Author: Paul Gable

Hospitality Fee Lawsuit – What Does Myrtle Beach Really Want

With the City of Myrtle Beach announcing last week it plans to appeal the judge’s order on a settlement of the hospitality fee lawsuit it brought against Horry County, it appears the city has taken the stance of ‘my way or the highway’ on the lawsuit issue.

Everything has been settled and agreed to between the parties in the lawsuit except for the disbursement of approximately $19 million the county collected in the various city jurisdictions in the county between March and August 2019.

Horry County asked the judge to order that money be returned to the city’s in which it was collected. The judge agreed.

Myrtle Beach requested one half of those funds be returned to the cities and one-half established as a fund from which it may pay out refunds to individuals who paid the hospitality fee between the above months with any unclaimed amount going to the South Carolina Bar Association’s fund for legal services for low income residents.

Under the county plan, Myrtle Beach would receive $11,170,800 of the approximately $19 million total. This money could be spent on infrastructure and public safety services associated with tourism, according to state law.

Under the city plan, Myrtle Beach would receive $5,585,400. Why would the city want to receive less money and why would it appeal a judge’s order that awarded it more?

The dispute over the settlement money split is about interpretation of Rule 23 of the South Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure, which deals with class action lawsuits.

Myrtle Beach issued the following statement as an explanation, “This appeal is necessary to finally determine the rights of the other members of the class — those who paid the Hospitality Fee to Horry County during the period when it was in dispute — regarding distribution of the portion of the $19 million common fund that was not otherwise resolved by the settlement agreement.

Myrtle Beach Mayor Brenda Bethune and City Manager John Pedersen have both added the city’s attorneys said the appeal is necessary in order to shield the city from any potential liability related to a suit that may be brought by a potential claimant.

I have spoken to two attorneys not involved in the lawsuit who said the city is already shielded from any claim by the trial judge’s order. In addition, neither believe this is a class action suit.

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County Ditches Masks, Cities Hold Firm

Horry County Council Tuesday night voted against passing a new emergency ordinance that would have included and extended requiring the wearing of face masks in public settings or another sixty days.

As a result of the county vote, face mask requirements in the unincorporated areas of the county will halt at midnight October 30, 2020 (the time the current emergency ordinance ends).

At the extreme opposite end of the emergency spectrum, North Myrtle Beach city council voted to extend the requirement to wear face masks in public settings “until the Covid emergency ends,” whenever that may be.

Both councils voted unanimously, North Myrtle Beach to extend the requirements, the county to not pass a new emergency ordinance. However, it appeared there was confusion among county council members who wanted a new emergency ordinance enacted. Immediately after the 12-0 vote, council member Harold Worley made several attempts to have a new mask ordinance voted on. Ultimately, council voted 8-4 to not reconsider the vote on whether to pass a new emergency ordinance with Worley, Gary Loftus, Bill Howard and Dennis DiSabato (those whose districts include Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach and the county areas adjacent) voting for reconsideration.

Somewhere in the middle lies Myrtle Beach at this time. The Myrtle Beach emergency ordinance and face mask requirement currently ends October 30, 2020. However, the last time the ordinance was extended, it was done so with a declaration by Mayor Brenda Bethune and City Administrator John Pederson, not a vote of council. There is no reason to believe these two will not extend the requirements beyond the present October 30 date.

The face mask vs no face mask issue has been framed as one between individual liberty and government interference in what should be personal decisions.

What hasn’t been discussed in the local debate is that no real enforcement of face mask requirements has been made by any public safety entity in the county. Indeed, each of the local governments has admitted they do not have the resources to enforce face mask provisions.

These admissions bring up the question, why pass an ordinance that nobody enforces?

It is better to take the county approach of encouraging the wearing of face masks but not requiring it. The decision should be left up to the individual.

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County Committee Stops Attempt to Restrict Gun Rights

The latest attempt to restrict the gun rights of Horry County citizens was stopped by a 3-1 No vote of the county’s Public Safety Committee Tuesday.

The vote defeated a motion by county council member Gary Loftus to send a new ordinance to full county council that would have seriously restricted the gun rights of citizens in the unincorporated areas of the county.

The ordinance, as proposed, would have affected a number of gun clubs being able to hunt on their club grounds as well as restricted citizens from hunting on their private property.

In addition, the ordinance proposed to allow individual council members to establish an overlay on their district to restrict gun use in violation of state law.

