COASTAL OBSERVER

Two County Council members moved this week to rescind their decision to create a capital projects sales tax commission because it doesn’t represent their districts in the Andrews area.

Unless something changes, Georgetown County will take a divided council into next November’s referendum seeking voter approval for a 1-cent sales tax to fund an estimated $60 million in capital projects, Council Member Raymond Newton said.

“You need to have the whole county on board,” he said. “If they want to fix this, they can.”

The council adopted a resolution in October to create the commission, which state law requires  as the first step in the process toward creating the capital projects tax.

Under the law, counties get to name three of the six commission members. The other three seats are for municipalities and are assigned by population.

But under the formula included in state law only the city of Georgetown was eligible to name its own members. It appointed two.

The towns of Pawleys Island and Andrews didn’t have enough population to secure a seat, so the third municipal representative was appointed by the two Georgetown members. They picked Mark Hawn, the nominee from Pawleys Island.

“My constituents from District 3 and the township of Andrews are screaming, ‘what about our representation?’” Council Member Everett Carolina said as he moved to rescind the resolution creating the sales tax commission.

Before a second was provided, Council Chairman Louis Morant questioned whether the issue could be taken up without appearing on the council’s published agenda.

“I don’t think you can just undo it by a mere motion to rescind,” Jay Watson, the county attorney, said. “Plus it involved other municipalities or governmental agencies which have also taken action.”

He added that “it’s going to be a lot more difficult to unwind.”

Newton said he wants the issue to be included on the agenda for the council’s next meeting, which is scheduled for January.

The sales tax commission is due to hold its first meeting on Monday.

Newton said afterward that he would not have let the process reach this point if he had known the Andrews area wasn’t going to have representation.

In the previous capital sales tax referendums, which failed in 2012 and passed in 2014, the commission had two county representatives from the Waccamaw Neck and one from District 7 in the Plantersville-Choppee area, Newton said.

District 5, which he represents, and District 3, represented by Carolina, were represented on the commission by the appointee from Andrews, he said.

Now, “18,000 residents are not represented,” Newton said, referring to the population of the two districts. “It doesn’t pass the smell test.”

The town of Pawleys Island has never had a seat on the sales tax commissions.

Newton acknowledged that the commission could come up with a plan to suit his area, but he said that isn’t the same as being involved in the process.