‘Arrogant and short-sighted’: Rodman is slammed for his vote in favor of 278 resolution
After Stu Rodman voted in favor of building one new Hilton Head bridge instead of two, the public fury came quickly.
“Rodman was not honest with the committee and he has not been with the public,” one person commented on Nextdoor, a community-based social media app.
“It seems like Mr. Rodman may be catering to outside influences ... with little or no regard to the actual concerns of the residents of Hilton Head Island,” another person wrote.
And the comments kept coming. The councilman’s actions were called “communist attempts” and Rodman himself was branded a “criminal.”
Soon after, Nextdoor closed the comment section, citing an influx of controversial replies.
The Beaufort County Public Facilities Committee voted unanimously Monday on a resolution to proceed with a scaled-down vision of the U.S. 278 project, with the centerpiece being construction of a new six-lane bridge to Hilton Head Island. For many Hilton Head residents and officials, the resolution was seen as a betrayal, as Beaufort County proceeded with its portion of the project and abandoned islanders’ wishes for two three-lane bridges.
Among the resolution’s supporters was Rodman, who represents Hilton Head’s District 11. As chairman of the county’s Public Facilities Committee, Rodman introduced the resolution himself to the committee and led the vote to approve it.
“I don’t see anything that would be lost by proceeding,” Rodman said in favor of the resolution at Monday’s meeting. “Why not just get on with it?”
The county’s decision to move forward with the resolution came after Hilton Head’s Town Council on Aug. 16 approved a “memo of understanding” to commission another independent traffic study. That would delay the project’s start date by nearly a year, county officials said.
While Rodman sees the decision as a “win-win” situation for both the county and the town, many believe the resolution left Hilton Head residents without a voice in the process.
“Rodman called it at one time a ‘community effort,’” said Mike Covert, a former Beaufort County Council member. “This is completely anti-community.”
Dana Advocaat, who lives in District 11, said that by voting for the resolution, Rodman has failed to represent the Town of Hilton Head and constituents like herself.
“I find his power play both arrogant and short-sighted,” she said. “(Rodman) was not reelected because he has a strong history of consistently ignoring the electorate he promised to serve,” she said.
Rodman is wrapping up a 16-year tenure on the County Council that has often been marked by controversy, including being pushed out of his chairman spot on the County Council, meeting with top island officials in secret, and using his personal phone and email to privately discuss public matters. He lost decidedly in June’s primary to Republican newcomer Tom Reitz.
When asked about the criticism being levied at him by constituents, Rodman said the resolution has “no down side”: Hilton Head can conduct its necessary independent reviews and avoid delaying the county, while Beaufort County can complete the bridge without waiting for the town’s independent reviews.
And even if the projects are completed separately, Rodman said, the two timelines are likely to sync up.
“There’s enough time in the overall project that when they complete (the traffic study) … they can catch back up again with the bridge portion,” Rodman said. “Then there’s nothing lost.”
Waiting for the results could take six to nine months, Rodman said, and cost the county an additional $50 million due to inflation and cost overruns.
Rodman generally shrugs off criticism. Earlier he said his guiding principles are in scripture — Deuteronomy’s “Vengeance is mine, I will repay” — and the words of former President Teddy Roosevelt in his 1910 “Man in the Arena” speech, which says “it is not the critic who counts” but “credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”
Why are Hilton Head residents so angry?
While Rodman urged county officials to “just get on with it,” many residents worry that an expedited bridge project — if not accompanied by well-researched improvements further down the highway — could spell trouble for the rest of the island.
The county’s plan includes the demolition of the Hilton Head bridges and replacing them with one six-lane bridge, spanning from the Moss Creek Drive intersection to Windmill Harbor. Missing are other improvements, including intersection alterations, the installation of adaptive traffic signals and a number of improvements in Big Stoney, a historic Gullah community located on Jenkins Island.
Covert said it’s dangerous to expand the bridge without first considering the resulting bottlenecks in communities outside the expansion’s scope.
“A single structure is going to kill the Stoney community,” he said. “You’re taking an unimaginable amount of traffic and dumping it right at their doorstep.”
Big Stoney, located alongside U.S. 278 near the east entrance of the island, has been the home of Hilton Head’s native islanders since the late 1860s. The Town of Hilton Head’s recommendations for the U.S. 278 project included a number of plans to prevent bottlenecks throughout the neighborhood, including new back roads, private driveways for Gullah residential access and “intuitive” alterations to intersections. None of these improvements were included in the county’s resolution.
And worries of traffic congestion don’t stop at the Stoney neighborhood — many islanders worry the effects will advance much farther.
“We all know that the downstream effects of a six-lane bridge will be significant, especially near the Cross Island intersection, at Sea Pines Circle and near the public schools,” Advocaat said. “Bluntly, is the island able to handle the rapid influx of such a great amount of vehicles throughout the connecting roads?”
Most island officials and residents agree on one thing: More information is needed before any large-scale infrastructure changes are made.
“Starting only bridge work without understanding the downstream interfaces and impacts ... helps no one and has the potential of wasting time and money and causing damage to the downstream communities,” a number of residents wrote in an email that was signed by Stephen Woodall, Richard Wallace, Joseph Kernan, Diederik Advocaat and Steve Baer, a former Beaufort County Council member.
“There is no reason to rush this,” said Tamara Becker, a member of the Hilton Head Town Council. “The time is available to make sure we have all the data.”
Baer said a full and sufficient study of the bridge’s traffic impacts could be done more quickly than expected.
“I believe that developing a scientifically based corridor solution could be done in six months or less if the town and county worked together cooperatively,” Baer wrote in an email to the Public Facilities Committee on Monday afternoon, which he also provided to The Island Packet. “But the opposite is taking place — seemingly pushed by a rogue councilperson who has been repudiated by his own constituents.”
Baer was the organizer of an online petition for the county to “reject and rethink” its plans for the bridge. As of Friday afternoon, the petition has garnered more than 9,000 signatures.
How much will the delays really cost?
The projected potential loss of $50 million shocked residents and officials alike during the Monday meeting. Rodman said he “ran the numbers” himself — and stands by his projection.
State Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, said that according to the South Carolina Department of Transportation, the project’s estimated cost rose from $320 million in March to $328.5 million this week. That’s an $8.5 million increase in five months — vastly different from Rodman’s predicted $50 million increase across six to nine months, Davis pointed out.
Davis said he doesn’t agree with the county’s action and pointed out that considering those lower-than-expected costs of delay, it’s the county’s duty to take the extra mile — even if it takes a few extra months.
“This is an iconic, once-in-a-generation project ... that is going to impact the island for decades to come,” Davis said. “We gotta get it right. And (the Town of Hilton Head’s traffic studies and simulations) are toward the aim of getting it right.”
Beaufort County has the right to proceed with the project without the town’s agreement, according to Chris Ophardt, a spokesman for the county. This bypassing of “municipal consent,” he said, is possible because the South Carolina Department of Transportation has deemed three of the county’s four current bridges to be either “functionally obsolete” or “structurally deficient.”
The County Council is slated to take a final vote on the scaled-down, one-bridge resolution at its Sept. 12 meeting.
Covert said he hopes residents “come out in droves” to speak out against the county’s decision.
This story was originally published August 27, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
