Tom Barton covers breaking news for The Island Packet. He is a Davenport, Iowa, native and 2007 graduate of Iowa State University. Before coming to the Island Packet he worked as a reporter at The Des Moines Register. He moved to Bluffton in July 2010. | 
Brian Heffernan covers the Town of Hilton Head Island for The Island Packet. He is a native of St. Louis, Missouri and a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. | The S.C. House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 49-62, sustaining Gov. Nikki Haley’s veto of state spending to preserve Mitchelville.
Haley used her line-item veto to nix $200,000 from the 2012-13 state budget to help protect the 150-year-old site on Hilton Head Island, believed to be the nation’s first planned community for freed slaves.
“We need to send a clear message now that we have learned from our past of pork-barrel spending,” Haley said, according to The (Columbia) State newspaper.
The nonprofit group behind the effort hoped to use the state money to buy plots adjoining 35 acres of town- and county-donated land along Beach City Road. The land is beside Fish Haul Creek Park, which the town tentatively agreed to lease to the group so parts of the village could be re-created.
The S.C. Senate votes tomorrow whether to accept or reject Haley’s veto.
A two-thirds majority vote in both the House and Senate is required to override the vetoes.