Politics

General Assembly Failing Citizens Again

SC House Confederate Flag Debate Today

The SC House of Representatives will begin today what should be the final debate on removal of the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds.

After a bill to remove the flag raced through the SC Senate in the last two days, garnering only three No votes, momentum is on the side of removing the flag.

But, the House may not be as easy even though the bill received first reading approval yesterday.

A total of 26 amendments to the bill are already filed with the possibility of more coming.

Some of the amendments deal with flags to replace the current one when it comes down.

Some are in the realm of the absurd – just like South Carolina politics most of the time.

One, I am told, calls for the American flag to be flown upside down when the Confederate flag is removed. This may not be as ridiculous as it first sounds.

Flying the American flag upside down is an international signal of distress. That seems very appropriate in an area near the statehouse.

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Horry County's Accommodations Tax

Horry County Council Budget Resolutions

Horry County Council will consider two resolutions at its meeting tonight to complete this fiscal year’s budget process.

The resolutions will be to approve funding agreements with the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation for two years and with Coast RTA for one year.

These votes will be the final acts of contempt toward county taxpayers in a budget year that brings the largest property tax increase in a generation.

Led by the Republican ‘Gang of Five’ (Mark Lazarus, Al Allen, Johnny Vaught, Gary Loftus and Bill Howard), Horry County Council chose to raise property taxes by 7.2 mils ($13.5 million) without even considering during budget considerations whether funding should be cut for the MBREDC and Coast RTA.

Of course, MBREDC and Coast RTA funding weren’t the only possible savings in a $130 million general fund budget that could have been looked at.

It was just easier for the Republican ‘Gang of Five’ to raise taxes than to go through the details of the budget.

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General Assembly Failing Citizens Again

Great Confederate Flag Debate – Update

The SC General Assembly is expected to at least begin its great confederate flag debate tomorrow.

I have stayed out of the great confederate flag debate discussion until now.

I frankly don’t care whether the flag flying on the statehouse grounds stays up, comes down or blows away.

My heritage is a little different from the sides engaged in this controversy. My great-grandfather being from Pennsylvania fought with the Union army from 1861-3 and 1864-5. For those of you stuck in revisionist history, the Union was the winning side – you know Grant, Sherman and all that.

It’s this revisionist history that has caused South Carolina to keep its head in the sand for so many decades.

The “War of Northern Aggression” was started right here in the Low Country when the newly formed Confederate States Army, under the command of Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, bombarded the Union position at Ft. Sumter in Charleston harbor.

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Gerrita Postlewait Hiring Controversy

Former Horry County School superintendent Gerrita Postlewait was named superintendent of the Charleston County School District Thursday.

The vote to hire was a 5-4 split decision among the nine county board members. The vote for Postlewait was taken after a motion by board member Dr. Chris Collins to offer a three year contract to current CCSD deputy superintendent Lisa Herring failed to gain a majority.

After the meeting, Collins told media there was no sincere effort (among board members) to seriously consider Herring because of her skin color. Herring is black.

Already the hiring of Postlewait has brought criticism.

Shortly after the hiring was announced, North Charleston mayor Keith Summey issued a statement expressing disappointment in the board’s decision and expressing hope that Postlewait will decline the offer. Summey is white.

Summey said the board decision should be revisited to consider a more diverse field of candidates. Summey added community members have worked too hard to hold the community together (in light of recent area shootings) to let it be disrupted by this decision.

According to several sources familiar with the hiring process, the NAACP is planning some type of protest of the decision to hire Postlewait.

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Cam Crawford Wins County Council Primary

Cam Crawford won the Republican primary special election for the Horry County Council District 6 nomination.

Crawford gathered 547 votes (53%) to 482 votes (47%) for opponent Kirk Hanna. The totals are uncertified at this point. They will be certified by the Horry County Election Commission Thursday July 2, 2015 at 10 a.m.

Hanna topped Crawford by 31 votes in the first round of the primary two weeks ago, but Crawford reversed that result to win by 65 votes in the election that counted.

Still to come is the special general election on August 4, 2015 where Crawford will be the only name on the ballot as there is no Democratic nominee. However, a write-in challenge to Crawford is always possible.

However, a successful write-in campaign is extremely unlikely, which means Cam Crawford should be the next Horry County Council member from District 6 after the August election formalities.

The election heated up in the last few days as revelations that Peter Bishop, a one-time employee of Hanna’s construction company Hanco of SC, was arrested on June 11, 2015 for submitting nine fabricated and forged soil compaction reports to Horry County Code Enforcement while working at Hanco.

Over the last 36 hours of the campaign, a mail piece intended to be negative to Cam Crawford, surfaced in some District 6 mailboxes.

Both campaigns denied any knowledge of the large postcard size mailer. However, as the alleged sender, the LGBT Association of Horry County, does not exist, those claims, for one camp, appear to be false.

