How one man’s private war is turning Beaufort County public meetings into a battleground

Beaufort County’s No. 1 Chief Antagonist continues to wage his private war in the most public way, frustrating and angering elected officials along the way.

Skip Hoagland often pops into various government meetings, peppering targets with insults and picking fights at every turn. He rails against perceived abuses of power. He demands an end to the conspiracies and secret dealings he says exist. A council member who doesn’t agree with him is either clueless or in on it.

Hoagland sees himself as the virtuous watchdog, fighting a fight no one else will. Public officials think he is, at worst, a pariah, or, at best, a misguided attention-seeker. Others may think he’s merely a harmless sideshow.

But the focus on the theatrics between Hoagland and our elected officials obscures broader, long-range concerns that could affect any citizen who wants to participate in public business.

So far, at least three bodies have adopted new rules or strategies that limit or discourage public participation. Speakers who follow him get lost in the hubbub.The disruptions, and the recesses that follow, extend already long meetings that test the patience of those who want to watch their government in action.

And what of the elected officials themselves? One council member called Hoagland’s behavior a “three-minute assault.” Does public comment just become something to endure rather than to be considered? Does the tension harden minds against otherwise valid arguments or distract from more important business?

One doesn’t have to look hard to see the ripples already there.

Changing the rules

In 2019, the Beaufort County Council had two, three-minute, public comment periods, one before the meeting started and one at the meeting’s end. The benefit was that you could be heard before the council took whatever action it would take that meeting, or if you wanted to address the council without sitting through the meeting, you could do that and then leave. The comment time at the end of the meeting allowed people to be heard on anything that had happened at the meeting.

In October of that year, Hoagland dressed down the council at the beginning of a meeting. As a chime signifying the end of his three minutes filled the room, he got in one last poke, telling them they would have to hear from him for three more minutes at the end of the meeting.

Later that month, then-council chairman Stu Rodman stopped including the first public comment session on meeting agendas. Just like that, the public as a whole was punished by a change almost certainly aimed at one man.

The county eventually added the first comment session back but with a change meant to narrow the dialogue. Only agenda-related comments would be allowed.

Earlier this year, during the county’s Feb. 27 meeting, both comment sessions were disrupted by Hoagland. The first resulted in chairman Joe Passiment calling an eight-minute recess. The second session ended when Passiment, now in a shouting match with Hoagland, adjourned the meeting in frustration.

“Go ahead, just read it,” Passiment shouted. “Dear God, almighty!”

Asked about how the county might deal with future disruptors, Passiment said, “We’ll deal with the situation as it comes up.”

Asked specifically about the possibility of further rule changes, Passiment did not close the door.

“We’re not gonna let one person or one group dictate how we’re gonna do things in the future,” he said.

Hoagland’s favorite target over the years has been Hilton Head, and the town has adopted the strategy of either citing him for a “rules of decorum violation” or going into recess. In other words, if Hoagland won’t stop talking, or arguing, officials get up and leave the room. Those in attendance – Hilton Head meetings normally draw around 60-80 members of the public – must wait out the delay.

No one contacted by the newspaper would say who made the decision to use the recess strategy, but Sheriff P.J. Tanner said he encouraged it.

Hoagland told The Island Packet that, between Feb. 21 and May 12, he had been cited by the Town of Hilton Head Island eight times for a rules of decorum violation. The penalty for each citation is $1,087.

Hoagland recently told a reporter he won’t pay those fines.

When asked whether the town would be making any changes to its current public comment rules, Hilton Head Island Mayor Alan Perry would not say.

“I can’t address that yet because, as a council, we have not had a formal discussion on that,” Perry said.

Arresting speakers?

It was Tanner who put a stop to an ordinance the county was considering in 2020, at the height of frustration with Hoagland, that would have allowed the council chairman to order deputies to remove, and possibly arrest, “disruptive” speakers at public meetings.

At a meeting with the highest elected officials from Beaufort, Bluffton, Hilton Head Island and Port Royal, Tanner said his deputies would not enforce such an ordinance and warned then-Hilton Head Mayor John McCann that he would no longer send deputies to meetings if the mayor tried to tell them what to do.

