Profile: The 2 women picked to lead Beaufort County at critical time for growth and trust
For the first time, two women will lead the Beaufort County Council representing nearly 200,000 residents. Alongside their other nine council colleagues, the two women have pledged to restore the voter’s trust in local government after an era of misfeasance.
They hope to gain traction on top issues facing the county, like managing growth and development, affordable and workforce housing, fixing roads and bridges and a solid waste management plan for a county that has seen population growth of more than 6 percent since 2020.
On Jan. 2, the council voted on a thin 6-5 margin, that Alice Howard would replace Joe Passiment as chair, who served in the position since 2020. Tab Tabernik, District 6, was the only council member nominated for the vice chair position, ousting Larry McElynn. Weeks before the vote, council member Tom Reitz called for the resignation of Passiment and McElynn after they attended a private meeting with members of the Hilton Head Town Council to discuss the highly-contentious U.S. 278 Project.
On Friday, it was revealed that there has been an ongoing workplace investigation led by the Beaufort County administration, looking into “potential violations of the County’s Employee Handbook or policies in regard to the release of confidential, privileged and/or personal information to the public,” according to Hannah Nichols, a county spokesperson. Elected officials had the ability to opt in or out of being interviewed by the law firm, Nichols wrote in an email. Both Howard and Tabernik opted in.
Down the hall from the Beaufort County Council chambers, the room where all eleven members of council sit in the dais during public meetings, there is a humble break room with a table and folding chairs. Over the span of an hour, Howard and Tabernik, who have served on the council since 2015 and 2023, respectively, shared their hopes for the future of the county across the table from a reporter from the Island Packet.
Alice Howard
Howard grew up on a small rural farm in western Georgia near the Alabama state line. She was taught from a young age to pull her own weight on that farm, she said, even if it meant her alone catching one of their escaped show cattle.
In 1991, she and her husband moved to the Lowcountry with their 8-year-old daughter. Her family came home when they made the move to Beaufort, she said. For a portion of her career she spent time at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort beginning in 2006, where she served as the natural resources and environmental director and as a community planning and liaison officer. In this role she coordinated the base’s strategy on noise, zoning and land-use issues with municipalities throughout the county.
All totaled, including her time on the base, Howard has more than 30 years of experience as a community liaison, working on environmental, natural resources, public administration and regional planning issues.
She earned a Master’s degree in public administration from the University of Georgia, a Bachelor of Science in community planning and development from Columbus College and an Associate Arts degree from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.
She has lived in Beaufort longer than she has lived anywhere else. Their daughter teaches at Mossy Oaks Elementary School.
While on council, where she represents about 17,000 residents north of the Broad River in Port Royal and in several unincorporated areas, she initially ran to address storm water, affordable housing and land preservation issues, she said.
Anna Maria ‘Tab’ Tabernik
Tabernik, currently in her first term on county council, worked for 30 years in public schools in Cleveland, Ohio, where she was raised. She taught middle and high school mathematics and spent time as a middle school principle, the job she said she has loved most in her life. She was an assistant superintendent of curriculum for the tenth largest school district in Cleveland that had as many students as Beaufort County, she said.
When she retired, she worked as a consultant in Cleveland, instructing elementary school math teachers on how to teach hands-on math and principles on how to supervise teachers. She traveled the country between 2011 and 2013, including Fargo, North Dakota in the dead of winter, teaching common core math. She left the cold to retire in Sun City.
She became involved in the community, both inside and outside of the Sun City gates. She has served on the Beaufort County Library Board of Trustees for eight years and is the vice president of the Sun City Homeowner’s Association Board.
She has a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Case-Western Reserve University in Cleveland, a Master’s Degree in Administration/Supervision from John Carroll University in Cleveland and a Doctorate in Urban School Administration from Cleveland State University.
As a life-long teacher, Tabernik values helping to educate the public.
She has a daughter who lives in Augusta, Georgia, a son who still lives in Ohio and three grandchildren.
What unites their purpose?
Set on making county decisions more accessible to the public and properly utilizing public funds, the two women originally ran for office into without any prior interest in politics. When Howard watched as her daughter struggled to afford an apartment as a teacher in Beaufort County, she decided throw her hat in the ring. She won as an independent the first time in 2015 with the intention of only serving two terms.
In 2020, the county re-created district lines, placing the majority of the Sun City community in District 6. Since Tabernik already had a leadership position in that community, she decided to run for 2023.
When they talked about running for chair and vice chair, they did not know what the outcome would be, they said. Even if they had not been chosen, Tabernik said, “we showed the public we wanted to change.”
As the votes were cast, with District 11’s Tom Reitz casting the deciding vote, the pair became the first women to lead council since it’s founding in 1975.
“When you’re the first, you have big shoes to fill, because you’re setting the pace,” said Howard.
Tabernik spoke about about growing up in an earlier era: “I think it makes you work hard when you grew up in our generation, because you had to work hard and you make mistakes too. And you own up to them, not just because we’re women.”
“We both grew up at a time when you had to prove yourself. Women were not viewed as equally competent as men, so you had to prove yourself,” she said.
For several years, Howard was the only female council member, but she said she was never intimidated by that.
Clear eyed on the workload to come, Howard and Tabernik know that they have to prove they were the right choice for chair and vice chair, both to community members and the five council members who voted nay in the roll call.
Both leaders are aware of the gravity of the responsibilities they’ve been handed and the importance of decisions made by the council in their term over the next two years, “Time will tell if we are making the right changes,” Howard said.
Conversely, Howard and Tabernik agreed that even if they start to build back public trust, it can be lost quickly. Missteps in recent history have left local voters skeptical of the county’s leadership, made clear by their majority vote in November against the penny sales tax referendum.
“We’re not going to make everybody happy,” Tabernik said, “but we’re going to do what’s in the best interest of this county.”
This story was originally published January 13, 2025 at 2:07 PM.
