Staff reports | The Conservation Voters of South Carolina released its 2019-2020 Conservation Scorecard this week. Some lawmakers receive lower scores because they didn’t vote on either one or more of five bills in the House or vote on the one conservation bill in the Senate.
Staff reports | Officials are closely watching the churning in the Atlantic Ocean as Tropical Storm Isaias moves north towards the Carolinas coast. Heavy, spotty rain has been reported Monday morning.
The storm, near the Georgia-Florida line early this morning, is expected to be off the coast of Charleston by Monday night, bringing with it heavy rains. At 5 a.m., maximum sustained winds were 70 mph. It may gain enough power to be a hurricane, forecasters say, with the highest winds occurring off the coast. The probable landfall is Wilmington, N.C.
As of 8 a.m., Charleston was under a tropical storm warning, but a hurricane warning stretched from the South Santee River to Surf City, N.C. A storm surge warning is in effect from Edisto Island to the North Carolina line.
Staff reports | The city of North Charleston will open a new free art gallery at Park Circle to present works scheduled in the North Charleston City Art Gallery, which has been shuttered indefinitely because of the closure of the Charleston Area Convention Center’s Performing Arts Center and Coliseum.
The new gallery, formerly known as the Olde Village Community Building, will open Aug. 1 at 4820 Jenkins Avenue. Hours will be 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and noon to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. In addition to the monthly exhibitions, the new space will feature a gift shop that offers a variety of items by local artists, art workshops and recurring meetings when it’s safe.
Park Circle Gallery’s inaugural exhibitions include photographs by Nicole Robinson of Charleston and paintings by Sarah Harris of Hanahan. The concurrent solo exhibitions will be on view August 1-29, 2020.
Staff reports | The legislature is abuzz over Gov. Henry McMaster’s move a week ago to allocate $32 million in pandemic relief funds for tuition grants to private schools.
By Wednesday, state Circuit Court Judge Edgar W. Dickson in Orangeburg County issued a temporary block on the plan in response to a lawsuit that said McMaster’s move violated the state’s constitution, which prevents public dollars from directly benefiting private educational institutions.
By Sam Skardon, republished with permission | Not many people can say this, but in my first job, I proudly kept a copy of my boss’ mugshot on my desk. I’d look at it and wonder if the 21-year-old John Lewis in the picture, who had just been arrested on the Freedom Rides, thought it was possible that someday a framed version of it would be sitting on the desk of a 21-year-old aide in his office at the U.S. Capitol. He had a slight smile on his face in the picture, so maybe he had a hunch. I asked him about it once and he just flashed the same smirk from the mugshot back at me.
I wish I had counted the number of times I heard Mr. Lewis tell his life story. His voice would roar to life with that deep Alabama accent. He was a preacher and every audience quickly became his congregation. He had been doing it his whole life, as the crowd would quickly learn.
Growing up on a farm in Alabama, his job was to raise chickens. They were his first parishioners. …
Staff reports | An annual federal flooding report found Charleston’s high tide flooding is increasing at an alarming rate.
“The report is very clear: Charleston is in trouble,” Coastal Conservation League’s Betsy La Force told sister publication Statehouse Report. “If we look at the data and continue to ignore it the issue will only get worse. It’s scientific. It’s not political. It proves to the public and political leaders that climate change impacts are happening now … We have to be realistic and plan accordingly.”
Staff reports | It will be another two months before visitors can walk over the iconic white bridge at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens. It will take that long for skilled staff craftsmen to fix it after a tree fell on it last week.
“It was a maple tree at the water’s edge and obviously it was bad on the inside,” said attraction director Tom Johnson. “With all of this rain and stuff, it kind of half uprooted and fell on our bridge.”
The tree had not been on the staff’s radar screen as being a potential problem so it was a pretty big surprise when it fell, Johnson said.
Fortunately, most of the damage was superficial. The much-photographed bridge, built back in the 1840s, remains structurally sound.
“We pulled the decking off and found the main structure is solid,” he said. “It’s made of 1-foot-by-1-foot cypress posts driven 16-feet down into the ground. Can you imagine that — 16 feet that far back? There’s been some extra bracing done since Hurricane Hugo” 31 years ago.
Johnson said his team had planned to restore the bridge prior to last week’s damage because some of the railing had loosened.
Staff reports | Trident Literacy Association will use a $150,000 grant to provide intensive case management to help adult students through a program to help them get a high-school degree and build job skills competencies. The grant is from Power:Ed, a philanthropic arm of the S.C. Student Loan Corporation.
By Rob Byko, special to Charleston Currents | Sullivan’s Island townsfolk, a few visitors and a smattering of stoic fans of South Carolina and Revolutionary War history on Saturday got together to commemorate Carolina Day, the 244th anniversary of the Battle of Sullivan’s Island. The annual event, co-sponsored by Sullivan’s Island and the Battery Gadsden Cultural Center (BatteryGadsden.com), was held at the Sullivan’s Island Town Hall Plaza. The move from last year’s venue, Fort Moultrie National Park, was necessitated by ongoing concerns over the spike in COVID-19 cases reported across the state. Masks and social distancing were adequately observed by a majority of those in attendance, though not by all.
Staff reports | Close to one-third of state lawmakers say they are for repealing the Heritage Act, according to an organization pushing its repeal. Repeal the Heritage Act said 49 lawmakers have expressed public support for the law’s repeal. It requires two-thirds of the General Assembly’s two chambers to agree to any changes or removals of war and heritage monuments on public property, including those commemorating the Confederacy and African American heritage.
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