On very short notice, County Council has placed on tonight's' agenda a request by staff to spend $75M for the Mark Clark Extension (aka 526) without any clear plan in place to fund the entire $2.2B project. We urge you to send a email to Charleston County Councilmembers TODAY (Thursday, Dec 15) to tell them this is unacceptable and to delay this agenda item until a plan is in place for the entire funding.
We know that Johns Islanders are split on the issue of 526, that is the reason Rational Roads has not taken a position on it. But we can all agree that our tax money should be spent responsibly, transparently, and with a rational plan.
At this point, no one knows if the County can find the money to fund 526. To spend $75M without first making that determination is not fiscally responsible. Putting this item on the agenda is wrong in so many ways, including:
According to the funding request "Staff anticipates a 3rd Transportation Sales Tax" will address the funding shortfall. Hope is not a plan. A real plan must be put in place prior to allocating additional funds. Otherwise we could be looking at yet another County financial debacle.
This is the last meeting of a lame duck Council. The new Council, which is seated in just three weeks, should make this determination.
Council has not provided any opportunity for public input on this critical issue.
The funding agenda item will come up at a subcommittee meeting at 4:00 today and then, if passed, it will immediately come up at the Council meeting at 5:00. This doesn't give Councilmembers any opportunity to discuss it with their constituents or to get outside expert advice.
Staff states that the $75M would come from "Roads Program project savings" from a previous half-cent sales tax. This despite the appearances before Council where Staff discussed the astronomical increases in bids they are receiving on current projects. Furthermore, safety and congestion improvements to Main Road from Chisolm/River to Maybank, safety improvements to Upper River Road, and the building of the Southern Pitchfork all remain unfunded and could use that $75M today.
This approach smacks of a time-worn approach of spending money up front and then saying we must continue to spend more money because of the money we have already spent. This type of tomfoolery must stop.
The short notice shows a lack of transparency that we too often see from the County.
Please email County Council here and tell them how your feel about spending so much money without a plan to fund the entire project. If you have browser issues and this link does not work, the email addresses for County Councilmembers are given below.
Do not assume others will an email so you do not have to. We urge you to send an email NOW to let Council know you expect them to be fiscally responsible and to not fund the $75M request without a plan in place to fund the entire Mark Clark Extension project.
Sidebar: Sales Tax
The 2016 half-cent sales tax allocated $1.89B to road improvements over a period not to exceed 25-years. In addition to the many road improvements this will fund (such as Main and Bohicket Roads), these funds must also cover administrative fees and bond servicing costs.
Therefore the net amount available to actually spend on roads is less than $1.89B. It would be considerably less if all the funds were bonded upfront (perhaps as little as a half).
Given that the County would be responsible for $1.78B of the cost of 526 ($2.2B total cost less $420M funded by the state) and would need to bond the funds, even if the entire amount of a half-cent sales tax were allocated to 526 it would not be sufficient.
County Council email addresses Copy and paste these email addresses into the "To" line of your email if you have issues with the supplied link.
