Beaufort County Council has little understanding of corridor issues, does not appear interested in learning about them, and acts like a North Korean dictatorship regarding citizen inputs. Their County/SCDOT plan has major flaws (including throughput, safety, impact, missing and hidden parts, inability to meet goals, and others) that took 18 pages to describe to federal authorities by a concerned 10,500+ petition signers. Yet the County Engineer told Council they are small details, and let County Council members describe them as miniscule.
Overall, County leadership seems uninterested and incapable of conducting unbiased scientific planning on this critical project. There has been no 2-way technical interaction or closure on Citizen comments, only diversion. (However, 2 of the 11 County Council members: Reitz and Brown are siding with citizens on the need for unbiased studies.) The goal of the rest of County Council appears to be to suppress public comment and approve the defective, incomplete and high risk SCDOT plan.
A team of HH citizens consisting of engineers, consultants and military people was formed (called the Technical Working Group – TWG) to achieve provable safety and congestion improvements for the Corridor as rapidly as possible. (Some of these ideas might be accomplished earlier than the defective SCDOT plan.) The TWG provides technical comments to the public, Town and County Councils, State and Federal officials. Other citizens have made similar comments on project flaws. Yet the County speeds on blindfolded.
Last year the County launched yet another of their so called Independent studies over the wrong scope, asking the wrong questions and vigorously rejecting citizen input or oversight, or study of alternatives. Citizens called this yet another County SHAM. Using a tricky ploy involving a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) signed in the last days of the outgoing lame duck McCann Town administration, they are currently using their SHAM study and lame duck MOA to pressure a new, more aware Hilton Head Town Council into providing their Municipal Consent BEFORE the Town’s own Independent study is complete. Hopefully, the Town will reject that. Listening to Town Council comments and those of Senator Tom Davis, indicates that many have a far deeper understanding of the Corridor problem and issues than County Council.
Since these issues are major, HHI Town Council launched its own Independent Study (results expected around May, 2024) to finally get answers to Corridor questions that the County has long blocked. The Town Study is much more transparent and involves rather than rejects community input. Backers of the existing County/SCDOT plan, including the secret Chamber-linked lobbying group called the Greater Island Council (GIC), claim the need for speed in starting construction. However, Citizens say that starting in the wrong direction on the $328 million deeply flawed current plan would be a huge mistake, and could actually prevent better, faster solutions. Furthermore, speed advocates knew of the many project issues and County manipulation since 2020, but did nothing. Thus, their rush now is cynical and really meant to prematurely bypass the data expected from the new Town analysis.
The figure attached summarizes the traffic situation. Regarding public input, attempting to read just this brief summary to County Council would exceed their 3-minute public comment limit. Such is the state of public input!
A much more detailed version of this summary is available by sending a request to hiltonhead.twg@gmail.com
If you have not already done so, please view and sign our petition at https://chng.it/HqTcJjyQ8G
Thank you,
Steven M. Baer