Politics

Cabal Candidates vs. the People’s Chairman in County Chairman Primary

The current campaign for the Republican nomination for Chairman of Horry County Council is a contest to decide whether the citizens of Horry County will have their voices heard for the next four years or whether the tourism and development cabal will call the shots over that period.
One only has to look at campaign disclosure reports of the candidates to see the money that has been lavished on the cabal ‘A team’ candidate Mark Lazarus and the cabal ‘B team’ candidate Johnny Vaught in an effort to unseat current Chairman Johnny Gardner.
In a nearly constant stream of mailers and television and radio ads, Lazarus has attempted to rewrite the history of the 2013-2018 period he served as chairman of county council as well as his “leadership” abilities.
The alternate reality is that Lazarus has a proven record of investing in road and infrastructure improvements, supporting police and fire first responders and recruiting industry to diversify the economy.
The $600 million in roads and infrastructure stated on the Lazarus campaign literature actually refers to the Ride III projects. Ride projects are identified by an independent commission, approved by an up or down vote of county council with no amendments allowed and submitted to the voters in a referendum for approval and funding by a one-cent local option sales tax. The chairman and county council in toto have virtually nothing to do with Ride projects decisions or approval.
Lazarus’ alleged support for public safety is virtually non-existent. There is a reason that the local branches of the Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Fire Fighters endorsed the candidacy of Gardner over Lazarus in 2018 and have again endorsed Gardner in the current 2022 campaign.

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Are Voters Being Asked to Allow District 1 to Become the New ‘Dukes of Hazzard’?

In Horry County, where politics is often a full contact sport, the campaign to defeat Harold Worley for the Republican nomination for Horry County Council District 1 will go down in history as one of the ugliest ever fought.
Since the beginning of the campaign, information from the campaign of Worley’s opponent, Jenna Dukes, has misrepresented Worley’s record on county council.
Mailers from the Dukes campaign say Worley is a millionaire developer “who does not reflect the concerns or needs of the residents of District 1.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. No member of county council has more consistently voted against special interests and for the needs of average citizens than Worley during his 20 years on county council.
Whether or not Dukes is aware of Worley’s voting history, her handlers and contributors, solid members of the developer cabal, certainly are.
Dukes’ signs are prominently displayed on the trucks of the A. O. Hardee and Son, owned by developer Benji Hardee. You can’t go past land being developed in District 1 without seeing Dukes signs prominently displayed.
There is no question there is a candidate for the development cabal in the Horry County District 1 race, but that candidate is not Harold Worley.

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County Council Candidate Brings Unique Experience to Development Issues

David Ellis, a candidate for Horry County Council District 8, is developing a plan to help county planners with infrastructure needs associated with new growth.
“Development in Horry County is not going to go away as some residents seem to wish,” said Ellis. “Council must be constantly aware of infrastructure needs, especially roads, when considering new development rezoning requests.”
Ellis believes he can bring his unique experience in the development industry to help county council discussions on improving infrastructure in growth areas.
“I believe I can bring a different perspective to council, especially where rezonings are being considered,” said Ellis.
That different perspective includes using state laws that provide for local agencies to do what is called a Public Works assessment.
A Public Works assessment can be thought of as a complement to impact fees without the onerous charges the state impact fee law causes on commercial structures.

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Local Veterans Dump Fry to Support Richardson

A group of local disabled veterans who initially supported Russell Fry for the 7th Congressional District Republican nomination because of the Trump endorsement, have decided to switch candidates and now say they will vote for Ken Richardson.
Several of these veterans were included in the veterans’ coalition helping the Fry campaign.
The reason for the switch, simply put, is Fry wouldn’t listen to concerns of the veterans. Richardson did listen.
“The veterans coalition was a way for Fry to get vets together to give him talking points,” said former coalition member Keith Brooks. “Russell never gave us more than a minute or two to hear our story. You can’t tell Russell anything,”
“Russell is trying to be just another career politician,” said Brooks. “The last thing we need is another self-absorbed ladder climber.”
The story the veterans wanted to tell was the personal difficulties they have experienced in trying to obtain medical care at the Myrtle Beach VA Outpatient Clinic at Market Common.

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Howard Spreading False Narrative of his Record in Campaign for Reelection

Horry County incumbent District 2 council member Bill Howard is another spinning creative reworking of history to influence voters in next week’s Republican Primary.
Howard tries to present himself as a council member who works for the people, but reading his campaign disclosure reports it is apparent that Howard is funded by the same developer and tourism cabal interests who also fund Mark Lazarus, Jenna Dukes, Johnny Vaught and Carla Schuessler to name a few.
In a recent mailer, Howard listed among his accomplishments, “Working hard to keep the budget balanced and keeping property taxes low. No increase.”
Howard is on record voting for the largest tax increases in Horry County history – 7.2 mils plus stormwater fee and road maintenance fee increases in 2015 and 7.5 mils and another stormwater fee increase in 2021. This is hardly the work of a council member bragging about “no increase.”
Howard listed another accomplishment as being “proactive in addressing flooding problems.” However, it its rating of the voting records of county council members on flood mitigation legislation , Horry County Rising rated Howard and Vaught tied for the bottom position.

