Election Day Update

Via the AP 

Beaufort voters approve land preservation money

Beaufort County voters have approved plans to borrow $20 million for land preservation, including raising funds to buy or arrange conservation agreements on environmentally sensitive property.

More than 73 percent of voters supported the idea. Beaufort County voters have authorized more than $130 million for the land preservation effort over the last 15 years.

Officials say the latest borrowing will add about $10 to the property tax bill for those who own a $250,000 home.

The Rural and Critical Lands Program has spent more than $105 million since 1998. They have purchased more than 11,000 acres of land to prevent development. Another $52 million has been spent to arrange agreements with landowners who promise they will not develop another 11,000 acres.

The Beaufort County Open Land Trust manages the program and has identified about $57 million in property it wants to preserve.

Via WTOC 

HHI Mayoral race goes to runoff

The Hilto Head mayor's race will involve a runoff election.

There were five candidates in the race, so many people expected the runoff to happen. Even the incumbent mayor said he wasn't surprised by the results.

Almost 40,000 voters in Beaufort County came out to the polls and casted their ballots on Tuesday. Election officials said that's the best turnout for a Mid-Term Election. Eighty-one of 92 precincts in Beaufort County have been completely counted.

If neither of the Hilton Head mayoral candidates get 50 percent plus one vote of the votes after all the votes are counted, then it will go to a runoff between David Bennett and incumbent Mayor Drew Laughlin.

Laughlin and his team are already prepping for the election in two weeks.

“Largely, get out and vote,” Laughlin said. “We have to make sure we get our people back to the polls again. It means we're just going to have to work hard for another two weeks. I'm happy to see the folks out here. We had a lot of folks that work very hard, which is very gratifying and we just have to keep doing that.”

SC's ACE Basin a refuge amid urban sprawl

via WJCL and the AP

Amid sprawling development from Charleston and Hilton Head Island, a group of landowners, companies, nonprofits and government agencies set out 25 years ago to conserve a quiet corner of South Carolina.

Their success story is the ACE Basin — an area the Nature Conservancy has called one of the world’s last great places — and which gets its name from its three main rivers.

The basin drained by the Ashepoo, Combahee and South Edisto (ACE) rivers comprises 1 million acres of landscape including timberland, swamp and farmland as well as barrier islands and beaches.
Because of the effort, which includes working with property owners to limit development through conservation easements, the basin looks much as it did 250 years ago. The area has large waterfront plantation homes, some dating to the days of the colonial rice culture, many of which are now used as hunting lodges.

There are also small farms, cabins and mobile homes scattered along the dirt roads winding through the basin intersected by The Ace Basin Parkway, U.S. 17, a gently curving four-lane blacktop where one can drive for miles seeing only forest, small homes and marsh vistas.

More than 150 property owners have now placed conservation easements on their land in which they agree to forever limit development. In return for doing so they generally receive tax credits. The first easement in the basin was placed by media mogul Ted Turner on his former Hope Plantation property back in the 1980s, Lane said.

For more information, go to http://www.acebasin.net