HICKS COLUMN: Pro-526 cloaked in secrecy

Something about this new pro-526 campaign just stinks.

In the past week, locals have been bombarded by propaganda aimed at shoring up support for the completion of the Mark Clark Expressway from West Ashley to Johns and James Islands.

None of it passes the smell test.

Part of it is the push polling -- those allegedly unbiased telephone surveys that are really intended to persuade people or plant nasty ideas about the opposition.

Then there are the emails from "Joseph" to local officials, which cordially suggest that if 526 is not finished it will have dire consequences for everything from the port to Boeing to Lifetime TV's "Army Wives."

But the most disturbing thing is this Lowcountry Expressway Foundation website. The group has the words "non profit" all over the site, but the fine print reveals it is only "non profit in nature."

Becoming a true nonprofit would require filing paperwork with the state, and that would reveal who is actually behind this.

And there's the real problem: the anonymity.

So congratulations, Joseph -- if that is, in fact, your real name -- for raising even more questions about the I-526 project.

Bait and switch

At first glance, the Lowcountry Expressway Foundation's website smacks of a mildly sleazy political campaign.

It compares Johns Island to Manhattan and Rhode Island, claiming it is bigger than both. Now, technically Aquidneck Island -- Newport, basically -- is named Rhode Island, and Johns is bigger than that.

But the accompanying picture shows Providence, suggesting our sea island is bigger than an entire state. See, mildly shifty -- and pointless.

Now, if a politician did this, he or she likely would have hired a political consultant to whip up the site, but few of them are this sloppy. At one point the site notes that "(M)any people have expressed a preference of not having to stop at local traffic intersections when their final destination is actually many miles away."

No kidding, Nostradamus.

This smacks of people unaccustomed to the art of media manipulation. You know, amateurs. Well, the anti-526 crowd is largely amateurs and they don't have a problem putting their name to their efforts.

So what's this group trying to hide?

Developing story?

Joseph is right about one thing: Most people assumed 526 was a done deal.

When protesters put on a brilliant campaign to kill the road, it took a lot of people by surprise -- people who might have shown up for public hearings if they'd known this outcome was possible.

Fair enough.

The problem is, the absence of any real people visible in this "movement" might lead some people to think that, say, developers or people pushing a different controversial road project on the island are behind this.

Of course, there's no proof of that, but the anonymity reeks of someone with something to hide. Somebody is spending real money to influence the outcome of this project.

And that's enough to give people second thoughts about 526.