Show support for Historic Beaufort Foundation seat on city review board | Letters
Historic Beaufort Foundation is grateful this holiday season for the overwhelming show of support that the community has expressed to Beaufort City Council for retaining the foundation’s seat on the Historic District Review Board. Through your presence at the Nov. 26 council meeting, emails, letters and phone calls to council and to us, we know you’re there for us.
Council took a first vote (3-2) to remove HBF’s designated seat at the table on the Review Board. City Council will listen to the public once again and take its second and final vote on Tuesday, Dec. 10 at 7 p.m. at City Hall. We look forward to your continuing support.
For those who don’t know the context, HBF and the city developed the ordinances almost 50 years ago (updated in 2017) in a partnership that recognized HBF’s unique role in historic preservation. At that time, HBF was granted a dedicated seat on the review board. Other seats are designated for architects, archaeologists, architectural historians, landscape architects, planners, historians or related fields.
During the past five decades, the HBF-designated person brought the thinking of professional preservationists on its staff and in its membership to the HRB decision-making process. Additionally, because HBF’s mission has not changed in those 50 years, the HBF representative brought a consistency of thought and institutional knowledge to the table when the varying backgrounds of other HRB members, while invaluable, can change according to the individual’s professional background. The goal of all is to follow the guidelines that the city has defined and the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Historic Preservation.
Cynthia Jenkins
Executive Director
Historic Beaufort Foundation
What Hilton Head should do with former golf tract
At a holiday dinner I had a chat with a Hilton Head Island Town Council member who I have know for quite a while. I asked him about the Packet op-ed about what to do with the land purchased from Heritage Golf, which formally was a golf course. What he said was music to my ears.
He said he is in favor of hiring a world-class land-use company and using that 100 acres to be the “Central Park” of Hilton Head. I don’t know how the rest of the Council members think but my immediate thought was to write to the Packet and let the citizens know that at least one member has a very good idea about the use of that property.
If anyone else thinks this is a good idea, please get in touch with your representative. Hiring a first-class land-use company is the right touch. Hilton Head is a first-class place and if we get the “Central Park” it should also be first-class.
Enjoy this holiday time of the year. Merry Christmas to all.
Peter Zych
Hilton Head Island
Repeal ban on plastic bags on Hilton Head
Hilton Head Island has approximately 35,000 full-time residents, with 350,000 residents in the summer. Reusable grocery bags make sense for the 35,000, but make things much worse for the other 315,000 all season long.
You get to the island, buy groceries, enjoy your week and go home, leaving far more plastic trash than single-use plastic. You think renters and day-trippers are going to take their trash bags home with them? Good idea, nice try, but it doesn’t work, and should be repealed.
Don Senne
Hilton Head Island
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This story was originally published December 5, 2019 at 12:09 PM with the headline "Show support for Historic Beaufort Foundation seat on city review board | Letters."