Letter: Lady’s Island needs representation

The population on Lady’s Island is larger than the city of Beaufort proper, yet we have no say on the Beaufort City Council when it comes to annexation and development of Lady’s Island.

As soon as the city of Beaufort heard that the Lady’s Island Coalition meeting scheduled for January was cancelled, it immediately, under the guise of “businesses have requested it,” proposed a large new annexation program.

Why would a business want to increase its overhead by paying taxes and license fees to both Beaufort County and the city? Why would the residents of the city of Beaufort want their taxes to go toward the development of Lady’s Island rather than needed projects within the city?

This is the same city that is spending $32.5 million on a 1.5-mile section on Boundary Street. I have yet to hear a positive comment about that project.

The promised traffic study for Lady’s Island has yet to be completed and yet the city proposes to annex more property. Just the infrastructure investment will take 20 years to recover, but it seems like the Beaufort city residents/taxpayers won’t mind their tax bill increasing, or don’t realize their tax bills will increase.

Concerns need to be expressed at the Beaufort City Council meetings. State Rep. Shannon Erickson must get involved, along with our County Council representative and U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford.

The Lady’s Island Coalition needs to get more involved by exposing the developers that will benefit from all this annexation and their ties to the City Council.

This story was originally published February 7, 2017 at 12:49 PM with the headline "Letter: Lady’s Island needs representation."