Flooding This Fall

The Lowcountry is headed towards a 50 year high in rainfall this year.   And it was all concentrated in the last few months.   As a result, we have discovered weaknesses in the drainage on James Island.

Frankly, I believe many homeowners would have suffered damage even if our drainage system had been perfect, but I am very sorry that weaknesses in our drainage maintenance may have resulted in added damage to some.

I don't believe that we will have flooding every time it rains.   But after the statewide disaster, we had two further heavy rains concentrated here on James Island--one week apart.  Both resulted in flooding nearly as bad as the major flood.  Both days involved several inches of rain.

Please rest assured that maintaining the drainage in our Town has always been a key priority.   In the past, our focus was been to respond to citizen requests.   However, the very nature of drainage requires a systematic approach.   The Town, County, and SCDOT had just completed a major project in the Oceanview-Stonepost area, thankfully, just before the major flood.

The Town is responsible for drainage on Town roads and also for drainage ditches that are "off road" and within the Town's jurisdiction.  

The Town has an intergovernmental agreement with Charleston County, so Charleston County does basic drainage maintenance for the Town.   Our Town's public works coordinator, Mark Johnson, receives requests for ditch maintenance from residents of James Island and forwards them to the proper authority.   For those ditches that are the Town's responsibility, that is Charleston County.

I believe that Charleston County public works has been doing a good job for the Town.  However, we can use other contractors as well.   Given the recent backlog across the County, we are looking to use other contractors for some needed work.

Important portions of the drainage on James Island is the responsibility of the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT.)   This is the drainage along state-owned roads, which are all of the major roads, as well as many of our neighborhood roads.

The Town's public works coordinator forwards citizen requests to SCDOT when they have jurisdiction.   I also ask our state Representative and Senators for help, especially when problems are serious as they have been recently.

The City of Charleston is responsible for drainage along City roads and in ditches that are off-road in areas that have been annexed to the City.   The Town's public works coordinator forwards requests to the City of Charleston Public Works when it is their jurisdiction.   I share these issues with the members of City Council, especially when the problem is serious.

The County is responsible for drainage along County roads and ditches that are off road in the unincorporated area.  County roads are neighborhood roads that do not belong to the state.   The Town's public works coordinator forwards requests from these areas too, though they are not under the Town's jurisdiction.

On Friday, we had the quarterly Stormwater meeting at Town Hall.  We had representatives from Charleston County, the City of Charleston, and SCDOT.    We reviewed problem areas on James Island.   Everyone understands that this is a cross-jurisdictional issue and that we all need to work together.

We made plans to develop a drainage inventory map for James Island that includes the City of Charleston areas of jurisdiction.   This will be helpful to everyone.

SCDOT had a regular maintenance schedule, but it involved cleaning ditches every six years.  They have been given flexibility to respond to problem areas.   This change has occurred in response to the flooding in October.

The County and Town, on the other hand, continue to work towards a system of evaluating ditches and cleaning them as needed.   The flooding showed that simply responding to citizen requests left some ditches in no condition to handle the recent heavy rains.   For some areas, no one had any complaints for years, and nothing was done.  That will change.  While we will not go so far as SCDOT's old policy and have a 6 year schedule and ignore citizen complaints, we will not be as dependent on citizen requests in the future.

Property Tax Bills

We received the property tax bill for our house.

There was a new line--Town of James Island.   It was all zeros.   The Town millage was zero, the amount of Tax owed the Town was zero, and the percent of the total property tax going to the Town was zero.

This was mostly correct.   The Town millage is not zero, it is 20 mills.  However, because Town Council approved a sufficiently large tax credit, the amount owed the Town is zero and the percent of taxes going to the Town is zero.

There was a note added to the bill that explained this.   The language was agreed to by the County Auditor and the Town.   (It was approved by the Town Administrator and myself, as Mayor.)

Some months ago, I asked the County Auditor if it would be possible to show the Town's millage on the tax bill, as well as the amount of the municipal tax credit the Town would provide to reduce the amount of taxes each taxpayer pays the Town  to zero.   He said that they could do that.    Both the County Auditor and I thought that it would be easy.  Unfortunately, the County's software is not as easy to modify as we thought.   Making the modifications would take several months.   Both the County Auditor and I agreed that delaying the tax bills to people in the Town for months was unacceptable.   And so, the result was as a tax bill showing an incorrect zero millage.

The County Auditor is having their software company develop an upgrade so that next year's tax bill will be accurate.   I offered to pay the cost, which is estimated to be a few thousand dollars.   The Auditor explained that was not necessary and that it is his judgement that the County tax billing software should have this capability.  Next year, the tax bills should be accurate.