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State House District 123: Three candidates. One debate. Few fireworks

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The moderator of a Friday night debate among three Republicans running for Hilton Head Island's state House District 123 seat ended the event by complimenting the trio for their civility.

Despite a lack of fireworks during the two-hour session -- incumbent Richard Chalk and challengers

Starletta Hairston and Stu Rodman agreed more often than they disagreed -- the roughly 50 people at the debate appeared to enjoy the polite back and forth. The debate was sponsored by the Republican Women's Club of southern Beaufort County.

The issue that received the most attention was the state's education formula, which the candidates agreed puts local public schools at a disadvantage.

The biggest difference among the three was over who could bring home the most money for education.

Voicing her frustration with the current formula, Hairston, a former county council member, said, "I'd like to be that squeaky wheel in Columbia that talks about this and shows them that we have families that are low income; we have families with children that (receive) free or reduced lunch, which they think we don't have down here."

Stu Rodman, a current county councilman and a former school board member, argued his experience working with the schools makes him ideally qualified to find creative solutions to the funding problem. "I came out of a financial background," Rodman said during the debate, "but my heart is really in seeing if we can make a difference in education and education funding."

Chalk pointed out that he was already sitting on a task force in the House to examine the funding formula and argued that the best chance the county has to see improvement is by gaining clout in the state legislature.

"It's very easy to say this ought to be done and that ought to be done," Chalk said, but "I can tell you that people who are the most successful ... have seniority."

However, both Rodman and Chalk said that without an infusion of new money into the state budget, a change in the funding formula would be extremely difficult.

The three candidates also touched on the issue of local school impact fees, currently not allowed under state law. County council and school board members have been vocal in their support for such developer fees on new homes to create a source of revenue for cash-strapped schools.

Both Hairston and Rodman supported local governments having the power to charge school impact fees. Chalk said he preferred a method being pushed in Columbia by the state's Realtors and home builders associations. That method would collect school fees from homebuyers over a period of years on their tax bills, instead of charging developers one-time payments on new homes.

The Republican primary is June 10.

Reflecting on the debate, mostlisteners said it was worth giving up two hours on a Friday night.

Island resident Lee Anderson said she had to go home in the middle of the debate, but drove back to catch the rest of it.

"I thought it was terrific," she said.

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