Hilton Head has a residency requirement for speakers — Hoagland is a part-time resident with homes in Windmill Harbour and Florida — but it is not enforced. Asked in 2020 whether his deputies would enforce that requirement, Tanner was equally dismissive. “That’s a First Amendment issue. You’re going to get your butt sued off.”

Today, Tanner’s feelings appear less concrete.

“I’m a person that believes in constitutional rights,” Tanner said. “At the same time, Skip is going to create a situation where you have a law that limits what citizens can and can’t do at meetings.”

The dynamics are different in Bluffton, which has its own police force. Hoagland was handcuffed and removed from a meeting March 14 by five officers, including Bluffton’s police chief, Joe Babkiewicz.

Hoagland was charged with “disruption of court, town council or other meeting,” a misdemeanor. Video recorded at the meeting shows officers handcuffing Hoagland, who was loudly and repeatedly asserting his right to speak. Hoagland tripped and fell into a row of chairs.

In the commotion, Babkiewicz’s gun fell at Hoagland’s feet. The gun did not fire, and a town employee picked it up and returned it to officers.

Sulka called the evening “the most unsettling meeting” of her tenure.

Hoagland also was removed from a Bluffton meeting on April 11 and again on May 9. All together Hoagland has been removed from four separate meetings by Bluffton police.

The first occurrence happened in 2015. Hoagland sued, claiming false arrest, assault and false imprisonment after the incident. A jury ultimately ruled in the town’s favor in December 2022.

“I hate to say it, but we probably will have to continue the practice,” Stephen Steese, Bluffton’s town manager, said. “I would prefer that we not have to, but if we are put in this situation time and time again, I don’t think the results are going to look much different.”

The same day Hoagland was led out of Bluffton Town Hall in March, the council voted to adopt a previously planned change to its public comment rules. The new, more elaborate rules prohibit speakers from addressing any specific individual; instead, speakers must address the council as a whole.

Another addition states that attendees may not give their speaking time to other attendees, and speakers are now specifically asked to refrain from disorderly speech, name-calling, personal attacks, threats, obscene or indecent remarks, and disruptive actions.

“I think our rules are pretty respectful and reasonable,” said Sulka, “just about as simple as you can get.”

The new rules were recommended by the Municipal Association of South Carolina, said Sulka. Another recommendation from the MASC that the town adopted was a civility pledge that has been read at town council and planning commission meetings.

MASC is not a governing body and, according to its website, “advocates for changes in state law that give cities more authority to better serve residents and businesses.”

Former Beaufort County School Board member and recent Hilton Head mayoral candidate JoAnn Orischak warned that all governing bodies hurt themselves when using “too much force” on public speakers and appear to behave differently depending on what the speaker is saying.

“Some speakers are allowed to speak for extended periods of time while others are shut down the minute that buzzer goes off,” Orischak said. “It hurts the image of the public body when they’re not consistent.”

Collateral damage

Hoagland can be a tough act to follow. During recent Bluffton meetings at which Hoagland was escorted out, the rest of public comment was nearly overlooked.

At the April 11 meeting, it was Sharon Brown’s turn to speak after Hoagland.

“We already know that was the highlight,” Brown would later tell a reporter. “Nobody’s really listening to my comment per se. It discourages people.”

Brown, a regular at Bluffton’s meetings, went on to complain that Hoagland “comes with the same thing every month.”

“If it was something different, different issues that he’s trying to bring to the table, fine, but it’s the same thing,” she said.

Bob Bromage, a former public information officer for the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office who went to work for the Town of Hilton Head in August and is a regular attendee of town meetings, agrees that the chaos discourages others from speaking.

“It discourages them from staying to speak as they would rather not be present during the disruptive behavior,” he said.

Bromage said another casualty of such disruptions are how they take away from important town business.

Since 2022, Hoagland has signed up to speak at at least 18 public meetings on Hilton Head. Instead of discussing the topics at hand, the conversations veered into personal attacks and chastisements, resulting in a several-minutes-long back-and-forth between him and council members.

His own worst enemy?

Hoagland’s fire and brimstone approach can certainly turn heads, but does it work?

No one The Island Packet spoke with, including Hoagland, could point to a decision that had been reversed or a rule that had been instituted or overturned at his behest. By his own account, Hoagland says he’s been fighting public corruption for at least 20 and perhaps 30 years.

