Dear Island Neighbors, 

This year, in addition to lovely light, the changing of the color of the marsh grass to golden yellow, and the end of the summer heat and humidity, Fall is bringing us... Town elections

As previously noted, along with a number of other area municipalities, we have had to change our Town election date to Tuesday, November 4, from 7AM to 7PM, as usual at Sunrise Presbyterian Church. Charleston County Board of Elections and Voter Registration is handling all aspects of the election.

We will be electing three councilmembers and mayor. You can see the candidates who will be on the ballot here: bit.ly/2025SICandidates. Just hit Search and scroll down for the list.

Early voting will be available at several County locations including Seacoast Church in Mt. Pleasant, starting Monday, October 20. More information is available here https://bit.ly/2025SIEarlyVoting. As always, absentee voting is also available.

Don’t forget to vote!

RUMOR MILL UPDATE
I’m sure it’s unrelated to the above, but the rumor mill seems to be operating at warp speed these days. The common theme is confusing consideration of ideas and advice with adoption of those ideas and advice.

A few weeks ago, we received several emails from residents asking us to delay a scheduled vote at our September meeting to accept the long-aborning resilience plan prepared by our contracted consultants, (As it turns out the consultants needed extra time for final edits, for other reasons, so it will be on our October Council meeting agenda.) 

These emails expressed concern about the level of public notice and input related to this important project. Actually this grant-supported planning effort had been discussed repeatedly over the last couple of years, including presentations at public meetings and less formal advertised open houses at Town Hall.

There were also concerns about the potential costs of implementing all the things that had been suggested in the draft plan. 

Well...if that vote were to approve implementing anything or everything in the plan, I would absolutely agree with the need to back off and go slow.

However, despite some apparently widespread claims, nothing could be farther from the truth. We were not and are not preparing to have a vote on committing to any item in that report.

As the Town traditionally does, when we approach a large-scale challenge which requires expertise in breadth and depth far beyond what we have internally, we solicit proposals for assessment, consultation and guidance from teams of appropriately trained and informed professionals. We evaluate the candidate teams, select the proposal that appears to be best suited for the Town, and engage them to provide us with a comprehensive assessment and set of recommendations. In effect, we are asking the experts, “What are our choices in addressing this issue, and what might be our plan?"

When we accept their report, it is only that: we accept receipt of their report and plan as the work product that fulfills their contractual obligations. 

That in no way means we agree to do any or all things in their plan. That is always for later study, discussion and decisions by Council.

This is nothing new. The Town has always followed this approach to ensure that when/if we decide to take on major projects requiring large amounts of taxpayer dollars, we are basing that decision on the best available information and guidance.

In all cases, we have an abundance of open communication by the consultants to apprise residents of what they are considering and to solicit feedback. (But in no cases do the consultants get to make the Town’s decisions!)

Here are some examples:

• Major rehab and replacement of the water distribution system
• Major rehab and replacement of the wastewater (sewer) collection and treatment systems
• Major review and modernization of our zoning ordinance
• Potential comprehensive updating of Stith Park. This has included an iterative series of charrettes and open town hall meetings to solicit resident input. (Contrary to the rumor mill, everything that was included in these drafts was clearly designated as POTENTIAL, in particular the swimming pool, which was considered and then ruled out based on resident feedback.)
• Island-wide stormwater management plan (We broke ground last week on work in the first two areas.)
• (Coming soon, with Dominion Energy) Island-wide evaluation of what would be involved in moving our electrical distribution system (parts or whole) to underground

In short, we may vote to accept delivery of consultants’ report as the contracted-for work product. That does not mean we are agreeing to implement anything in it without a great amount of study by relevant Town boards/commissions, Council committees and Council as a whole…all in public.

Similarly, our Town Council committees are often the first groups to consider new ideas or suggestions for the Town. Consideration is not adoption. It’s what we need to do to be responsive to citizen and/or board or commission input. Recently, our Recreation Committee considered, at a public meeting, the possibility of using one of our many back-beach Station dead-ends (Town property) as a passive park. This would possibly be a place for a bench or two and a couple of golf carts (no cars) for folks to sit for a spell to watch marsh and boats, on a tiny patch of land that is already accessible to all. This idea had been suggested by a couple of residents over the years and by our Comprehensive Plan.

At the Recreation Committee’s publicly advertised meeting, the Committee received feedback from a number of residents opposed to the idea, and very few in support, so they did not recommend that Council pursue the idea at this time. As Committee Chair Ned Higgins said so aptly, “This is what you want your government to do: Receive ideas, solicit public input on them, discuss the ideas and input, and make decisions based on that process.”

See you around the Island!

Pat O’Neil
Mayor
843 670 9266
oneilp@sullivansisland.sc.gov