Author: Paul Gable

SC General Assembly Bolsheviks?

It didn’t take long for ‘stupid’ to raise its head in the current legislative session of the SC General Assembly.
Yesterday state Rep. Mike Pitts (R-Laurens) introduced a bill to clamp down on the media in the state.

Called the “South Carolina Responsible Journalism Registry Law”, Pitts proposes to set requirements for journalists working in the media, including registration requirements with the Office of the Secretary of State and fee payments.

Even Pitts acknowledges his bill stands no chance of passing (it is unconstitutional as well as being plain stupid). But, such is the way of the General Assembly in most years.

According to reports, Pitts told one media outlet his bill is meant to stimulate discussion of how the Second Amendment is treated in the press (according to Pitts’ interpretation of articles at least.)

If I get this right, we have a South Carolina lawmaker who wishes to violate the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law…abridging freedom of speech or of the press,” in order to guarantee the Second Amendment is not criticized.

That’s virtually straight out of Lenin and his Bolshevik revolution – grab control of the press so you control the message and eliminate all opposition to your political views.

I seriously doubt there is a nascent Communist Party rearing its head in Columbia, but ‘one never knows do one?’

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Charleston Contract Costing HCSWA

The contract between Charleston County and the Horry County Solid Waste Authority for the HCSWA to process Charleston County recyclables is costing Horry County money.

With five months (Aug thru Dec) of solid numbers behind us, the HCSWA has lost approximately $130,000 processing Charleston County recyclables.

When the HCSWA entered into the contract with Charleston County, it was estimated the contract would bring a profit of approximately $1 million per year. That certainly does not seem to be the case with revenues from sale of recyclables over those five months totaling approximately $1.860 million and expenses totaling approximately $1.990 million.

The only thing saving the HCSWA from even greater losses was a three month amendment to the contract, which allows Horry County to not pay Charleston County for transportation costs related to bringing the Charleston County recyclables to Horry County.

The contract calls for Horry County to pay Charleston County $425 per truckload of recyclables shipped from Charleston County. These payments have been suspended for December through February. The suspension allowed the HCSWA to realize a modest $20,000 profit in December.

Several other line items are puzzling from the HCSWA’s latest report. Expenses associated with Charleston recyclables are less than expenses associated with Horry County recyclables. However, Charleston County recyclables are approximately double the amount of Horry County recyclables.

Additionally, a total of 21,382 tons of recyclables have been processed in the five months while only 13,192 tons have been sold. This leaves 8,190 tons of recyclables unsold.

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Roads, Schools and Pensions Top Legislative Agenda

SC House Ways and Means chairman Brian White listed roads, schools and pensions as three priorities in the current SC General Assembly legislative agenda.

Since the Ways and Means Committee writes the budget, White’s priorities are important.
White issued the following press release yesterday as the General Assembly opened its legislative year:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 12, 2016

Ways and Means Committee Begins Committee Work

House Budget writers start deliberations

(Columbia, SC) – House Ways and Means Chairman Brian White (District 6-Anderson) today released the following statement:

“The Ways and Means Committee and its subcommittees have been meeting since November on the impact of the historic flooding and to hear budget requests but now that the legislative session has arrived we begin fully our comprehensive and open deliberations to fund state government for fiscal year 2016-17.

Our state’s excellent recent economic growth and prudent budget decisions the General Assembly made last year have resulted in $1.2 billion in unobligated general funds that are available in this year’s appropriations process. We also begin this year with significant obligations such as flood costs, the Abbeville school lawsuit, transportation funding, and a growing pension problem, not to mention state agency requests of over $2.1 billion. Ways and Means will weigh the requests and our responsibilities and be sensible stewards of taxpayer dollars while also providing for an accountable and responsible state government,” stated Chairman White.

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HCSWA Board Hubris Round Three

Horry County Solid Waste Authority board chairman Lance Thompson sent a letter to Horry County administrator Chris Eldridge last month notifying Eldridge of the 5-2 vote by the HCSWA board recommending removal of Dan Gray from the HCSWA board.