“It turns people off when you come in blazing guns, you know. That just puts up a fence,” Passiment said.

“What he has to say is important to him and could be important to others,” Tanner said, taking issue with the way Hoagland chooses to make his points. “I don’t see how that can be productive.”

Orischak said Hoagland’s delivery can obscure otherwise good points.

“If you zero in on his message, there are some pieces of information and perhaps truth in what he says on some of the issues,” she said.

Hoagland has had an ongoing campaign against the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce since the early 1990s.

The newspaper has editorialized multiple times over the years in agreement with Hoagland’s argument that the town and chamber should be more transparent in how the millions of dollars in public money the chamber receives every year is spent, while also bemoaning the lack of scrutiny the chamber receives.

In his arguments, Hoagland raises reasonable questions about the relationships between the chamber’s business interests and the elected officials who support policies that keep the use of public money secret from residents.

But valid issues can get lost in Hoagland’s long, personal rants against chamber chairman Bill Miles and anyone else who disagrees with him or doesn’t take the action he seeks. Hoagland has openly rooted for Miles and others to be jailed. The number of people he has accused of corruption without any evidence is nearly as long as the massive group email list that regularly receives his missives.

Although he may not be able to point to tangible changes, Hoagland says he still thinks his time has been well spent and feels he has shed light on corruption and unfair trade and competitive business practices. The community is better off for his efforts, he says.

Dan Wood, who’s been on Bluffton’s Town Council since 2015, has heard Hoagland speak several times over the years.

“What we were hearing is not three minutes to make a comment, it’s a three-minute assault, and it’s been going on for seven to eight years,” Wood said.

At the least, confrontations can leave a bad taste in a lot of mouths, Joe DeVito, mayor of Port Royal, said.

“The public comment section, especially at the end of the meeting, could at times ruin or change the feel of what could have been a very productive and great meeting.”

Long history of public battles

Hoagland has lived on Hilton Head Island, part time or full time, since the 1970s. He and his wife, Cathy, live in Windmill Harbour when they’re not staying in Florida.

In the ‘70s, Hoagland operated Lanier Sailing Academy, which offered sailing lessons, charters and rentals out of Shelter Cove and Harbour Town.

One of Hoagland’s first appearances in The Island Packet was related to a contentious town council meeting in 1979. Hoagland had a contract with the town to provide the Daufuskie Island ferry service and was seeking an increase in the amount he was being paid. In a twist of irony, there were claims that Hoagland benefited from a council conspiracy; specifically, there were claims he was given inside information on how much to bid to win the contract.

Hoagland was cleared of any wrongdoing but did not rebid when his contract was up in 1981.

When the Harbour Town marina was sold in 1987, Lanier Sailing Academy moved to South Beach marina.

Boating wasn’t Hoagland’s only venture in the 1980s. He also started a company called Information Centers Inc., a “rackominium” business that furnished hotels and other businesses with wooden racks and charged companies for space to display their brochures. It also broadened its scope into publishing and billboards.

By 1984, Island Information Center, a division of Information Centers Inc., was producing four separate magazine-style pamphlets targeted toward tourists and called Island Guides to Hilton Head.

Five years later in 1989, the same year he won the silver medal at the World Skeet Shooting and Sporting Clays Championship, he launched a national magazine called Sporting Clays

Around 2004, Hoagland started buying a multitude of geodomains, websites for geographic locations, like Hiltonhead.com, Atlanta.com, Cuba.com and Charleston.com. Hoagland wanted Hiltonhead.com to be the main tourism portal for the town.

Hoagland can’t say for sure when his feud with the chamber began, but it reached its apex in 2013 when he sued the chamber. A year later, he tried to launch a competing chamber.

The chamber eventually would win the lawsuit, with a court ruling on appeal that the chamber, a private organization, was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and did not have to release information to the public, even narrower questions specifically about the public money it received.

The exemption does not extend to the town, however. As a result, the town and chamber have negotiated contracts that allow the chamber great freedom in what it does and doesn’t send to the town, and by extension, to the public.

Picking up steam

In recent years, Hoagland’s attacks have increased in both frequency and breadth. He has sued and been sued.