If passed, it is distinctly possible that citizens in council districts three and four, for example, could not have fired guns anywhere in the district while citizens in, say, districts ten and eleven would have not been affected at all.

Under provisions of equal application of the law, enumerated in state law as well as the 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, such restrictions not applied equally throughout the county would be unconstitutional.

I chose council districts three and four in the above example because, according to numerous sources, council members Loftus and Dennis DiSabato worked closely with county attorney Arrigo Carotti in crafting the proposed ordinance.

This is at least the fifth time this issue has come up in the last eight years. Every time it has been strongly opposed by a number of citizens and in council votes.

Last year, local radio talk show host Chad Caton told council it should concentrate on local needs such as infrastructure rather than attempting to infringe on 2nd Amendment rights.

This is doubly true now. The proposed ordinance was so removed from reality to make one wonder why it was even attempted.

The Ninth U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals, among the most liberal in the nation, recently struck down a California law restricting the size of ammunition magazines. With the inevitable addition of Amy Coney Barrett on the U. S. Supreme Court, there will be a solid conservative 6-3 vote against any attempt to infringe on the rights outlined in the 2nd Amendment.

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County Council Keeps Mask Mandate Despite Inability to Enforce

By a vote of 7-5, Horry County Council refused to cancel its emergency ordinance, maintaining mask mandates in the unincorporated areas.

Those voting to keep the mask mandate in place were the Deep Six (Dennis DiSabato, Harold Worley, Bill Howard, Gary Loftus, Tyler Servant and Cam Crawford) plus Orton Bellamy (who seems to be drinking more and more of the Kool Aid).

From the discussion by those voting to keep the ordinance in place, Howard, DiSabato and Loftus, it was obvious requiring masks to be worn is not about keeping the public safe. Rather it is about keeping the tourists coming, if possible. Howard said as much during his comments.

Loftus had nothing to add from himself. Instead he read a Facebook post that had been sent to him.

DiSabato attempted to give a history lesson about the smallpox and the Continental Army and a 1793 Yellow Fever breakout in Philadelphia. He told about George Washington requiring his subordinate officers to be inoculated against smallpox. Having never served in uniform, DiSabato probably doesn’t understand that an order from a commanding general has very different authority than a mask mandate from a local government.

As for the yellow fever outbreak, the local authorities in Philadelphia attempted to take some measures in line with the medicine of that time, but the federal government, of which Philadelphia was the capital at that time, had no authority to establish quarantines and the like and did not try to do so.

One other point about the 1793 outbreak – banks extended outstanding notes of businesses until the end of the outbreak with no penalty. Businesses today are suffering from the many demands on their credit, cash flow and employees while being forced into reduced business revenues as a result of the mask and social distancing mandates.

In short, their arguments were all designed to keep the county in line with city mandates, especially Myrtle Beach, to give the appearance that the area is safe for tourists. The Deep Six do as they are told by the Myrtle Beach cabal and Chamber.

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SkyDive Myrtle Beach Lawsuit Advances to Deposition Stage

After being delayed for six months due to Covid 19 restrictions, depositions in the lawsuit SkyDive Myrtle Beach v. Horry County et al will begin September 30, 2020.

The lawsuit evolved from the county shutting down operations of SDMB and evicting them from the North Myrtle Beach airport using a Director’s Report from the FAA in which 112 alleged safety violations played a large part in the FAA claiming SDMB operations at Grand Strand Airport were unsafe.

This is where things get tricky. The county used an informal means of reporting the alleged safety violations, a county generated form called an “Unusual Incident Report”.

When responding to a Freedom of Information Request for documentation associated with these reports, the county responded by sending the Unusual Incident Reports but no supporting documentation.

A short memorandum from county attorney Arrigo Carotti included with the FOIA response said, “These records are provided in an abundance of caution, in that each may or may not demonstrate violation by Skydive Myrtle Beach of Horry County Department of Airports Minimum Standards, as that assessment has not been undertaken.”

In other words, the county reported SDMB had committed 112 safety violations without ever investigating any, according to Carotti’s memo.

When a FOIA request for documentation on the 112 alleged safety violations was sent to the FAA, the response from Thomas A Winston, Manager Flight Standards Division, Southern Region of the FAA was, “You requested information regarding 112 allegations of safety violations used to make the table in the Director’s Report dated October 7, 2015 by Randall Fiertz. We searched our files maintained in the South Carolina Flight Standards District Office. We could not find any documents responsive to your request.”

