Reader urges South Carolinians to implore our senators to support Freedom to Vote Act
Support Freedom to Vote Act
No matter our background, Americans want fair elections in which we all have the freedom to vote and make our voices heard on important issues such as providing affordable health care, creating good jobs, and ensuring quality education.
For months, the American people have been calling for national standards to protect our freedom to vote, ensure fair representation, and get big money out of politics. The Freedom To Vote Act is proof that our voices have power in the halls of the U.S. Senate.
This act is essential for fair redistricting: it bans partisan gerrymandering for congressional maps and helps ensure that all communities get the representation they deserve.
We must demand that our senators pass this bill that sets national standards for us to safely and freely cast our ballots and ensures every vote is counted.
The U.S. Senate must do whatever it can to pass this important bill and that includes reforming the rules of the Senate if obstructionists won’t move the bill forward. There is no substitute or compromise for this full bill.
Join me in supporting The Freedom to Vote Act and in urging our state’s senators to do the same.
Robert Rindt, Bluffton
Carefully define “resident”
In June of 2021, I fulfilled my lifelong dream of becoming a vacation home owner on Hilton Head. I spent nearly 3 years researching to find the location that would both benefit my family and make the most sense in the short-term rental market.
Ultimately, we ended up with a unit in The Links (Port Royal Village). This purchase was based in large part due to the access and availability of Islanders Beach Park. In conversation with the Links HOA and management company, access to islanders was “part of the deal.”
Any change to residency determinations would injure both mine and others’ property values. By proxy, it would have a significant negative impact on tax revenue, of which I am faithfully paying.
The proposed changes to the definition of “resident” would be crushing to the rental of my unit, but more so, makes no sense in that the beach is a public place, and accessing it should also be so.
Making people get in their cars to go to the beach is nonsensical, a safety risk, and would increase environmental pollutants.
The town of Hilton Head should focus on expanding access and availability to these public places, not restricting them.
Please carefully consider this request in your upcoming planning meetings.
Michael and Summer Mattmann, Hilton Head
“Bright” testing experience
Kudos to BrightStar Care and the Town of Hilton Head. Their extreme professional and efficient COVID testing at Chaplin Community Park recently was a “bright” star amid all the negativity and stress.
After reading about the drive-thru clinic in the Island Packet, my husband and I drove over as it was opening up at 9 a.m. We filled out a form, and with about 18 cars ahead of us, we were done and on our way after a mere 20 minutes.
And that’s the way it should be.
Linda Gillet, Hilton Head
Bad testing site
While COVID testing is needed, do you really want to tie up a fire and rescue station next door to two retirement facilities with assisted living, three popular restaurants and an entrance to a gated community with more than 8,000 residents plus a two- lane road with limited “no way out”?
In my opinion this was not given much thought, or about as much thought as closing left turns off 278 onto Squire Pope.
Persons who use Cypress Gate could have told you this was a very bad idea.
Lynn Green, Hilton Head
