Tuesday, March 18, 2025
A good first step toward ethics reform in South Carolina would be to fire S.C. Ethics Commission Executive Director Herb Hayden.
Last month, Richland County Circuit Judge Alison Lee approved a consent order ruling Hayden propagated a “falsehood” to a state ethics watchdog agency and in responding with a falsehood violated the Freedom of Information Act.
As part of the settlement, Hayden and the ethics commission maintained the falsehood was inadvertent and unintentional.
Horry County Council will begin deliberations for its FY 2016 Horry County budget next Friday at a workshop and specially called council meeting.
Now that elections are over and several new council members are poised to join the governing body in the new year, we will see just how “conservative” our heavily Republican contingent on council really is.
My guess is the cronyism that has justified what I consider wasteful council spending in certain areas will continue to manifest itself.
It’s a great day in South Carolina!
It has to be.
Gov. Nikki Haley was reelected to a 2nd term in office by a 57% to 40% margin and incumbents around the state were swept back into office.
Many of the incumbents didn’t even have opponents to worry about in the general election.
The right choice for Horry County Council District Seven in tomorrow’s general election is Republican Mike Roberts.
Trying to unseat a long-term incumbent in South Carolina is never easy, but Roberts has worked harder than any candidate I’ve seen in my 31 years in Horry County.
Incumbent Democrat James Frazier has served honorably on council for over 35 years, but it’s time for a change. In the past couple years, it has become obvious to this reporter that Frazier is past his prime and should have retired at the end of his current term.
The most interesting contest in this fall’s general election in South Carolina will be the special election for S.C. House District 114, the former seat of deposed Speaker Bobby Harrell.
The S.C. Election Commission has determined a special election is called for after Harrell’s resignation from office and has set the date for a Republican s[ecoa primary as November 25, 2014. The Democratic Party candidate, Mary Tinkler, and Green Party candidate, Sue Edwards, are already set through the normal election primary process.
The election commission has set the special general election date for December 9th.
Horry County Council District Two member Brent Schulz will have at least one more day at the polls in next week’s general election thanks to a write-in campaign organized by supporters in his district.
Schulz, a two-term incumbent, narrowly lost the Republican nomination for the District Two council seat in the June 2014 primary to Myrtle Beach businessman Bill Howard. Howard, who has lost twice in Myrtle Beach mayoralty contests and once for Myrtle Beach city council, won by a total of 19 votes.
The result stunned Schulz’ supporters, many of whom thought he was a shoe-in for a third term and were admittedly lax about voting in the primary.
A public hearing on Homeowner Associations (HOA) is being held by the Horry County Legislative Delegation tomorrow night.
This is the time to begin public input on much needed, possible state legislation by the S.C. General Assembly to make HOA’s answerable to the homeowners they purportedly represent.
With the rules and financial decisions it makes, an HOA board serves as a virtual mini-government for the property owners in the sub-division it represents.
Are the financial statements open and subject to review by the homeowners or does the board and/or management company put stumbling blocks in the way of seeing how money is spent?
I was surprised and saddened to read the scope of the UNC cheating scandal that spanned 18 years, but I should have expected it.
Full disclosure requires me to say I am not a Tar Heel fan, don’t bleed Carolina Blue and don’t even like the color.
Nevertheless, I always had a certain respect for the fact that UNC generally fielded highly competitive athletic teams while maintaining a solid academic reputation.
Now we know that is so much smoke and mirrors.
Once the state’s most powerful politician, Bobby Harrell may now be the state’s most important informant.
Harrell pleaded guilty to six counts of misusing campaign money being sentenced to one year in jail for each charge. The jail time will be avoided pending successful completion of three years of probation and payment of $130,000 in fines and penalties.
However, Harrell also had to agree to resign his House seat immediately and sign an agreement to cooperate with SLED and FBI investigators in any other investigations of which he may have knowledge. Part of that cooperation will include the use of a lie detector to determine Harrell’s truthfulness.
The second S.C. gubernatorial debate is history and, again, nothing happened to derail Gov. Nikki Haley’s ride to re-election.
That doesn’t mean Haley is the best candidate, or even a good one, but she has the “R” behind her name that virtually guarantees statewide office wins in South Carolina.
Watching Nikki Haley, you can almost see insincerity oozing out of every pore. Haley says what she believes she must say to toe the line on her unique brand of ultra-conservatism. Much of the time, however, Haley doesn’t look like even she believes what she says.
Speak Up…