Politics

Budgets - Cuts, Spending and You

Ecoterrorism and Public Dollars

Last week I did an article on ecoterrorism causing further delays in the International Drive project.

The form of ecoterrorism I was talking about consists of environmental groups essentially taking the stand ‘submit to our demands or we will delay your project ad infinitum.’

The International Drive project is not unique in the use of this technique.

The environmental groups will tell you they don’t threaten or bully anybody, but the effect appears to produce the same result. And this ecoterrorism is apparently not limited to the specific requirements of a project. It can apparently go well beyond those parameters if the environmental groups desire.

An example is the wetlands mitigation done for the Boeing plant in North Charleston.

General obligation economic development bonds were issued by the state of South Carolina to pay for infrastructure associated with the construction of facilities to ultimately be used by the Boeing assembly line. Included was a $5 million bond for wetland mitigation.

After paying the issuance cost of $250,000, the remaining $4,750,000 of bond proceeds were paid into the account of ACRET (Ashley Cooper River Environmental Trust), a non-profit entity established by the SC Department of Commerce.

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HCSWA Board to Hear Recycling Proposal

The HCSWA (Horry County Solid Waste Authority) board will hear a proposal to take recyclable materials from Charleston County today.

Charleston County recycling took a big hit when Sonoco, the contractor that ran the Romney Street recycling facility for Charleston County, notified the county it would cease operating the facility July 31, 2015.

Charleston County reportedly is looking at several options but the option to truck the waste to Horry County seems most viable at this point. The HCSWA material recycling facility (MRF) has operated under capacity since it opened for operations in March 2008.

Other options for Charleston County include the county operating the Romney Street facility or hiring another contractor to operate the MRF. However, according to sources familiar with the Charleston County MRF, the Romney Street facility is reportedly old and not in good condition.

Charleston County decided last year to build a new, single stream recycling facility, but it became bogged down with a proposal from RePower South to include new and untested technology for producing fuel pellets as part of the operation.

The situation with Charleston County is compounded by the fact that Dorchester County has been taking its recyclables to the Romney Street facility and apparently must be included in the new planning. Berkeley County also shipped some recyclables to Romney Street, but it also has a contract with Sonoco with another year to run and will bring its recyclables to the North Charleston facility run by Sonoco.

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SC House District 106 Forum

The South Strand Republican Club is hosting a candidate forum for the four candidates in the SC House District 106 special election.

The forum will take place at the Horry County Burgess Community Recreation Center on Scipio Lane beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday July 21, 2015. The first hour will consist of a social hour where you can meet candidates informally. Questioning will begin at 7 p.m.

This is another opportunity for House District 106 voters to see and hear the four Republican candidates who filed for the special election Republican primary prior to voting.

The four candidates who have filed for the special Republican primary are Russell Fry, Sanford Cox “Sam” Graves, Tyler Servant and Dr. Roy Sprinkle. No Democratic candidates filed for the vacant seat.

Voting in the special primary election will be held Tuesday July 28, 2015 with a primary runoff Tuesday August 11, 2015 if no candidate garners 50% plus one of the votes cast.

Former Horry County Council member Carl Schwartzkopf will be acting as the moderator of the forum.

Questions will include both state issues and legislative delegation coordination with local governments so Horry County citizens are not forgotten in Columbia.

Special elections, especially in the summer months, can turn on a few votes. It is important to hear the candidates’ speak on their qualifications and the issues they consider most in need of addressing at the state level.

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Choose Ride III Projects Carefully

As Horry County Council prepares to select the six-member Ride III commission, a cautionary note on project selection is appropriate.

The commission will be charged with developing the final list of projects and the order in which they are to be completed. That list will be sent to Horry County Council for an up or down vote.

If the list passes council vote, it will be submitted to voters in the form of a referendum on the November 2016 general election ballot.

The preliminary list of 31 projects compiled by a 17-member Ride III committee will be taken under consideration by the commission, but it may also add projects it desires.

The committee list of 31 projects is estimated to have a total cost $1.9 billion. The Ride III sales tax referendum, if passed, is expected to generate approximately $530 million in sales tax revenue. You can see there is still much work to be done.

And that’s why the work must be done carefully.

Included in the committee list are some very good projects. However, at least three projects in the list have the potential to blow up Ride III projects completely.

Those three are the Southern Evacuation Lifeline (SELL) which was slated for $25 million by the committee for feasibility studies and right of way property acquisitions, the extension of SC 31 to the North Carolina border and the realignment of US 501 in Myrtle Beach.

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General Assembly Failing Citizens Again

Aftermath of the Confederate Flag Controversy

The removal of the Confederate flag from the grounds of the SC statehouse last week seems to have unleashed a typical American overreaction.

That event seems to have been the catalyst for an overreaction by various groups to remove what they consider politically incorrect symbols throughout the country.

Louis Farrakhan has called for the removal of the US flag because slavery existed under it for a far longer period than it did under the Confederate flag. It seems Farrakhan forgets it was troops fighting under that flag that won the Civil War. The aftermath of that victory led to the 13th amendment and the abolition of slavery.

Which fact is more important? Neither, they are both facts of US history.

There are suggestions of removing the Washington monument and Jefferson memorial in Washington, D.C. because both presidents were slaveholders not to mention the statues and busts of the likes of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Nathan Bedford Forrest to name a few.

