SIDES AWAIT RULING ON TOWN OF JAMES ISLAND

By: JASON HARDIN    Of The Post and Courier Staff
Originally Published on: 12/18/02
Page: B1

     If the town of James Island survives the city of Charleston's legal challenge, it might have "New Summerville" to thank.
     "New Summerville" - a fictional yet possible town that could be carved out of unincorporated areas near the real Summerville - is one of three such places that could take advantage of the same law that let James Island incorporate, said David Cowen, an expert who testified in the circuit court trial Tuesday.
     Testimony wrapped up Tuesday, and both sides now await a ruling.
     Cowen, chairman of the University of South Carolina's geography department and an expert witness for the town on geographical information systems, contradicted earlier testimony from Charleston's GIS expert. The two experts' testimony goes to what is arguably the heart of the trial, which is whether the law that let the town cross marshes and waterways in the city is special legislation that applies nowhere else.
     Cowen said that in addition to Summerville's fictional counterpart, areas tangled up in and around Conway and Greer could also form towns using the law. Other places, such as fast-growing areas in Beaufort County, might be able to take advantage of the law in the future, he said.
     On Monday, the city's GIS expert had testified that she could find no other places in South Carolina that needed to use the law in order to incorporate. Cowen said that his analysis essentially was more complete and inclusive.
     "I think what I did was objective," he said.
     The connection between James Island and the other areas is that each could form a town of more than 15,000 residents by crossing marsh or waterways claimed by the nearest existing municipality, Cowen said. That level of population is critical because state law requires areas with less than 15,000 people to first ask the nearest city to annex them.
     In this case, town advocates didn't want to ask the city to annex them. The city certainly would have, which would have defeated their purpose.
     City lawyers, however, attempted to poke holes in the town's case.
     City attorney Frances Cantwell tried to push Cowen to concede that James Island is different from the other three areas in that it essentially is made solely of "doughnut holes" connected by marshes and waterways in the city.
     In each of the other three places, she suggested, a town also could be made next to the existing city without using the law that helped James Island form, because those areas have chunks of land that contain 15,000 people or more.
     James Island, on the other hand, had no choice but to use the law, because it had no single piece of land with more than 15,000 people, Cantwell suggested. Cowen generally resisted calling James Island different, but he allowed that it was an "extreme case" of stringing together separate pieces of land. He said that there is no way to know what kind of town residents might want to put together, if at all, in other parts of the state.
     The chief point, he said, is that it is possible to do so by using the law in question. Town lawyers also argued that other places could use the law under other scenarios.
     The city is also arguing that some of the various pieces of the town are too far apart, an argument the town calls a misreading of state law.
     Earlier in the day, James Island Mayor Mary Clark took the stand to describe the circumstances of the town's creation. She said she became involved in helping form the town after being angered by the demise of an earlier version of the town, which was dissolved after the city successfully challenged it.
     She said the critical issue is the right of town residents to control their own destiny.
     "This is America. And in America, you should be able to form a government if you want to. Someone should not be able to take away your right to form a government because they want to annex you for their own purposes," she said.
     Almost immediately after the trial about the town ended, a second trial involving the James Island Public Service District began. In that case, the city is arguing that once the town was formed, that land was taken out of the PSD.
     That would mean, among other things, that voters in the town would not be able to vote for or run in PSD elections. That case also wrapped up Tuesday after a few hours of testimony.
     Both sides say they expect the town's future ultimately to be decided by the S.C. Supreme Court.