Author: Paul Gable

International Drive Construction Begins

(Pictured above Horry County Council member Johnny Vaught (left) and Horry County Council Chairman Mark Lazarus.)

After a series of legal delays orchestrated by the Coastal Conservation League and its allies, Horry County is moving forward on constructing the road bed on International Drive.

According to sources familiar with the court proceedings, a SC District Court judge ordered the permits issued after Horry County won the latest round in court.

Now, with the SCDHEC water quality and US Army Corps of Engineers wetland fill permits in hand, county officials hope to have the road bed ready for emergency vehicles within 60 days.

Further court challenges from CCL could be forthcoming. But, for the present, work on International Drive is moving forward.

The entire project will not be completed for approximately 12 months. Requests for Proposals from contractors desiring to bid on the project are expected to be advertised in October.

Meanwhile Horry County employees from the county’s Infrastructure and Regulation Division are completing preliminary work such as right of way clearing and getting the road bed up to standards that can handle emergency vehicles. This is expected to be accomplished over the next 60 days.

The picture accompanying this post shows Horry County Council member Johnny Vaught and Horry County Council Chairman Mark Lazarus standing in front of a bulldozer with a picture of Vaught’s late uncle, Lt. Gen. James B. Vaught, on the blade.

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Gingrich, Myrtle Beach, Oil and Interstates

Crime, China, Taxes and Myrtle Beach

A little less than a year ago, Myrtle Beach Mayor John Rhodes told citizens crime in Myrtle Beach was at a 20 year low.

Last week Myrtle Beach officials hosted a forum at the Base Recreation Center near Market Common to address the heroin epidemic that is raging in Myrtle Beach and throughout Horry County.

A few days after the forum, a drug sting in the Racepath neighborhood resulted in 42 arrests for possession of controlled substances and intent to distribute controlled substances.

What changed in a year?

Well, 2015 was an election year for Myrtle Beach City Council and 2016 is not.

Another area of interest is the supposed $100 million project Chinese investors were supposed to be planning for the Myrtle Beach area.

Six months ago, Rhodes and Horry County Council Chairman Mark Lazarus traveled to China for a two week trip. Upon their return, Rhodes and Lazarus announced investors associated with the $100 million investment would be visiting the area within 60-90 days and details of the project would be made public at that time.

We are now 90 days beyond that timeframe and things have gone very quiet about the supposed project.

In the interim, we have heard Rhodes went to China for a week and has another trip planned for next week.

Meanwhile, Black Bear golf course, purchased by Chinese investors two years ago, recently closed. What does that say about Chinese investment in the area?

Maybe an indicator is the China City of America project proposed for Sullivan County, New York five years ago. Initially touted as a $6 billion project complete with a college, family residences, a theme park and a casino, the project has been scaled back to just the for-profit college for approximately 900 students, most of whom will come from China.

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Heroin Epidemic Raises Awareness of Community Problems

The heroin epidemic in Horry County has reached proportions that seems to finally have spurred local government agencies to begin addressing violence and other problems throughout Horry County.

Six months ago, community activists Bennie Swans, Jon Bonsignor and Tim McCray approached Myrtle Beach City Council for help in addressing violence in the community.

They were essentially turned away with Mayor John Rhodes giving his impression of a Donald Trump style ‘gotcha’, blaming the community for the problem, attacking the activists and claiming the focus on community violence would hurt tourism.

The three got a better reception at the Horry County Council level with the establishment of a Community Violence Subcommittee formed to investigate the problem and make a report including recommendations for ways to counter the rising problems of violent crime and drugs in the communities.

To date, that committee has floundered by becoming involved in a comparison study of minutiae related to Horry County and counties in other states, but, at least, it is doing something and, hopefully, will eventually find its way.

Tuesday night, the City of Myrtle Beach hosted an overflow crowd to a community meeting on the heroin epidemic at the Base Recreation Center near Market Common.

By all reports, the meeting was a good one. One could argue it was six months late, but at least a positive acknowledgement that there is a problem and it is going to take the entire community – citizens, community activists, law enforcement and other government agencies, the schools and various non-profits – working together to address the problem.

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Charleston County School District Budget Problems

The Charleston County School District thinks it has found a way to close the continuing $18 million projected shortfall in its budget.

School District Superintendent Gerrita Postlewait told local media money in the capital fund could be moved to the general operating fund to help solve the shortfall with no impact on taxpayers.

According to a board member with knowledge of the plan, capital fund millage would be reduced with a corresponding increase in operating fund millage.