We criticize ISIS, the Taliban and al Qaeda for destroying religious and other artifacts of history in the areas they control because those symbols offend them.

Talk about infidels, are we to act the same?

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SC House District 106 Candidate Forum

The Burgess Community will host a forum for the four Republican candidates in the special election for SC House District 106.

The forum will be held at the South Strand Recreation Center on Scipio Lane tomorrow, Thursday July 16, 2015 beginning at 7 p.m.

The four candidates who have filed for the special Republican primary are Russell Fry, Sanford Cox “Sam” Graves, Tyler Servant and Dr. Roy Sprinkle. No Democratic candidates filed for the vacant seat.

Voting in the special primary election will be held Tuesday July 28, 2015 with a primary runoff Tuesday August 11, 2015 if no candidate garners 50% plus one of the votes cast.

The candidates will answer questions about issues of local and statewide concern as well as be available to meet voters. This is an opportunity for voters to learn how the candidates stand on issues such as taxes, road repair, ethics reform and the local government fund, as well as talk to them personally.

This is important for voters as three of the candidates, Fry, Graves and Sprinkle, are first timers in seeking elected office. Servant is currently the member for Horry County Council District 5, but has only spent six months in office.

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Ecoterrorism Strikes International Drive

It appears that the International Drive completion has been hit with a type of ecoterrorism by two environmental groups opposed to the project.

As we reported over the weekend, the Coastal Conservation League and South Carolina Wildlife Federation appealed the SCDHEC decision to issue permits for the project at the last possible hour.

This attempt of these two groups to put another obstacle in the way of the International Drive project, which is much needed for traffic relief in the Carolina Forest area, appears to be for no other reason than to further delay, delay, delay.

Consider the following definitions from the Merriam Webster Dictionary:

Ecoterrorism is defined as sabotage intended to hinder activities that are considered damaging to the environment.

Sabotage is defined as a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity or corporation through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction.

While the form of ecoterrorism we are talking about is not violent, hindering the building (activities) of International Drive by obstruction through the appeal and possibly court process seems to easily fall within the definitions.

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Environmentalists Delay International Drive Again

At the 11th hour yesterday, two environmental groups stepped in to further delay the International Drive paving project by approximately two years.

That’s right! A project that should have been completed by 2013 now won’t get started until 2017 at the earliest.

SCDHEC notified Horry County in a letter dated June 25, 2015 that its staff had determined the International Drive project was “consistent with the certification requirements of Section 401 of the Federal Clean Water Act and staff of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management had determined the project was consistent with the Coastal Zone Management Program.

With those determinations, SCDHEC proposed to certify the International Drive project with certain conditions.

This decision allowed the US Army Corps of Engineers to issue regulatory approval for the project. With these certifications in hand, Horry County would have been able to begin the International Drive project.

As required by law, there was a 15 day period, after the notification letter was sent, during which organizations could file a Request for Final Review. That period ended at 5 p.m. July 10, 2015.

Just before the deadline, the Coastal Conservation League and the South Carolina Wildlife Federation filed RFR’s with the help of the Southern Environmental Law Center.

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Charleston County School District Board Censured

The Board of Trustees of the Charleston County School District was censured by the Board of the St. James-Santee Constituent School District No. 1 Tuesday.

The Charleston County School district was created by South Carolina Act 340 of the South Carolina General Assembly in 1967. This “Act of Consolidation” as it is called took the eight separate school districts, then operating within Charleston County, and put them under a county wide district to equally fund education in all areas of the county.

The formerly independent school districts remain as constituent school districts within the structure of the Charleston County School district with their own school boards and duties.

The St. James-Santee constituent board censure centers around the selection process that was used to hire Gerrita Postlewait as the new superintendent of the Charleston County School District.

Criticism has been raised over the fact that the hiring process continued during the aftermath of the Emanuel AME Church shootings of June 17, 2015.

The Act of Consolidation requires the CCSD “to carry out the will of the community in matters of public education.”

One of the criticisms is that much of the community was distracted in the aftermath of the shootings and could not fully participate in the community portion of the hiring process.

In the meantime, the feelings are the CCSD board went through the motions of a hiring process designed to conclude with the selection of the pre-determined winner Postlewait.

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Confederate Flag Bill Passes House

The SC House passed second and third readings of the bill to take down the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds early Thursday morning.

The readings were on a clean bill with no amendments, something that was needed to bring the flag down quickly.

The debate was long, emotional, full of passion and often contentious. Debate started before at approximately 11:30 a.m. and continued past midnight with an afternoon break from approximately 2:15 – 4:30 p.m.

In the end, House members worked their way through delaying tactics to pass both readings by votes well above the two-thirds threshold needed to take the flag down.

Gov. Nikki Haley is expected to sign the legislation before the day is done. The bill calls for the flag to come down within 24 hours of the governor’s signature.

There was a lot of talk about the Confederate flag being a symbol that was hijacked by hate groups. If the flag was, in fact, hijacked that hijacking was first done by Southern politicians who opposed the Civil Rights movement.

That point was made over and over through the long day.

One speaker after another from both sides of the aisle said, “that flag needs to come down.”

But, many attempts to slow down the fast track the bill was on came through attempted amendments.

The SC House initially faced the possibility of dealing with over 60 amendments to the bill that passed the SC Senate.

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