Politics

Horry County Schools Selection Committee

A Horry County Schools committee is scheduled to recommend next month which design-build team has been chosen to build each of five new schools.

After the recommendations are made by the Horry County Schools Selection Committee, the full Horry County School Board will vote either up or down on the recommendations.

The three teams remaining in the selection process are First Floor Energy Positive, Thompson Turner Construction and M.B. Kahn Construction Co.

Each team submitted two to five specific projects to be evaluated. Evaluation of each proposal will include school district emphasis on the ability to deliver high quality, energy positive schools.

According to sources familiar with the process, the Selection Committee is scheduled to complete its work by October 12, 2015. However, those sources say this deadline may be difficult to achieve.

Of the three remaining teams, M.B. Kahn is the most familiar to Horry County.

It served as the project manager for the new terminal building at Myrtle Beach International Airport.

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I&R Recommends HCSWA Contract

The Horry County Infrastructure and Regulation Committee voted Thursday to recommend passage of third reading of the budget amendment for the HCSWA recycling contract.

That recommendation will go forward to full council at its October 6, 2015 regular meeting.

If this recommendation is acted upon by full council with a favorable super majority vote, as it is expected to at this time, the recycling contract between the HCSWA and Charleston County will move forward without any further clouds over its head at present.

Part of that budget amendment requires HCSWA officials to come before the I&R Committee monthly with reports on recycling tonnage received, percentage of rejects in that waste stream, income received from sales of the recyclables and expenses associated with the running of the HCSWA material recovery facility among other items.

An additional requirement associated with the contract was a requirement by members of Horry County Council that any rejects or unsold recyclables that were taken to the HCSWA landfill for disposal were not to displace any available airspace for normal county uses.

As a result, the HCSWA entered into a contract to ship out of the county at least an amount of construction and demolition debris tonnage equal to the tonnage of recycling rejects and unsellable items taken to the HCSWA landfill for disposal.

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Tim Scott to Host Town Hall – Update

Update – Times for the luncheon and Town Hall have been moved up because of need to get back to Washington.

Sen. Tim Scott is coming to the local area Monday September 28, 2015 to host a Town Hall meeting at the Crown Reef Resort.

Scott is hosting Town Hall meetings around the state to bring Republican presidential candidates and voters together.
In this way, candidates can give their message to voters in a speech followed by a question and answer session with those in attendance.
Presidential candidate and Sen. Lindsey Graham will be the featured candidate at Monday’s Town Hall.
A luncheon will begin at 11:30 a.m. with the Town Hall meeting to follow beginning at 2:30 p.m.

The South Strand Republican Club is inviting all voters in the area to join them at the Town Hall meeting to meet, greet and listen to both senators.

For a seat reservation for the lunch and Town Hall meeting, you can call Senator’s Scott’s Headquarters at 842-766-9412 or Jon E Bonsignor 843-385-3963.

The location is Crown Reef Resort, 2913 South Ocean Boulevard, Myrtle Beach, SC.

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HCSWA Recycling Contract

The details of the HCSWA recycling contract with Charleston County should become clearer before this week is over.

The HCSWA board will meet this afternoon. Included on the board agenda is a timeline discussion by executive director Danny Knight to answer questions about why the process took so long from first discussions with Charleston County to reach the HCSWA board and Horry County Council.

The Horry County Infrastructure and Regulation Committee will meet Thursday. The I&R agenda includes a discussion about the contract between the HCSWA and Charleston County, including the assumptions that go into the calculation of profit for the HCSWA.

According to reports from Charleston County, the county spent $8 million on recycling at its Romney Street facility last fiscal year and recyclables sold garnered $1.7 million.

There are some questions among committee members and others interested in the project why the same recyclables, with the added cost of trucking, can be processed at a profit in Horry County.

Additionally, sources familiar with the contract approval process say the Charleston County has purchased (or is in the process of purchasing) equipment to repair its Romney Street facililty in order to process recyclables in county in the near future.

Those sources predict the contract between Charleston County and the HCSWA will be cancelled within 90-120 days regardless of what happens with third reading of the budget amendment ordinance by Horry County Council.

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Political Hubris

Political hubris, that overweening pride, arrogant self-confidence and absolute contempt for opinions other than their own is running wild in politicians.

Not only on the national level, although that is harmful enough, but also at the local levels of government.

I received an email from a friend of mine this week talking about this very thing.

A friend of his was attempting to get in touch with a member of the Horry County legislative delegation about a matter in which the delegation is directly involved.

The friend was having difficulty even leaving a message for the politician, so my friend, who had known the politician all of his political life and had not only voted for him but also had contributed to each of his campaigns, volunteered to help.

When my friend contacted the politician’s office, he was told to send an email detailing the issue, then, the politician would, essentially, determine if the issue was important enough to even respond to.

The politician’s time, in his own mind, was so valuable that he couldn’t be bothered to speak directly with most constituents on most issues that concerned them.

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Complaints Filed in AvCraft Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy trustee Michelle Vieira filed adversary proceeding complaints against directors of AvCraft Technical Services recently in bankruptcy court.