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Cassidy or Schuessler, the Choice in House District 61

There is a distinct choice between the two candidates for the Republican nomination for House District 61, the new S.C. House district in Horry County.
Carla Schuessler is currently office manager of a full-service law firm. She is a former chairman of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.
John Cassidy is a small business owner in Conway with a successful printing business over a number of years.
One significant difference between the two candidates that stands out from their campaign disclosure reports is where they spend their campaign money.
Schuessler sent out a mailer recently promoting her qualifications for office.
While claiming to be an advocate and leader for the local area, Schuessler’s mailer points out how Horry County continues to be a donor county to the state government. One sentence is particularly striking in its content:
“We need a leader and an advocate who will make sure that more of our tax dollars are spent at home and invested in our communities.”
Studying Schuessler’s pre-election campaign expenditures shows a total of $29,238 spent in round numbers. Of this total, a whopping 85% has been spent with out of area vendors.
Of Cassidy’s $26,529 spent on his campaign, a total of 82% has been spent with local vendors.

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Cabal Candidates Continue to Ignore History and Promote their Own Version of Political Reality

The longer this campaign season goes on, the more outrageous the misrepresentation from the developer and tourism cabal candidates about their records become, demonstrating their total disregard for the voters they claim to want to represent.
Actually, the only voters cabal candidates really want to represent are the ones funding their campaigns with large amounts of cash. Those voters, of course, are not sufficient in number to get any candidate elected, hence the necessity to roll out the lies about themselves and/or their opponents.
The tendency of cabal candidates to create new history was on full display during an event held at the North Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce last week.
Five candidates attended the event. Incumbent county council member for Horry County District 1 Harold Worley and his opponent Jenna Dukes. For county chairman were incumbent Chairman Johnny Gardner, Mark Lazarus and Johnny Vaught. Each candidate was given five minutes to speak about the issues.
Gardner and Worley have been especially targeted for defeat by the cabal.

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Which Candidate is Best Qualified to Lead Horry County School Board?

The race for the Republican nomination for Horry County School Board Chairman has contrasts among the candidates that should be looked at.
School boards are under attack nationwide in a concerted effort by the Club for Growth to change the makeup of school boards throughout the country for its own goals. Unfortunately, that effort has little to do with what is best for students.
Current school board member David Cox brings 14 years serving on the board, eight years as the member for District 9 and six as the current member for District 4. Cox has the overwhelming support of current board members in his run for chairman. Cox has the longest current continuous service on the school board.
Current school board member for District 6, Helen Smith, returned to the board in 2018 after a 16-year hiatus. Smith previously served as District 6 member from 1982-1996 and as board chairman from 1996-2002. Needless to say, much has changed in Horry County schools since she ended her term as chairman 20 years ago.
The third candidate for school board chairman, Darrell Ricketts, brings the most interesting curriculum vitae to the race.
Ricketts is retiring as a teacher at Socastee High School this year. However, his tenure in Horry County Schools is checkered.
Ricketts was once the principal at Aynor High School until he was caught changing the grades of over 20 students in order to make school performance look better. When that issue came to light, Ricketts was fired from his principal position and his principal certification by the S. C. Department of Education was terminated. The state left his teacher certification in place allowing him to serve as an agricultural education teacher at Socastee High School.

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Conway’s War Against Political Signs Spirals out of Control

Government officials in Conway have increased their war on political signs during this primary campaign season to a point that it has spiraled out of control.
Grand Strand Daily has learned that summonses with potential $1,000 fines, for alleged illegally placed campaign signs, have been issued to at least several more candidates in current primary races.
Most interesting is the June 13, 2021 date on the summonses for these cases to be heard in Conway City Court. That date is one day before primary election voting will take place at the polls.
Nothing in Horry County politics happens in a vacuum. One must wonder if certain Conway city government officials are attempting to influence the outcome of some of the races in the June 14th primaries?
Two weeks ago, GSD ran a story on this issue. At that time, blame for a summons and fine issued to one candidate was put at the feet of Conway City Administrator Adam Emrick due to prior statements he had made during a meeting of Conway City Council.
In the interim, several city council members have stated that candidates would be allowed to pick up their confiscated signs and no fines would be collected. However, with the escalation in the issuance of summonses, that does not now appear to be the case and city council members are now complicit for not doing anything to stop the problem.
Who is setting policy here, Conway City Council or Emrick?

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Fry Releases Cahaly Poll to Sow More Chaos and Confusion into 7th Congressional District Race

The Russell Fry campaign released poll results from Robert Cahaly’s Trafalgar Group purporting to show Fry leads in the race for the SC 7th Congressional District Republican nomination with 42% of voters preferring him.
The poll should come with many caveats.
Cahaly has consistently denied revealing his polling methodology in numerous interviews other than to say everyone lies, especially conservatives.
Cahaly blamed this tendency to lie on what is called social desirability bias. He was quoted as telling a New York Times reporter, “I just think people are not what they say they are, ever.”
Does that mean the supposed 42 percent who allegedly chose Fry in this supposed poll actually chose someone else but were put in the Fry column for some spurious reason?
How do you determine the correct answers to a poll if going in you believe the answers you will receive are lies? No wonder Cahaly does not reveal his polling methodology.
It must be noted that Cahaly correctly predicted the Donald Trump victory in the 2016 Presidential election.
However, Cahaly again predicted a Trump victory in 2020 with the opposite result.
But, that’s not the only reason I question this poll.

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