COASTAL OBSERVER

The group that has worked for nearly three years on a proposal to form a town in the Pawleys Island-Litchfield area plans to meet with the Georgetown County sheriff about law enforcement. But that won’t change its plans that police protection from the sheriff’s office will continue uninterrupted.

“There is no Plan B,” said Andy Hallock, chairman of the Pawleys Litchfield Municipal Study Group, at a meeting the group organized for Hagley residents over the weekend. “What we showed you today is the plan.”

Sheriff Carter Weaver said this week no meeting with the study group has been scheduled. He said before the study group began meeting with residents and property owners in May that he wanted to meet with them about law enforcement.

“They’re simply ignoring factual information,” he said. “There’s no confusion at this point.”

The study group is gathering signatures on a petition to submit to the S.C. Secretary of State’s office to hold an incorporation referendum in the area between Brookgreen Gardens and DeBordieu. It has more than half of the 3,000 signatures it wants to collect and is almost finished with the feasibility study that it must also submit to the state to outline how the town will function, Hallock said.

If voters in the proposed town of 16,400 people approve, the study group proposes that the new municipality take charge of planning and zoning. 

“All we’re looking to do is have an autonomous planning and zoning function,” said Jim Register, a study group member who drafted the financial plan.

That can be done, along with general administration, at an annual cost of $868,590.

The town expects to receive $3.6 million in revenue, principally from an existing state tax on insurance premiums that is shared with municipalities and from an existing state tax on short-term rentals. It is not proposing a property tax.

Once the town is up and running, it estimates there will be a budget surplus of $2.8 million. That’s up from earlier estimates because it now includes $1.6 million in accommodations tax revenue.

The new town, which will cover the 29585 ZIP code, will continue to use Georgetown County services the way the town of Pawleys Island does. 

While critical of the county for last year’s update of its future land use plan that the study group says will increase development, “we already get good service generally on a number of these functions,” Hallock said. “Many towns actually use county services themselves, and so we’re not doing something that’s out of the ordinary.”

As to law enforcement, the state law requires the study group submit “a proposal for providing either directly or indirectly a substantially similar level of law enforcement services to the area’s existing law enforcement coverage.”

“The residents of 29585 currently pay for law enforcement in their county taxes,” Hallock said. “Incorporation doesn’t require anything additional from law enforcement.”

But Weaver, who said he doesn’t have an opinion on the incorporation effort, disagreed.

For example, the new town will start receiving accommodation tax revenue that the county uses to fund a beach patrol. That’s a service he has looked at expanding in the wake of two drownings this summer in the town of Pawleys Island.

“They’re going to have to provide their own beach patrol with their A-tax,” Weaver said.

The new town also needs to have a municipal court and animal control, or contracts for them. “That’s just a few things,” Weaver said.

And he said a town has to prepare for changing circumstances. 

Hallock cited six towns in Charleston County that he said have no property tax and “receive the same amount of protection from the county sheriff in Charleston County as the unincorporated areas receive.”

But two of those do pay for law enforcement, according to the town budgets.

James Island, which abuts the city of Charleston, has over $600,000 in its budget for an Island Sheriff’s Patrol. That includes $115,000 for dedicated officers. James Island has a population of over 12,000.

James Island uses a portion of its hospitality tax to pay for the extra policing, said Bill Taylor, a former city manager in Cheraw and field representative for the S.C. Municipal Association. He recently joined the study group after attending its meeting with residents of Allston Plantation.

Taylor agreed it isn’t unusual for counties to provide municipalities with police protection under contract.

The town of Kiawah Island budgets $768,000 for Charleston County deputies and $584,000 for a beach patrol. The town, with a population of 2,000 in a gated community, contracts for coverage from off-duty deputies from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. The beach patrol is provided by a private firm that also serves Seabrook Island.

Seabrook Island, a town of about 2,100, budgets $240,000 for a beach patrol. It is a gated community that also provides security through its property owners association.

Three other towns –Hollywood (pop. 5,500), Ravenel (2,600) and McClellanville (626) – don’t budget for law enforcement.

And the town of Pawleys Island, with a permanent population of 134, budgets $432,500 for its police department. It also gets help from the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office, which responded to seven of the 60 calls to police last month.

All that is needed for the submission to the Secretary of State’s office, Hallock said, is a letter like one from the Lancaster County sheriff for a recent incorporation effort that confirmed the number of officers and shifts would not change in the area as long as the county’s funding didn’t change.

He said the study group will be meeting with Weaver.

“Is there any way we could maybe put a little pressure on Sheriff Weaver,” one man at the meeting asked.

“He’s an elected official, so I’m sure he’d like to hear from you,” Hallock said.

“I’m not susceptible to political pressure when it comes to misinformation,” Weaver said this week.