The FAA had no documents supporting any of the 112 alleged safety violations. Anytime a suspected safety violation has taken place at an FAA regulated airport, a Mandatory Occurrence Report is supposed to be filed with the FAA and entered into the CEDAR (Comprehensive Electronic Data Analysis and Reporting) system. . No MORs were found in the FAA system with respect to the alleged violations by SDMB.

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County Council Refused to Discuss Extension of Emergency Ordinance

Using a parliamentary ruse that was erroneous, a majority of Horry County Council voted to have no discussion before extending, for 60 more days, the emergency ordinance controlling countywide requirements and restrictions with respect to the ongoing Covid 19 situation.

Council member Al Allen requested the item calling for an extension of the emergency ordinance be moved from the consent agenda, where there is no discussion on any item before a vote, to a discussion item, where discussion of the extension would have occurred before a vote.

Immediately upon Allen making the request the ruse began. Council member Dennis DiSabato called a point of order stating that changing the agenda in such a matter requires a two-thirds majority vote of council.

County attorney Arrigo Carotti, who also acts as council’s parliamentarian, confirmed to council that this was a requirement.

Subsequent to Carotti’s input, a vote was held in which a motion to move the item to discussion failed by a 5-7 vote with the Deep Six (DiSabato, Harold Worley, Bill Howard, Cam Crawford, Gary Loftus and Tyler Servant) plus Orton Bellamy voting no.

The entire episode appeared to be orchestrated. I don’t believe DiSabato is sharp enough to come up with the objection he raised on his own and Carotti was too quickly on his feet to support DiSabato’s objection.

Orchestrated or not, voting on any council member’s request to move an item from the consent agenda to the regular, or discussion, agenda is counter to over 20 years of precedent on the council dais.

I have covered many county council meetings in the last two decades since the use of a consent agenda came into being under Chad Prosser’s term as chairman. Prosser initiated the consent agenda to accommodate the many rezoning requests of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s by not having each read and considered separately when the reading did not require public review.

Numerous times over that span, a council member has requested an item be moved from consent agenda to a discussion item. The move was always made by the chairman without a vote. I cannot recall one instance in which the change was even questioned.

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Yiqian Investors Suing Dan Liu and Founders Group Entities

Investors bilked out of over $1.1 billion are pursuing a class action lawsuit in federal court against Founders Group International, its associated LLC’s and principal owner Dan Liu.

The lead plaintiffs in the case are Xunhui Cheng, a citizen of the Peoples Republic of China, and Kelan Cai, a citizen of the United States.

Background for this lawsuit is provided below:

Liu, a native of the Peoples Republic of China, first appeared in 2014 buying up golf courses with apparently unlimited amounts of cash. At the time, Liu was hailed as a potential savior of the golf tourism industry in Horry County.

In the 2014-15 timeframe, Liu and his Founders Group International LLC acquired a total of 22 golf courses, various potential development properties and homes. It is estimated his total expenditure in the Grand Strand area was approximately $140 million.

Liu’s wealth supposedly came from his ownership stake in Yiqian Funding, also marketed as “Easy Richness”, a peer to peer lending business in his native China.

By the time Liu staged his society style wedding at his newly acquired Pine Lakes Country Club clubhouse in April 2015, the event was hailed by local media as the Grand Strand’s “first major step into the overseas tourism market.”

But it was all a con.

Storm clouds began to block out this sunny picture in 2016 when Chinese police began raiding Yiqian Funding offices in China. The picture accompanying this article shows police carrying computers and records out of an “Easy Richness” office in China during one raid.

Liu’s principal partner in Yiqian Funding, Xiuli Xue, an attendee at the Liu wedding in Myrtle Beach, and 11 other high ranking associates in the Yiqian Funding organization were arrested in 2016, Xue in Hong Kong as she was attempting to leave the country.

All 12 were convicted at trial for an “illegal fundraising case” designated as a “Series of Yiqian Events.” by the Nanjing District Attorney for Jiangsu Province in China. They are currently serving prison sentences.

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Brittain Cruises to District 107 Primary Win

Case Brittain is the new Republican nominee for the SC House District 107 seat in the upcoming November general election.

Brittain cruised to an easy victory over former Myrtle Beach Mayor Mark McBride by a 70% – 30% margin.

To call the voter turnout light is to be generous. Brittain garnered less votes in winning than he accumulated on June 9th in a losing effort to then incumbent Alan Clemmons.

The total vote cast in this special primary was approximately one-half the number of voters in the regular primary.

