Tag: Horry County Council

Random Thoughts on the 1,000 Year Flood

Sitting through the last three days of Nikki Haley’s 1,000 Year Flood, I had the sense of Yogi Berra’s “déjà vu all over again.”

If you are in a flooded home or on a flooded street, you may not believe this, but I feel Horry County at least partially dodged a bullet with this storm.

To me, Hurricane Floyd and its aftermath in 1999 was worse in Horry County. Not by much, but worse.

What makes this storm Haley’s “1,000 Year Flood” is the rain and flooding was much wider spread throughout the state than it was in 1999. Floyd was a coastal storm that dumped a lot of rain. but didn’t hit the midlands and upstate like this one.

The Carolina Forest area, which saw significant flooding over the last few days, was in its very early stages of development in 1999. Other neighborhoods that are now flooded didn’t exist when Floyd came through.

You can only put so much asphalt and concrete in a coastal plain before problems develop. But, housing demand and an expanding tax base will trump other discussions every time.

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Horry County Schools Selection Committee

A Horry County Schools committee is scheduled to recommend next month which design-build team has been chosen to build each of five new schools.

After the recommendations are made by the Horry County Schools Selection Committee, the full Horry County School Board will vote either up or down on the recommendations.

The three teams remaining in the selection process are First Floor Energy Positive, Thompson Turner Construction and M.B. Kahn Construction Co.

Each team submitted two to five specific projects to be evaluated. Evaluation of each proposal will include school district emphasis on the ability to deliver high quality, energy positive schools.

According to sources familiar with the process, the Selection Committee is scheduled to complete its work by October 12, 2015. However, those sources say this deadline may be difficult to achieve.

Of the three remaining teams, M.B. Kahn is the most familiar to Horry County.

It served as the project manager for the new terminal building at Myrtle Beach International Airport.

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I&R Recommends HCSWA Contract

The Horry County Infrastructure and Regulation Committee voted Thursday to recommend passage of third reading of the budget amendment for the HCSWA recycling contract.

That recommendation will go forward to full council at its October 6, 2015 regular meeting.

If this recommendation is acted upon by full council with a favorable super majority vote, as it is expected to at this time, the recycling contract between the HCSWA and Charleston County will move forward without any further clouds over its head at present.

Part of that budget amendment requires HCSWA officials to come before the I&R Committee monthly with reports on recycling tonnage received, percentage of rejects in that waste stream, income received from sales of the recyclables and expenses associated with the running of the HCSWA material recovery facility among other items.

An additional requirement associated with the contract was a requirement by members of Horry County Council that any rejects or unsold recyclables that were taken to the HCSWA landfill for disposal were not to displace any available airspace for normal county uses.

As a result, the HCSWA entered into a contract to ship out of the county at least an amount of construction and demolition debris tonnage equal to the tonnage of recycling rejects and unsellable items taken to the HCSWA landfill for disposal.

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HCSWA Recycling Contract

The details of the HCSWA recycling contract with Charleston County should become clearer before this week is over.

The HCSWA board will meet this afternoon. Included on the board agenda is a timeline discussion by executive director Danny Knight to answer questions about why the process took so long from first discussions with Charleston County to reach the HCSWA board and Horry County Council.

The Horry County Infrastructure and Regulation Committee will meet Thursday. The I&R agenda includes a discussion about the contract between the HCSWA and Charleston County, including the assumptions that go into the calculation of profit for the HCSWA.

According to reports from Charleston County, the county spent $8 million on recycling at its Romney Street facility last fiscal year and recyclables sold garnered $1.7 million.

There are some questions among committee members and others interested in the project why the same recyclables, with the added cost of trucking, can be processed at a profit in Horry County.

Additionally, sources familiar with the contract approval process say the Charleston County has purchased (or is in the process of purchasing) equipment to repair its Romney Street facililty in order to process recyclables in county in the near future.

Those sources predict the contract between Charleston County and the HCSWA will be cancelled within 90-120 days regardless of what happens with third reading of the budget amendment ordinance by Horry County Council.

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County Council Mistake on MBREDC

Horry County Council is about to make another mistake with regard to the MBREDC.

Council will vote Tuesday night on extending its funding contract to the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation for another year. This would commit the county to three more years of funding from the current two.

County council should not have agreed to a new two-year contract when considering its budget for the current fiscal year. It is making a terrible mistake extending the contract.

The excuse is a new executive director for the MBREDC, for which there is a search currently ongoing, will want a three-year contract to agree to a deal.

But, with the history of the MBREDC, not only in its current iteration, but also in all the ones that came before, county council would do better if it burned $1.1 million in the parking lot of the government center as give this agency another dime!

What it is doing here is giving away tax dollars to an agency whose only goal is to give away more tax dollars to bribe companies to relocate to Horry County.

And, it doesn’t do that well!

All we have to do is remember AvCraft, Project Blue, Ithaca Gun Company and PTR Industries to see how woeful has been the performance of MBREDC.

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HCSWA Info to Council Faulty

Horry County Council received faulty information about the HCSWA dealings with Charleston County during its regular meeting last week.

I do not believe the intent was to provide false information. Rather, I believe it was the result of information being provided sparingly when it should have been discussed openly and shared from a much earlier date.

Several council members were very upset about being asked to quickly consider a budget amendment for the HCSWA budget after a contract was signed and Charleston County trash was already making its way to Horry County.

Council member Johnny Vaught asked when the first contact was made between Charleston County and the HCSWA board. Authority board chairman Lance Thompson said HCSWA staff was first contacted May 28, 2015.

