COASTAL OBSERVER Vol. XXXIII No. 37 Pawleys Island, South Carolina ~ March 5, 2015 50 cents Cleary offers alternative to governor’s road plan BY JASON LESLEY COASTAL OBSERVER State Sen. Ray Cleary said Gov. Nikki Haley’s plan to fix roads is unworkable and will offer an alternative next week in the form of his own bill that will raise more than twice as much money for infrastructure. Cleary said Haley’s $400 million proposal to raise the tax on gasoline by 10 cents a gallon, cut the state’s income tax from 7 to 5 percent over 10 years and reorganize the Department of Transportation fails to provide good roads and does not address any growth in traffic. Cleary is drafting a bill to raise the gas tax, end the small business tax and shift roads – and money – to the counties. “What I’m hoping the governor did,” Cleary said, “was to throw something out that says ‘I’m ready to talk.’ ” Cleary said he told the governor about his plan to raise $1.2 billion. His bill addresses the same concerns Haley raised but in a different manner with a more likely chance of becoming law. “To be honest,” Cleary said, “the governor realizes her income tax plan is dead on arrival. She needs something.” Haley has promised to veto any alternative road legislation so Cleary’s bill would need strong support in the legislature to win an override. “That’s the essential question everybody has,” Cleary said. A workable plan to fix the state’s roads will require bipartisan approval to pass the Senate, he said. Cleary said his bill turns the maintenance of over 20,000 miles of roads over to the state’s 46 counties and provides permanent funding. “All of a sudden now, that will allow DOT to be much more efficient and focus where they need to be focused: the main highway systems of the state,” he said. “We would require less money and in my opinion less bureaucracy by eliminating all these county farm roads. There are 15,000 roads in their system that SEE “CLEARY,” PAGE 3 ENVIRONMENT Opponents organize to fight offshore oil BY JASON LESLEY COASTAL OBSERVER Foes of oil and gas production off the coast of South Carolina are mobilizing to present their arguments against seismic testing and exploration to government officials this month. Members of the Winyah Chapter of Sierra Club made plans to attend a meeting of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management next Wednesday in Mount Pleasant and to write the state Department of Health and Environmental Control to argue against approving seismic testing in the ocean. A second group organized by Goffinet McLaren and Terry Munson met at the Waccamaw Library to represent Litchfield Beach and Pawleys Island in efforts to oppose oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic. “I am personally sad to know leasing is being opened up off the Atlantic coast,” Peg Howell told the Sierra Club. She was the first woman to work on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico after getting a degree in petroleum engineering. She knows the hazards of offshore drilling and the need for the government to try and balance interests. Adhering to regulations gets challenging when workers are on a rig, she said. Howell encouraged people concerned about offshore drilling in the Atlantic to challenge it in a scientific way. “Go at it with reasoned thought,” she said. “Our hope is that we will be able to present information to reduce the amount of acreage available for leasing by explaining to the BOEM the other things that are happening in that ocean.” The first comment period is the most important, Howell said, because it’s about the environmental impact statement. SEE “DRILLING,” PAGE 3 Photos by Tanya Ackerman/Coastal Observer A sure sign of spring: Prom fashions Waccamaw High students showed what the well-dressed will be wearing to the prom this year. Models include, clockwise from left, Price Rowland, Jada Torrance, Meagan Fitzgerald photographed by Clara Johnson; Aaron Jordan, Hans Stoetzer, Price Rowland and Ben Hughes; Leea Whetstone, Hunter King and Maddy Crowe. More photos at coastalobserver.com. EDUCATION | Coastal Carolina University SAFETY Leader of lifelong learning departs BY JASON LESLEY COASTAL OBSERVER Linda Ketron says she’s done all she can for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and will leave her post as coordinator for non-accredited and continuing studies at Coastal Carolina University April 1. She doesn’t like the words resigning or retiring to describe her decision. “There’s no real name for NEXT!” she said. “I