At their last two meetings, Beaufort City Council led by the City Manager have made attempts to figure out what to do about the downtown marina and the defunct lease with Safe Harbor. After multiple hours spent during these meetings, here’s what they figured out: absolutely nothing. Maybe that’s not totally accurate because it was publicly acknowledged by the City Manager and the council that the lease with Safe Harbor is invalid. So maybe we actually came out of the last two meetings with less than nothing.
At the August 27 meeting we had the nunc pro tunc disaster. This was the first attempt to clean up the mess with Safe Harbor. But after a lengthy public comment during which multiple cases were made against the ill-advised move, the council wisely decided to table the discussion. Before the first reading of the nunc pro tunc ordinance (p.174) was tabled, City Manager Scott Marshall publicly acknowledged that the lease with Safe Harbor was invalid. Curiously, he then turned the meeting back over to the council to decide on his recommendation that they pass a retroactive ordinance to ratify the lease he just said was invalid. Which is it? Is the lease invalid, or does it need to be ratified? Good thing the council decided to get more information before making any decisions. Attempt number one: nothing.
Attempt number two happened at the council’s work session on September 10. Again, City Manager Marshall had a proposal for the council to consider (p.2). Again, there was a lengthy public comment session. Marshall’s proposal started off with, “Looking ahead, one option for the Council is to use this moment to renegotiate certain terms of the lease agreement with Safe Harbor—a course of action that the Council has expressed interest in pursuing.” Marshall’s proposal goes on to outline “a suggested framework for discussions on the next steps in renegotiating and approving the terms of the current Lease Agreement, or establishing a new agreement, with Safe Harbor.” This begs the questions to both council and Marshall: Which is it? Is the lease invalid or not? But instead of answering those questions, the lengthy discussion that followed was centered around who should be on an ad-hoc negotiating committee, and how to get community input. Here are a couple other questions: What are we negotiating? If the lease is invalid, don’t we need to go back to square one and decide whether or not we want to lease the marina? Or if it’s even legal to do so? No decisions were made, and the composition of the negotiating committee – that is not needed – was not finalized. Attempt number two: nothing.
At the center of both attempts to find a path forward was Safe Harbor and keeping them around. But, the public at large has not had any opportunity for input about what they want for the marina. Is Safe Harbor, a private club that caters to the wealthy, the only solution to keep the marina functioning? According to public comments, the answer is no. So maybe council and city officials need to talk about plans for a range of options, not just Safe Harbor.
In the end, maybe city council will decide to continue a relationship with Safe Harbor, or maybe they won’t. How about an RFP (Request for Proposals) to see if there are other interested parties out there? Maybe the city will decide they can run it themselves. How about a prospectus on the city running it themselves?
The city council is in a position where they can correct the mistakes of the past and get the process right this time. They can follow the law and the requirements of the 1976 Agreement, and make decisions informed by the citizens of Beaufort. So far, they have made two attempts that do none of those things.
The last question for now: What’s next? Let’s get it right this time.
Very astute reading of the situation. The public sentiment and original intent re the marina was that it is for the people, not a private club!
Please remember what Safe Harbor is and has done in Port Royal