Recently, members of the SIPOA Board of Directors became aware of several misunderstandings circulating in the community regarding debris removal following Hurricane Matthew. Here are the facts:
Several contractors handled clearing and debris removal from roadways owned by SIPOA. Those contractors hauled debris to the horse pasture where it was ground up by a service provider under contract with SIPOA. Most of the ground debris was hauled away to an off-island facility by the service provider who performed the grinding.
The Club also used its contractors to haul debris to a different pile in the same horse pasture. Under its own contract, the Club used the same service provider to grind up its debris and have it hauled off-island.
The horse pasture is controlled by the Club. The Club offered use of the pasture to SIPOA after Hurricane Matthew, a generous offer which was accepted.
Some suggest that SIPOA should have paid for debris removal from all roadways (SIPOA and regime/association owned) because SIPOA has a “$3 million fund for emergency recovery.” This is not correct. SIPOA has a $3 million letter of credit which it can invoke in a major emergency situation [i.e., a category 3 or greater hurricane with major property damage]. A letter of credit is not cash on hand in a reserve fund; rather, it is the ability to borrow up to $3 million at a prevailing rate of interest, which needs to be repaid.
As you might expect, not everything about Matthew’s debris removal or our emergency preparedness was perfect. Because of that, as discussed at a recent SIPOA Board of Directors meeting, a special task force is being set up to review and recommend new processes and procedures, where needed, covering a number of wide-ranging areas. These include, but are not limited to: debris removal, property owner communications, security, and coordination efforts with the Town/Seabrook Island Club.
This Task Force will get underway in January 2017. In order to ensure we’re doing the most thorough job possible, we’d like to have a variety of task force members made up of property owners from villas and single-family homes, both resident and non-residents. If you are interested in participating on this Task Force, please contact its chair, Julie McCulloch, at jsmccul@hotmail.com and she will get back with you to discuss further details.
-Submitted by the SIPOA Board of Directors