Ms. Sulka, it seems you continue to mislead citizens about your activities.For example, several years back you did an illegal membership drive using Town employees, on Town time, to help profit the criminally operated Hilton Head Bluffton Chamber.

This harmed your own respected, official Greater Bluffton Chamber. How was this possible without you scheming with their CEO, Bill Miles, as well Bluffton Town Manager Marc Orlando? And after you got caught, you said you would do the same membership drive for the Greater Bluffton Chamber. When exactly are you planning to do that? In fact, I received an email from Bluffton Chamber lawyer Roberts Vaux , who said, quote

“… a tragic mistake, Hilton Head Chamber is not Bluffton’s chamber and Town’s employees asking taxpayers support one chamber over the other is not right. Public is in an uproar and should be”.  

And, to add insult to injury, we found out you and Orlando used tax dollars to join the Hilton Head-Bluffton Chamber, not your Town’s own Greater Bluffton Chamber! It was only after you got caught that you both belatedly purchased memberships.

The way I see it, the math works out to 511 new members, or $190K in damages owed to the honestly run Greater Bluffton Chamber. Ms. Sulka, you clearly misused town resources and need to make this right, as follows:

1. Publicly announce the Greater Bluffton Chamber as the Town’s official chamber. Sell 511 memberships or pay $190k in damages.
2. Ask the fraudulently operated Hilton Head Chamber to leave Bluffton, as having two competitive chambers in Bluffton causes confusion for local businesses. No other city in South Carolina has two official chambers.
3. Remove the Hilton Head Chamber as the Town’s recently hired DMO, which the Town favored over their Greater Bluffton Chamber, without a contract and accounting transparency.

This could not be any more corrupt than not offering this opportunity to your own Chamber versus the corruptly run Hilton Head Bluffton Chamber.

I just read you were quoted in the Island Packet as saying, when it comes to comments about executive session, that you didn’t want residents “thinking we’re out here making backdoor deals. ... If it’s in executive session, it’s a contractual matter, and I promise you that.”

That’s an interesting statement, given I consider your entire mayoral tenure to be one long, ongoing “back door deal”. However, you can at least make things right with the Greater Bluffton Chamber of Commerce, then head back to selling real estate full time, instead of being a part-time game playing mayor, with multiple horses in every Town race.

Photo credit Loyd Wainscott