Vaught asked when the HCSWA board became involved in the contract decision. Thompson said a couple weeks later the board was notified, then, at a board meeting the board voted to allow staff to negotiate.

Vaught said, “Essentially negotiations had not begun until you (HCSWA board) were contacted and you guys voted to go ahead.” Thompson agreed that was correct.

Council member Gary Loftus stated he understood Sonoco, the company that was running the Charleston County material recycling facility, had given notice in December 2014 that it was considering terminating its contract with Charleston County.

A representative from Sonoco said the company informed Charleston County that it was unable to operate the Charleston County MRF economically and notified the county it would cease operations July 31, 2015 under the termination clause. In addition, Sonoco took the decision because of the limited progress made toward Charleston County’s commitment to build a new, more efficient MRF.

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Saving HCSWA Recycling Deal?

As expected, a full court press was applied yesterday to try and save the HCSWA – Charleston County recycling deal.

Unfortunately, this appears to be a full court press applied at the wrong time, in the wrong place for the wrong reasons.

The press is being applied to the council members who voted “No” on second reading of a budget amendment needed to allow the recycling deal to continue. With enough pressure, it is hoped that at least two will change their minds and vote to pass second reading after a reconsideration motion.

In other words, the press is strictly in the political arena while the problems are in the institutional oversight of solid waste matters within Horry County.

These are exactly the same types of problems that led Horry County Council to pass a flow control ordinance governing all solid waste in the county only to realize five years later that the ordinance was flawed in concept and needed to be amended.

The debate was fully political, not about policy. A few members of HCSWA staff combined with a few members of county staff to make dire predictions about what would happen to solid waste handling within the county if flow control was not enacted.

None of the dire predictions were true, as experience has taught us since 2009.

The HCSWA fought against amending the flow control ordinance, including spending over $1 million with a lobbyist, again with dire predictions that were just as false.

In fact, the amendment, which allows construction and demolition debris to be taken to any approved landfill, works in favor of the citizens of Horry County be reducing the amount of space used in the landfill thereby extending its life.

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Council Nixes HCSWA – Charleston County Contract

Horry County Council failed to pass second reading of a budget amendment that is required for the HCSWA to take recyclables from Charleston County.

A budget amendment requires an absolute super majority vote of council, nine “Yes” votes, in order to pass.

The amendment received a vote of 7-4. A vote of 9-2 was required to pass second reading. Horry County Council District 3 is without a member pending a special election this fall to replace Marion Foxworth who resigned after the August 18th council meeting to accept the Registrar of Deeds job.

Without a budget amendment approved by county council, the Horry County Solid Waste Authority has no authority to contract with Charleston County to take recyclables from Charleston County.

But, the HCSWA already has signed that contract and has been processing recyclables from Charleston County since late July.

And, it’s not the contract itself that caused four council members to vote against the budget amendment Tuesday night.

Rather, it’s the process, or lack of it, that the HCSWA used to come to an agreement with Charleston County in the first place.

According to past statements by several HCSWA officials, Charleston County first approached the HCSWA in late May 2015 about taking recyclables for processing at the HCSWA material recovery facility on Hwy 90.

At that point, the HCSWA should have informed Horry County Council what was being discussed and the ramifications for the HCSWA budget, which is part of the overall county budget approved by council.

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International Drive Compromise Rejected

The Coastal Conservation League has rejected the latest effort at compromise over International Drive offered by Horry County.

According to sources familiar with the negotiations, Horry County offered a compromise that did not include bear tunnels.

Those sources say the CCL is insisting on one bear tunnel be included in the project.

According to Horry County officials, including a bear tunnel at this late date would require a total re-engineering of the project costing more than $1 million additional and would delay the start of construction for up to as much as two years.

No official agency, such as SCDOT, SCDNR, SCDHEC and the US Army Corps of Engineers, sees a need for even one bear tunnel in the project because the bear population in the area has seriously dwindled since the 2009 fire that swept through part of the Lewis Ocean Bay Preserve.

Additionally, an effort to harvest some of the remaining bear population allows for hunting of bears with a special permit during a portion of the year.

No word has been received on whether the CCL has requested a contested hearing over the International Drive project in the Administrative Law Court, but that move is expected by Horry County officials.

It is now questionable whether the CCL was ever negotiating in good faith with Horry County or whether this was just another delaying tactic since a SCDHEC committee rejected the request by the CCL for a final review of the International Drive project.

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International Drive Latest

Letters are still being exchanged between Horry County and the Coastal Conservation League as the court filing deadline looms.

After the second meeting between Horry County officials and the conservationists ended abruptly with the demand of an additional $1.6 million payment from Horry County to The Nature Conservancy, Horry County sent a letter to the CCL to see if there were still possible areas of agreement.

According to sources close to the negotiations, the CCL answered with a letter and the county responded to that letter yesterday.

According to those sources, the CCL request for a $1.6 million payment from Horry County and the bear tunnels have been removed from the CCL demands.

Those two events would seem to put the two sides close enough together so that an agreement could be reached avoiding a request by the CCL for a contested hearing in Administrative Law Court.

However, as we have seen with this issue, nothing can be taken for granted.

In the meantime, the group from the Hwy 90/Carolina Forest area that went down to demonstrate in front of the CCL offices in Georgetown Wednesday is to be congratulated.

Citizens’ entrance into the political discussion that is the International Drive issue is important for both sides to understand.

The chant of “What do we want? International Drive, When do we want it? NOW” sums up the citizens’ position on the issue.

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