New SC home for Confederate flag? We can get this job done a lot cheaper

I have an offer for the state of South Carolina: I will build an appropriate display for the Confederate flag recently removed from the grounds of the Statehouse for half the price asked by the designers who have bid on the project.

That’s right, I’ll do it for half price, just $2.65 million!

I shouldn’t have any problem underbidding Watson Tate Savory and Haley Sharpe Design, the companies that have been working together on a proposal for the state. I found several large glass display cases available on eBay for around $300 or less.

That would leave me approximately $2,649,700 to play around with. For a few hundred bucks more, I could install some of those cool motion-detector lights like the one on my back porch that would illuminate the flag any time someone walked close enough to see it.

I could print out the history of the flag on my computer and put it in a nice frame. That would be practically free.

It wouldn’t require much work either: “This flag is one of many manufactured over the past decade and purchased to fly on a pole on the grounds of the S.C. state capitol. These 4x6-foot Confederate battle flags not only flew on the Statehouse grounds but also were frequently handed out as cool souvenirs to many dignitaries over the years. Made largely of synthetic materials, they are impervious to most weather.”

That would pretty much cover it.

Granted, the proposal from the two companies is somewhat more elaborate. For example, designers envision thousands, if not millions, of tiny LED screens on 8-foot panels surrounding the flag.

The panels would display the names of South Carolinians who died in the Civil War, digitized photos, videos and other stuff. This, no doubt, is meant to divert one’s attention from the fact that the display consists primarily of a flag, one not too different from the ones seen frequently on T-shirts and bumper stickers, and waved proudly at Klan marches.

The designers also would use this occasion to renovate the state’s Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, adding a new second-floor room that would display dozens of other Confederate flags and memorabilia, which now sits in storage somewhere. And the museum would get a new entrance and security features.

As anyone who has ever gone through a home renovation project knows, the most dangerous words you can utter to your contractor are: “Ah, while you’re at it, you might as well...” And suddenly what had been a simple plan to install new granite countertops in your kitchen morphs into tearing out walls, buying new appliances, laying down a tile floor and adding a sunroom to the back of the house.

That’s what might be happening with the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum. When the Legislature agreed to take down the flag on the Statehouse grounds, it passed a resolution calling only for an “appropriate, permanent and public display” for the flag.

Many of us pictured a flag under glass with a nearby plaque. But I guess that was before members of the museum commission started talking with professional designers.

And what the board members apparently told the designers was: “Ah, while you’re at it, you might as well...” How else do you come up with a $5.3 million price tag for the project?

I have a suggestion. Use my design. Heck, I’ll do it for an even $1 million.

Then take the remaining $4.3 million you would have spent on LED screens, security cameras and a floor for additional flags, and spend it instead on a new gymnasium in a poor rural school. Or to fill potholes. Or to hire a few more Highway Patrol troopers. Or to buy new computers for the Department of Social Services.

Or...the list of needs in this state is practically endless, and a whole lot of things take precedence over building an elaborate new home for a flag. Lawmakers need to shop around for a better deal.

This story was originally published December 10, 2015 at 9:00 AM with the headline "New SC home for Confederate flag? We can get this job done a lot cheaper."