Judge rules town can move forward, for now

March 13, 2003

By JAMES LEE
THE JOURNAL

    February.
     In Latin, the second month of the year is Februare, meaning "to cleanse."
     For the Romans, it was a month of purification and atonement.
     For the Town of James Island, it was a month of waiting.
     On Friday, the wait ended when Judge Thomas Hughston ruled that the town can operate while appealing his ruling that legislation used to create the town was unconstitutional.
     Since his ruling on Feb. 7, the Town of James Island has been in legal limbo - unable to meet or function, yet anxious to continue the town business they started after their incorporation in May of last year.
     "It is quite a mess, isn't it," James Island Mayor Mary Clark said prior to Hughston's ruling last week.
     The order issued by Hughston, according to town attorney Trent Kernodle, allows the town to function without any restrictions or conditions.
     "There are no restrictions in the order," he said. "We consider that an earned victory."
     The month of February also brought two developments that please town supporters: a vow of support from S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster and Jimmy Bailey's announcement of his candidacy for mayor of Charleston in the November election.
     McMaster recently announced that his office will support the town's effort to appeal Hughston's ruling to the S.C Supreme Court.
     He also stated that a deputy from his office is assigned to file briefs in support of the town's appeal.
     McMaster is following in the footsteps of former Attorney General Charhe Condon, who also spoke out in support of the town.
     While a representative from Condon's office addressed the court on behalf of the town during the civil trial, Kernodle hopes that McMaster will put himself more solidly behind the town.
     Bailey, a former state representative and lifelong Charleston resident, announced his candidacy for mayor and pledged to "talk with voters from all sections of the city and the Town of James Island to see how our common goals can be met."
     In a December interview with The Journal, Bailey stated that if elected, he would "ask City Council to drop the lawsuit and let those folks that voted to become their own entity, and be governed by themselves rather than by, as they think, a place that is as strange and as distant as was England to the colonists several hundred years ago."
     While Kernodle is hopeful that Bailey will live up to his statement, the civil court decision and the pending appeal make a dismissal of the lawsuit unlikely.
     On Monday, legal council for the town filed the official appeal to the Supreme Court, and according to Kernodle, several lengthy documents have been completed to expedite the time until the Supreme Court.
     "This will move a little bit quicker than normal," said Kernodle. "The Supreme Court is likely to hear it in six to eight months, and may rule on it that quick."