COASTAL OBSERVER

When the town of Pawleys Island first sought a seat on the commission that is creating a list of projects for a countywide capital projects sales tax, officials thought they might seek funding for two projects.

That list has now grown to five.

If any of them are included on the ballot for a referendum on the tax in November, it will be a first for the town.

“We felt like anything that was big wouldn’t get funded,” former Mayor Bill Otis said. He was mayor when Georgetown County first tried to pass a capital projects sales tax in 2012 and when it succeeded in 2014. 

In between those votes the town hired an assistant administrator to help Otis, but didn’t have the capacity to develop major capital projects, he said.

Smaller town projects, like creek dredging and groin repair, didn’t sync with the referendum cycle for the sale tax.

“We were ’twixt and ’tween,” Otis said.

There was also an effort to put a sales tax on the ballot in 2020, but it was abandoned. The town of Pawleys Island was not represented on any of the commissions that worked on those referendums. It wasn’t until the 2020 census numbers shifted that a seat became available to either Pawleys Island or the town of Andrews.

Mark Hawn, a member of the Pawleys Island Planning Commission, was picked for the seat by the two sales tax commission members appointed by the city of Georgetown, a process defined by state law. Hawn now chairs the commission.

“It is worthwhile,” he told his colleagues on the Planning Commission last week. “I am learning so much about the county.”

He also learned that sales tax commission members can’t campaign for the tax. Hawn gave the Planning Commission an update on the tax, but said he would recuse himself from any discussion beyond that.

That wasn’t necessary, because Town Administrator Dan Newquist has been attending the sales tax meetings held around the county.

“It’s not a back-of-the-napkin type thing,” he said.

The sales tax commission has set April 1 as the deadline for state, regional and local government entities to submit project proposals for a share of the penny tax, estimated to be $10 million a year. It can be imposed for up to eight years.

Pawleys Island Mayor Brian Henry initially suggested the town seek money for resilience and recycling. Those would also benefit people outside the town who use the beach and countywide recycling, he reasoned.

The town is currently seeking a firm to draft a stormwater master plan, which will be funded by a $150,000 state infrastructure grant. It also has $250,000 that was included in the state budget last year for drainage projects on the island.

Drainage “is the biggest one I would like to see move forward,” Newquist said of the sales tax proposals.

That might be difficult because the sales tax commission has created a  scoring method that puts an emphasis on the reliability of project cost estimates and the likelihood that an entity can complete the project.

Newquist acknowledged that the town is probably a year away from having details of any drainage project. He said he still plans to draft a proposal.

“I have a lot of work to do before April 1,” he said.

He also expects to submit a request for recycling. The county has looked for grant funding to upgrade recycling equipment at the landfill. That could help Pawleys Island restart a household recycling program that was halted several years ago because its principal waste handler couldn’t keep the materials separated.

It could also provide an avenue for funding solar-power compactors to replace conventional trash containers at beach accesses. 

Projects that have emerged since the sales tax commission started work are a generator for Town Hall, flood protection for sewer lift stations and repairs to a jetty on Midway Inlet at the island’s north end.

The jetty was built by the state highway department in the 1950s, but the state no longer claims responsibility. Neither does the town, but officials recognize that the jetty’s role in stabilizing the inlet has become their responsibility by default.  Town Council is expected to receive an engineer’s report on the state of the jetty and the estimated cost of repairs in March.

“There’s really no other definitive funding source for that project,” Newquist said.

Protecting the sewer stations would be a joint effort with Georgetown County Water and Sewer District. The utility placed over-sized sandbags around them after repeated flooding from storms and king tides. That would check boxes on the sales tax commission evaluation that look at the potential of projects to solve an infrastructure problem and reduce future maintenance costs.

A generator at Town Hall may not score well in its countywide impact, Newquist said, but he will argue that a large number of inquiries that come to the town during hurricanes are from outside the town.

“It’s definitely a facility that is critical in nature,” he said.

Town Council cut a generator from the budget for the building when it was built in 2018 to keep the budget below $800,000. It was later turned down for a federal grant for a generator.

Town Hall was built almost entirely with private donations because the town was building up a fund for beach renourishment. It does not have a municipal property tax. Most of its revenue comes from state and local accommodations taxes.

It could also be a challenge for the town to show it is able to operate and maintain any projects built with the sales tax because it has limited sources of revenue.

No formal proposals have been received, said Walt Ackerman, the county director of Administrative Services, who is working with the sales tax commission. He added that he had an inquiry from the Rural Water District about one.

“You’ll be hearing from Andrews,” Mayor Frank McClary told the commission.

He expects to seek funds for a sewer project and a public works facility.

Hawn said he has heard of a couple, including the effort of Parkersville residents to get sidewalks that they pitched at one of the commission’s meetings.

Commission member Robert Crenshaw, who lives in the rural part of the county, said he has heard about fire protection and stormwater projects.

Commission member Reed Tiller, who was appointed by the city of Georgetown, said he has heard about harbor dredging.

Hobson Henry Milton, a former member of the City Council, told the commission last week that he is working to get a sponsor of a pedestrian overpass on Highmarket Street in the West End neighborhood.

The area is traditionally underfunded, Milton said, but he was optimistic that the sales tax would treat everyone fairly.

“What you’re trying to do is great,” he said.