Reprinted from The Post and Courier
By Eugene Platt

In Greek mythology the Hydra was an evil, gigantic monster with nine heads. The stench from its breath was enough to kill a person. Whenever one of the Hydra’s heads was severed, another grew in its place. This myth has a counterpart in reality: endless proposals to extend I-526.

The story in your July 21 editions under the heading “Top brass unite to tout I-526 extension” is distressing, dismaying, and perhaps a bit misleading. Although on Friday a group “of high-powered leaders” did gather for a news conference to announce their pet Hydra had grown another head, other elected leaders in our community remain adamantly opposed.

It is unfortunate (and pehaps unfair) that your reporter failed to contact David Engelman, chairman of the James Island Public Service District Commission (PSD), for comment. Chairman Engelman could have cited the numerous resolutions adopted by the PSD over the past decade in unequivocal opposition to the the extension of I-526.

Or your reporter would have been welcome to contact me as author of some of those resolutions. I am now in my twentieth year of service on the PSD, which is quite long enough to know the great majority of James Islanders as well as Johns Islanders, the people who would be most directly affected, do not wish to have an interstate highway bisecting their communities.

Eugene Platt, Senior Commissioner
James Island Public Service District