The letter and its accompanying documents were obtained by GSD through a Freedom of Information Act request to Horry County government.

Included in the accompanying documents was a letter to Gray that states in part, “While the Board regrets having to make this decision, it has determined that you have engaged in an ongoing course of conduct, which appears to be designed to undermine the Board’s actions and to hamper the functioning of the Board in a deliberative manner.”

I submit the above statement is one of opinion, not fact. I further submit the HCSWA board rarely acts in a deliberative manner.

The HCSWA board certainly did not deliberate long on the decision to spend over $1 million of public money with a lobbyist to advocate against changing state law and local ordinances with respect to flow control of waste streams.

County council ultimately amended the county flow control ordinance over the objections of the HCSWA and its lobbyist.

I submit the entire issue of removing Gray from the HCSWA board is one of personal agendas of certain HCSWA board members, certain HCSWA staff and certain Horry County Council members. In other words, Horry County politics at its worst.

The HCSWA board has taken its vote and sent its letter. I expect that is as far as the issue will go.

Gray is a nominee of the League of Cities approved by vote of Horry County Council.

Council chairman Mark Lazarus has said he will not put the issue of removing Gray on council agenda if the League of Cities does not support the HCSWA vote.

Despite behind the scenes phone calls by some HCSWA board members to mayors in the county, sources tell me the League of Cities is firmly behind Gray remaining on the HCSWA board.

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New Year for Horry County Council

The New Year is starting out in strange fashion for Horry County Council as its first meeting will be held Thursday night.

Regular council meetings are normally held the first and third Tuesday’s of each month. I understand scheduling conflicts for some of the members moved the first meeting in January two days.

The New Year is starting out where last year left off as far as changes with council are concerned.

Horry County experienced a 44% turnover rate in council membership in 2015 with three new members elected to begin the year and two more new members joining the council in special elections during 2015.

The last of those new members, Jimmy Washington from District 3, won election December 22nd and will be attending his first meeting Thursday night.

The two newest members, Washington and Cam Crawford from District 6, won special elections for unexpired terms that end this year. They will be facing re-election contests in 2016.

But, it wasn’t just membership that changed on Horry County Council in 2015.

In my opinion, there was a rather cavalier attitude toward spending the people’s money that was much more disturbing.

Not only did a majority of council pass the largest property tax increase in county history in 2015, they also increased road vehicle tax by 67%.

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Presidential Politics 2016

On the first working day of the New Year, my thoughts are of presidential primaries.

For the next seven weeks, South Carolina will be in the national spotlight as candidates travel throughout the state hoping to convince supporters they are the best person to be our next president.

Of course, this will be mostly on the Republican side as South Carolina is one of the most intensely conservative states in the nation.

Right now that looks like it means Donald Trump and, possibly, Ted Cruz against the field.

The Trump phenomenon is holding, even gaining a little momentum as the voting nears. Cruz, who must be considered another outsider in traditional Republican circles, has been coming on strong in the minds of South Carolina voters for the last month.

More traditional, establishment candidates, such as Jeb Bush, are trailing miserably.

If nothing else, this is a year of protest against the system, something traditional politicos have been slow to pick up on.

And what better state to lead that protest than South Carolina?

When Trump first announced his candidacy, I thought we would have a couple of months of fun with his outrageousness, then, he would fade from view.

That hasn’t happened.

The more outrageous Trump’s pronouncements are, the more his support grows.

Because the general feeling throughout the country is the system needs change.

I have been socially liberal all my life, but, when Trump calls for an end to all Muslim immigrants into the country, it strikes a sympathetic cord within me.

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Taxes, Flag Top 2015 News Stories

Taxes, Flag Top 2015 SC Newsies

Local tax increases and removal of the Confederate battle flag from the statehouse grounds topped the 2015 news stories.

Horry County Council passed the largest single tax increase in county history with a 7.2 mil increase in property taxes. Just for good measure, council also increased the road tax charged on every vehicle registered in the county by 67%.

