Tag: Randal Wallace

The Bizarre Twists in Myrtle Beach Politics

Two campaign events this week highlight how bizarre the current election season in Myrtle Beach politics has become.

An open candidate forum on Sunday October 15th has been scheduled over a month. The event is open to all candidates for the upcoming city elections.

It will be held at the Myrtle Beach Recreation Center at Market Commons. City council candidates will be up first beginning at 2:30 p.m. with mayoral candidates following at 4 p.m.

As has been the trend throughout the fall campaign, incumbent mayor John Rhodes and incumbent council members Randal Wallace and Mike Lowder have indicated they will not participate in the above mentioned event.

Instead, Rhodes, Wallace and Lowder have scheduled a closed campaign event at the same venue on Thursday October 12th. The event will be by invitation only and is limited to Market Common residents.

In this instance, we have three incumbents seeking re-election holding a campaign event on city property and limiting that event to only certain residents in the city.

You may ask why the incumbents didn’t join the challengers in a candidate forum open to all city residents at the same location only three days later?

The answer that comes to mind is that the incumbents, Rhodes, Wallace and Lowder, who are seeking re-election on November 7th, are apparently afraid to speak to voters except in circumstances totally controlled by themselves.

How bizarre is that?

In the atmosphere that surrounds city elections this year, the bizarre has become quite normal.

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Talking Politics on the Grand Strand

Talking Politics, a new political talk show, was introduced on the Grand Strand this week.

Co-hosted by Paul Gable and John Bonsignor and produced by CarolinaPolitics.org, the show will travel to locations around the Grand Strand to speak with political leaders and others involved in the most important and high profile issues of the day.

Click on the arrow below to view a discussion with Myrtle Beach City Council member Randal Wallace about issues such as eminent domain use by the city, the current discussions between city government and the oceanfront merchants and the Tourism Development Fee, otherwise known as the one-cent local option sales tax for tourism marketing.

Click on read full story to view the video.

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Parking Fees Discussed by City/County Council Members

The parking fee issue in Myrtle Beach seems to get a little more convoluted each week.

Earlier this week, a group called the Beach Coalition held a meeting at Longbeard’s in Carolina Forest to discuss issues surrounding the parking fees.

Attending the meeting were county council chairman Mark Lazarus and council members Bill Howard, Jimmy Washington and Johnny Vaught. Randal Wallace from Myrtle Beach City Council was also in attendance.

Members of the coalition group are unhappy with the rather cavalier manner in which Myrtle Beach city council treats issues such as parking fees.

With regard to the fee itself, Lazarus said there is going to be a parking fee for county residents when they park in beach access areas.

Additionally, Lazarus said the fee has to be reasonable for everybody and nobody is going to pay $300 (for a parking decal). The $300 figure was thrown out by Myrtle Beach Mayor John Rhodes at a recent forum held with citizens.

Lazarus said the city and county would establish a “steering committee” to address the issue.

Wallace said something had to be done about parking in beach access in the Golden Mile and surrounding areas. He seemed to blame the fee on litter finding its way to the properties of Golden Mile residents.

Wallace said maybe the $10 per day parking fee now being charged to non-city residents wasn’t the best answer to the problem. He said he was sure city council wants to work with county council to address the parking fee issue.

Wallace admitted to the crowd that all parking fees collected in the city go to the Downtown Redevelopment Corporation. For many years, the DRC has accomplished little in the way of redevelopment and virtually none in the city’s historic downtown in the area of City Hall, Five Points and adjacent areas.

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Gingrich, Myrtle Beach, Oil and Interstates

Incumbents Rule in Myrtle Beach City Election – Update

Three incumbents were swept back into office in the Myrtle Beach city election Tuesday with one council seat still up in the air pending votes from a malfunctioning voting machine.

Incumbent Mayor John Rhodes and incumbent council members Randal Wallace and Mike Lowder won re-election easily. Incumbent council member Wayne Gray trails challenger Jackie Vereen by three votes with the outstanding votes from the malfunctioning machine expected to be reported Wednesday morning.

Based on the results already in, and what I expect will be the result of the third council race, there are no problems in the city of Myrtle Beach perceived by the voters.

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Myrtle Beach Government Fit for Middle Ages

As Myrtle Beach prepares for its 2013 city council elections, the city continues its regressive governance slide to more closely resemble an English town of the Middle Ages rather than a modern American town.

