Building wider roads to bring more people to Hilton Head may end up attracting fewer

On St. James Baptist Church

Just as a young student learns how his grandfather came from another country for a better life, folks on Hilton Head and and all of its visitors need to know what has kept the Gullah community working during challenging times.

It is St. James Baptist Church.

St. James Baptist Church is 100 years old, and it is time to put some money into keeping it great for another 100 years.

To the engineers looking to keep developing this area, another new road is just another new road. You see, I am from New England, and we do not knock down what is old.

We preserve it.

We preserve our past because everyone enjoys the past, and because without the past, there are no dreams.

There is no future.

If you think for one minute that tourists come to our communities for the roads, forget it. They come to have a getaway with spirit, song and art.

A neighbor of mine is from France, and she mentioned she came here because it is quaint. But if communities like Hilton Head Island want to put in wider and bigger roads so that people who come there can travel faster, it is just a sure bet that fewer folks will come there at all.

It brings to mind something that occurred when I arrived in South Carolina more than 20 years ago. I was in a grocery store one day, and I was quickly piling all of my groceries onto the conveyor belt when the cashier suddenly looked at me and said, “Don’t rush me, child.”

It was then that I realized what makes South Carolina special: folks don’t rush here.

And that is why my husband and I have stayed here.

Maureen Wilson, Bluffton

On gratitude

The Pregnancy Center and Clinic of the Low Country acknowledges with heartfelt gratitude a very generous donation from The Church Mouse to support the work of the center.

This year marks our 30th year of providing prenatal care to uninsured women in our community, and The Church Mouse has been a longstanding partner in meeting this critical need.

The services provided include pregnancy testing, ultrasounds, prenatal vitamins, educational classes, baby layettes and referrals to other community resources.

We are here to serve the community, and we thank The Church Mouse for the many grants and outreach-matching activities that support the Pregnancy Center and Clinic of the Low Country and other local nonprofits.

Joanne Nattrass, Hilton Head Island

Nattrass is the executive director of the Pregnancy Center and Clinic of the Low Country.

On the May River

When it comes to protecting the May River, Mayor Lisa Sulka and Councilman Larry Toomer are their own worst enemies.

The Town of Bluffton claims to have spent over $10 million on river protection, but things have gotten worse. The recent spill of 105,000 gallons of raw sewage into the May River only exacerbates the already failing process.

In addition the Beaufort-Jasper Water and Sewer Authority wrongly characterized the spill, associating it with a residential location when in fact it was across a drainage ditch behind the neighborhood.

Questions also need to be asked about the fact that this site contains new commercial piping installed earlier in 2020 — and that it appears to be in support of the Old Town Sewer Project Phase 1, which has been underway during the past two or so months.

So how exactly does what looks like new pipes connected to more new pipes become part of a “routine” backup?

Adding insult to injury is the onus of the sewer projects themselves; no specific issue has ever been shown to prompt the need for the project — and no specific goals has ever been offered.

Finally there isn’t a single sane citizen of Bluffton who believes the root of the May River pollution problems are dog waste and a limited number of septic systems. It’s the overdevelopment and suburban sprawl of the community that are the problems, but the Town of Bluffton seemingly refuses to address those concerns.

The May River Action plan is a failure.

It doesn’t look at problems holistically, and it hasn’t been modified as we observe what’s going on. It clearly isn’t working.

Jeff Urell, Bluffton