We expect bad government from Beaufort County, not Hilton Head Island. Until now. | Opinion

Note to Hilton Head Island Mayor Alan Perry: Stop it!

Perry made a horrible decision to participate in a private, unannounced meeting on Dec. 6 with Beaufort County Council chair Joe Passiment, vice chair Larry McElynn and fellow Town Council member Alex Brown.

It was a secret meeting to discuss public money, and there is no reason for this discussion to be held in private.

It adhered to the Freedom of Information Act by circumventing it.

By self-selecting a little in-crowd, no quorums were involved, and therefore the public, and even fellow members of the county and town councils, were left in the dark.

The public is sick of being slighted by Beaufort County. It’s sick of government it can’t trust.

That’s why it slapped down the county’s referendum on the November ballot to raise nearly $1 billion through a sales tax, primarily for roads and bridges.

The greatest tragedy would not be the loss of money for transportation, but the loss of trust for the Town of Hilton Head Island.

Mayor Perry, if you lie down with the same old mangy dog that has become Beaufort County governance, you will rise with the same old mangy fleas.

A good reputation is more valuable than gold.

Now, because Beaufort County Council cannot be trusted and the public told it so with a “no” vote on the sales tax increase, the community faces a trickier set of options for funding new bridges to Hilton Head.

And that problem must be resolved in public.

Beaufort County has been told by the state that it has until March 31 to come up with a plan to finance its $190 million portion of the proposed $488 million U.S. 278 bridge project. That obligation may actually be as “low” as $90 million, but the problem is the same.

Where does the money come from?

Another urgent question is what might happen if the county fails to meet its obligation. The state would be forced to fix the biggest problem in the current series of bridges to the island: Replace the one span that dates to 1956 (eastbound U.S. 278 over Mackays Creek).

If that job should require all traffic to and from the island to be funneled into a single lane each way, it would be a disaster.

Prior to the failed referendum, a funding alternative mentioned publicly was a property tax increase.

Is that still considered an option? What are the options? Why have a private meeting on such a crucial matter?

Passiment told reporter Chloe Appleby after the meeting had happened that the private gathering was “a fact-finding group of individuals that needed to get some information.”

It was not a fact-finding group. It was a money-finding group.

And unless any benefactors are writing personal checks for or totaling $190 million, every penny even hinted at in this private meeting was a public penny.

If they’re talking about suggesting a cheaper bridge, we need to hear that, too.

How many times will Passiment have to be told that he is not running the Moose Lodge but overseeing a government body? He is entrusted with the keys to a public operation, and every bit of it is public.

Be honest about hard choices, and we can handle it.

Be secretive, and we resent it because it is insulting.

Passiment can’t seem to learn that lesson.

Prior to the November vote, a citizen stood before the County Council and asked its members why the county should be trusted with nearly $1 billion while it faces nine ethics investigations involving current and former county employees and it hadn’t released a report on possible corruption and misspending related to county purchases.

It’s a sad situation. But Mayor Perry and the Hilton Head Island Town Council — with some backbone, common sense and common decency — can stay out of that pit.

It should tell the county it’s willing to help find money but that every split second of that search will be done in public or there will be no money.

Hilton Head officials are in the driver’s seat. But they could easily plunge into a ditch.