Approximately 5.25% of the registered voters in the district cast votes for Brittain making him the nominee.

The Brittain victory completes a successful primary season for the Myrtle Beach cabal. Every one of their incumbents, Dennis DiSabato, Cam Crawford and Gary Loftus on county council, Heather Crawford and Clemmons, now Brittain, in the House and Luke Rankin in the Senate, won renomination. Brittain became the cabal’s choice after Clemmons resigned his seat in the House.

The coronavirus outbreak made things easier by holding down voting somewhat. When the average voters fail to turn out, the cabal’s core of voters can determine elections.

The normal tricks were pulled out to help Brittain win, Walter Whetsell and his Starboard Communications as consultant, bogus third party PAC to smear McBride and endorsements by other Whetsell clients to make it look like Brittain was earning the endorsements of local elected officials.

What this means is the cabal can set many of the political agendas for the next two years.
Development will continue to run rampant in the county, seriously outstripping the public safety and infrastructure resources needed to support new sub-divisions, all in the name of profit.

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Myrtle Beach Cabal v. McBride in District 107 Primary Voting Today

Voters in House District 107 will again go to the polls today to determine who will be the new Republican nominee for the South Carolina House of Representatives seat from that district.

The special primary was made necessary when former representative Alan Clemmons resigned from his House seat five weeks after being nominated for his tenth term in office.

Clemmons had been looking for another government job for the past two years with no luck so he took the default position of raising campaign donations and running for nomination for his tenth term. It has been obvious that he would bolt from that seat when prospects of a much higher paying job was potentially in the offing. When he learned the Master in Equities judge position would be available next July, he resigned from the House to secure the one year lapse, required by state law, from service in the General Assembly to appointment to a judgeship.

There is one way Clemmons can prove me wrong with my above conclusion. I challenge Clemmons  to come out publicly with a statement that his affidavit to the S. C. Election Commission was truthful about resigning his seat in the House and his nomination to another term for non-political reasons, as stated in the affidavit, and that under no circumstances will he seek nor accept the position of Horry County Master in Equity, which would be a political appointment.

As soon as he decided to resign, Clemmons, in his own words, called his opponent in the June regular primary, Case Brittain, to notify Brittain of his decision and start the process that would make Brittain the choice of the Myrtle Beach cabal in the special primary.

Brittain was reportedly advised by Clemmons and Mark Lazarus to hire the cabal’s go to political consultant Walter Whetsell and his Starboard Communications for the special primary.

The choice tomorrow is between the cabal’s candidate, Brittain, and former Myrtle Beach Mayor Mark McBride.

Clemmons did the bidding of the cabal, securing passage of the enabling legislation for the Tourism Development Fee in 2009 and amending the original legislation to eliminate the ten-year sunset provision so the fee could be continued ad infinitum.

Clemmons was also a major voice pushing I-73 at the state level but was wholly unsuccessful in obtaining any construction grants from the state for the road.

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Phony Group Hits McBride with Illegal Mailer

Negative campaigning hit the special primary race for District 107 yesterday with a hit piece on Mark McBride sent by a phony group with no regard for South Carolina election laws.

The poorly designed and messaged mail piece looked like an attempt by rank amateurs to smear McBride with sensationalist messaging such as “evidence” on the “real Mark McBride” and the virtually required “fake news” moniker, while providing physical proof that the only fakes were the blithering idiots who designed and funded the piece.

South Carolina law requires only two statements on political mail pieces to be accurate and truthful – the name and address of the sender.

The hit piece on McBride failed in both statements.

The purported sending organization, “Americans United for Values”, is not registered with the South Carolina Secretary of State and the address of the sender is a vacant storefront in Surfside Beach.

Can’t get any more fake than that.

And it’s not the first time that some made-up group has attacked McBride with the same or similar messaging in the last 15 years.

Negative hit pieces are almost a requirement in South Carolina politics since the rise of the late Lee Atwater 40 or so years ago. At least Atwater was original and sometimes comical in his messaging – I’m thinking of “jumper cables” here.

Why waste money on negative mailers filled with slanted and false messaging? Because they can be effective with the voter who is not familiar with the politics involved. And there are plenty of relatively new voters, especially in the Market Common area, which is the area that may decide this election.

In addition, it has been a favorite tactic of the Myrtle Beach cabal over the last 15 or so years in its ongoing attempts to direct public dollars into preferred projects and issues, such as the tourism development fee that uses tax dollars to fund advertising for private properties, with the help of political officeholders it helped elect.

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