Author: Paul Gable

Bubba Owens Again Targeted by Kelly Campaign

The campaign team associated with Bob Kelly has been consistent in its attempts to sling mud at Horry County Council District 3 opponent Bubba Owens.

Yesterday the Kelly camp claimed Owens and his team are responsible for a series of robocalls being made to the voters of District 3.

This mudslinging began as soon as Owens filed for the election and has continued to date.

More recently, Wiles and his buddy Buz Martin have seen fit to include yours truly in their fantasies.

I don’t normally respond to stupid, but, in this case, I believe demonstrating the extent to which Wiles presents a faulty version of facts, whether they be about Big Talk or robocalls, is important for the voters potentially involved in the special Republican primary election runoff for Horry County Council District 3 next Tuesday.

Let me share a portion of a Facebook post Wiles made yesterday.

“New Jersey native Paul Gable and fellow military vet here does his best to flay Bob Kelly and me alive on behalf of his principal, Donald Smith of Lucky Dog Productions. Paul and Donald are business associates in the local Internet TV talk show BIG TALK. As with his two previous blasts at the Kelly Campaign, Paul omits that conflict-of-interest disclosure from his latest hit job.

“Bubba Owens’ Campaign coordinated the content and timing of Gable’s hit job last night with a phony “independent expenditure” group calling itself the Friends of Bob Kelly.”

The name of Donald Smith’s company is Lucky Dog Television Productions. Donald and I are not business associates.

Big Talk was an independent production aired on WWMB CV21, never on the internet. It ran from September 2013 through August 2014.

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Bob Kelly Campaign Offers Bubba Owens Bribe to Quit

Bob Kelly and his consultant Jim Wiles have so little respect for Horry County voters they offered opponent Bubba Owens a bribe to quit the runoff election.

The runoff election for the Republican nomination for the vacant Horry County Council District 3 seat is set for November 17, 2015.

However, Kelly and his henchmen seem to want to avoid that by bringing Northeast big city machine politics to Horry County in the form of a bribe for Owens to quit the race.

If you question the use of the word bribe, its definition in The Free Dictionary is “Something offered to induce another to do something.” Merriam Webster dictionary states, “Something that serves to induce or influence.”

A November 6, 2015 voicemail message from Wiles to Owens’ campaign consultant said, “Team Bubba should put together a shopping list of stuff that they would want for downtown Myrtle Beach for Bob Kelly to commit to in exchange for Bubba dropping out…”

South Carolina Code of Laws Section 7-25-200 states it is unlawful to offer anything of value to induce a person to withdraw as a candidate.

The only question here is whether a court would view the offer ‘give Kelly a shopping list of what they (Owens and his consultants) want for downtown Myrtle Beach in exchange for Bubba dropping out’ as a criminal act. It certainly goes right up to that line, if it does not, in fact, cross it.

We’ll leave that decision to the solicitors and federal prosecutors. But, the message certainly violates the spirit of the law if not the actual letter of the law.

However, in addition to inducement to quit the runoff election, another criminal consideration is that Kelly’s team is offering to commit public dollars to proposed projects for the personal gain for Kelly of Owens dropping out of the election.

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Horry County Council Wastes Excess Ride II Funds

Tonight, Horry County Council will consider second reading and public review of an ordinance to use leftover Ride II funds for public safety radios.

That’s correct. In 2006, county council asked voters to tax themselves an extra penny on purchases in order to build or improve roads in the county.

Now that funds are leftover, council is trying to make up for years of ill-considered decisions about radios for the public safety division.

There doesn’t seem to be one budget year that goes by without millions of dollars of requests for new radios and supporting equipment.

Next year, Motorola, the manufacturer the county has used for a number of years, will stop supporting the radio system currently used by the county, causing the latest funding crisis.

State law allows capital projects sales tax excess funds to go into the county’s general fund to be spent as council decides.

However, we live in a county that just raised the road maintenance tax by 67% a few months ago. This will add approximately $3 million dollars per year to road maintenance and dirt road paving.

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Horry County General Aviation Woes in Conway

General aviation at the Conway Airport is another area in which the Horry County Department of Airports has missed the boat.

The county’s three general aviation airports, Conway, North Myrtle Beach and Loris, were a topic of specific discussion at Horry County Council’s budget retreat last spring because of the continuing deficit they generate.

Conway airport is an interesting study in what is wrong with general aviation in Horry County.

The North American Institute of Aviation relocated from Hammonton, NJ to Conway in 1978 in the same time period that Horry County government was instituting the recently passed home rule for county government.

For the next 20 years, Horry County government didn’t have worries about the Conway airport as the school thrived through close connections with the Scandinavian countries of Europe. The school paid rent to the county for the facilities it used and also was the Fixed Base Operator for Conway airport, although sources say the FBO was run to basically support the school.

In the late 1990’s NAIA enrollment began to decline because of a saturation point being reached in the number of Scandinavian pilots and new European Union laws that did not automatically accept U.S. Federal Aviation Administration certification of the pilots that trained here.

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Reader Slams Attacks on Bubba Owens

I saw some really nasty and what I felt was unfair mud-slinging in this race this year towards Mr. Bubba Owens from his competitors.

I hate mud-slinging!

Mr Kelly and his campaign manager Mr Jim Wiles brought up Mr. Owens past public records for prior years. (I think we all have a past).

In reviewing them it appeared to me that they were either dismissed or never proved to be true. I thought everyone was innocent until proven guilty.

Shame on you Mr. Kelly for allowing this to happen!