The idea is the overall plan to shift millage would be revenue neutral, thereby prompting the claim that taxpayers would not be affected.

However, this solution appears to fly in the face of Act 388 of 2006, which limited school budget operation fund taxation.

Act 388 specifically exempts owner occupied residences, what is known as 4% property, from taxation by school districts for operating funds. Only rental or second homes (6% property) and businesses (10%) property may be taxed for school operating funds.

The state raised the sales tax by one cent, which is designated to be turned over to school districts, according to a complex formula, to make up for the loss of 4% property tax revenue from operations millage.

However, when it comes to the capital fund millage, all three classes of property are taxed.

In addition, Act 388 sets limits on the amount operations fund millage can be raised in any one year with another complex formula involved.

Therefore, it’s not just a simple reduction of millage for one fund with a corresponding increase in millage for another fund that can be made.

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Protest Planned for Grande Dunes Road Connection

Grande Dunes residents plan a protest Monday to demonstrate their opposition to a connection between their roads and roads serving the planned Grande Dunes North development.

The residents say such a connection would increase traffic, decrease security and lower property values in their high end community.

Connectivity between the existing Grande Dunes and planned Grande Dunes North communities has been a point of contention since it was first discussed after the purchase of the former Waterway Hills Golf Club by Grande Dunes owner L Star Property Management.

The residents of Grande Dunes have let both L Star and the City of Myrtle Beach know they do not intend to take this issue lightly.

A petition of over 160 signatures from Grande Dunes property owners has been presented to Myrtle Beach City Council opposing connecting roads from Grande Dunes North into the current Grande Dunes road network.

Grande Dunes residents have been promised that connecting roads from Grande Dunes North would require approval of an amendment to the planned unit development agreement that governs the Grande Dunes property. The road would require approval from the City of Myrtle Beach because it would cross incorporated property of the city.

None of these approvals have been obtained to date. However, according to several Grande Dunes residents, over the last few months, the Grande Dunes North road infrastructure has been built and is in position for connection to Grande Dunes road network.

According to several Grande Dunes residents, the City of Myrtle Beach is supposed to present L Star with cease and desist orders on Monday, stopping any encroachment onto city owned property.

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Myrtle Beach Parking Fee Lawsuit Pondered

A lawsuit against the City of Myrtle Beach for its paid parking areas along the oceanfront is being considered by property owners.

The basis of the lawsuit would be city violations of deed restrictions and covenants included in property transfers years ago.

Deeds from 1940 and 1968 in which Myrtle Beach Farms gave oceanfront property to the city include restrictions against commercial activity on the deeded property.

In the intervening years, some of that property has been converted to street ends and beach access on which the city now charges visitors to park.

According to a real estate attorney with considerable experience in the county, the deed restrictions do not go away on the portions of the property converted to public thoroughfares.

The deeds restrictions prohibit commercial activity by any “person, private corporation, municipal corporation or agency or instrumentality of government.” The land is specifically designated to be kept as a public park or common.

The city appears to violate these restrictions in several ways. The parking fees and fines are collected and disbursed by a private corporation contracted by city government. The city’s portion of the revenue goes to fund the Downtown Redevelopment Corporation, an agency created by the city.

The DRC is its own challenged organization, having 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.

The DRC has set its sights on the oceanfront and rumored major new development projects that would first require the squeezing out of small business owners currently operating along sections of Ocean Boulevard.

Many have speculated that the parking fees in question will help squeeze out small business owners by limiting tourist traffic to their businesses.

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Community Violence Meetings Next Week

Horry County’s Community Violence Subcommittee is scheduled to meet again next week, hopefully to move forward on a plan to address crime problems in neighborhoods.

For its first four months of existence, the subcommittee has been stuck on compiling statistics comparing Horry County to counties in neighboring states.

I suppose that’s an approach. In the meantime, Horry County is experiencing approximately 20 deaths per month from heroin overdoses, according to local media reports, and violent crimes are on the rise.

All of the violence in our local communities can’t be tied directly to an increasing heroin epidemic that officials are beginning to acknowledge exists in Horry County. Poverty and lack of opportunities to rise above it play their parts also.

Interestingly, the Myrtle Beach Police Department is hosting a forum called “Facing the Heroin Epidemic Head On” at the Recreation Center on the former Air Force Base Tuesday August 16th beginning at 6:30 p.m.

When local community activists went before Myrtle Beach City Council nearly six months ago asking for help in combating community violence, Mayor John Rhodes blamed the activists for the problems and said crime was decreasing in Myrtle Beach.

The activists were also told they were ‘hurting tourism’ by focusing on community violence problems.

