I sent the following question to both Candidates for the position of Hilton Head Mayor:  Will you Support an Independent Review of the Corridor Project Per the Undiluted Scope and Goals Developed in June 2022? 

Here are the answers:

JoAnn Orischak 11/16/22 - See Below    

"I support the original MOU and plan for an Independent Review of the Corridor project as negotiated by Senator Tom Davis in his 7/5/22 letter to Town and County Councils.  Kindest Regards, JoAnn Orischak"  (My Comment: This is the original undiluted Independent Review wanted by Citizens, not the Sham.)

Alan Perry - No response yet.

Background:

The Corridor project is the largest and most important project in the history of Hilton Head and Beaufort County. The current cost estimate is $328 million or more, yet there is no proof that the current plan will solve our congestion problems. 

No matter how many lanes are put on the bridges (currently an equivalent of 11, with 11 lane intersections) the bottlenecks are at the lights, merges, and splits downstream, and the connections to the Cross Island Parkway, and Local 278 near Gumtree, which politicians ignore. These missing parts will add to project costs and impacts. Unless they are included, we will not have a true picture of the best way to solve our congestion problem. There has also been data hidden from the public, as hinted in Stu Rodman’s private email obtained via FOIA.

In 2020, Citizens asked for an Independent Review of the project to help determine what was the best solution to our traffic problems. The scope of work for that review was altered by Stu Rodman and County Council so that it no longer provided the Independent data that Citizens needed. In 2022, citizens revived that Independent Review with the help of Senator Davis. A work plan was developed and distributed to Town and County officials in June 2022. Senator Davis arranged $1 million of funding for it from SCDOT. Citizens experts felt it could be completed in 6 months or less, so we should have been getting good decision-making data from it around now.  

But something strange happened: The work languished, and once again, the scope and goals were changed and diluted so that the needed study became a Useless Sham – not providing the needed data. Few people noticed, but it is extremely important to differentiate between the original and the diluted Sham Independent Review.

Meanwhile, the number of people signing a Petition asking for a re-look at the Corridor plan approached 10,000. That will likely cause a project delay as they point out numerous project flaws to Federal approval authorities. Many of us believe that the fastest path to a good corridor plan is an Unbiased Independent Review - not the recent Sham substitute.