To all my beloved children who live on, work on, and visit me,
I write to you today with great concern and a heavy heart, as I need time to heal, and you need time todo the same.
The last five years have left you divided, and the last few weeks even more so, yet it makes me swell with pride to think of all that you once accomplished together.
Thank you for funding, developing, and maintaining the roads and infrastructure that allow everyone to both come to and depart from me freely.
Thank you for all the waste removal, as well as the sewage treatment plant, which allow me to be cleaner. Thank you for bringing potable water to my many faucets, lessening my burden.
Thank you for allowing the many commercial businesses to serve and flourish on this island, so the people do not have to add pressure and pollution traveling to meet their needs for nourishment, entertainment, and services.
Thank you for providing structured parking to allow our neighbors better access to my shores.
Thank you for re-nourishing my beaches and helping to protect the plants and animals that comprise my delicate ecosystem. Thank you for enabling me to continue to provide them with safe haven.
I need your continued help now.
There was a time when I could feel the constant hum of gratitude: the joy felt by those waking here in the morning, the happiness as others crossed over via the Connector or Breech Inlet.
I have felt a shift over time, and I now sense growing frustration and divisiveness. Over the last few years, I’ve watched your shared elation transform into anger and resentment. I understand how these feelings arose: COVID arrived and everything shutdown. People living on this island wanted to protect me and wanted to feel protected. People living off the island wanted to visit my beaches in order to feel free again.
Part-time owners began to return more frequently, and with the shift to remote work, they were able to stay here longer. At the same time, many new faces — unable to travel internationally — came and stayed for an extended period as well. With the resulting changes in the world and the newfound discovery of this place, there’s nodoubt these expanded visits will continue.
While I welcome them all, I’m at a breaking point. I feel the stress, and it has drained me.
As such, I need you, and particularly your elected officials, to step up and protect me.
It is inconceivable that I can handle any more density right now. I need time, and I need you to create that space by encouraging your city council to vote yes on these five ordinances, particularly #5. Vote yes to stop development and allow the time to reassess what I can sustainably support.
I trust that if —down the road — you feel that you can put more on my shoulders, you will do so wisely. But whether such development happens in a few years or in the distant future, there must be change: I need further infrastructure, expanded sewage treatment facilities, enhanced drainage, and perhaps additional access points besides the current Connector.
For now, I need you to ask your elected officials to
- Vote yes to provide the time to find the best way forward, a future that serves the good of all, and a path that will protect the environment and wildlife from unnecessary stressors.
- Vote yes — especially on ordinance #5 as it specifically prohibits further development — so that we can once again come together and accomplish great things, and with ample time to restore consensus and weigh those options wisely.
Each of you, working as an individual, is one drop. Together, you are as steadfast as the sea.
With love,
Mother of Isle of Palms