Four incumbents on Myrtle Beach city council filed for re-election last week. Incumbent Mayor John Rhodes was joined by incumbent council members Wayne Gray, Randal Wallace and Mike Lowder at city hall on August 22nd to file their candidacies.

Rhodes is seeking his third consecutive term, Wallace his fourth consecutive, Gray his fourth overall and Lowder his second.

And right now, those four plus challenger Keith Van Winkle may be the complete slate sent to the voters in the November 5th general election.

There was a time when Myrtle Beach elections were raucous affairs, but in the last decade, the town has gone back in time to match a more rigid, hierarchical structure.

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MBM Fundraising for Mayor John Rhodes

Fundraising efforts for Mayor John Rhodes 2013 re-election campaign have begun among members of the Myrtle Beach Mafia.

According to sources familiar with the effort, money raising calls as well as the establishment of a fundraising network of phone chains began Friday.

Rhodes as well as incumbent city council members Wayne Gray, Randal Wallace and Mike Lowder will be on the 2013 election ballot. Keith Van Winkle has announced he will challenge for a seat on city council and we are hearing former council member Chuck Martino is strongly considering another run.

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Republican Debate Turns Into Brawl

MB Republican Debate Disaster

The rough and tumble nature of Horry County politics was on display for all to see Thursday night at the debate for 7th Congressional Republican candidates.

Sponsored by the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, Grand Strand Business Alliance, WMBF-TV and WPDE-TV, the debate turned into a shouting match when five of the candidates felt they were being ignored by the questioning media panel.

The candidates were apparently split into two groups by some entity controlling the questions. The top four polling candidates, Andre Bauer, Chad Prosser, Tom Rice and Jay Jordan, received the bulk of the questions during the first hour of the debate while the remaining five, Randal Wallace, Katherine Jenrette, Jim Mader, Renee Culler and Dick Withington, were virtually ignored.

After the apparent questioning trend was set in the first half hour of the debate, Wallace cut in to complain, “I filed to run for Congress and I’d like to answer a question.”

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Statement from Bauer on Raising Debt Ceiling

In a Republican debate May 22 in Georgetown, SC (Congressional race in South Carolina’s new 7th district) Tom Rice was the only candidate who said he would raise our nation’s debt ceiling for a local pork project.

Today’s statement from Andre Bauer on raising the debt ceiling…….

“I have pledged that I would not vote to raise our nation’s debt ceiling. We cannot afford it. Our children and their children do not deserve being burdened by our increasing debt and careless spending. We must have the capacity to say NO…and we must do it now. I congratulate the other Republican candidates for agreeing with me during last night’s congressional debate in Georgetown,SC.

However one candidate said that he was in favor of raising our debt ceiling, Tom Rice. This is a major area in which Tom Rice and I differ tremendously. As a conservative, I will say no to spending we cannot afford. Apparently, as a moderate, Tom Rice believes that more spending whether it be a project in South Carolina or a “bridge to nowhere”…is not a big deal.

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Taxes, Coastal Kickback and the Primaries

Two of the most extraordinary events I have ever seen occur so close to an election happened this week in Horry County.

The Myrtle Beach city council announced early in the week it will seek to have state legislators eliminate the sunshine provision on the one cent tourism promotion tax so that it can continue indefinitely. Did you ever see politicians want a tax to end even when sunshine provisions are included with it?

One day later, lobbyist Mark Kelley, who includes the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, Coastal Carolina University and the Horry County Board of Education among his clients, sued the Sun News for reporting Kelley’s proximity to certain events in what has become known as the “Coastal Kickback Scandal.”

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Florence’s Jordan tops poll at 7th CD Debate

A crowd of more than 500 piled into the West Florence High School auditorium Monday night to hear what the Republicans seeking their party’s nomination for the 7th Congressional District race had to say – and to cast some of the first votes in that contentious race.

The event’s unique forum, which was driven at least in part by the fact that the race in the brand new district has attracted so many candidates (9 Republicans, 5 Democrats), called for 45 minutes of debate followed by a straw vote to select five candidates for 45 minutes of debate. A final, post-debate poll was supposed to reveal how the crowd felt after hearing both halves of the show.

Apparently it was feeling pretty pro-Pee Dee.

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