A raging heroin epidemic will hurt tourism a lot more. Maybe that’s why the Myrtle Beach forum will address the problem next week.

While local governments have begun to address the community violence problem, at least acknowledging it exists, a local group of pastors has been holding meetings in various communities around the county. This seems to be the most intelligent approach. It does seem logical to learn about community violence problems from those most affected by them.

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Fact Checking the Conservationists on International Drive

In the August 2, 2016 edition of the Sun News, an “Other Voices” letter about the International Drive project, written by Amy Armstrong of the South Carolina Environmental Law Project, Dana Beach of the Coastal Conservation League and Ben Gregg of the South Carolina Wildlife Federation (Conservationists), appeared in the Opinion Section .

This letter claims the delays in paving International Drive are not due to Conservation efforts. In that letter, the Conservationists make many pernicious and blatantly false claims. The letter demonstrates that the Conservationists view their readership to be woefully uninformed and gullible to gargantuan proportion. In fact, they may depend on that.

Let’s fact check those claims, based on an Administrative Law Court Ruling issued on July 7 this year and other resources so that a factual voice of our community can be heard.

The letter claims Horry County “reneged” on an earlier contractual agreement and “pressured” DNR to remove their requirement for bear crossings. Law Court: “Petitioners attempted to support the need for bear tunnels based upon the inference that but for the nefarious negotiations between Horry and DNR between 2010 and 2013, the bear tunnel requirement would not have been eliminated from the permit. But Petitioners failed to meet their burden of proof in this respect. As explained above, the change in DNR’s position occurred as a result of a significant decline in the existence of bears in LOB. Furthermore, the director of DNR unequivocally denied that any such underhanded dealings took place between Horry and DNR leading up to the 2013 agreement. The Court found his testimony highly credible and persuasive”.

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More Legal Problems for Horry County Police Department

A recent lawsuit filed against the Horry County Police Department and individual officers highlights the systemic problems within the department.

While there have been more sensational headlines of sexual harassment of victims by HCPD detectives and a general breakdown within the entire detective division, this lawsuit demonstrates the attitude that is at the heart of the problems in the department.

The case is Brian E. Little v. Horry County Police Department et al. Case number 2016CP2604670.

In the pleadings, Little, the plaintiff, claims he had a building and a recreational vehicle vandalized by neighborhood juveniles.

In filing a report about the damage to HCPD officers, Little provided the officers with photographs from a security system on his property.

According to the pleadings:

HCPD officers did nothing.

Little, then, approached the mother of one of the juveniles and obtained a signed statement from the juvenile admitting to the damage, which he provided to police.

Again, nothing was done by HCPD.

Approximately two months later, Little’s property was vandalized again and, again, HCPD did what it does best – nothing.

Ultimately, Little began passing out circulars in his area about the vandalism to assist a neighborhood watch program. While he was passing out the circulars, little was approached by HCPD officers telling him he can’t pass out his circulars. Little complained to the officers that HCPD was doing nothing and, ultimately, they arrested Little for harassment.

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NMB Council Blinks on Tourism Tax

The North Myrtle Beach city council decided Friday that the voters would have a say on whether or not a tourism tax to benefit the NMB Chamber of Commerce will be imposed within the city limits.

The decision occurred during a public workshop on whether a local one-cent sales tax should be charged on sales within the city. At least 80% of the proceeds of the tax would go to the NMB Chamber to fund tourism marketing and advertising expenses that should be a responsibility of individual business owners.

The concept of a publicly elected body taxing citizens for the benefit of private businesses is abhorrent in any scenario, but, not allowing the voters a say in the process, as is practiced in Myrtle Beach, borders on dictatorial.

At least for now, the NMB Council nipped in the bud the question of whether to impose the tax by supermajority vote of council members, the way it was made law in Myrtle Beach.

NMB Mayor Marilyn Hatley alluded to a January or February 2017 time frame for a special election referendum question on whether to impose the tourism tax, but council would have to pass an ordinance on the tax before the referendum question.

The dynamics of a special election, with its traditional minimalist draw of voters, still allows the Chamber a better than average chance of winning the tax vote if a referendum is held.

But, it is better than in Myrtle Beach where the voters have no say at all.

The North Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce was established nearly 20 years ago with the specific goal of drawing additional tourists during the spring and fall shoulder seasons.

Funding for the NMB Chamber came from membership fees and the 30% of accommodations tax revenues collected in the city.

According to sources familiar with the Chamber, in recent years it has added employees and expenses, thereby eating up its funding.

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