As Hilton Head Mayor Tom Peeples gets ready to leave office, he looks back over his many years as mayor, and at what's ahead.
The single angriest moment I ever witnessed from Mayor Tom Peeples during four years covering the town happened in a meeting on the contentious debate over limiting the airport’s future runway length in 2007 The meeting drew one of the largest crowds in town history into a standing-room-only council chambers as the public both for and against expansion gathered.
The debate wore on, the crowd grew restive and some skeptics shot jeers and boos at council members on the dais. With a sharp whack of the gavel, Peeples brought the room to silence, lifted his voice to its full-bodied boom and told the crowd they could either quiet down or get out. About half the room picked up and left.
The single most emotional moment I witnessed out of Peeples also came at the same meeting, a few minutes later. With the public comment portion of the hearing closed, council members were left to state their positions on the measure that would prevent the airport from expanding the runway without first getting town permission. As Peeples explained that the town was taking the controversial measure because it defended the core ideals of the island's founders, his voice began to crack and waver, and it appeared, to those in the audience at least, that a few tears lined his eyes.
"It guarantees that you, the citizens of Hilton Head Island, can come to a public process just like this if there is a need to discuss lengthening the runway," Peeples told the crowd. "Obviously the fact that so many people are here must (mean) that's a good idea."
That broad swing of emotions — transforming from forceful arbiter to spokesman for personal passion — is indicative of the balance Peeples struck over his 15 years as town mayor. Never too much a dyed-in-the-wool politician, Peeples positioned himself as a pragmatist and consensus builder, but wasn’t afraid to let people know when something went against what he saw as the values of Hilton Head that first drew him to the island and local politics many years ago.
Peeples made a surprise announcement in April that he won’t run for reelection this November after serving four terms. It opens up room for an exciting election season, and one that will usher in a new era of leadership for the town that has known the same mayor for more than half its lifetime.
Taking a look back
The last time Peeples faced an opponent was in 2005. He drew 77 percent of the vote in a low-key election season.
Since then, as airport issues, debates over new taxes and questions about the crucial future of redevelopment have stirred up an active political base, residents have hinted that this year’s town election season could see many more contenders than usual. Already, several challengers have said they plan to run for mayor and other members of council may be considering running.
But the emergence of several opponents this year is not why Peeples decided to walk away, he said.
“The challenge of the election, that’s never bothered me,” he said. “I sort of looked forward to the campaign part of it. It’s just fun to get into the debates.”
It wasn’t any one thing that drove his decision, but a confluence of factors that made him want to take a step back. His first grandchild was born about three months ago out in California, where he hopes to visit more often.
At the same time, he’s been watching a close friend fight off two different types of cancer, while his older brother continues a multi-year fight against cancer.
“That made me start to focus on the fact that life is short,” he said. “The way I’ve been running my life — now more so for the last three to four years — I literally work seven days a week. I get up at 4 a.m., work until I get home about 5, then I do it again and I do it seven days a week. Something had to give.”
But he’s far from retiring. He plans to keep running his company, Tom Peeples Builder, and continue his role as chairman of the board of directors at Bank Meridian.
Peeples got his first job at age 8 when he started his own lawn-mowing service in his hometown of Ridgeland. At age 12, he started working in his father’s store on the weekends, and got what he called his “real break” when he started doing landscape work with his godfather at age 14 on Hilton Head in the summers.
“It’s in our nature. My brother’s the same way — we were just brought up to work. Sometimes I think that’s a good thing. Sometimes I think that can be overdone,” he said. “When I’m watching my brother fight cancer for six years, it’s been an inspiration on one hand. On the other hand, it also brings home the reality that there is an end to this game.”
The big issues
Somewhere toward what would be the end of his career as mayor, Peeples became a target of public scorn from airport supporters. He was emblematic of the town’s anti-expansion agenda and its disregard for local business needs, airport advocates claimed. He had supporters and defenders on the issue too, including native island community members who saw the town taking a proactive stance guarding against increased airplane disruption into their neighborhoods.
Still, after all the debates, public comment meetings and master planning efforts that arose in the past five years to attempt to improve the dialogue, Peeples said he is disappointed the island couldn’t come to a general resolution about what direction the airport should be headed.
The town is expecting a final consultant’s report on a plan for the airport’s future in the fall, a plan that is expected to recommend extending the runway to accommodate larger jets. Even that opinion from independent consultants will likely still divide the community.
“I think it’s unlikely any kind of real firm decision will be made there,” Peeples said.
The other dangling issue Peeples will have to walk away from is the proposed local option 1-cent sales tax. Peeples gave the tax a 50-50 shot of passing the statehouse this session, but said it’s a chronically misunderstood proposal that could generate millions for beach renourishments and other town expenses related to tourism. Opponents say the bill amounts to overtaxing and wasteful government spending.
“People already made up their mind what they think about it,” he said. “It’s unfortunate. It’s something our town needs.”
Looking ahead
When it comes to recent successes, Peeples has some concrete achievements he’s happy to have completed under his tenure
Two of those — the dramatic redesign of Coligny Beach Park and the construction of Compass Rose Park — helped reshape the town’s busiest tourism district. Peeples called Compass Rose Park an overdue homage to Sea Pines founder Charles Fraser, who sparked the modern development wave in southern Beaufort County. Peeples frequently invokes Fraser’s name and low-key development philosophy when discussing his own views of Hilton Head.
“Beaufort and Jasper counties were deemed the two poorest counties in the nation in the late to mid ‘60s,” Peeples said. “And as a result of Charles Fraser’s vision, we are now the most wealthy county in South Carolina.”
The other recent highlight is relocating the Coastal Discovery Museum from its moldy and cramped old building into a vast and picturesque new campus at Honey Horn. Since then, the town has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into repairing the property, and Honey Horn — with its ancient live oaks and sun-sprinkled marshes — has become a focal point of community events, and an easy way for the town to show off its natural and civic pride.
“I think that’s a magnificent achievement,” he said.
After 21 years serving on the Town Council, walking away will be difficult.
“That’s one of the things I told my wife: ‘Mary Ann, one of the things I want you to make me not do is be a constant thorn in the side of the administration of the town,’ ” he said.
But he’ll still be paying attention.
“I’m not going to disappear. It’s just not in my nature to just disappear.”
