Tag: crime

Mayor Bethune is “Miss Lead” on Ho Residency, Other Issues as Voting Nears

(The title of the cartoon accompanying this article is “Miss Lead”)
At a candidate forum hosted by the Myrtle Beach NAACP last week, Mayor Brenda Bethune made a statement that inferred opponent Gene Ho was not a resident of the city.
Bethune brought several pieces of paper to the lectern then said, “Unless something has changed in Horry County, where you pay your 4 percent primary residence property tax is where your primary residence is. (Looking at Ho) And last time I checked your primary residence is in Prestwick.”
Unfortunately for Bethune, she was working from old information. A further check would have revealed that for the current year (2021), Ho is back at his condominium in Myrtle Beach as his primary residence and the home he owns in Prestwick is back at a 6 percent tax rate and is currently being rented.
It is unclear whether Bethune’s statement was the result of incompetent opposition research, incompetent campaign messaging or both.
But why ruin a good sound bite with facts?
Another interesting statement from Bethune during the forum was, “It’s about having empathy and respect for others. That’s how we get equity, diversity and inclusion. And it’s not just about race, it’s about sexual preferences, it’s about if a child decides they want to be a male of a female, it’s about loving everyone.”
I suppose Bethune believed that statement painted her as an empathetic, loving mayor who respects her constituents.
However, the statement runs counter to her actions in office.
Where was Bethune’s empathy and respect when she led the passage of an overlay zone on Ocean Boulevard which restricted mainly Jewish owned businesses from selling products that are readily sold throughout the rest of the city?
In fact, there has been no empathy or respect shown to those businesses and others in the traditional downtown business district during Bethune’s current four-year term. That’s why there are so many empty, commercial buildings in that area.

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CRIME — DRUGS — KILLINGS — GANGS

The shooting crime on Sunday-Sept. 24th, killing a Mother and her unborn child, is the latest carnage of what happens when crazed young people that often live for today with no dreams or aspiration for tomorrow and have far too much access to firearms run loose on our streets.

Far too many times our young turn towards criminal gangs and run rampant without a restraining arm to stop them.

The unified voices of everyone in the community must assist law enforcement. to stamp out these desensitized criminal youthful gangs. 

Whatever the reason(s) to allow these unruly, hopeless youth, to run rampant in our community is just not tolerable. When innocent lives, law-abiding citizens and the tranquility of neighborhoods are affected by youth gangs causing the crimes which disturb the communities, we must afford these citizens and other children the protection they deserve. 

The Grand Strand Community Law Enforcement Appreciation Committee (CLEAC) is calling on all agencies of government to tackle the gang problems, immediately, by the development of a Blue Print for action that provides community supports and resources required to redirect our young misdirected young.

We are calling on a three-prong strategy of Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression to break the back community of gun violence. The community can no longer face the number of crimes being perpetuated, most of the time by guns.

We condone the rights for citizens to carry a firearm, as we believe in the 2nd Amendment, but we do object to the indiscriminate use and sale of firearms. We can no longer look the other way, knowing gangs are one of the principal reason for the shooting, killings, and disturbances in communities. 

The CLEAC, will be holding a meeting to address this vital issue, in the next week… The date, time, & place will be announced shortly…

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Blame Game Not Working in Myrtle Beach

A new approach to dealing with the increasing crime problems in Myrtle Beach must be found and it may take new leadership in the city to do it.

When there were shootings in the Booker T. Washington neighborhood, city council blamed the citizens in the neighborhood.

When there were shootings in the Superblock area of downtown, business owners were blamed and new restricted parking and times of business were instituted.

Recent shootings on Ocean Boulevard again saw business owners blamed for allowing an “environment that’s causing fights and violence in the streets.”

The attitude is ‘it is not city council’s fault or the fault of those charged with keeping the peace. Rather, it is the fault of those areas most affected by the violence.

And that attitude is exactly why the problems multiply year by year.

The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, which spends tens of millions of public dollars each year advertising Myrtle Beach to tourists, worries that these incidents harm the ‘Myrtle Beach brand.’

City council, the Chamber and the small group of citizens and businesses those entities actually represent are more worried about the ‘image’ projected by Myrtle Beach than the nuts and bolts actions it will take to address the problems. (Sounds like the approach of a certain group currently occupying a historic building in Washington, D.C. right now, all image, no substance.)

