FEBRUARY 20–26, 2025
WWW.YOURISLANDNEWS.COM
COVERING BEAUFORT COUNTY
Port Royal, Safe Harbor reach agreement Safe Harbor Marinas can move forward with redevelopment of Port of Port Royal
Port Royal Mayor Kevin Phillips, along with council members Jorge Guerrero, left, and Darryl Owens, right, discuss the settlement agreement approved on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025, which permits Safe Harbor Marinas to move forward with the redevelopment of the Port of Port Royal. Amber Hewitt/The Island News
By Scott Graber The Island News On Wednesday, Feb. 12, the Town of Port Royal announced that it had reached a settlement with SHM Port Royal aka Safe Harbor. After an executive session that lasted 30 minutes, Town Council voted 3-0 to approve a settlement
reached earlier this month after two marathon mediations in Columbia. The disagreements between Safe Harbor and Port Royal officially began on Dec. 14, 2023, when Mayor Kevin Phillips wrote a six-page, single-spaced letter to Peter Clark at Safe Harbor. The letter laid out the Town’s objections to the huge cranes and the fabrication of concrete docks then underway at the site. It also objected to the apparent decision to develop the Bluff Neighborhood as “build to rent.” There were also problems surrounding the loca-
tion of the proposed easement for the Spanish Moss (Bicycle) Trail. On March 20, 2024 the Town of Port Royal filed a Petition asking that the Court of Common Pleas grant a permanent and temporary injunction prohibiting Safe Harbor from using certain parts of its newly acquired property for “dock manufacturing.” In it’s Petition, the Town alleged that the original Planned Unit Development Agreement dated Aug. 9, 2017, and thereafter amended,
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LOWCOUNTRY LOWDOWN
LOLITA HUCKABY
Welcome to BIFF! But where’s our movie theater?
T
BEAUFORT he 19th annual Beaufort International Film Festival began this week and once again, the community is asked to support a wonderful event in a town that has no film theater. It’s been six years since the Beaufort Plaza closed its doors after 44 years in business, making way for a second Publix grocery store in Beaufort on Robert Smalls Parkway. And the closest theater is the Cinemax Sea Turtle, 24 miles south, across the Broad River, in the ever-expanding limits of Bluffton. True, we have one of the three drive-in theaters in South Carolina, the Highway 21 Drive-In, which has a long and “rich” history and, thanks to the owners, now is able to offer first-run movies on THREE screens. Hooray for them! But for those movie theater aficionados, who love sitting in the dark for their mental escape, with a bag of popcorn and perhaps a soda, there is no theater. Bonnie Hargrove and the folks at USCB’s Center for the Arts experimented with a series of weekly movie offerings but response was limited, costs to rent
Carter Hoyt of Beaufort stands with a sign in front of the Beaufort County Administration Building on Ribaut Road as community members protest against the policies of Elon Musk and the Donald Trump Administration on Presidents Day, Monday, Feb. 17, 2025. Hoyt said she was thrilled with the turnout. Amber Hewitt/The Island News
‘Stand up, enforce the law’
Beaufort protest of Trump Administration doubles in size, coincides with protests in Bluffton, Columbia, nationally By Mike McCombs The Island News Around 250 people gathered at the intersection of Ribaut Road and Boundary Street in Beaufort on Presidents Day, Monday, Feb. 17, to protest against the policies of Elon Musk and the Donald Trump Administration in front of the Beaufort County Administration Building and Beaufort City Hall.
The protests were similar in nature to the rally the week before but with more than twice as many people in attendance. The event coincided with 50501 events — 50 protests in 50 states at the same time. There was a protest Monday at noon at the Statehouse in Columbia, as well as a protest in Bluffton at the same time as this one. “What brought me out here today
is I am sick of all the lies,” said Paula Guerry, who has lived in Beaufort for 37 years. It was her last duty station as a nurse in the U.S. Navy. “Our democracy has fallen apart, our president doesn’t lead. The people that represent us in Congress, they don’t do anything about it. It’s gotta be a grassroots effort or nothing’s gonna
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NEWS
STATE NEWS
ARTS
INSIDE
Valentine Ball draws support for health care expansion.
How SC Supreme Court defines ‘fetal heartbeat’ could reset abortion ban at 9 weeks.
Beaufort’s Cassandra King to receive Harper Lee Award.
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