Flip Flopping Politician
This Update is focused on informing the public about one state politician who has “changed his mind” about the public’s right to free beach parking and beach access. He ran in November 2020 supporting our desire for more public parking on Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island specifically, and now that he has been elected, he is singing a different tune. Below is a post from Amy Winchester (member of the Facebook Group: Charleston Area Public Beach Access and Parking Group). I thought her post summed up nicely the feelings of most of us, so with her permission I share it below along with my thoughts on Joe Bustos (who declined to respond to this petition’s request for a statement).
Amy’s Post:
“I wanted to take a minute and remind myself and everyone just how far we have come. The plans for the 2021 beach season included removing parking on the land side of Palm Blvd. and an app to charge for parking along the state-owned road.
Without this group, we would have loaded the car down, sun screened the kids and arrived at the beach for the first time this year to find less parking and directions on how to pay for parking with an app! Can you imagine sitting in your car for the first time deciding how much time to pay for. Will the kids make it 1 hour or three hours today? I can’t imagine my 72-year-old mother downloading an app by herself to pay to walk the beach.
I want to share this one more time and encourage everyone to listen to it. Warning, it is painful to listen to, but I think it is important and speaks volumes. Beach parking starts at the 15-minute mark. My favorite question Quintin asked Joe is how will eliminating parking resolve anything. Let that sink in.
I don’t know about the rest of his Mount Pleasant constituents, but I am not feeling represented by Joe Bustos. I sent him a detailed email this morning regarding my constitutional rights to go to the beach, state laws that protect access and parking to the beach and the Folly Beach feasibility study with the federal parking requirements from the USACE.
I feel confident that our state will do the right thing for everyone in the state and for the visitors of the state, not just those that reside on the islands. With beach season right around the corner, this subject is going to heat up and possibly get national attention. So as a member of this Facebook page, no Joe Bustos, I will not “settle down.” "
My Thoughts:
Joe Bustos, in the latest interview defending his position on beach access and parking, is missing two main points. First: these are public beaches protected by our state constitution. Second: our use of beaches is constitutionally guaranteed. Most of his points about traffic, road maintenance, safety, the cost that these islands incur to keep beaches clean and well-kept, etc. have some validity, but as Joe himself pointed out, there is a hierarchy of control over the beaches and parking on state roads. He said our governor outranks the Secretary of Transportation. This is true, but it is also true that the constitution outranks any and all local ordinances for parking or any restrictions put in place to hinder the public’s ability to use the beach. The points about safety cost etc. that these towns are making are out ranked by the state constitution guarantee of our rights to access and use beaches.
The argument about what happened at the beginning of COVID-19 (the bridges were barricaded by the island municipalities, beach chairs became illegal, etc. to stem the spread of the virus) all became irrelevant as soon as these municipalities started implementing permanent changes to parking and beach access. They were no longer using COVID-19 as justification; they were purely addressing what they claimed was inconveniences to the residents of these islands on busy summer days. Isle of Palms went so far as attempting to permanently eliminate all parking on the land side of a state owned right of way. One of the owners of Carroll Realty during the early months of the Covid19 lockdowns, Ashley Carroll, bragged on-line that their rental guests would have access to virtually empty beaches and invited all renters of their beach properties to come and stay and enjoy the unusually less crowded beaches, less crowded because of illegal actions by the City of Isle of Palms. If that statement does not tell the entire story, I don’t know what does.
All the talk about safety and road maintenance costs to these towns is just smoke and mirrors. What this is really about is a growing Tri-County area and beach residents doing everything in their power to restrict access to these public beaches to limit the inconvenience to them. Many even call the beaches their own. Unfortunately for them their inconvenience is outranked by our state constitution and the rights it guarantees of public access to and use of the beaches.
Joe Bustos can be reached via email or phone:
Columbia 803 212 6880
Mount Pleasant 843 822 6363
Thanks again to all of you for your support! There will be more updates as things are starting to move and changes are happening.