1 week Ago
The Exchange Club’s Coastal Carolina Fair may offer more thrills than usual when it opens on Halloween. Along with all the raucous rides, rodeo and funnel cake, fairgoers could see some authentic political propaganda — maybe even a "browbeat a public official” booth. We got a preview this past week.
A guy walked up to Charleston County Councilman Joe Boykin at Wednesday’s CARTA board meeting and said ...
well, let’s hear it from him. “He says, ‘You voted to take our land. There’s gonna be repercussions — we’re going to kill your sales tax referendum,’” Boykin recalls the conversation going.
Boykin may have been flummoxed by what he considered a threat — at least a political threat against a measure he supports wholeheartedly, if not himself personally. But no one who’s been watching this ridiculous soap opera was much surprised. See, the man is a member of the Exchange Club of Charleston — the outfit that, through a separate entity, has run the Coastal Carolina Fair since 1957.
And the group is trying to stop an effort to force it to sell six acres of the Ladson Fairgrounds to CARTA for a bus rapid transit line stop. The group's so upset that it's spending money, most of which normally goes to charity, on a campaign against November’s Charleston County transportation sales tax referendum. Take a gander at its recent social media ad: “SAY NO to the Half Cent Sales Tax *Save the Fair.
” Yeah, not only is that not nearly as much fun as the Himalaya; it’s complete baloney. The referendum has absolutely nothing to do with the Exchange Club/CARTA bus line deal. CARTA’s planned 21-mile Lowcountry Rapid Transit Line from Ladson to downtown Charleston is funded with $375 million in federal grants and $250 million in already-secured local government funding — not the proposed sales tax.
“The LCRT is moving forward and has its own financing in place, and the project is not dependent on the election of any one person or anything else,” says Charleston City Councilman Mike Seekings, chairman of CARTA. Obviously, some members of the Exchange Club are big mad about this. They claim, without evidence, that the CARTA plan will eventually lead to the government taking all their land and shutting down the fair.
Yeah, and the Snake Lady's real. Several years back, CARTA had the idea for a rapid bus line to ferry people from Summerville to Charleston with buses in dedicated lanes. Which would cut commute times and get cars off overburdened roads.
It asked the Exchange Club about buying six acres, just 4% of the 139-acre fairgrounds. The group's leaders agreed, because they knew CARTA could, if it so chose, force them to sell the land. But the deal led to consternation in the club.
After a leadership turnover, the club asked CARTA to accept a different plot, which the authority did. That still didn’t satisfy some folks in the club, who say on the Exchange Club's Facebook page they simply don't want the bus stop on their property. Some of those guys have been showing up at CARTA meetings ever since, and once called board members “despicable.
” But trying to intimidate a public official is a whole new attraction. Seekings says, it’s “just inappropriate to threaten a volunteer public servant.” Seekings didn’t see the confrontation, but several others did — and at least one heard what was said.
The man who allegedly said this stuff didn't return a call/voicemail on his cellphone. But he's probably going through some things right now. Because none of this helps the club's lawsuit against CARTA, which has turned the fair into a three-ring circus.
Not long ago, the club tried to persuade CARTA to accept yet another piece of land (or lease it at exorbitant rates). By this time the environmental work had been done on the agreed-upon property, and switching sites meant redoing all that work. Such a delay, CARTA officials say, would have cost them that $375 million federal grant.
So CARTA said no. With all this imperiling the timeline for the bus rapid transit line, CARTA eventually invoked its power of eminent domain ..
. and the Exchange Club sued. And here we are.
Boykin’s colleagues are furious about this meddling in an already contentious referendum, and say this act of retribution could cost Charleston County greenspace, transit and road improvements to alleviate traffic. Of course, it's likely a tad more complicated. CARTA would receive some proceeds from the transportation sales tax, so this kind of is a threat against CARTA.
But not getting the money from the referendum would not imperil the bus rapid transit line. So, putting aside the whole threat of retribution, this campaign is just a cheap parlor trick. Keep that in mind when you go out to hear one of the great bands at the fair and also get a chorus of "save the fair.
" Smoke and mirrors can be great fun at the fairgrounds, but they're reckless and dangerous in a voting booth..
