Stop Tecklenburg’s Takeover/Annexation on Johns Island Support Community Project – Learn more and show your support

Petition: Stop Mayor Tecklenburg from Annexing More John’s Island Land Through Taking Possession of a Local Community Park & Historic Preservation Project

When you ask the Mayor for a letter of support and instead he takes the plan for the city.

Click Here to Sign Petition

If you want to chip in to this effort, please visit https://gofund.me/80915ea2 which will go to furthering our land and culture conservation efforts. thank you ****)For the past 5.5 years, a John’s Island community-led initiative has been working to secure 26+ acres in the center of Maybank Highway.

This effort is in cooperation with many local groups, but the preservation of farmland extends past just this 26 acres into John’s Island’s local farms, protecting an additional 200 acres.

• Joseph Fields of Fields Farm
• Sidi Limehouse of Rosebank Farms
• Vernon Smith of Vernon Smith Farms
• Kenneth Milton of Lowland Farms
• Anthony of Fire Ant Farms

This multicultural multigenerational collaboration is to ensure the true heart and soul of John’s Island is represented by and for its citizens in the corridor which has been rapidly developing in the hands of the City of Charleston. In the last 10 years, the City has put 80% of its new housing on John’s Island. AND NOW Mayor Tecklenburg himself is unwelcomely taking over this project when the community reached out for a letter of support.

Upon receiving the request for the letter of support, Mr. Tecklenberg went to view the pond property (26 acres), and decided that it would be more advantageous to him if the city applied for the property acquisition, which to his advantage includes annexation of the property into the city.

CIRCA 1111’s plan has been to create a park, community facilities, historic preservation, tributes to local heroes, education, as well as a farm co-op market so that locally grown food is available in a highly visible central location. The park is the heart of ensuring that people stay connected to the land and children grow up experiencing the outdoors through affiliate nature programs on site. The service of community facilities is to give the public access to water back to the community, allowing space to fish, cook, and commune together in a multicultural atmosphere. The embodiment of the project is to the monument and educate about our native local civil rights heroes, Gullah and migrant farming heroes, and Indigenous heroes, so that true John’s Island history is not forgotten and becomes part of the narrative of those who live here. The soul of the project is the co-op market. Meeting the essential service of food production is the grit and glory that our local farmers have earned and that John’s Island is famous for. Making this food central to citizens preserves land, a way of life and nourishes the bodies of its citizens.

CIRCA 1111, Local Pulse, Preserve the Gullah, and other community affiliates as a community effort have spent over $30,000 in financial spending, $50,000 in local sponsorship donations, 90,000 service hours, as well as an SBA approved Business Plan on this project. The goal is to ensure the center of our historic island is represented by and for the people, John’s Island citizens, who have shaped life on our island long before the City of Charleston began to annex properties and create their widening tax base vision

This effort has gone through the county Greenbelt funding application twice. The first time, we were 1 vote from getting approval even though their funding wasn’t technically available. Because of this, the second time, we included all interested parcels, but asked that the particular 26 acre pond parcel be the priority of the application due to the lack of funding issue. However, this intention was not given true consideration – as Greenbelt staff advised a different approach of including all possible land parcels. Greenbelt staff did not represent the intention of our prioritization for the 26-acre parcel, but rather included all parcels, therefore again placing our funding out of reach. Since then, CIRCA 1111 has applied a 3rd time for the 26-acre parcel only. We have learned our lesson of how the Greenbelt staff and Advisory Board operates and knew this was now a good shot at success.

This is where Mayor Tecklenburg, after receiving our request for a letter of support, decided the City of Charleston would fare better if they applied, annexed, and acquired the property, and put their own city park in place of our community effort. Our board reviewed the mayor’s intentions and sent a formal response. This response restated the original ask that he write a letter of support for our multicultural nonprofit community project as requested. If he was determined to acquire the property for the City, then we requested that he include us and our intended programs for historic preservation, childhood education, etc on site. He then stopped replying to our communications. 

We are now in the process of filing a report with the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center and circulating this petition. Our only available route for success with this hard-earned effort is for the mayor to act in good moral conscience, withdraw the application, and give us a letter of support, rather than a takeover.

We recognize that this solution is not likely because the mayor takes more seriously the annexation and taxation of his citizens, rather than the sincere hard work of organizing, caring, and resourceful community coming together to creating a representation of themselves on their island home. Supporting the community who has donated so much time and resources to save the heart and soul of their homeland from the devastating effects of city development, would be the most respectful action the mayor could take when he knows good and well what John’s Island roots mean to its people. We love our home, and we are fighting to keep it meaning something in the heart of all of this development.

This project has always been a community effort to truly preserve, diversify and sustain. To honestly answer the most pressing needs of John’s Islanders in a way that respects heritage, farmland, diverse cultures, and bring them all together as the central point of focus on this centralized track of land. For the Mayor to step in and claim it as city park territory is a desecration of our multicultural community benefit effort.  

Ways to help this cause:

1) Sign this petition and share it with your friends, co-workers, family, and online

2) Donate to the Indigenous Nature Conservancy Fundraiser on Go Fund Me by Willie Heyward: Indigenous Nature Conservancy https://gofund.me/80915ea2

3) Sign up yourself individually or your business to become a part of the Gullah CVB as an alternative to the Charleston CVB which is not truly serving all demographics of Charleston.

There are awesome local perks & using our hospitality tax dollars to serve the whole community is the goal at www.gullahcvb.com

Thank you & bless you with the true beauty & nature of all our hearts, which is love over greed.