Vieira, the Plaintiff, is the court appointed bankruptcy trustee for KNH Aviation Services Inc. d/b/a AvCraft Technical Services in the matter of the Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing of the company, Case #15-01641-dd in U.S. Bankruptcy Court District of South Carolina.

The causes of action include breach of fiduciary duties by the defendants for capitalization of the debtor, sale and lease agreements with Sun Air, removal of equipment and self dealing.

The defendants are former owners and directors of KNH Aviation Services Inc. d/b/a AvCraft Technical Services, Mike Hill, Donald Kamenz, Derek Nice and Carol Drew along with the owner of Sun Air and former AvCraft director Jesper Lundberg and Sun Air of Scandinavia A/S.

KNH Aviation Services was put together by Mike Hill. He originated the company and got Kamenz, Nice and Drew to come in as investors to buy AvCraft Support Services in a foreclosure sale from AvCraft’s principal debtor, Maple Financial of Toronto.

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Congratulations Russell Fry

Russell Fry secured election to SC House District 106 in Tuesday’s special general election.

Unopposed on the ballot, Fry captured 438 votes of the 447 votes counted with the remaining nine being write-in votes.

Fry’s election was a foregone conclusion after he won an August 18, 2015 special primary runoff election over Horry County Council member Tyler Servant by 1,736 votes to 1,166 votes.

Fry is scheduled to be sworn into office by SC House Speaker Jay Lucas at the Surfside Beach Town Council Chambers Saturday September 19, 2015 at 4 p.m.

The special election was to fill out the unexpired term of SC House District 106 Rep. Nelson Hardwick who resigned from office in the spring.

Fry will be representing the citizens of SC House District 106 when the General Assembly resumes business in January 2016 for the second year of the current legislative session.

All House seats will be up for election in the November 2016 general election.

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Council Reconsiders HCSWA Recycling Contract

MBREDC Gets More Tax Dollars for Corporate Welfare

Horry County Council voted 11-0 to pass a reconsidered second reading of a budget amendment regarding the HCSWA recycling contract with Charleston County.

Second reading failed by a 7-4 vote at council’s September 1, 2015 regular meeting. The vote was on a budget amendment which requires a super majority of nine “Yes” votes to pass.

The budget amendment requires passage of one more reading to become law. If this occurs, the contract bringing Charleston County recyclables into Horry County for processing at the HCSWA material recycling facility will officially be approved.

The interesting part of the reconsidered vote is the recycling contract and other HCSWA issues will be considered at the September 24, 2015 meeting of the county’s Infrastructure and Regulation Committee.

This stipulation was added as an amendment to the budget amendment ordinance along with a requirement that the HCSWA will be subject to monthly scrutiny by the I&R Committee.

These new requirements were enough to get the deal to take recyclables from Charleston County back on track, at least for the time being.

Concerns from the council members who originally voted against second reading of the budget amendment arise from issues at the HCSWA, not the Charleston County contract itself, according to sources familiar with the issues.

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County Council Mistake on MBREDC

Horry County Council is about to make another mistake with regard to the MBREDC.

Council will vote Tuesday night on extending its funding contract to the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation for another year. This would commit the county to three more years of funding from the current two.

County council should not have agreed to a new two-year contract when considering its budget for the current fiscal year. It is making a terrible mistake extending the contract.

The excuse is a new executive director for the MBREDC, for which there is a search currently ongoing, will want a three-year contract to agree to a deal.

But, with the history of the MBREDC, not only in its current iteration, but also in all the ones that came before, county council would do better if it burned $1.1 million in the parking lot of the government center as give this agency another dime!

What it is doing here is giving away tax dollars to an agency whose only goal is to give away more tax dollars to bribe companies to relocate to Horry County.

And, it doesn’t do that well!

All we have to do is remember AvCraft, Project Blue, Ithaca Gun Company and PTR Industries to see how woeful has been the performance of MBREDC.

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International Drive Delays

The International Drive project is now awaiting its day in court.

According to sources familiar with the Administrative Law Court, the contested hearing before Administrative Law Judge Trip Anderson will be held sometime within the next 2-6 months.

Horry County has asked for an early hearing, but, if history on this project tells us anything, the Coastal Conservation League and its conservationist allies will delay as long as possible.

Since the SCDHEC Appeals Committee voted against a final review conference for the International Drive project, Horry County and the conservationists have had two face to face meetings and have exchanged several offers and counteroffers all to no avail.

A protest march before the Coastal Conservation League north coast office in Georgetown last month demonstrated the conservationists do not have public opinion on their side in this contest.

CCL and the SC Wildlife Federation requested a meeting with representatives of the groups that organized the protest, but that will not happen, according to sources familiar with the request.

That is probably a good thing because the typical tactic of the CCL and its allies is ‘divide and conquer.’

They haven’t counted on the determination of the homeowners in the Carolina Forest and Hwy 90 areas that will be helped by the construction of International Drive nor their unity in supporting the project.

In the filing to the ALC, the CCL and SCWF questioned whether there was a valid need for the road. They attempted to make a case that widening and other improvements to U.S. 501 are reasonable alternatives to the International Drive project. Those of us who live here know that is a ridiculous assertion.

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