I hope and have so far seen that Mr. Owens has much more class than that. Usually though when you try pointing a finger at someone else you usually have 3 more pointing at yourself.

It is my assumption that Mr. Owens is a born and bred Horry County man. I will guess that Mr. Kelly is not.

I have many many friends from up North. They love it down here. Taxes are lower, cost of living is lower, the weather is better. Most of us get along fine and we love the friendships.

What most of us do not like is when people retire from up north, move to Horry County and then try to change our lifestyle which seems to always make the natives (our) taxes go up so that things can be done to the standards that you had up north.

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Enjoy South Strand Events

Two events on the South Strand in the next seven days offer fun for all and opportunities for college students and veterans.

A Pasta Sauce Contest will benefit the scholarship fund of the Grand Strand Opera Workshop.

A dinner for veterans will be hosted by Barry Goldwater, Jr. and the South Strand Republican Club.

Fourth Annual Pasta Sauce Contest

The 4th annually tomato sauce contest sponsored by the Grand Strand Opera Workshop benefiting a student(s) from Coastal Carolina University will be held this year on Sunday November 8 from 3 PM to 6 PM at Angelo’s Steak and Pasta Restaurant 2311 South Kings Hwy (Hwy 17 Bus. S) Myrtle Beach Tel 843-626-2800.

The proceeds (85%) from the contest will benefit the Carleton-Talbert scholarship fund—the sauce can be either Marinara (red) or White (Alfredo).

This year’s contest chairman is Fred Nesta.

If you cannot enter the sauce contest, PLEASE come and enjoy an Early Bird menu on all entrees, at Angelo’s.

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Local Election Meanderings

If you were looking for change in last night’s local election results, as I was, this morning, at best, brings mixed feelings.

Myrtle Beach and Atlantic Beach voted for the status quo while Conway voted for change.

Incumbent council members Phil Render and Mike Chestnut were joined by former council member Mary Jeffcoat in capturing the three city council seats up for grabs in Myrtle Beach.

Pals of the incumbents, often called the Myrtle Beach Mafia, were successful in keeping former mayor Mark McBride from the winners circle with a series of negative, attack mailers in the final week of the campaign.

I guess the tourism development tax and the north end of the city will be safe for at least two more years while the rest of the city is ignored.

Atlantic Beach voters returned incumbent mayor Jake Evans. Longtime council member Josephine Isom and Jacqui Gore won the two council seats in the race.

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Horry County Schools Picks First Floor Energy Positive

The Horry County Schools Board of Education voted last night to award construction of five new schools to First Floor Energy Positive.

Included in the motion to award contracts for all five schools in this round of building projects to First Floor Energy Positive, was the raising of the budget for construction from approximately $167 million to approximately $225 million.

Proposals from all three finalist construction teams exceeded the initial budget by a considerable margin, according to sources familiar with the process.

The vote effectively ends a selection process that began in early 2014. The school district will now file a Notice of Intent to award contracts and there will be a 14 day protest period in which one of the other two finalist construction teams may challenge the award if they so desire.

A protest is expected and sources within the school district say there has already been Freedom of Information Act requests for large numbers of documents associated with the selection process.

Be that as it may, the Horry County Schools Board of Education made the correct choice.

First Floor Energy Positive has constructed three state of the art schools in North Carolina, all of which generate more energy than they consume. Excess energy is sold back to the local power grid.

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Horry County Schools Building Decision

The Horry County Schools Board of Education will vote on awarding building contracts for five new schools at a special meeting tonight.

This should have already occurred, but bureaucratic interference slowed the process down since the board voted October 12, 2015 to begin negotiations for all five projects with First Floor Energy Positive, the top rated construction team from an earlier selection process.

Thompson Turner Construction and M.B. Kahn are second and third rated teams, respectively and were again included in the process in the past two weeks when bureaucracy took over.

The Horry County Schools board expressed an interest in building energy positive schools when the Request for Proposals for these five projects was reissued earlier this year.

First Floor Energy Positive is the only one of the three finalist teams to have already constructed energy positive schools. In fact, it is the only team in the United States to have designed, constructed and operated energy positive schools.

Sandy Grove Middle School in North Carolina was the first energy positive school built by First Floor Energy Positive. It generated 42% more energy than it consumed in its first year of operation. The excess energy was sold to the local power grid.

The other two North Carolina schools in operation have produced similar savings.

Based on the experience of the three schools in North Carolina, it can be projected that Horry County Schools and taxpayers can save $100 million in utility costs over the 40-year lifespan of these five schools.

These are not hollow projections. First Floor Energy Positive is the only one of the three finalist teams who can guarantee, via performance bond, that their school buildings will generate more energy on-site than they will consume.

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Changes Needed From City Elections

City elections in three local municipalities could bring much needed changes to the way those communities work for their citizens.

Those three communities are Conway, Atlantic Beach and Myrtle Beach.

Below, we have highlighted the candidates we believe are most likely to bring new ideas that will lead to much needed positive change for those municipalities.

Conway

Mayor and three council seats up for election.
City council member Barbara Blain-Bellamy is continuing to build momentum in her attempt to unseat incumbent Mayor Alys Lawson.
Blain-Bellamy is well known to Conway voters. She has been elected to city council three times and has led the ticket each time. This is not an outsider attempting to unseat an incumbent mayor.

Blain-Bellamy’s message of finding new ways to ward off the influence of gangs and crime in Conway’s neighborhoods and listening to the concerns of citizens throughout the city highlight her message.

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