Author: Paul Gable

Curtis M. Loftis Jr., South Carolina’s treasurer

Curtis Loftis Speaks Out

Below is a post by SC Treasurer Curtis Loftis. In it, Loftis describes the oligarchy that is South Carolina state government.

This oligarchy has been the tradition in South Carolina since there has been a state government. This one-party government, controlled behind the scenes by a few rich donors, causes all of the problems that we face in the state today.

South Carolina is now a Republican state. For over a century, it was a Democratic state. However, the party labels mean nothing – the politics in the state have never changed.

In most instances, those that are Republicans today come from families where the fathers and mothers were Democrats 50 years ago.

Party affiliation means nothing when it comes to philosophy of governing. It’s all about getting elected and staying elected. Nothing else matters to most of our politicians.

And to do that, these same politicians must line up and swear blood oaths to the ruling powers behind the scenes.

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By Curtis Loftis

I ran for office and was elected on the sole purpose of reform.

I’ve found, after 6 years of battling the system, that there is no “infrastructure” for change. The levers of power are managed by and tilted in favor of a status quo that is controlled by a handful of people.

To move an issue that results in meaningful change is almost impossible unless there is a calamity of some sort such as a natural disaster or mass shooting.

The system is rigged in favor of a small number of powerful people and their rich cronies that control our government.

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No Renewal Yet on Tourism Tax

The decision on whether Myrtle Beach will be able to reimpose its tourism tax remains in question at this time.

The SC House adjourned debate on a bill (S1122) that would provide a means to reimpose the tourism tax if the bill passes.

Debate on the bill is now scheduled for Tuesday May 31, 2016.

The original bill passed the SC Senate unanimously, but the House amended the bill to eliminate a provision that would allow Myrtle Beach City Council to reimpose the tax by a supermajority vote of at least two-thirds of its members.

If the bill passes in its current, amended form, the tourism tax would have to pass a referendum of city voters in order to be reimposed.

Eighty percent of the revenue raised from the tax goes to the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce for marketing the Myrtle Beach tourism attractions out of area.

Since being approved in 2009, the city has transferred in excess of $120 million to the Chamber. This has allowed the private tourism corporations to reduce their marketing budgets by as much as 95%.

Such a transfer of wealth from a public tax to benefit private businesses should be subject to approval by a voter referendum. Actually, it shouldn’t happen at all, especially in an area that prides itself on being so free market capitalist and conservative Republican.

It’s obvious the conservative politicians and their capitalist buddies don’t have a problem imposing taxes and spending the resulting revenue, just so long as it doesn’t come from their pockets.

The bill still has a couple of hurdles. It must pass two more readings in the House. If it passes there in its amended form, a compromise will have to be worked out with the Senate on whether or not to only allow reimposition of the tax after a favorable referendum of the voters.

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Fixing the HCPD Culture of Corruption

Having watched portions of a videotaped deposition by former Horry County police detective Allen Large, it is apparent a culture of corruption exists at the HCPD far beyond the actions of a few officers.

Large is being sued by three women, described as Jane Does 1-3 in lawsuits, for sexual harassment, among other allegations.

In his deposition, Large admitted he suggested to three different female victims they get involved in videotaped cat fights to make money and admitted he enjoyed watching such events.

But, Large appeared to feel that his transgressions were minor compared to what other officers, including command staff officers, got involved in.

“We have a lot of incidents of officers doing stuff,” he said in his deposition.

Large went on to list officers having sex with other officers and department employees during duty hours, sometimes on desks in various offices within the police department; officers getting sexual services from exotic dancers while on duty and narcotics officers having sex with informants as some of the types of “stuff” going on.

Large said, “Officers have been let go for sending pictures of their private parts to people they pulled over.”

“There’s a lot of people still working there that have had “relationships” and things like that,” he said.. “Unless the police department’s covering up something, they should be able to tell you who they were.”

“You’re not supposed to be going and having sex while you’re on duty,” but Large said that sort of thing has been going on within the HCPD since he’s been there.

“There’s all kinds of shenanigans that go on there (HCPD) all the time,” Large added.

Large noted one case in which he said he was investigating the death of a man while his partner was “going off and having sex with the victim’s girlfriend.”

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Myrtle Beach Tourism Tax Renewal Hits Bump

The effort to renew state legislation that allows the Myrtle Beach tourism tax hit a bump this week in the SC House Ways and Means Committee.