In 2015, Hoagland was among those behind ethics complaints filed against then-Beaufort County School District superintendent Jeff Moss, who hired his wife for a $90,000-a-year school district job.

The next year, Hilton Head Island Town Councilwoman Kim Likins filed a defamation suit against Hoagland claiming he told her bosses that she was unfit to serve in her job as director of the Boys & Girls Club of Hilton Head after she voted to approve the contract between the town and the chamber.

Likins did not lose her job, but her lawsuit alleged that Hoagland’s attacks damaged her mental health and reputation. Shortly after filing her defamation suit, Likins obtained a restraining order against Hoagland that barred him from contacting members of the club’s board of directors, publishing defamatory statements or harassing Likins about her job.

It was about this time that Hoagland was temporarily banned from speaking in Hilton Head council meetings. Then-Mayor David Bennett took issue with Hoagland’s residency, saying Windmill Harbour was not within town limits.

At the next month’s meeting, a shouting match between Hoagland and Bennett ended in an abrupt recess. Ultimately, council members overruled the mayor to let Hoagland speak.

Hoagland later filed a $10 million lawsuit against the Town of Hilton Head Island claiming the town was illegally funding Likins’ lawsuit against him.

In March 2020, when the trial was scheduled to start in the defamation case, Likens’ attorneys agreed to dismiss their claims in exchange for a settlement in a separate case against Hoagland’s insurance company.

The undisclosed amount of the settlement apparently was enough to repay the nearly $200,000 in legal expenses the town of Hilton Head Island had paid on Likins’ behalf, yet another point of contention with Hoagland.

The settlement didn’t get Hoagland completely off the hook. Tenth Judicial Circuit Judge Lawton McIntosh found him in criminal contempt after learning he had defied orders not to talk about the case. McIntosh sentenced Hoagland to 60 days in jail and a $2,500 fine with the option to reduce the sentence to a $1,000 fine if Hoagland served 100 hours of community service.

In February 2022, Hoagland didn’t even bother to show up for the trial after longtime Bluffton Mayor Lisa Sulka sued him for defamation. Her lawsuit revolved around emails Hoagland sent in 2015 and 2017 falsely accusing Sulka of being a criminal and unfit for office. Her lawyers argued that Hoagland had waged a “campaign” of defamation against Sulka after she decided to assist the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce with a membership drive.

In 2017, Hoagland also had filed an ethics complaint against Sulka, claiming she voted in favor of land purchases that financially benefited her employer, Carson Realty, or other real estate agents at Carson. Sulka was cleared of all allegations.

Ultimately, a Beaufort County jury awarded Sulka a total of $50 million in damages, believed to be among the largest ever in a South Carolina defamation case.

Not all of Hoagland’s disputes have ended in lawsuits.

A feud between Hoagland and Hilton Head council member Tom Lennox spilled over in meetings from late 2019 to early 2020, when Hoagland’s residency was again used to try to silence him.

In one council meeting, Lennox announced from the dais that Hoagland had no property in his own name on Hilton Head or in Beaufort County, hadn’t paid vehicle taxes in several years, and was not registered to vote in the county. Lennox claimed that disqualified Hoagland from speaking during public comment periods of government meetings.

On another occasion, when Hoagland tried to speak at a town finance committee meeting, Lennox pulled out a copy of a felony warrant showing Hoagland was arrested in 2011 and charged with having a loaded gun in his bag at the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport.

At the time, council member David Ames called Lennox’s move an “escalation.”

“It’s regrettable that we have this kind of discourse at town meetings. It’s disrespectful and uncivil, and the way we have been handling it as a council has been counterproductive,” Ames told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette in January 2020. “I regret that it has only gotten worse.”

Through it all, Hoagland remains undaunted.

He estimates he’s spoken at 100 to 200 meetings over the years. He’s purchased at least 34 full page ads, and innumerable smaller ones, to state his positions, according to Island Packet archives.

The lost lawsuits, the citations and the arrests won’t stop him, Hoagland said.

“Standing your ground is not a violation,” he said. “If I don’t win, and I don’t stand my ground, nobody’s going to replace me.”

Senior reporter Lisa Wilson contributed to this report.