The Downtown Redevelopment Corporation, an agency that has spent millions of dollars of public money while accomplishing essentially nothing over the course of many years, still must answer the question exactly what are you doing to redevelop downtown Myrtle Beach?

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Gingrich, Myrtle Beach, Oil and Interstates

Crime, China, Taxes and Myrtle Beach

A little less than a year ago, Myrtle Beach Mayor John Rhodes told citizens crime in Myrtle Beach was at a 20 year low.

Last week Myrtle Beach officials hosted a forum at the Base Recreation Center near Market Common to address the heroin epidemic that is raging in Myrtle Beach and throughout Horry County.

A few days after the forum, a drug sting in the Racepath neighborhood resulted in 42 arrests for possession of controlled substances and intent to distribute controlled substances.

What changed in a year?

Well, 2015 was an election year for Myrtle Beach City Council and 2016 is not.

Another area of interest is the supposed $100 million project Chinese investors were supposed to be planning for the Myrtle Beach area.

Six months ago, Rhodes and Horry County Council Chairman Mark Lazarus traveled to China for a two week trip. Upon their return, Rhodes and Lazarus announced investors associated with the $100 million investment would be visiting the area within 60-90 days and details of the project would be made public at that time.

We are now 90 days beyond that timeframe and things have gone very quiet about the supposed project.

In the interim, we have heard Rhodes went to China for a week and has another trip planned for next week.

Meanwhile, Black Bear golf course, purchased by Chinese investors two years ago, recently closed. What does that say about Chinese investment in the area?

Maybe an indicator is the China City of America project proposed for Sullivan County, New York five years ago. Initially touted as a $6 billion project complete with a college, family residences, a theme park and a casino, the project has been scaled back to just the for-profit college for approximately 900 students, most of whom will come from China.

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Myrtle Beach Needs to Show Citizens More Respect

The harsh words between Myrtle Beach Mayor John Rhodes and community activist Tim McCray at last week’s city council meeting demonstrate how little respect city council has for the citizens it supposedly represents.

Rhodes had only recently returned from a 16 day trip to China from which he brought back expectations of a soon to come $100 million investment in the area by a Chinese group.

“We’re doing whatever we can to try and improve things and, in order to do that, you have to talk to potential investors,” Rhodes said in speaking about the trip.

Since Rhodes first ran for mayor in 2005, he has said the number one job of the mayor is to be an ambassador for Myrtle Beach.

What seems to have been forgotten in the intervening 10 years is that the mayor of Myrtle Beach also has responsibilities at home.

It’s wonderful, I guess, to go on 16 day junkets to China promoting the city. (Personally I have always preferred Europe or South America to Asia.)

But, if the city is torn by crime and disparate treatment among neighborhoods, as it obviously is, what is said overseas is just so much hot air.

Unfortunately, hot air is also what is being offered when a community comes to city council asking for help. And, to make things worse, being attacked in an arrogant, aggressive tone by the mayor.

Several community leaders, including McCray, went to city council asking the city to help in conducting a series of public forums with a view to promulgating a comprehensive plan to address crime and lack of work opportunities for Myrtle Beach community residents.

It ended with Rhodes verbally attacking and finger pointing at McCray and a visibly upset McCray retorting Rhodes’ comments were lies.

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Myrtle Beach Fantasyland

Fantasyland has arrived in Myrtle Beach.

No, it’s not a new attraction or theme park.

It’s the attitude and atmosphere that surrounds the biennial Myrtle Beach city elections.

Mayor John Rhodes (who is not up for reelection until 2017) stepped into the middle of this year’s election rhetoric a couple of nights ago at a Neighborhood Watch meeting at Market Common.

According to numerous sources at the meeting, Rhodes attacked non-incumbents running for the three city council seats in this year’s election cycle by claiming the challengers were lying to voters.

Rhodes said these challenger candidates were misleading citizens by claiming crime is an increasing problem in the city and using independent rating reports to substantiate their claims.

Rhodes referred to a city generated report which, reportedly, said crime is the lowest it’s been in the city since the city began keeping statistics 20 years ago.

According to Rhodes, crime in Myrtle Beach is at a 20-year low!

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