The Palm Republic was established in March 2022 and officially consummated a few months later with a well-attended party at The Windjammer. Now the sort of serious organization, the brainchild of former Isle of Palms Mayor Jimmy Carroll and current Council Member Blair Hahn, has rocketed into the realm of significance, filing a petition and complaint with the South Carolina Supreme Court in an effort to force the South Carolina Department of Transportation to treat IOP and three other beach communities just like it treats the state’s other municipalities.
The Palm Republic’s case is based on the constitutionality of S.40, a law passed in 2021 that gives the SCDOT the authority to decide where visitors to IOP, Sullivan’s Island, Edisto and
Folly Beach can park on stateowned roads and how much, if anything, they’ll have to pay. Hahn, Carroll and their 26 other “revolutionaries” also are more than upset about SCDOT’s decision to restripe the Isle of Palms Connector, a project that added bike and pedestrian lanes but eliminated the emergency lane that once randown the center of the road. “S.40 attempts to carve out four communities in the state and treat them differently than the other 268 communities as it relates to what municipalities cando within the rights of way of the streets inside their municipalities,” Hahn said. “They have attempted to craft legislation that puts only those four in control of the Department of Transportation. That’s unconstitutional. It should be for everybody or for nobody.” The lawsuit points out that SCDOT also re-striped the Connector bridge illegally, violating “a number of state statutes, as well as the constitution.” “It appears to have beendone simply to punish the Isle of Palms for limiting visitors to the island during the pandemic, which wasdone to comply with the governor’s order on social distancing,” Hahn said. “There was no engineering report or study. It wasdone in the middle of the night at the direction of the secretary of transportation.” Hahn said the Palm Republic is asking that the striping on the bridge be returned to its original configuration “until they can work with the city and the town of Mount Pleasant to agree upon a configuration of the bridge that both communities are comfortable with. They have todo that because that’s the law.” Hahn pointed out that the lawsuit addresses issues beyond the Connector bridge and parking on state roads. He said it’s also about allowing cities and towns to make decisions based on their individual needs.
“The point is that they can’t single us out because Sen. Grooms and Sen. Campsen want to pander to a small group of voters who want free parking,” Hahn said. “All we are trying todo is establish that the legislation is in fact unconstitutional and have it rescinded. If they can craft legislation that is constitutional, we have no quarrel. All we want is for our officials to follow the constitution and the rule of law. That’s not difficult todo. That’s something that both Democrat and Republican legislators should want to happen.”
