83 Robert Smalls Parkway – 843-233-9258
SEPTEMBER 18–24, 2025
THANKS BEAUFORT!
WWW.YOURISLANDNEWS.COM
COVERING BEAUFORT COUNTY
County Council set to weigh in on Pine Island By Delayna Earley The Island News Beaufort County Council will be having the first public hearing for the development agreement for Pine Island as well as voting on an ordinance to amend the Pine Island Zoning Map during its Monday, Sept. 22 meeting. The decision was made in August to hear arguments from lawyers regarding their development agreement, but County Council Chairwoman Alice Howard and Chair of the Natural Resources Committee York Glover decid-
ed before the Natural Resources Committee’s Sept. 3 meeting that they would also defer their vote on whether to pass an ordinance to amend the Pine Island Zoning Map. This decision was made following a request from applicant Elvio Tropeano, who asked that the Zoning Map Amendment not be looked at before council has had a chance to discuss the related development agreement that he put forward. He is hoping to have Pine Island removed from the Cultural Protection Overlay (CPO) to
LOWCOUNTRY LOWDOWN
allow for a golf course to be built on the property, something that is currently not allowed with the ordinance in place. The CPO is an agreement that has been in place since 1999 meant to protect the Gullah/Geechee culture, people and land on St. Helena Island from being erased by overdevelopment with gated communities and golf courses. At the time, Glover said that this practice of deferring a vote is not normal, but Councilman David Bartholomew said that he believes that this will become the new way
of doing things in the future when development agreements are involved. “By considering both items (the development agreement and the zoning map amendment) at the same time, the Council will have the clearest picture of the project with as much information as possible to make a well-informed decision,” Hannah Nichols, a spokesperson for Beaufort County said in early September. Council recently rejected another development agreement, denying a petition for a zoning amend-
ment and a development plan for the 86-acre, 244-home Ramsey Farms Project at 98 Jennings Road, just east of Battery Creek High School. Like Pine Island, this was the second time that the developer had tried to bring the project before Beaufort County after it failed the first time in May 2024. During the Sept. 8 meeting, the zoning map application was put to a vote and failed 9-1 with Councilman Joe Passiment casting the
SEE ISLAND PAGE A7
Change in ‘Perspective’ Former Beaufort Mayor shows artistic side at Burning Man
LOLITA HUCKABY
Detention Center just another County headache
W
BEAUFORT ho knew that bringing a cell phone into the Beaufort County Detention Center (BCDC) while visiting an inmate was against the rules, even though the Detention Center’s online webpage does state only “authorized and cleared infant and/or healthcare items” are allowed for inhouse visits? That’s probably the heads-up County Councilman Tom Reitz missed a couple of weeks ago when he was “outed” for bringing a cell phone into the center for a visit with one of his Hilton Head Island constituents. Not only did he bring the contraband, aka cellphone, in for the visit, a selfie was taken with said constituent which was quickly circulated among certain circles. That “certain circle” happened to include his fellow councilmembers, Chairman Alice Howard and Vice-Chair Tab Tabernick, who immediately saw the legal conflict and reported it to the county’s top law enforcement officer, Sheriff P.J. Tanner. Reitz’s identity was acknowledged at the Sept. 8 County Council meeting by citizen critic Skip Hoagland,
By Delayna Earley The Island News
this time he attended not just as an attendee, but as an artist.
everal years ago, former Beaufort mayor Stephen Murray was at a turning point in the life he had built when a friend reached out to him and offered him an extra ticket to an event she was going to be attending. “I was kind of in a strange place in my life,” Murray said. “I wasn’t real happy with my day job or my hobby job. I was like, you know, this might be a fun thing to go check out and something a little different than what I might normally do.” So, he went to his first Burning Man. Fast forward two years, and Murray just returned from his third Burning Man in Nevada, but this one was different because
That first Burning Man Burning Man is a week-long event that takes place in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada about 100 miles outside of Reno that is focused on “community, art, self-expression and self-reliance.” The first year that Murray attended Burning Man in 2023, it rained the whole time and he said he “sat in the mud for a few days but just had a marvelous time.” One of the things that really stood out to him while he was there were the more than 400 pieces of art from artists all over the world, ranging from little pieces to a gigantic, tall pieces and everything in between. “It’s really the combination of creativity and technol-
S
“Perspective” by Stephen Murray, as seen displayed at the 2025 Burning Man in Black Rock Desert, Nev. Photo courtesy of Stephen Murray
SEE LOWDOWN PAGE A4
ogy condensed in the desert for one week out of the year,” Murray said, “and two years ago I decided, while sitting in the mud, that I was gonna make some changes to my life.” One of the changes he decided that he wanted to make was to take better care of his body as he felt he was out of shape, and he wanted to focus on his health. He also decided that he wanted to focus more on his family and friends. Finally, he wanted to rediscover the creative side of himself that he had gotten away as he got older. “I used to build things and make things and through the course of my life, in my 20s and 30s, I kinda got away from all that because of just the responsibilities of trying to run businesses and then my public
SEE CHANGE PAGE A5
Former Beaufort Mayor Steph en 2025 Burning Man in Black Ro Murray as seen at the ck Desert, Nev., where a sculpture that he made was one of the displayed pieces of artwork. Photo courtesy of Stephen Murray
NEWS
SPORTS
ARTS
HEALTH
INSIDE
Indivisible Beaufort delivers petition to Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
High School Football Roundup: Full coverage from last week’s games.
Rhett House Reels brings back best of BIFF.
Mary Olodun: “Sickle cell screenings could save your life.”
PAGE A5
PAGE A8
PAGE A9
PAGE A10
Lowcountry Life A2 News A2–7 Sports A8 Arts A9 Health A10
Voices A12–13 Legal Notices A14 Military A16–17 Directory A18 Classifieds A19