FOCUS:  Interstate 526 completion isn’t actionable plan, but smoky scheme

By Fred Palm, contributing columnist |  Charleston County’s new plan to finish I-526 remains secret but includes recent half-cent sales tax money. Seemingly, we should not care about nor want to know the details of this plan that has yet to find a financing source in the county budget. Smoky at best.

There is just some number – let’s call it “$X” — developed years ago given as the “estimated” cost. This number, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, has been repeated enough times that it seems to be true.  $X has never been worked up by a reputable engineering firm. $X has not been adjusted for years of inflation. $X has never been bid out thus lacks the market’s reaction. $X is pushed by the current crop of elected leaders for inexplicable reasons with ill-defined benefits, and to whom.

$X is going to saddle you and your children with a continuing obligation that will deliver very little benefit to the county overall. $X will be added next to another crippling number, $Y, which represents the outstanding settlement that the state’s taxpayers inherit from the failed Summer nuclear project that is still in limbo.

Why would you move to a place with a big ball of debt that clouds the ability to:

• Put in place heretofore unaddressed badly-needed flooding infrastructure and drainage investments to stay dry out into the future;
• Add connecting roads to create a network;
• Fund a legitimate transportation system that removes vehicles from congested highways;
• Support schools that teach too few;
• Provide needed water treatment plants, and unfortunately,
• Have its sales tax revenues maxed out and pledged to others for generations?

A recent bend in the population curve will drive down even further the heralded growth even faster, with this decision to build yesteryear’s vision of an outer-ring, commuter-based suburban development that I-526 is.  It totally lacking as a viable alternative way to commute to work over the entire commuting distance.

We need to move on from this failed vision and elect AAA players, instead of minor leaguers in over their heads. Local does not mean that the best is put on the field. Best is who we need to elect to make these decisions wisely for the common good.

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