Lolita Huckaby
BEAUFORT
While the State Infrastructure Bank at its meeting last month agreed to give Beaufort County Council until the end of March to come up with an alternate funding plan for the U.S. 278 Corridor Improvement Plan, talks are already underway.
Because the one percent sales tax referendum went down in defeat – 55 to 45 percent – the county no longer has the $190 million promised as a matching fund to the State Infrastructure Bank for the U.S. 278 Corridor Improvement plan, which includes a replacement bridge to Hilton Head Island.
The SIB had pledged $120 million to Beaufort County for a portion of the project. But because Beaufort County voters didn’t buy the idea of another penny sales tax, well, that state money might go elsewhere.
County Council Chairman Joseph Passiment met privately last week with Hilton Head officials to provide an update on the U.S. 278 project and the funding status.
There’s bound to be plenty more meetings as county officials ponder the results of that most recent sales tax proposal.
The Mt. Pleasant Town Council got a lot of attention last week with their plan to make up lost revenue due to Charleston County’s sale tax referendum being rejected.
Council members gave first reading to an ordinance establishing a one percent “tourism sales tax” to help develop the assets of the popular Patriots Point complex.
The new tax would have brought Mt. Pleasant’s total sales to 10 percent, reportedly the highest in South Carolina.
But over the weekend, the Mt. Pleasant mayor called a halt to the proposal, which he had initiated as a response to the rejection of Charleston County’s proposed transportation sales tax referendum last month.
The mayor, in a press conference, apologized for the quick proposal and stressed that the council would not be moving forward with the idea, even though they hope to continue with plans to improve the Patriots’ Point area.
It will be interesting to see if Beaufort County’s municipalities, which all had specific projects identified in the sales tax referendum, will consider similar revenue sources. Port Royal officials were definitely supportive of plans to improve their section of Ribaut Road traffic, which was one of the projects on the rejected sales tax list.
And City of Beaufort officials and Lady’s Island County Council representatives have been talking for years about traffic improvements, proposals that were also on that sales tax list. That list, if anyone had looked at it closely, also included money for a study of a third-bridge project which has been discussed for … oh, at least four decades.
Beaufort County’s clout growing in Columbia
COLUMBIA – State officials went back to the Capital last week, preparing for the 2025 legislative session which begins next month.
And with their return, came the news that one of Beaufort County’s own, State Rep. Bill Herbkersman (R- Bluffton ) was appointed chairman of the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee.
The Bluffton real estate developer had been on the House Ways and Means Committee, but this most recent appointment makes him the fourth Beaufortonian to chair a legislative committee.
State Rep. Weston Newton of Bluffton is the Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. Jeff Bradley of Hilton Head Island chairs a special artificial intelligence committee and Rep. Shannon Erickson of Beaufort chairs the Education and Public Works Committee.
Herbkersman’s committee is tasked with seeing an updated state energy bill, the Ten Year Energy Transformation Act (H.5118), which passed the House this year but never made it to the Senate. The bill includes a restructuring of the S.C. Public Service Commission to include streamlining the permitting process.
Lolita Huckaby is a community volunteer and newspaper columnist. In her former role as a reporter with The Beaufort Gazette, The Savannah Morning News, Bluffton Today and Beaufort Today, she prided herself in trying to stay neutral and unbiased. As a columnist, these are her opinions. Her goal is to be factual but opinionated, based on her own observations. Feel free to contact her at bftbay@gmail.com.