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Dirty Tricks Hit Horry County Council District 6

By Paul Gable
It took a while, but what passes for dirty tricks has arrived in the special primary runoff election for Horry County Council District 6.
A piece arrived in the mail today for District 6 voters stating the LGBT Association of Horry County supports Cam Crawford.
On the back side of the card it states Crawford will sponsor a county ordinance that will provide tax breaks for same-sex couples.
Such an ordinance is an impossibility to introduce. There is no provision in state law, which is what county ordinances must conform to, to allow for such a tax break. Just goes to show how little the author knows about South Carolina law and county legislation.
Then, when you consider there is no LGBT Association of Horry County, the only conclusion that can be drawn is Crawford’s opponent thinks this mailer will hurt Crawford’s vote count.
The piece looks to be exactly the same stock and typesetting that was used in an attempt to smear Tyler Servant during his campaign for Horry County Council District 5.
Now it has moved over to the special election campaign for Horry County Council District 6.
Is there a common denominator in both campaigns?
Possibly one. Jay Specter managed Chuck Ottwell’s campaign for District 5. The same Jay Specter is managing the campaign of Kirk Hanna for District 6.
Is Specter the common denominator? No way to know for sure, but if this piece does hurt Crawford, Hanna would be the only beneficiary.
Dirty Tricks 2.0 is more inflammatory than its predecessor in District 5 with a final line which reads in part, “let Cam know you are here because you are queer and are queer because you are here.”
I doubt it will work. The attempt backfired in the District 5 race as Servant’s voters were energized to get out the vote in response.
Not only should Crawford’s supporters be energized, but the entire LGBT community as well as all reasonable people who see this for what it is.

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Arrest Clouds Horry County Council District 6 Primary – Updated

Voting Tuesday in the Horry County Council District 6 Republican primary runoff is clouded by the recent arrest of a one-time Hanco of SC employee.

Runoff candidate Kirk Hanna is the founder and president of Hanco of SC.

According to Horry County court records, nine arrest warrants for forgery, numbers 2015A2610700601 through 2015A2610700609, were served on Peter Bishop on June 11, 2015. Bishop is currently out on $45,000 bail.

The sworn statement on each of the warrants reads in part, “On (date of incident), while employed by Hanco of SC and working at (location of construction) the Defendant, Peter Bishop, did submit to Horry County Code Enforcement a fabricated soil compaction report on Applied Geotech, LLC letterhead and bearing the forged signature of Technician Michael Hayes.”

According to the warrants, nine separate instances of fabrication and forgery of a soil compaction report occurred at nine construction locations over a 10 month period between August 2012 and June 2013.

Horry County Police Detective Marcus Rhodes, the investigating officer, declined comment on the case because it is still in the legal process. Rhodes did say the initial incident report for the case was filed approximately one year ago, with a supplemental incident report filed later.

Horry County Infrastructure and Regulation Division Head Steve Gosnell said he was not familiar with the particular documents involved, but did say, “Horry County takes very seriously any testing that involves the structural integrity of a project.”

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PTR Industries – No More AvCraft’s

As PTR Industries struggles to become current with Horry County and other vendors, it is important Horry County Council remembers the lessons of AvCraft.

Having covered the AvCraft debacle from beginning to end, the issues with PTR Industries sound eerily familiar.

It will be one year ago next week that Gov. Nikki Haley and Rep. Tommy Rice visited PTR Industries to celebrate the one year anniversary of the announcement that the company planned to relocate to Horry County. Te dignitaries received special edition rifles to commemorate the occasion.

One week later, PTR Industries laid off workers.

In early July 2014, PTR Industries presented a check to Horry County during an executive session of Horry County Council that, reportedly, brought the company to within 45 days of being current on its rent at the county building it occupies at the Cool Springs Business Park.

One year later, it is being reported in local media that PTR Industries hasn’t paid rent to the county since March 23, 2015. In other words, we are back to at least 90 days in arrears.

Additionally, PTR Industries is in arrears to other vendors and, according to information from sources familiar with the company, is required to bring cashier’s checks, as often as weekly, to utility providers in order to keep the lights on.

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Bureaucracy to prevail at expense of the taxpayer

SC General Assembly, Much Ado About Nothing

It seems that it takes national news making events to make the SC General Assembly work at all.

This year’s edition of the SC General Assembly may be known as the group that removed the Confederate battle flag from the statehouse grounds and little else.

In the past few days, momentum seems to be building for removal of the Confederate flag in response to the massacre of nine Black citizens at a Charleston church.

Removal of the flag was nowhere on the SC General Assembly radar at the beginning of the legislative year, or last week for that matter.

But now it will be debated in a specially amended legislative session next month and members of the SC General Assembly are falling all over themselves to demand its removal.

A bill to require police body cameras throughout the state was passed after a North Charleston police officer shot a fleeing Black man in the back two months ago.

Both events were covered by major national and international news organizations so they got the attention of the legislators.

Does it really take a major tragedy to get the SC General Assembly to act?

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Budgets - Cuts, Spending and You

Horry County Council Budget Failures

The latest development at MBREDC indicates how casually Horry County Council approached raising taxes this year.

Jim Moore, President and CEO of the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation, resigned from that agency Monday.

Moore came to MBREDC only six months ago after the three plus year dismal reign of Brad Lofton. During the four year period represented by these two, MBREDC allegedly reorganized itself with a new approach to attracting jobs to Horry County.

Neither Moore nor Lofton was any more successful in economic development recruitment than the former iteration of MBREDC or Partners Economic Development Corporation before it.

The difference is the current four year MBREDC 2.0 has been receiving serious funding from Horry County Council, between $1.3 million to $1.8 million per year of taxpayer dollars, with little to nothing to show for it.

Think of AvCraft, Project Blue and PTR Industries as the poster children of MBREDC efforts.

Over the past five county budget cycles, MBREDC has received at least $7.5 million from Horry County Council to fund its few employees and other operational costs.

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