Sold to the public as a means to increase public safety, the tax increase was really Horry County Council bowing to the will of county employees for a pay raise.

As council member Harold Worley said during debate of the tax increase, “Not one penny of the tax increase will go toward putting one extra officer on the street. Response times will not go down nor will community policing increase because of the tax increase.”

Adding insult to injury, the road annual tax was increased from $30 to $50 per vehicle, ostensibly to provide more money for maintenance of roads in the county road system.

Just a few months later, county council voted to use approximately $16 million in excess revenue from Ride II tax collections not for roads, but to buy a new radio system for public safety.

Five county council members will be up for re-election in 2016, but only one, Gary Loftus, voted to increase taxes.

Five of the six council members voting to raise taxes were elected or re-elected in 2014 and hope the voters will not remember this tax increase in 2018 when they face election again.

The statewide issue that was most intriguing was the removal of the Confederate battle flag from statehouse grounds.

This was done in just several days of a special session called by Gov. Nikki Haley. It demonstrated the General Assembly can act quickly when it wants to.

This special session followed a five month regular session when the General Assembly did absolutely nothing about the most important issues in the state – road maintenance and repair, ethics issues and school funding.

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Déjà vu for SC General Assembly

In November 2014, when everyone was talking about the upcoming SC General Assembly legislative session, three big topics were at the fore, ethics reform, transportation maintenance and repair funding and education funding.

One year later, as preparations are made for the second session of the 121st General Assembly, those three topics are still waiting to be addressed.

Real ethics reform falls into three areas – disclosure of all sources of income for members and their immediate families, disclosure of donor sources in these currently anonymous PACs and an independent process for ethics violation investigations.

Under our current ethics system, the House and Senate have ethics committees that essentially do nothing, and the SC Ethics Commission, which covers all other public officials throughout the state, specializes in collecting fines for late filing of disclosure documents.

All three areas have strong resistance, especially in the Senate, so expect another year where ethics is talked about much and accomplished not at all.

In the area of transportation maintenance and repair or general infrastructure funding, one lesson should have been learned with the floods of October – you can only ignore maintenance and repair of necessary infrastructure for so long.

When old, neglected infrastructure is hit with unusual conditions, it will fail. Some of the flood damage we saw would have happened anyway, but dams failing, bridges collapsing and roads washing out were as much a consequence of neglect as it was from the storm.

School funding, or rather equitable funding for poor, rural school districts is a subject that has been effectively dodged in one way or another since the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954.

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Who Has Information on Skydive Myrtle Beach?

The ongoing dispute between Skydive Myrtle Beach and Horry County Department of Airports has taken interesting twists and turns in recent weeks.

In 2014, Skydive Myrtle Beach lodged a complaint with the Federal Aviation Administration against Horry County Department of Airports alleging discriminatory actions against Skydive Myrtle Beach by HCDA.

In response, Horry County Department of Airports reported to the Federal Aviation Administration that Skydive Myrtle Beach was the subject of 112 alleged safety violations while conducting business at Grand Strand Airport.

According to Aaron Holly, a principal of Skydive Myrtle Beach, his business had never been notified of any of these violations and still has not received any official paperwork relating to any of them.

In October 2015, the FAA issued a 73 page Director’s Determination Report, in response to Holly’s original complaint, supposedly basing the report on those safety violations. Horry County subsequently used this report as an excuse to shut down Skydive Myrtle Beach operations at Grand Strand Airport.

County officials said FAA grant funding was in jeopardy if the Department of Airports didn’t act to shut down the business.

That’s not exactly true. A letter from Michael O’Donnell of the FAA to HCDA director Pat Apone, dated November 13, 2015, states in part, “The FAA also requested Horry County to submit a “corrective action plan incorporating acceptable risk mitigation measures and revised procedures under which safe skydiving operations may resume.”

The county was only supposed to suspend skydiving operations until a mitigation plan was submitted.

And the problem for HCDA gets worse.

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