Hilton Head leaders won’t order stay-at-home for coronavirus. They may ask the governor
Hilton Head Island’s town council plans an emergency meeting Thursday to decide whether to ask Gov. Henry McMaster to order South Carolina residents and visitors to stay at home.
The 2 p.m. meeting will be held electronically and can be viewed on the town’s Facebook page or the Beaufort County Channel.
The meeting agenda indicates the council will not order residents and visitors to remain in place, as other local governments have, but instead will defer to the governor.
Nearly all Hilton Head Island Town Council members wanted to meet Tuesday afternoon to discuss hot-button coronavirus issues and give community members an opportunity to voice their concerns about prohibiting tourists, closing the beach access points and leadership through the pandemic.
But the list of people requesting the meeting was missing the highest elected official in the town: Mayor John McCann.
The meeting was canceled, and the mayor attributed it to technological difficulties. But some believe it shows the mayor has fallen short in leading the island during the coronavirus pandemic.
Documents obtained by The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette newspapers show a coordinated effort from every member of the council — including those who are consistent allies of the mayor — to call an emergency meeting Tuesday afternoon.
The effort started Monday afternoon when Mayor Pro Tempore Bill Harkins requested the meeting via email to Town Manager Steve Riley.
“The majority of Town Council wishes to have a special meeting to focus in positive manner on what we might do that we are not doing for the betterment of our community,” he wrote. “We wish to have the public meeting at Town Hall (Tuesday) with prescribed social distancing, as well as connectivity to all through the Beaufort County public TV channel.”
The request was signed by Harkins and council members David Ames, Tamara Becker, Marc Grant, Tom Lennox and Glenn Stanford — all members of council except for McCann.
On Harkins’ draft agenda was a slew of issues gaining traction around Hilton Head, including:
- Writing a letter to S.C. Governor Henry McMaster about access to the island and both economic and medical assistance
- Prohibiting short term rentals
- Closing non-essential businesses
- Sheltering in place
- Establishing a crisis task force
The plan also showed two opportunities for public comment - at the meeting’s start and end. It was even announced by the town in a Monday afternoon email so it would comply with the Freedom of Information Act.
But by Tuesday morning, the meeting was erased from the town website.
“I don’t know what’s going on because six members of council wanted to have a meeting to give the community an opportunity to be heard,” council member Ames said.
Reached Tuesday, McCann said the meeting was never approved and that it has been moved to a later date this week in order to ensure it can be held electronically. Council voted unanimously on Saturday to hold all meetings virtually during the pandemic to help slow the spread of the virus.
McCann said the council doesn’t “have enough information to be ready for a meeting,” but then said the agenda items requested by the council members were appropriate and that “I would have done it today to accommodate everyone.”
‘Every day is making it worse’
Ames, other council members and residents have shared their concerns with what they say is the mayor and town’s reluctance to take major action on the spread of the coronavirus.
“I don’t want to wait another week until he decides we need to begin action,” council member Becker said of the mayor.
She said McCann compromised to hold the meeting later this week, but that he never mentioned not having the technological ability to hold a virtual meeting when negotiating with the council members.
“He is one vote. We should be working together, not in isolation working against the common good,” Becker said. “I am adamant that our meeting should not have been canceled.”
Lauri Mitchell, who lives on the island, said the message needs to come from the top that Hilton Head Island is closed.
“We need to discourage tourism and close the hotels,” she told The Island Packet Monday. “The mayor needs to say in public our hotels are closed and that rentals are not being accepted.”
Her comments come after McCann closed beaches Friday. But when asked by The Island Packet what he’d tell tourists planning to visit, he said he’d “absolutely” tell them to still come vacation.
Mitchell said McCann needs to “dissuade people from coming here,” to slow the pandemic.
“The mayor is shying from taking a visible leadership role in the time of a town crisis,” Ames said. “Communities that act aggressively early on with this coronavirus fare better. And every day is making it worse for this community.”
This story was originally published March 24, 2020 at 11:02 AM.