The bill, S1122, originally introduced in the SC Senate in February 2016 by local senators Greg Hembree, Ray Cleary and Luke Rankin breezed through the Senate without a single no vote.

The SC House reported the bill out of the Ways and Means Committee with an important amendment that could have an interesting overall impact on whether the current one-cent local sales tax for tourism promotion gets renewed.

The Ways and Means Committee struck the provision that the tourism tax could be renewed (reimposed) by “an ordinance adopted by a supermajority of the municipal council which must be at least two-thirds of the members of the municipal council.”

The only provision remaining in the bill for reimposition of the tax is the “approval of a majority of qualified electors voting in a referendum held pursuant to this section called by a majority of the members of the municipal council.”

Myrtle Beach City Council imposed the tax on the general public in 2009 with a supermajority vote of council. The tax was never put before the voters in a referendum, allegedly for fear it would not pass.

If the amended bill successfully passes vote of the full House, it will be interesting to see if the elimination of the supermajority option to renew the bill withstands conference committee.

When it was first passed through an ordinance approved by a supermajority vote of Myrtle Beach City Council in 2009, the local option tourism development fee became the first and only local option sales tax (that’s what it is) to be enacted in the history of the state without a referendum vote of approval.

The result of the tax is the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce receives over $20 million public tax dollars each year to spend on out of area tourism advertising.

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Ignoring the Nikki Haley Influence

Now that the SC General Assembly has overwhelmingly voted to override the veto of the Farm Aid Bill by Gov. Nikki Haley, Time Magazine may want to rethink how influential Haley really is.

Time recently named Haley one of Time’s 100 Most Influential Leaders.

After losing votes of 39-3 in the SC Senate and 112-2 in the SC House, you have to seriously question if Haley is one of the 100 most influential people in Columbia. I would say no.

Haley’s veto of the Farm Aid Bill was always a loser.

There are over 25,000 farms in the state that cultivate over five million acres of land. When the October 2015 rains wiped out many crops, it was obvious many had suffered catastrophic loss.

It is estimated over $400 million of crops were destroyed by the resultant flooding.

But, aiding suffering farmers is not something that draws national headlines. Therefore, it is of no interest to Haley.

Haley had no problem declaring the “1000 year flood” and requesting federal aid for those affected by the storm.

She was merely unwilling to give some aid on the state level, aid that many farmers in South Carolina need, but does not put Haley’s name in national headlines.

While ignoring the plight of farmers around the state, Haley was more interested in the “A Great Day SC” PAC that is raising money to target state lawmakers Haley doesn’t like.

Included in the list of Haley hit targets is Horry County’s Luke Rankin.

Haley blames Rankin for the failure of the SC Senate to pass an Ethics Reform Bill.
Whether that characterization is fair or not, I would submit that Haley was the beneficiary several years ago of the same ethics laws that she now wants to change.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Nikki.

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Issues Divide Horry County Council District 7 Republican Candidates

The contest for the Republican nomination for Horry County Council District 7 is up for a vote Tuesday May 17th.

There are significant differences between the candidates, Mike Roberts and Robert Shelley.

Politicians routinely claim to want to serve the people and/or give back to them.

Roberts is one of the people who believes the people should be included in important decisions. Shelley appears to believe he is above the people.

One of the biggest issues to have erupted in the county over the last few days clearly separates the two candidates. That issue is whether the Horry County Sheriff’s Department and Horry County Police Department should be merged.

Businessman Mike Roberts says yes. Former HCPD officer Robert Shelley says no.

“This is an issue the people should decide,” Roberts said. “It isn’t something that should be left to the decision of a few council members.”

Shelley, a former HCPD officer, said in a media interview that he opposed combining the departments because he likes having a separate police department and sheriff’s department.

But, this isn’t about what Shelley likes. It is about what is best for the citizens of Horry County.

Shelley said the people have already spoken on this issue, referring to a referendum on the question in 1998.

However, there are more than 125,000 new residents in Horry County since 1998 who haven’t spoken on the issue at all.

In addition, the HCPD is a mess with SLED conducting several criminal investigations into the department at the current time.

“Something needs to be done about the police department and that goes way beyond just hiring a new chief,” said Roberts.

Shelley said he believes politics and law enforcement don’t go together. Yet, the HCPD is all about politics.

