Charleston County voters sent a clear message to County Council members by voting down a half-penny sales tax to fund roads and other projects by a whopping 23-point margin.
And what 127,572 voters essentially said was this: We don’t really trust you to do what you say you’re going to do with billions of dollars. Go back to the drawing board.
But some people on the losing side of the referendum that would have generated $5.4 billion seem to be viewing the results with rose-tinted glasses. They ignore the pervasiveness of the no vote — how voters in 171 of the county’s 182 precincts said they didn’t want the county’s plan, which included using half the money to extend Interstate 526 across Johns Island.
Supporters of the referendum seem to think voters were just against the tax part of the referendum, not the guts of what it would do. But voters aren’t stupid. They’ve been paying a half-penny tax for years — this vote simply would have extended it. And voters might have said yes if there had been good stewardship by the county with the money that already has been collected. But the county’s pitiful record of not completing most of the road projects it funded with past half-penny money muddied its fiction about its potential for success with new local option sales tax dollars. And that made voters across the county wonder how they could trust the county this time to use the billions of funds correctly. It’s telling that no precinct on James or Johns islands — the places I-526 would have run through — supported the half-cent referendum.
So Charleston County Council has its job cut out for it. It has to rebuild trust with voters before asking for more money. And it needs to become more transparent, or voters will keep holding the county accountable at the polls.
Now is the time to develop practical plans to reduce traffic without extending a big new road that would clog traffic more, not make things move more quickly. There are all sorts of strategies Charleston County could develop to smooth traffic flows throughout the county, not just in the western part of the county — better interchanges, flyovers, improved mass transit and more.
So while council members are back at the drawing board, they need to develop additional plans that build resilience to the flooding that’s going to come as the climate continues to warm. Failing to get a handle on future flooding now when there is time will cause much more harm down the road than blowing billions of taxpayer dollars on a road that would be under water in a bad storm.
It’s time to end the obsession with extending Interstate 526. It’s time to interpret voters’ preferences honestly. And it’s time to move forward with realistic, practical solutions that will make a difference.
Public service is hard work. Now it’s time to get down to it.
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