State, county fight continues over I-526 completion
There’s an old saying that applies to the ongoing fight between Charleston County and the state over funding for the I-526 completion project: Romance without finance is a nuisance.
For those in West Ashley in love with completing 526, it looks like the affair was over in late June when the State Infrastructure Board (SIB) voted 4-3 to remove funding for its portion of the project.
The bank, which oversees funding for major infrastructure projects around the state, first approved the project in 2007, but movement has been stalled by public complaints and politics and foot-dragging.
The ersatz inner-loop currently terminates in two different spots; one, on James Island at the intersection with Folly Road and the second, a few blocks from Citadel Mall in West Ashley. The remaining eight miles between the two stopping points has been estimated to cost north of $700 million, with the state kicking in $420 million.
Following that vote, both sides, the county and the SIB, lawyered up and began preparations to fight it out in court. The county sued the SIB as recently as last year to force the matter, promising to come up $345 million in separate parts.
The county says the bank pulled out of a valid, signed contract, and the SIB is saying the county never ponied up their local match. It was set to be a bitter divorce fight over hundreds of millions of dollars.
But then Gov. Henry McMaster stepped in as a matchmaker, telling both sides to take a time out and give the other side a breather. McMaster had already thrown his weight behind the push for completion, having made it a campaign promise in what became his successful Republican primary race.
Charleston County Council Chairman Vic Rawl has spearheaded the effort to get the completion project back on track.
“It is our position to certainly allow the governor adequate time to try and resolve the dispute,” says Rawl. “But if in fact he cannot or the SIB refuses to participate in a resolution, then we have to take whatever legal action that is available to us.”
Rawl claims the county has “offered a thousand ways from Sunday” to try and find some middle ground, but that the SIB remains recalcitrant.
The SIB board met in executive session late last month but did not offer any public comment. And as of press time, it hasn’t released any notes from the last meeting online. Anyone who’s been in a relationship knows what the “silent game” is.
County Councilman Brantley Moody is especially incensed. Part of the original deal was for the county to build $112 million in local roads and ramps to feed into the extension.
The county has done that, says Moody, adding that if the state thinks it’s going to get $112 million in free roads and then walk away from its responsibility to finish the inner-loop “then it’s going to make everyone’s blood boil.”
McMaster may have the most effective trick up his sleeve. Since two of the members who voted against the project were appointed by the governor, there is hope that he will ask them to step down and then replace them with members more in-line with his thinking.
That way a 4-3 loss could easily become a 3-4 win.
