The school board and its attorneys of Columbia have retreated to decide their next step. Options include an appeal to the board of appeals, a lawsuit or nothing, which probably is unlikely. Too much is at stake. The board will decide that in the next few weeks.
Lawsuits were being discussed Wednesday night, when school board Chairman Earl Campbell said, "We will fight you all the way to court," referring to the community, not the board of education.
Some Dale-area community members think the issue was racially motivated; others see a political agenda. Some think that influential people in the community had a part in the decision. Gov. Mark Sanford's family owns 3,500 acres in the area. But as John Sanford said Wednesday night, he has the most to gain financially by the school being built.
Wednesday's meeting was replete with accusations from by the board of appeals that members didn't have time to review all the thick volumes of material that the board of education, the Coastal Conservation League and others put before them at the last minute -- literally, hours before the meeting or minutes into the meeting.
Testimony during questioning of a University of South Carolina Beaufort toxicologist covered a broad range, but he said he didn't advocate for or against the school. Members of the board of appeals heard about the potential for risk. Alan Warren said the school could be operated on the sight, but with qualifications. The school district, the county's Emergency Management Office and NuFarm must have a solid plan in place to deal with any potential problems, including evacuation of the high school. It's "not so much a decision of science," Warren said, "as it is a policy decision. ... Is the school district or the board willing to take some risks?" Warren also said that the Environmental Protection Agency cautions against using "worst-case scenarios," instead preferring "alternative scenarios."
On the surface the rejection boiled down to a lack of a plan in place to deal with the risk factors, the impact the school may have on any future Department of Health and Environmental Control decision about expansion of the NuFarm plant. But the most compelling may be contained in Section 106-461 of the Zoning and Development Standards under "Discretionary Reviews," which was put into the record Wednesday night. It says: "If the evidence or technical requirements are debatable, the decision-makers have discretion to select the one they find compelling."
In the end the board of education may have been wiser to vote Tuesday night to withdraw its application and supporting material until its new demographic study was complete and then resubmitted it to the board of appeals.
All that aside, other areas outside the Dale Community Preservation District exist to put build a school that meets any number of criteria. Some of those sites are within a short distance of the Keans Neck Road site, but also near two other schools that would feed into a new high school.
The work now is to bring communities together to achieve an acceptable solution. It'll take a modern-day Solomon to mend the rift.