Coyotes, St. Patrick's Day and Managed Parking

There is a critically important meeting of the Sullivan's Island Public Safety Committee on Wednesday, December 3,
at 3:30.  The meeting will be held at SI Town Hall on Middle Street.

On the agenda are three extremely controversial issues that impact 
all SI residents: Coyotes, St. Patrick's Day, and Managed Parking. So why schedule a meeting at a time that is decidedly inconvenient for most islanders?

No topic has generated more anger and controversy in the past year than the St. Patrick's Day drunken fiasco. Irate islanders filled Town Hall at Council meetings in March and April to insist that Town Council make substantial changes to the event. Chauncey Clark chairs the Public Safety Committee and promised to meet with residents and commercial district bar owners by the end of the summer to discuss possible changes. (Minutes linked here.) 

Chauncey did manage to meet with the bar owners, but the promised meeting with islanders never materialized. Chauncey said he just couldn't "find the time" to meet with residents. So once again, Town Council is giving the commercial district precedence over residents. 

As to the coyote issue--The last time Town Council took a vote on managing the coyote issue was last January. The vote was unanimous, with all council members in favor. Mayor Perkis noted that he preferred to get more education before the wholesale removal of the coyotes.

According to the minutes of that meeting, all members of Town Council:

1) voted  to adopt a report from  Public Safety Committee; 
2) to ask the Public Safety Committee to provide Council with recommendations on coyote issues; and 
3) to allow the Police Department to hire a trapper as needed. 

Note: It is not clear what the report from the Public Safety Commitee actually recommended, since the report adopted by Town Council was not a written report. In response to an email, Andy Benke stated that there was only a verbal recap from the police chief, who stated that coyote sightings were up from the summer months and that the department will continue to monitor the reports/sightings for signs of aggressive behavior. The Public Safety Committee was to review the coyote policy to see if aggressive behavior was being adequately addressed. 

Now we hear that Jerry Kaynard has told some residents that he will "get rid" of the coyote problem. In addition, there are some islanders who have signed a petition to be allowed to build SEVEN-FOOT privacy fences around their properties to keep these "dangerous" creatures out of their yards. 

Is this going to be recommended at the meeting on Wednesday afternoon, with no further input from islanders? Do a substantial number of islanders actually favor allowing residents to build 7-foot privacy fences all around their homes?  Have islanders been surveyed on this issue?

As to Managed (paid) Parking--Who knows what is really going on with that? Town Council continues to tell islanders that managed parking is a critically important issue, and that SI must make a decision about it before this summer, since IOP is doing that, and SI will be inundated with cars and traffic if we do not follow suit. IOP held a public forum on October 2 to get feedback from IOP residents on the parking issue.  

We discovered that Jery Kaynard and Susan Middaugh attended the IOP forum, but Town Council has chosen not to share with SI residents many of the complex issues involved with managed parking and how SI residents will be impacted when it is implemented. And we also discovered that Town Council is using a traffic plan from 2009 to make decisions for the Summer of 2015 and beyond.(Wouldn't a 5-6-year-old traffic study be somewhat dated? Does that make any sense?)

The Public Safety Committee meeting on December 3rd at 3:30 is an important meeting to attend. Islanders need to show up and speak out. 

Clearly, Chauncey Clark has time to listen to bar owners, but he has no time to meet with residents. He accepts a petition signed by about 25 residents on the coyote issue, but he hasn't the time to assess how other islanders all feel about the coyote presence on the island.

PLEASE TRY TO ATTEND THIS MEETING. IT IS TIME FOR THIS COUNCIL TO LISTEN TO THE RESIDENTS!!!