Politics

Autry Benton Kicks Off Campaign for Conway City Council

(Autry Benton, center, flanked by wife, Amanda and Leslie McIver)

Autry Benton kicked off his campaign for Conway City Council with an event at 104 Laurel St. in downtown Conway last night.
Benton is running in the special election to finish out the term of Alex Hyman who resigned his council seat March 20, 2023 in order to accept a position as a circuit judge. A special election will be held June 13, 2023 to fill the vacant seat.
Benton had a good turnout of voters to his inaugural event and support from some elected officials including Horry County Treasurer Angie Jones, Horry County Council Chairman Johnny Gardner and Horry County Council member and former Conway City Council member Tom Anderson. Also on hand were former Horry County School Board Chairman Ken Richardson, former Conway City Council member Leslie McIver and former Horry County Council member Orton Bellamy.
Benton spoke of how this will be his second attempt running for a Conway City Council seat. He just missed out in the general election of 2021, but the experience of running two years ago increased his desire to serve the citizens of Conway.
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SCGOP Seeks to Take Power Away from the People

Over the last several years, the South Carolina Republican Party, under the leadership of Chairman Drew McKissick, has turned its back on democracy in favor of a top-down dictatorial approach to running the party.
Two years ago, after county reorganization meetings were held and the SCGOP state convention was complete, McKissick was not happy with newly elected leaders in some counties. As a result, in a July 8, 2021 article in the Charleston Post and Courier, McKissick said he would put his support behind “rival GOP organizations” (in certain counties).
In July 2022, McKissick reconvened the SCGOP state convention with the sole purpose of passing new bylaws that would allow the state Executive Committee to vote to replace elected county leaders, those elected by the majority of county party members at county conventions, and replace them with leaders chosen by McKissick.
Horry County Republican Party Chairman Roger Slagle objected to the reconvening of the state convention because it was counter to the SCGOP bylaws in place at the time. For this objection, the leaders of the HCGOP were condemned by a vote of the State Executive Committee. Slagle and the rest of the HCGOP leadership tendered their resignations at a September 12, 2022, regularly called meeting of the county party.

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SC General Assembly Committees Attempt End Run Around Affected Electrical Cooperatives

Sub-committees of the SC House Labor Commerce and Industry Committee and the SC Senate Judiciary Committee published notice Monday that hearings would be held this week for the companion bills to amend the rules by which electrical cooperatives may contract for power.
It is extremely unusual for sub-committee hearings to be announced on Monday and held on Wednesday and Thursday of the same week of announcement.
It is not surprising in this case, however, as officials and directors of the state’s electric cooperatives are currently in Nashville, Tennessee for the annual conference of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association,. The Senate sub-committee hearing for the bill sponsored by Horry County Sen. Luke Rankin is scheduled for Wednesday March 8, 2023 with House sub-committee hearing for the companion bill sponsored by Horry County Rep. Heather Crawford scheduled for Thursday March 9, 2023. The national conference is scheduled to run through March 8, 2023.
The general consensus among electric cooperative officials and their customers is the purpose of these bills is to force the co-ops to purchase their power from state owned Santee Cooper regardless of price. The bills require the co-ops to submit any proposed contracts for the purchase of power for approval from the Joint Bond Review Committee, the Public Utilities Review Committee and the Public Service Commission.

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Bills Sponsored by Rankin and Crawford Expected to Increase Electricity Bills

Companion bills filed by Rep. Heather Crawford and Sen. Luke Rankin, in the two houses of the SC General Assembly, appear to have a goal of requiring electrical cooperatives to purchase electricity from Santee Cooper regardless of the cost.
The bills, introduced by Rankin in the Senate on February 9, 2023 and by Crawford in the House on February 28, 2023, read as follows: “A BILL TO AMEND THE SOUTH CAROLINA CODE OF LAWS BY AMENDING SECTION 58-37-40, RELATING TO INTEGRATED RESOURCE PLANS, SO AS TO PROVIDE THAT CENTRAL ELECTRIC POWER COOPERATIVE MUST SUBMIT ALL PROPOSED CONTRACTS OR OTHER PLANS FOR THE PROCUREMENT OF ELECTRIC GENERATION TO THE JOINT BOND REVIEW COMMITTEE, THE STATE REGULATION OF PUBLIC UTILITIES REVIEW COMMITTEE, AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION OF SOUTH CAROLINA PRIOR TO EXECUTION.”
Central Electric Power Cooperative provides wholesale electric service to South Carolinas electric cooperatives such as Horry Electric Cooperative and Pee Dee Electric Cooperative. It obtains most of its power through long term purchase agreements with Santee Cooper, Duke Energy Carolinas, and the Southeastern Power Administration.

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More About HCGOP Pirates Actions

On January 6, 2022, I wrote a story about how a group calling themselves the “HCGOP Pirates” schemed with SCGOP Chairman Drew McKissick to undermine the elected leadership of the HCGOP.
The leadership of several county parties, including the HCGOP, were taken over by what can be called non-establishment leaders in the 2021 reorganizations. This led SCGOP Chairman Drew McKissick to advocate using “auxiliary groups” in those counties with which the SCGOP would communicate.
The original five members of the HCGOP Pirates were Reese Boyd, Don Bowne, Jim Furry, Gerri McDaniel and Shannon Grady. Grady later determined that the efforts of the Pirates were counter to the will of the people as expressed in the 2021 reorganization vote for HCGOP leaders. Grady released a multitude of messages and other communications to expose what the Pirates were doing.
The HCGOP Pirates were formed at a July 2, 2021 meeting, according to meeting notes released by Grady. Under action items it can be seen that Boyd (RRB) will reach out to McKissick (DM). I have detailed subsequent communications among the HCGOP Pirates in an earlier article in Grand Strand Daily.

