“Man is not free until Government is limited”
- Ronald Reagan
It was not that many years ago that Reagan’s statement may have seemed redundant in America. Not anymore. The federal government has grown almost 40% in the last four years. Much of that growth has gone to increasing federal bureaucracy, and that bureaucracy is then used to oppress the citizens. Unfortunately, as the head grows, the body grows. Our state and local governments have also grown dramatically. South Carolina boasts agencies like the Department of Health and Environmental Control, which is approximately 4,000 strong, and the Department of Transportation, which has approximately 5,000 employees. Apparently, they aren’t big enough; DHEC will be split into two groups this summer – the Environmental group and the Health group. Oops. All these agencies are out of space, so we will spend about $490 million to relocate them from owned offices in downtown Columbia – not nice enough or big enough – to leased offices in the suburbs. SCDOT controls about two-thirds of the roads in the state, including substantially all of the roads on our islands. This is the fourth highest state-controlled road system in the nation. Let’s not talk about the results. Our roads are anywhere between the second and fourth worst in the nation. Don’t fret, taxpayer. We are adding more people.
DHEC and its subsidiary, Ocean & Coastal Resource Management, have completely changed their mission. They were supposed to help maintain our beautiful beaches and other waterfront areas. Instead, they are destroying all the above and have switched their mission to a policing agency, grabbing private property to temporarily gain more waterfront until they destroy that and grab more private property. On non-beach waterfront, DHEC requires a professional surveyor to establish a critical area for state jurisdiction over private property – but it does not always like the answers. So now they require the surveyors to stamp their survey, saying DHEC reserves the right to change the critical area at its discretion.
And change it they do. Usually, these changes establish government jurisdiction over owners who cannot afford to fight the threats of jail time, fines or destroying the livelihood of the contractor or owner. Beachfront is even more egregious. The state uses a process to analyze the impacts of erosion over a seven-to-10-year period and establish jurisdictional lines over private property. There is a legal agreement with private property owners that these lines – termed the base line and setback line – are the limit of the state’s jurisdiction over private property. This jurisdiction over private property claimed by the state at no cost was supposed to be a carefully thought out process that is periodically reviewed and approved by the Legislature and the governor.
Why the sensitivity? Because the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prevents government from annexing private property through regulation without just compensation. For many years, the public/private partnership functioned with a strict adherence to these jurisdictional lines that is established in state law. No more. Since we are one of the few states that does not have a routine program to replenish the beaches and maintain a protective dune that is essential to the beach ecosystem and protection of the coastline, we are losing our beaches at an increasingly rapid pace. The solution? Cross over the state jurisdictional base lines and setback lines and start applying definitions that were meant to apply seaward of the setback lines to private property landward of the setback lines, thus annexing private property with no compensation. On some homes, the state now claims jurisdiction up to the foundation, including pools and landscaping. Voila! They destroyed the beaches but just got some new beach by illegally annexing private property. In a few months, they will lose that as well and will have to annex more. One homeowner asked OCRM: “Where does this stop?” The answer: “It does not.” Constitution? That does not apply. State law? Unnecessary inconvenience. Try to get justice in court? We will bring the full power of government down on you along with our loyal friends, the radical environmental groups such as the Coastal Conservation League. Who is the CCL? Apparently, they are a tax exempt 501(c)(3) charity. Huh? Just this week, they came up with a solution that they broadcast in the Post and Courier: “managed retreat” from the coastal areas. Wait: South Carolina changed state law in 2018, abandoning retreat and instead adopted a replenish, renourish and hold-the-line approach. Well, that is some stupid law that tax-exempt charities like the CCL do not have to worry about.
Then, we have our local Council. They keep over $8 million of beach nourishment funds in their bank allocated from the accommodations tax while the beaches are getting decimated – no dry sand beach at high tide, no dunes as required by law and beach levels down 8 to 10 feet. Their actions so far? Disastrous long-term beach scraping that even OCRM admits is bad for the beach and causes beach levels to drop. Anyone notice how the beach seems to be getting better ever since they stopped the 24-hour scraping? But 800 to 1,000 votes gives our Council the intellect to do as they please and stop listening to the citizens. Watch how the citizens advisory committee on beaches has been hijacked by Mayor Phillip Pounds, his staff and several Council members.
Let’s not forget the contribution of Blair Hahn. At the last Council meeting, after spewing a bunch of false, ignorant information about erosion control, he said: “If you want to see how bad erosion control structures are, google Kid Rock, whose structure destroyed his neighbors.” Well, some citizens followed his advice and discovered that Kid Rock’s neighbors realized that those who did not have erosion control structures all suffered harm uniformly, regardless of where they were located, and that municipality has now decided that erosion control works and plans to extend its erosion control structures to other properties.
Ignorance is bliss on the part of one of the most divisive, inconsequential members of Council. Now that the beach strategies are a mess, our Council will take up the two-year battle on noise ordinances. Here is an idea. Drop the noise ordinance requirements with idiotic meters during the daytime. Require the ordinance at night, starting 10 p.m. weekdays and 11 p.m. weekends and stop listening to people telling you that police or compliance officers cannot use their judgment as to when a disturbance is a disturbance at night. Apparently, nine noise citations were issued all last year, and we are wondering why we have a compliance issue?
It is time that government officials understand that they are not rulers who have the authority to make laws that appeal to them personally, that they should not espouse their wild, unresearched theories and that they shouldn’t be using their positions to exercise their personal vendettas. Government should represent those who put them there. So let’s get government out of our lives and out of our pockets. Stop talking about your beliefs and start listening to those who put you there. Only then will we be free and self-governing, as our Founding Fathers intended.
