Tag: Horry County

International Drive Court Date Set

The International Drive project will have its day in court beginning February 16, 2016.

The scheduling order came down a few days ago from the Administrative Law Court. Three days have been set to hear the case.

The Administrative Law Court was established by a 1993 state law to allow citizens affected by the decisions of certain state agencies to challenge those actions. Previously, challenges were heard by hearing officers of the respective state agencies.

The lawsuit to be heard by the ALC was filed by the Coastal Conservation League and the SC Wildlife Federation. It challenges a decision by the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control to issue a water quality permit for construction and paving of International Drive to Hwy 90.

Think about this process for a minute.

The ALC was set up to allow citizens affected by decisions of state agencies to challenge those decisions.

The voters of Horry County passed the Ride II referendum, which listed International Drive as one of the projects on its list, in November 2006.

The citizens most affected by the International Drive project, those of Horry County, especially in the Carolina Forest and Hwy 90 residential areas, approved the construction project by referendum vote.

The Coastal Conservation League, which bills itself as working to protect the natural landscapes, abundant wildlife, clean water and quality of life in South Carolina, is not directly affected by the decision to go forward with International Drive.

In fact, I would submit the continued delaying tactics used by the CCL and its allies on the International Drive project works to reduce the quality of life of the citizens of Carolina Forest and Hwy 90.

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Bob Kelly Campaign Offers Bubba Owens Bribe to Quit

Bob Kelly and his consultant Jim Wiles have so little respect for Horry County voters they offered opponent Bubba Owens a bribe to quit the runoff election.

The runoff election for the Republican nomination for the vacant Horry County Council District 3 seat is set for November 17, 2015.

However, Kelly and his henchmen seem to want to avoid that by bringing Northeast big city machine politics to Horry County in the form of a bribe for Owens to quit the race.

If you question the use of the word bribe, its definition in The Free Dictionary is “Something offered to induce another to do something.” Merriam Webster dictionary states, “Something that serves to induce or influence.”

A November 6, 2015 voicemail message from Wiles to Owens’ campaign consultant said, “Team Bubba should put together a shopping list of stuff that they would want for downtown Myrtle Beach for Bob Kelly to commit to in exchange for Bubba dropping out…”

South Carolina Code of Laws Section 7-25-200 states it is unlawful to offer anything of value to induce a person to withdraw as a candidate.

The only question here is whether a court would view the offer ‘give Kelly a shopping list of what they (Owens and his consultants) want for downtown Myrtle Beach in exchange for Bubba dropping out’ as a criminal act. It certainly goes right up to that line, if it does not, in fact, cross it.

We’ll leave that decision to the solicitors and federal prosecutors. But, the message certainly violates the spirit of the law if not the actual letter of the law.

However, in addition to inducement to quit the runoff election, another criminal consideration is that Kelly’s team is offering to commit public dollars to proposed projects for the personal gain for Kelly of Owens dropping out of the election.

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Horry County General Aviation Woes in Conway

General aviation at the Conway Airport is another area in which the Horry County Department of Airports has missed the boat.

The county’s three general aviation airports, Conway, North Myrtle Beach and Loris, were a topic of specific discussion at Horry County Council’s budget retreat last spring because of the continuing deficit they generate.

Conway airport is an interesting study in what is wrong with general aviation in Horry County.

The North American Institute of Aviation relocated from Hammonton, NJ to Conway in 1978 in the same time period that Horry County government was instituting the recently passed home rule for county government.

For the next 20 years, Horry County government didn’t have worries about the Conway airport as the school thrived through close connections with the Scandinavian countries of Europe. The school paid rent to the county for the facilities it used and also was the Fixed Base Operator for Conway airport, although sources say the FBO was run to basically support the school.

In the late 1990’s NAIA enrollment began to decline because of a saturation point being reached in the number of Scandinavian pilots and new European Union laws that did not automatically accept U.S. Federal Aviation Administration certification of the pilots that trained here.

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Local Election Meanderings

If you were looking for change in last night’s local election results, as I was, this morning, at best, brings mixed feelings.

Myrtle Beach and Atlantic Beach voted for the status quo while Conway voted for change.

Incumbent council members Phil Render and Mike Chestnut were joined by former council member Mary Jeffcoat in capturing the three city council seats up for grabs in Myrtle Beach.

Pals of the incumbents, often called the Myrtle Beach Mafia, were successful in keeping former mayor Mark McBride from the winners circle with a series of negative, attack mailers in the final week of the campaign.

I guess the tourism development tax and the north end of the city will be safe for at least two more years while the rest of the city is ignored.

Atlantic Beach voters returned incumbent mayor Jake Evans. Longtime council member Josephine Isom and Jacqui Gore won the two council seats in the race.

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International Drive Stalemate

A recent meeting between residents in the SC 90 area and representatives of the Coastal Conservation League highlighted the International Drive stalemate.

According to sources familiar with the meeting, homeowners in the area want the road built and the environmentalists won’t give in unless they get their way.

Their way is to add millions of dollars to the cost of the project for bear tunnels, electronic warning signals, higher fencing and additional mitigation not needed for the project at the cost of a $1.6 million payment to The Nature Conservancy.

In other words, the environmentalist tactic is to delay the project for as long as possible and to add as much additional cost as possible in the hope the road project will be abandoned.

And I don’t believe these delaying tactics are about bears in the area at all.

Fifteen years ago, the Horry County Solid Waste Authority board discussed using authority funds to pave International Drive as a means of reducing garbage truck traffic on SC 90.

The environmentalists were never heard from during these discussions.

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Gingrich, Myrtle Beach, Oil and Interstates

Horry County – Myrtle Beach Land Deal

Horry County and the City of Myrtle Beach are investigating a joint purchase of the former Hard Rock Theme Park.

According to sources familiar with the talks, the reason for the purchase is to build additional sports fields for the sports tourism industry.

This is not a good idea on several levels.

Horry County and Myrtle Beach should not use public tax dollars for the purchase of land and construction of sports facilities for the tourism industry.

Horry County just raised property taxes by 7.2 mils (the maximum increase allowed by state law) for this current fiscal year ostensibly for pay increases and public safety improvements.

Now it not only proposes to use tax dollars to purchase land and build sports fields, but the purchase of the former theme park property by local governments would remove that land from the tax rolls, a double whammy for local taxpayers.

Horry County already wastes over $1 million per year funding the operations budget of the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation. If this is such a good idea, shouldn’t MBREDC be able to recruit private business to purchase the land and build the facilities?

Myrtle Beach raises tens of millions of tax dollars, with its one cent tourism sales tax, that it turns over to the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce to use for tourism advertising. This is something that should be funded by marketing budgets of the private businesses in the tourism industry.

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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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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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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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