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County Council to Again Consider Amending Flood Ordinance

Horry County Council will again consider amending its flood ordinance with a view to reducing the height for building in the county’s designated supplemental flood zones from the current three board height to a two board height.
County staff and the county Infrastructure and Regulation Committee recommended the two board height in the original ordinance, but council bent to the will of group of citizens demanding the three board height, apparently in an excess of caution against the next flood.
The amendment would apply only to county designated supplemental flood zones, not to FEMA designated flood zones. The county added supplemental flood zones after the Hurricane Florence flooding events in 2018.
At the center of the issue is a plot of land sub-divided into 46 lots for development off of Hwy 905. The land was prepared for development in accordance with FEMA requirements. There were no additional county requirements at that time.
Then, Horry County Council passed a new flood ordinance establishing flood zones supplemental to the FEMA maps and requiring homes in those areas to be built a further three feet above FEMA required levels.

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Why Did a Chinese Spy Balloon Pass Over Horry County?

There is a certain irony to the fact that a Chinese spy balloon was shot down off the coast of Horry County last week.
The spy balloon was shot down on February 4, 2023, just one day shy of the seventh anniversary of the return of former Horry County Council Chairman Mark Lazarus from a 16-day trip to the People’s Republic of China.
A few days after the return of Lazarus from the China trip, WPDE ran a story headlined “Chinese business leaders Investing more than $100 million in Horry County.” Lazarus told the tv station the venue would be west of the Intracoastal Waterway and would bring several hundred jobs to the area.
The WPDE story went on to say a 25-minute segment from three symposiums, which Lazarus conducted in China, was shown on CCTV (China Central Television). “The presence of Myrtle Beach and Horry County in China right now is huge. We went to a lot of places and that’s all they were talking about,” Lazarus was quoted as saying in the article.
In addition, Lazarus said a “nice article about Myrtle Beach and Horry County and tourism,” was printed in China Daily. Both CCTV and China Daily are propaganda outlets controlled by the Chinese Communist Party Central Propaganda Department.

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Myrtle Beach War Against Ocean Boulevard Businesses to be Heard in Supreme Court Thursday

The war being waged by the City of Myrtle Beach against certain long time businesses on Ocean Boulevard will be the subject of a hearing before the S. C. Supreme Court Thursday.
In an interesting twist, the hearing will take place in a special session of the court at Coastal Carolina University. The venue is not the important part of this matter. It is the issue of whether Myrtle Beach, or any local government, can arbitrarily treat certain businesses differently than it treats similar businesses elsewhere in its jurisdiction.
As a bit of background, this issue goes back four and one-half years to August 2018 when the city passed an ordinance which banned the sale of products such as hookah pipes, tobacco, CBD oil and what it calls sexually suggestive merchandise within an overlay district along Ocean Boulevard that the city designated a “Family Friendly” District.
The sale of these products, all of which are entirely legal products, was not banned citywide. They were banned only within the confines of the “Family Friendly” district arbitrarily designated by the ordinance.
The merchants affected by the ordinance filed suit against the city and it is this lawsuit that will be the subject of Thursday’s hearing.

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Russell Fry Has Some ‘Splainin to do”

Russell Fry has now been in Congress for a month representing (I use the term loosely) those of us in the 7th Congressional District.
The Chinese spy balloon, which was shot just off the Grand Strand coast Saturday, provided Fry to get out some of his best sound bites so far. Fry joined a chorus of Republicans criticizing the Biden administration for waiting so long to shoot down the balloon. Fry went so far as to say he didn’t understand why the balloon wasn’t shot down over Montana or Kansas “where there is a lot of open space.”
It is no secret I did not support Fry’s election to the Congressional seat and, as a very rookie Congressman, I suggest Fry would be better off letting the generals decide when and where to exercise such duties while he sticks to the process of getting his feet wet before he runs off at the mouth.
However, there is one area I would like Fry to address further – his appointment of Heather Ammons Crawford as District Director for his Congressional district.
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Carolina Forest Civic Association Hears About RIDE IV Program

The Carolina Forest Civic Association members heard about the RIDE IV road program from Wayne Gray, Chairman of the RIDE IV Advisory Committee, during the association’s regular meeting Wednesday evening.
After Gray presented an overview of the RIDE IV planning process, one of the association members asked a key question. “Why does county council continue to approve all these rezonings when the county is already so far behind on roads?” the questioner asked.
The question strikes at the heart of the matter facing Horry County, as well as the need for not only the RIDE IV program, but also future road construction in the county.
According to information provided by Gray, Horry County, at its current state of development, needs an estimated $4 billion of new road construction to service the needs of county residents and visitors to the Grand Strand.
The 18 member RIDE IV committee, 12 appointed by county council and six appointed by the League of Cities, submitted three road project recommendations each for consideration by the committee. With some projects being recommended by more than one member, a total of 35 new road projects are currently under consideration by the committee for inclusion in the RIDE IV plan.

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