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Time for Horry County Sheriff Referendum

It is time for the citizens of Horry County to answer a referendum question ‘should all county law enforcement responsibility be turned back to the Horry County Sheriff?’

Unfortunately, this is something that Horry County Council must approve and, if information from a number of sources is accurate, the political will to approve a referendum vote is not a majority view of county council members at present.

Horry County Council members must answer the question, ‘are county citizens better off with the current system, which gives most law enforcement responsibilities to the Horry County Police Department?’

Considering SLED has several ongoing criminal investigations into the HCPD, especially the detective division, as well as several lawsuits already filed against HCPD with more expected to come, the obvious conclusion is a resounding NO!

Much to my surprise Sheriff Phillip Thompson said several days ago that he believed it is time to put the question of whether to recombine the HCPD with the Horry County Sheriff’s Department to the citizens of Horry County.

Thompson said he has received hundreds of calls from county residents over the last several weeks saying it was time for the sheriff’s department to run law enforcement activities within the county.

There are pros and cons to having the departments combined.

At this time, I believe the pros of having the sheriff take over the HCPD far outweigh the cons.

The sheriff is an elected official, directly answerable to the public. With HCPD under Horry County Council, through the administrator, there are too many levels of bureaucracy.

With the current situation, of a citizen has a problem with HCPD he or she inevitably calls his council member, who calls the administrator, who calls the police chief, who calls the captain of the area the complaint is about, who calls the officers involved.

With all those levels of bureaucracy to pass through, the problem often isn’t addressed and may never be solved.

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USDOJ Auditing Horry County Schools

Grand Strand Daily has learned that the US Department of Justice is sending an auditor to Horry County next week to audit the student to teacher ratios in English as a Second Language courses in Horry County Schools.

Why is the Department of Justice auditing student to teacher ratios in an education course?

This reporter spent nearly an hour on the phone with various individuals at the USDOJ headquarters trying to get an answer to that question.

I did find out that the audit is coming through the Civil Rights Division and I did briefly speak to an attorney, described to me as “on the case,” but the attorney would not answer any questions.

(How many times have you heard representatives of federal, state or local government decrying the supposed inaccuracies of stories in the media? What they never tell you is our collective governments do their very best to keep everything they are doing secret from the media.)

Failing to get an answer to my question from DOJ representatives and considering the Civil Rights Division is involved, I am going to hazard a guess the upcoming audit has more behind it than just English as a Second Language student to teacher ratios.

My guess is it also includes the fact that Horry County Schools is at least on the periphery of the transgender bathroom use issue that has the USDOJ so active in Virginia and North Carolina at this time.

Is this a warning shot across the bow that the USDOJ is looking closely at Horry County Schools?

This strikes me as a huge overreach by the federal government.

Consider this, tax dollars paid partially by citizens of Horry County are being used to audit courses in Horry County public schools, paid for by more tax dollars from citizens of Horry County, to determine whether the civil rights of illegal immigrants, many of whom pay no taxes at all, are being violated?

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David Cox in School Board District Four Race

David Cox, a veteran of two terms of service on the Horry County School Board, is seeking to represent a new district in the upcoming general election.

Cox was first elected to the school board by the citizens of District Nine in 2008 and was reelected in 2012.

Recently, however, Cox and his family moved to a new home in District Four.

“We took advantage of an opportunity to purchase property at a good price,” said Cox. “I expected to complete my second term and that would be all I would serve.”

After Kay Loftus, the school board member for District Four, passed away several months ago, Cox decided to run for the vacant seat.

“I felt I could bring my experience to the citizens as District Four goes through some significant changes in the next several years,” said Cox. “Four of the five new schools we recently contracted to build will be in District Four.”

Currently serving as Vice Chairman of the school board, Cox listed several of the initiatives he is proud of over his two terms of service:

Lowered the tax millage rate by 18 mils
Continuing improvement SAT and ACT scores among high school students
Implemented Professional Device 4 Learning for students Grade 3 and up
Continuing increase of college scholarship money earned by Horry County high school seniors ($67 million total by 2015 Horry County Schools graduates)

The Professional Device 4 Learning initiative gives each child their own I Pod linked to a central I Pod so the teacher can monitor the work of each individual child.

“I believe it gives every student a level playing field by allowing each student to learn at his or her own pace,” said Cox. “We all know that no two students learn in exactly the same way. This allows each student to learn at their own pace, yet still reach the final learning goals for the year.”

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