Sanford is scheduled to be in Port Royal at 3:30 p.m. today to approve legislation forcing the S.C. State Ports Authority to close the small shipping terminal.
"It's a big bill," Sanford spokesman Will Folks said in reference to the governor's decision to come to the actual port property for the bill's signing. "It's important to him that we highlight the savings to the state."
Sanford first said publicly that the state should close the Port of Port Royal in July 2003. In May of this year, the General Assembly passed legislation forcing the Ports Authority to halt its Port Royal operations and to sell its property here at a fair market value.
Both the town and the Ports Authority have been planning for the redevelopment of the waterfront since Sanford's initial suggestion. Port Royal hired Design Collective, a Baltimore-based firm, to develop a master plan of the port property. The Ports Authority has completed a series a general market studies of the area, and has issued requests for proposals to design firms to create a site plan.
"I am delighted that (Sanford) has decided to sign the bill in Port Royal," town Mayor Sam Murray said Monday.
Murray said he received a call from the governor's office "late Friday evening," informing him that Sanford was ready to sign the bill.
"I think it's important to the citizens and the town to know it's important enough to the governor that he would come down and sign it in the Town of Port Royal," Murray said.
Port Royal Town Manager Van Willis said he's glad Sanford will be in Port Royal today, but that it wouldn't have mattered where he signed the bill, so long as it got signed.
"We're obviously very pleased the governor is coming to the Town of Port Royal to sign the bill," Willis said. "We always anticipated the bill would be signed, because it was indeed a clean bill and it was the result of a lot of hard work."