In 2014, Senator Thurmond and Representative McCoy each filed a bill that would allow the Town to be reunited. The Senate version of the bill was S 723.
Hearings were held by a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The bill was heavily amended to satisfy concerns raised by various lobbyists, especially those with the special purpose district association and also the association of counties. Both the original and amended version of S 723 is here.
While I was not happy with some of the amendments, I agreed to support the amended bill. It did provide a process to reunite the Town. Trent Kernodle and, apparently, the JIPSD, also agreed to support S 723 as amended.
It passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, though all the Democrats were opposed. A hold was placed on the bill by Democrat Senator Kimpson. We now know that this was done at the request of the Coastal Conservation League. That meant it did not go the Senate floor for a vote.
The original version of the bill, without the amendments, passed in the House. Then House Leader Bobby Harrell made the difference. Glenn McConnell was no longer President Pro-Tem of the Senate, which made our task much more difficult there.
James Islanders, including many from our African American communities, contacted Senator Kimpson. He withdrew his hold, but Senator Pinckney put a hold on the bill. Again, this was done at the behest of Coastal Conservation League. By this time, the legislative year was over. Senator Pinckney was also contacted by James Islanders, again including many from our African-American communities, and he agreed to withdraw his hold shortly before he was assassinated.
By this time, Representative McCoy and James Island Town Councilman Josh Stokes began to work on a different bill that would accomplish the same goal with a slightly different approach. Rather than a new method of annexation, this involved a modification of contiguity.
A bill based on this new approach was filed by Representative McCoy near the end of the session in 2016 and then refiled in February 2017 as H 3669. Here is that bill.
H 3669 was scheduled for a hearing before a subcommittee of the House Judiciary committee in March. Lobbyists for some special purpose districts in the upstate told the Town's lobbyist, former House Representative Ann Peterson, that they would oppose the new bill, but were still willing to support Senate bill 723 as amended. They said that all of the lobbyists had agreed that the amended version of that bill took care of all of their concerns back in 2014.
Based upon those conversations, McCoy asked the subcommittee Chair to pull H 3669 from the agenda and instead filed a new bill H 4076 which was the same as S 723 as amended from 2014. Here is the that new/old bill.
I asked Senators Campsen and Senn to file a companion bill in the Senate. Senator Campsen, who had co-sponsored the bills that allowed the Town to be incorporated with Senator McConnel, agreed and said he would have staff look at it.
Senator Senn wrote me and said that I needed to get Robert Wise's OK. Robert Wise is the District Manager of the JIPSD.
I asked the District Manager if he would support this bill and to share any concerns he might have with it so that we can make any needed modifications. I was puzzled as to why Senator Senn put the the fate of the people of James Island in the hands of one man, but the voters put her in office, including many on James Island. Wise said he would discuss it with the other directors of the special purpose district association and JIPSD Chair Hollingsworth.
I asked JIPSD Chair Hollingsworth if he would support the bill and he said that he could only support it if the other special purpose districts in the state would support it and said he had some concerns about the bill. I asked him to please share those concerns, but he made no response.
JIPSD Commissioner Inez Brown Crouch asked to have the issue placed upon the JIPSD Commission agenda for their March meeting and have Anne Peterson come explain the bill. I hoped that this would allow us to discover what concerns JIPSD Commissioners had with this bill. Commissioner Brown-Crouch called Hollingsworth who agreed to place it on the agenda, but the executive committee of Commissioners Wilder, Kernodle and Hollingsworth refused to place it on the March agenda. The problem was that Anne Peterson worked for the Town.
For the April meeting, Commissioners Kathy Woolsey and Inez Brown-Crouch again asked to have Representative McCoy explain the bill. It was placed on the agenda. Representative McCoy couldn't make the meeting and asked Chairman Hollingsworth to allow Anne Peterson to explain the bill. Hollingsworth refused because Peterson is a paid lobbyist of the Town. Peterson explained the bill during the public comment period.
When it came up on the agenda, Commissioner Engelman proposed adopting the bill and Commissioner Kernodle seconded.
There was some discussion by the Commissioners. Commissioners Kernodle and Engleman emphasized that that they did not want the Town to take over the JIPSD. Chairman Hollingsworth reported on his call to Mayor Tecklenburg to find the City's position on the bill. The City is opposed to reuniting the Town. Hollingsworth also raised concerns that the PSD is not authorized to hold referendums and asked who would pay for the annexation election? Clearly, he hadn't looked over the bill, since it required the Charleston County election commission to hold the annexation election as it always does and requires the Town to pay for it.
Trent Kernodle was then called upon to give his view of the bill.
The bad news is that he made various confused and inaccurate claims that could be loosely related to points made by the Commissioners. The most serious error was his claim that the bill would substitute a referendum for the existing legal procedures for shifting services from the JIPSD to the Town or else completely dissolving the JIPSD. In reality, the bill just adds the referendum as an additional hurdle.
The good news is that Trent Kernodle appeared to support HB 3669. This was the bill McCoy first filed in 2016 and in February of 2017. If that bill can pass, then it would allow the Town to be reunited.
Having the JIPSD support the bill is important, because Senator Senn insists that the JIPSD, or, more specifically, its District Manager, Robert Wise, "sign off" on any bill to reunite the Town.
I think the best approach is for the JIPSD to join with the Town in supporting H 3669.
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