need a little time to figure out what the next is.” Ketron brought her adult education program called CLASS (Community Learning About Special Subjects) under the Coastal Carolina umbrella in 2004 because she thought it was time to institutionalize it. She began it as Senior Semesters in 1993. After about 18 months, the classes moved to Brookgreen Gardens and was renamed Campus Brookgreen while Ketron was coordinator of volunteers. When she left Brookgreen in 1997 to open Art Works in the Litchfield Ex- Tanya Ackerman/Coastal Observer Linda Ketron started her adult-ed program in 1993. change, CLASS soon followed with 10 courses and about 90 students. It had grown to 80 courses with 600 students by the time CCU came calling with a new facility on Willbrook Boulevard and an op- portunity to make the program permanent. As she leaves 11 years later, Coastal’s OLLI program is the second largest in the nation with 400 classes at four SEE “KETRON,” PAGE 4 PAWLEYS ISLAND | The Madeline Foundation Guard units from five states join disaster recovery drill The skies over Georgetown County will be humming with military aircraft this weekend as the National Guard conducts a multi-agency disaster preparedness exercise in cooperation with local emergency personnel. Operation Vigilant Guard will test relationships between civilian, local, federal and military partners in simulated emergencies. The scenario for the exercise involves landfall of a Category 4 hurricane similar to Hurricane Hugo in 1989, moving through the Palmetto State into North Carolina and causing widespread destruction. Georgetown County will be a lead player in the exercise. A mobile emergency operations center will be set up at the county airport. Scenarios will include the collapse of a major bridge, a rescue from a building hit by a tornado and airlifting casualties from water. — JASON LESLEY Inside this issue Special needs program runs afoul of zoning BY CHARLES SWENSON COASTAL OBSERVER A program for special needs children that had planned to move to a Pawleys Island beach house this week is now reviewing its options after receiving a cease and desist letter from the town zoning official. “The board is meeting. We’ll talk to an attorney,” said Peggy Wheeler-Cribb, founder of the Special Needs Madeline Home Foundation. She planned to bring children from a special needs program she started at First Baptist Church in Georgetown to her home on Pawleys because it has outgrown its existing space. That house, owned by Wheeler-Cribb’s son, Darwin Wheeler, is zoned for residential use. In a letter last month, the town zoning administrator, told Wheeler the tea room and gift shop fundraising activities of the foundation violated the zoning rules. Tanya Ackerman/Coastal Observer Fundraising teas began in January at the house. Wheeler-Cribb said the teas were all prepared off the island and brought to the house, where guests made a $25 donation. “I don’t even have a stove in the house,” she said. And the gift shop, set up by her niece, sold donated items, Wheeler-Cribb said. “These two activities are commercial,” Joanne Ochal, the zoning administrator, wrote last month. She works for Georgetown County, which provides building and zoning services to the town under contract. “You may notice that there are several consignment shops on the Waccamaw Neck and they are all in commercial district, not residential districts.” Ochal also told Wheeler the Madeline Foundation’s plans for “day care programs, camps, after school programs and respite care” would violate the residential zoning. Wheeler-Cribb said her church-based program has been holding camps on the island for 12 years. “They get to play in the ocean and the sand. In the summer, we have family day once a month,” she said. On her wall, she has a framed copy of a letter from the former owner Zaidee Lee Brawley that outline summer camps for boys and girls held in the summer of 1933. The cost was $45 for two weeks. The special needs program SEE “SPECIAL NEEDS,” PAGE 5 Kennedy’s next step: A 12-year-old said it wasn’t bravery that led to the decision to amputate her leg. SECOND FRONT Sports: Warriors win two gold medals at state wrestling finals. PAGE 20 Crime ...................................7 Opinion................................8 Crossword........................ 12 What’s On ......................... 13 Classifieds.........................16 Sports................................ 15 On the Internet www.coastalobserver.com
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