Charleston Currents

FOCUS, Palm: Local business leaders need to step up now

By Fred Palm, contributing editor | The Lowcountry is a dysfunctional area because in many situations, the business community organizes “business councils” that serve as sounding boards and advocates for enlightened public policy for the common good to achieve a turnaround. Unfortunately, they’ve been mostly dormant and now is the time for our business leaders to step forward to contribute community service for the common good. Here is why.

The fiction that ‘growth is good’ and that ‘growth pays for itself’ is exposed in Summerville for the shams that they are. All elected politicians know them to be big lies. Only some have the courage to give voice to truth and the reality of numbers – and to come up with workable solutions.

by Fred Palm · 06/11/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Common Good, Focus, Good news

FOCUS, Palm: Moving flood control beyond more trees

By Fred Palm, contributing editor | The Post and Courier editorial team (April 27, 2018) advocated that the City of Charleston plant trees to start to address flooding. That is a start. Here is what got left out.

We know that the outer lands, when properly employed to protect ourselves, buffer, reduce inundation and wave height that flood the inner uplands. We also know the flooding follows the rivers and floodplains going inland to Goose Creek and Mount Pleasant to the Francis Marion National Forest and other parts of the lowlands. This is a threat going well beyond the city of Charleston and addressed well beyond planting trees, though it helps. It could also be a way to have the Dutch dialogue that the P&C editorial writers endorsed recently.

Flooding is a coastal threat. Comprehensive plan funding is needed by all the S.C. state coastal counties and cities; and where the lion’s share of state revenue is drawn. We urgently need the state to act by funding a statewide plan including the coastal waters’ edges and upland rivers.

by Fred Palm · 05/07/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Common Good, Focus, Views

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.

by Fred Palm · 04/09/2018 · 1 comment · Common Good, Views