It was with great sadness that I watched Councilman Marion Foxworth participate in his final Horry County Council meeting Tuesday night.

With all due respect to other present and former council members, no one brought to the council dais the level of knowledge about Horry County history and the way government works as Foxworth has.

Foxworth is a master politician. Staying true to his Democratic Party roots, during a time when Horry County was moving ever more to the Republican column, he was targeted for defeat in every election campaign he ran by a succession of Horry County Republican Party chairmen.

It made no difference. Foxworth was first elected to county council in a special election in 2002 and successively re-elected in 2004, 2008 and 2012.

During his over 13 years of service on council, he proved himself to be more fiscally conservative than his Republican colleagues. I believe the only tax increase he voted for during his entire council service was the six-tenths of one mil for funding Coast RTA, but only after it was approved by voters in an advisory referendum.

When it came to the massive 6 mil fire fund increase in FY 2015 and 7.2 mil general fund increase in FY 2016, Foxworth was firmly in the NO column.