Town of Hilton Head Island should demand more of Chamber of Commerce | Letters
Recently I was extended the courtesy by the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce to meet its executives and to see for myself the information they provide the Town of Hilton Head Island. No questions were off limits and no information or record requested was withheld. It’s pretty obvious they are in full compliance with their existing contract with the town.
Is a very different contract necessary? Yes.
Are a different set of performance metrics necessary? Yes.
Should different reports be required by the town? Yes.
Should there be different inspection and audit rights? Yes.
Perhaps the chamber would be receptive to changes, if asked.
Apparently, it has already been decided to continue the relationship between the town and chamber, but perhaps now is the time for a new beginning.
Christopher Cliffe
Hilton Head Island
Trump paranoia killing liberty
“We want bad people out of our government!” President Donald Trump tweeted Feb. 13, and I rejoiced.
I thought he was resigning.
Instead, the bonfire of the Constitution continues unabated, supported by the supine, rubber-stamp Senate.
The president’s petty vindictiveness in all real and imagined slights, his contempt for any opinion that conflicts with his own, as well as the paranoid tendency to confuse disagreement with disloyalty, has led us to the real witch hunt.
The victims are not the Roger Stones, Paul Manaforts, and Michael Flynns, but Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, Gordon Sondland, Marie Yovanovitch, John Kelly, Rex Tillerson, Fiona Hill, Tim Morrison, etc., and, most importantly, the truth.
This is a small sampling of those maligned and shunted aside because they disagreed with the president’s opinions, behavior and policies.
To be effective, government needs the tension of disagreement, of free expression without fear that dissent will lead to slanderous accusations from the president. The vindictive retribution against people whose lives have been dedicated to service to our country, the small-minded lock-step mentality demanding blind loyalty, is the death knell of constitutional government.
When free speech and dissent are suppressed, liberty dies.
Trump is not draining the swamp, he’s destroying the institutions that have kept us safe, and is undermining the rule of law.
Even his attorney general appears to agree.
America cannot afford to be ruled by a tyrant who surrounds himself with sycophants and considers himself to be above the law. It’s time to end this Orwellian nightmare.
Hal Cherry
Hilton Head Island
Republicans are anti-democracy
It is wrong for Republicans to vote in the Democratic Primary. As Beaufort County Democrats work to register and encourage voting among their constituency, they are exercising their right as American citizens to choose the candidate they want to run against the sitting president.
The fact that Republicans are being encouraged to vote in the Democratic primary means that Republicans do not believe in democracy and will use any means to skew (cheat) in the process.
They also developed the methods of gerrymandering boundaries for voting districts in order to crowd Democratic voters into a few districts, then take over more districts for themselves.
They do not believe in one man, one vote. Why? Simply put: there are more Democrats in the U.S.A. than Republicans and so they must dismantle one-man-one-vote in order to win, as they did in 2000 and with George W. Bush and again in 2016 with Donald Trump – when the selection of president did not go to the candidate the people had selected.
This is one reason I can never be a Republican: they do not believe in democracy.
Anne Christensen Pollitzer
St. Helena Island
REAL ID warning for Bluffton DMV office
I want to notify the residents needing to travel with a REAL ID after Oct. 1 that it doesn’t seem the state Department of Motor Vehicles office in Bluffton is ready to issue them.
My spouse has been to the Bluffton DMV three times with the proper documentation and still doesn’t have one.
The first time he took documents listed as acceptable on the website. The other times he took documents DMV employees told him to bring. Then he gave up, deciding that, as is usual for South Carolina, they just aren’t ready.
Thank goodness we have passports that can be used as acceptable ID for domestic travel. But that will only work if Hilton Head Island Airport security employees know that they are acceptable.
Kris Mulner
Hilton Head Island
How to submit a letter
Email letters@islandpacket.com or letters@beaufortgazette.com.
Or you may submit a letter online.
Letters to the editor must be 250 words or fewer and include your first and last names, street address and daytime telephone number so we can verify the letter before publication.
You are limited to one letter per 30 days.
Letters may be edited for length, style, grammar, taste, accuracy and libel. All letters submitted become the property of The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette.