don’t want people at Council meetings.”
Mike McCombs is the Editor of The Island News and can be reached at TheIslandNews@gmail.com.
