‘Assert some leadership’: Beaufort Co. residents ask for local help on coronavirus issues
Around Beaufort County, most government meetings have been canceled, and residents are discouraged from seeing government employees in person.
Coronavirus protocol has taken hold.
As employees issue wedding permits over the phone and people pay tickets online, a new normal is appearing in a sector that has long valued face-to-face interaction with residents.
The government closest to the people seems to have moved farther away. Decisions are coming from Columbia, not Beaufort County. Local leaders say they’re simply following the state’s lead in a crisis.
“We are well aware of the fluidity of this emergency. We are in constant contact with the appropriate agencies to ensure that Beaufort County is doing everything we can to keep the public safe,” Beaufort County Council Chairman Joe Passiment said Wednesday.
S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster and the state Department of Health and Environmental Control have made the major decisions regarding coronavirus precautions, including closing schools as well as restaurants’ and bars’ dining rooms.
But local officials say specific information that could help guide efforts to keep the public safe is not being passed down. Across S.C., however, local officials in other municipalities have taken drastic measures to ensure public safety without needing guidance from the governor or state.
Before McMaster ordered all restaurants statewide to close their dining rooms, mayors in Columbia, Charleston and Greenville all passed emergency ordinances that placed restrictions on restaurants.
Local governments in Beaufort County also passed emergency ordinances giving leaders authority to make decisions without the usual bureaucracy, but they have been reluctant to use that power.
At a Beaufort County press conference Thursday afternoon, Sheriff P.J. Tanner said his staff is asking DHEC for more information on the confirmed coronavirus cases in Beaufort County “every hour.”
The information — such as whether the patients contracted the virus during travels and whether they are in an at-risk population — isn’t coming.
“We would love to have more information about those cases. The problem is, we’re not getting that information, and there are reasons why we’re not getting it,” Tanner said.
“DHEC claims they’re on top of it,” he continued. “If this gets worse, there may be more information from DHEC that’s available to us, but for now they’re keeping things close to their chest, and they’re giving us some numbers when they can.”
Tanner said local officials have gotten a lot of the details from social media and then confirmed them with the state.
“We’re asking [the state] as first responders...those things we need to know,” he said.
A reactive government?
Some residents are demanding more aggressive leadership from their local governments, whether through financial aid or with burning bans during this lung-damaging pandemic.
They say leadership needs to start with help for the locals.
“If we don’t develop a program to support our citizens, what does that say about our character?” Hilton Head Island resident Risa Prince asked town council members at their final meeting before canceling all subsequent gatherings.
The town “needs to assert some leadership and and put up some money to start a fund,” she said.
Prince and others were lobbying for a relief fund for island residents who are laid off or sick during the coronavirus outbreak.
Hilton Head Town Manager Steve Riley said the town cannot develop a stimulus package, and has long shied away from “using tax dollars to feed charities.”
But the reactive nature of government seems to have stopped leaders from doing anything at all, resident Alex Brown said.
“Those who are suffering probably don’t have your cell phone numbers,” he told members of the council, suggesting that the town needs to reach further to help those hurt by this pandemic.
Asked Wednesday about whether he can make decisions to close the Hilton Head bridge or establish a relief fund, Mayor McCann said “all this stuff is being generated by the governor’s office. All the major decisions are being made by the governor’s office.”
The town is doing what it can, Riley said. It’s working on a coronavirus resource webpage that will connect to a map system and show residents how to access nonprofit resources, including food pantries, he said.
The webpage will be published in the coming days, Riley said.
North of the Broad, several residents have urged Beaufort County leaders to enact a temporary ban on open burning during the coronavirus pandemic. But, they say their voices aren’t being heard.
“The Coronavirus’ impact is made more serious from the burning that continues unabated in the County, and yet it appears you are choosing to ignore the increased risk to your constituents,” Lady’s Island resident Janet Schaffer wrote to officials.
When county leaders held a press conference about the virus on Thursday, Schaffer said she was hopeful they would address open burning.
“Again I was woefully disappointed,” Schaffer wrote. “Not one word about a ban nor even a recommendation that Beaufort County residents consider not burning.”
Jim Enter, another resident, said open burning in his area has put elderly residents at risk. He wrote public officials, mentioning two residents “in the ‘high risk’ group for the Coronavirus ... both older and suffering from respiratory issues.
“With the governor declaring a ‘state of emergency,’” Enter wrote, “we request that county council stop all discretionary burning within heavy populated areas until the pandemic has ended.”
Beaufort County Administrator Ashley Jacobs said the county council may address open burning at its meeting on Monday.
The agenda for that meeting, which will be closed to the public but streamed online, has not yet been published.
This story was originally published March 20, 2020 at 12:10 PM.
