Letter: Two ways to speed recovery

Hilton Head Island has suffered a severe blow from Hurricane Matthew. It needs a rapid recovery to restore its economic base and attract tourists.

First and foremost is the rapid removal of tree debris. Yet we hear that the private communities that comprise about 80 percent of the taxpaying residents may not be eligible for FEMA-supported debris removal. Why is this?

These communities pay most of the town and county taxes and their share of federal taxes.

It seems proper leadership would quickly remove the arts center issue on the Nov. 8 ballot (a cost we do not need) and replace it with a 1 percent sales tax that would generate the funds to quickly restore our ambience. This emergency tax would be for a very limited time and could also be used to provide low-interest loans to businesses to get back quickly to normal operations.

I am retired, but this seems so obvious. Logistically difficult maybe, but isn’t that what good leadership is supposed to do?

This story was originally published October 21, 2016 at 11:46 AM with the headline "Letter: Two ways to speed recovery."