By Sarah Sanford Rauch
The political season is upon us again. Sometimes I wonder why anyone runs for elective office.
When you’re popular, I can see the appeal. When you’re voting on something controversial, it can be unspeakably horrible. It’s then that you see how awful people can be when they think they’re not getting their way.
My husband, Bill Rauch, and I were pretty newly married when he, as mayor of Beaufort, cast the deciding vote to bring Clarendon Plantation, just north of the Marine Corps Air Station, into the City of Beaufort. It was highly nuanced and complicated, and it seemed everyone had strong opinions about what should happen.
Bill got death threats when he cast the deciding vote to bring Clarendon in. We stepped over animal feces left on our doorstep. People threw garbage into our yard and yelled expletives as they drove by. I took our little boys away to keep them safe.
At the final special meeting in front of the angry mob several hundred strong in Beaufort High’s cafeteria, Bill told the crowd, “You may not believe it now, but my vote is a vote for conservation.” He was flanked by city police when he left. He had acted on his gut and it was, to say the least, unpopular.
The result of that vote? All 5,600 acres of Clarendon Plantation owned by Cox Communications are now under a conservation easement. That is about — give-or-take – a mile wide swath of northern Beaufort County that runs from Highway 21 at Gray’s Hill to the old abandoned railroad trestle across the Broad River. It includes nine islands, about 40 miles of river and marsh frontage, and roughly 2,500 acres of high land.
With the rural preservation of Lemon Island and the rural preservation zoning that begins at the Chowan Creek on St. Helena Island, the Clarendon easement completes the green belt around Beaufort that was one of Bill’s major goals when he was mayor.
That’s not all. In the years following the annexation, the CEO of Cox Communications, Jim Kennedy, took the lead in making the Rails to Trails project, now known as “The Spanish Moss Trail,” happen. You can now ride a bike 10 miles from Grays Hill all they way to Port Royal. The last of the project over Ribaut Road to the Sands Beach in Port Royal is only months from being complete. When it’s all said and done, there’ll be 16 miles of trail to walk, run, ride and enjoy.
The story came out last month that Cox had put a final easement to protect all of Clarendon Plantation. This is a huge deal for Beaufort and northern Beaufort County. It was also a huge deal for Bill to cast the tough swing vote those years ago. That vote has now preserved as wild forever about a third of the west bank of the Broad River and set in motion the Spanish Moss Trail we all love. It’s amazing how many elected officials have taken credit for the good outcome, but, sorry, boys, I don’t believe any of you would have been brave enough to cast that vote.
I asked Bill if he’s ever been thanked.
“One person” he said, “But I’d do it again.”
My brother, Mark Sanford, served as South Carolina’s governor from 2003 to 2011. By the conclusion of his second term in office, among many other things, he had successfully negotiated (beating out numerous other states) bringing Boeing to Charleston, protected the S.C. coastline from offshore drilling, brokered the expansion of BMW in the Upstate, making it the largest BMW plant in the world. And closest to home for all of us, during his tenure as governor, South Carolina had either purchased outright, or put under easement, an estimated 80,000 acres during his eight years in office. No other governor up to that time had preserved even half that.
The ACE Basin as we know it today took shape during Mark’s governorship.
I asked him recently if anyone ever mentions any of this to him – especially his breath-taking conservation record as governor. “No,” he said. “They seem to find the negative.”
Sometimes I wonder why anyone runs for elective office.
Sarah Sanford Rauch grew up in Beaufort and went on to a career in television in New York. She has been involved in numerous family campaigns in S.C. state and local politics. She now enjoys life again in Beaufort County with one husband, two sons, three brothers, four horses, and more dogs than she cares to admit.