Meet the Republicans running for this Hilton Head seat on county council
Incumbent Tom Reitz and challenger Elizabeth Galloway will face off in Tuesday’s statewide primary, both hoping to secure the Republican nomination for the District 11 seat on the Beaufort County Council.
The district represents Sea Pines and other parts of Hilton Head Island, including Coligny Beach and Singleton Beach. Whoever wins the primary election will run unopposed in November.
Reitz, who first took office in 2023, moved to Hilton Head in 2019. Galloway is a 40-year Hilton Head resident and dentist who said she retired a year ago.
The Island Packet sent Galloway and Reitz a series of questions ranging from infrastructure to transparency to short-term rentals. Here are some takeaways from their responses.
Biggest issues facing the county
As a small business owner in this area, Galloway said she’s experienced firsthand how traffic congestion, failing infrastructure, runaway overdevelopment and a rising cost of living are making it increasingly difficult for local companies to operate and grow.
Traffic at Sea Pines Circle has “become intolerable for residents, visitors and workers alike,” she said. Inadequate stormwater drainage causes flooding issues and beach erosion threatens neighborhoods and the area’s natural shoreline, Galloway said.
Gridlock and overdevelopment are impacting the area’s labor force, she said.
“One of my staff often got stuck in gridlock trying to pick up her two-year-old. She had to pay extra daycare fees because the traffic wouldn’t let her through,” she said. “People can’t afford to live here anymore, so they stay in Bluffton and Beaufort. I’ve had to reschedule patients because of staffing issues.”
Reitz said transparency is a top priority for him. Before he joined the council in 2023, he said, a lot of official business was being done behind closed doors. He said he’s made it one of his missions to keep discussions out in the open.
“We have more to work on. For District 11 and all of Beaufort County I have been 100% transparent and 100% accessible. This will not change,” he said.
Reitz said he led the motion during a council session to release a third-party report reviewing spending practices under former administrator Eric Greenway. The report was eventually released two years after it was commissioned.
“The change in culture I have been a part of initiating since I was sworn in has made significant inroads in the people being able to trust the council again,” he said. “There is more to do. The people we serve are seeing our efforts and are working with us to continue this positive change.”
Infrastructure solutions
Galloway said overcrowding, infrastructure issues and rapid growth and development in Beaufort County are actually a “tri-county” problem that “demands coordinated regional leadership” from Jasper, Beaufort and Colleton counties.
Jasper County is the fastest-growing county in the United States by percentage growth, according to U.S. Census data. The Bluffton area has thousands of approved homes that haven’t even started construction yet.
Galloway said council should require developers to fully solve ingress and egress issues when accessing county roads as a condition of approval, utilize the Green Space Fund to purchase and preserve critical rooftops and rural lands before they are lost to overdevelopment and tie all major approvals to verified infrastructure readiness — roads, drainage, utilities and evacuation capacity.
“We must prioritize workforce and attainable housing for essential workers like teachers, first responders and healthcare professionals — without allowing overdevelopment to overwhelm our roads, schools and public services,” she said. “Growth must serve our existing residents, not outpace our ability to maintain a high quality of life.”
Reitz said the county needs to coordinate with its municipalities and continue to complete some of the projects that were supposed to be funded by a 2018 referendum. A new sales tax referendum received preliminary approval from county council late last month.
“I think it is long overdue we get with Jasper County and set up a cooperation in which we work together to address all the roads and bridges,” Reitz said.
The county also has to control its growth better than it has in the past 15 to 20 years, he said.
“Leadership at the county and municipality levels were so eager to support this explosive growth that no one planned for the impact on infrastructure and were not collecting the developer impact fees. Our current council has supported no upzoning and I don’t expect we will any time soon,” he said. “A developer is going to have a tough time getting high density projects approved by our council. This election is that important.”
Pine Island and cultural protection
The latest lawsuit in the yearslong fight between Beaufort County and the developer of the Pine Island project on St. Helena Island argues that the island’s Cultural Protection Overlay is “unconstitutional on its face” because it favors one race “at the inherent expense of others.” The lawsuit, filed by the developer, asks for an order ending enforcement of the CPO.
Galloway said this latest lawsuit is “groundless” and “nothing more than a bullying tactic by wealthy outsiders who refuse to accept that ‘no’ means no.
“The CPO on St. Helena Island was thoughtfully created by the community in 1999 to preserve its unique character — it is not ‘racist,’ it is protective,” she said. “This is simply big money trying to intimidate ordinary residents and override local control.”
On top of that, she said, Beaufort County needs to keep Gullah culture at the front and center of its decisions, because it’s “not just history – it is the living soul of the Lowcountry.
“It is the sweetgrass baskets, the praise houses, the foodways, the deep-rooted connection to the land and water that makes this place truly special. Once we pave it over with another gated golf community, it is gone forever,” she said. “I stand firmly with the people of St. Helena and against this lawsuit. I will fight to uphold and strengthen the CPO, reject inappropriate developments like Pine Island, and ensure that local residents — not deep-pocketed developers — have the final say over the future of our communities.”
Reitz said he has voted to uphold the CPO twice.
“We listened to the people and that was their wish. The developer can now proceed with the building of his 160 or so homes,” he said. “As far as the lawsuit goes, that is for the attorneys to handle.”
When asked how Beaufort County can continue to grow, development and infrastructure-wise, while also accounting for the needs of Gullah-Geechee people whose families have been here for generations, Reitz said “the answer is simple, vote for elected officials that listen to the people.”
“From Day 1, I made it clear, this is a ‘people’ business and we work for the people. We can’t simply take away their heritage to build roads,” he said. “I personally was involved in securing 26-plus acres into the Green Space program over in Mitchelville. We have to respect our land and its culture.”