Our View: Don’t let Charleston County play voters on funding to extend Interstate 526

Charleston County Council plans to ask voters in November to renew a 1% local option sales tax to pay for $5.4 billion in transportation projects, including the county’s overwhelming share of the ominous $2.4 billion extension of Interstate 526.

Watch out. You are about to be played for a sucker. Why? A penny tax is heavily tipped in the county’s favor. County council approves the wording of the question. And county council will add a bunch of carrots, bells and whistles to, in essence, bribe different areas of the county that won’t benefit from the 526 extension to vote in favor of the proposition.

A preliminary summary of how the county will use the $5.4 billion from the tax includes:

$1.8 billion for extending I-526;
$812 million for what it calls new “potential projects”
(the bribes);
$650 million for its annual allocation program, which is $31.5 million a year for improvements for cyclists, pedestrians and at intersections, as well as resurfacing
and other paving;
$648 million for CARTA and Bus Rapid Transit;
$432 million for greenbelt projects;
$282 million for costs left for current projects; and (get this):
$749 million to pay debts and interest costs. (Yes, 14% of the tax goes to lenders from which the county would borrow.)

The county is taking public comments through March 6 on what taxpayers want to spend on these new potential projects which range from a $168 million U.S. Highway 17 project in Mount Pleasant and $126 million in Maybank Highway improvements on Johns Island to a $110 million Harborview Road project on James Island and a $142 million mobility improvement venture in North Charleston.

At present, state law seems to favor the heavy hand of the county in the process because it requires the referendum to ask a simple yes/no question on whether taxpayers agree to fund an extra penny tax for a range of projects. It doesn’t appear to offer a way to ask a follow-up question in case the yes/no question fails. To that point: Is there a way to get voter approval for all of the other projects on the list without I-526? Apparently not.

Charleston County Council member Larry Kobrovsky of Sullivan’s Island believes it is vital to find out whether voters would approve of other needed projects if they offered a big fat no to a referendum that included funding I-526. He wants a way to split the question.

“We need to bifurcate it because nobody is Nostradamus here and knows how the vote will go,” he said. “The fear is that there are so many needs — transportation, drainage, green space, public transport — that if the people reject 526, then all of those needs aren’t going to happen.”
We’re not supportive of moving forward with the 526 extension because it sucks too much locally generated tax revenue for one project when we are in dire need to deal with flooding, other traffic needs and more.

That’s why we hope smart people will figure out a way to keep vital projects moving forward if the referendum on 526 fails.