Author: Paul Gable

Committee Disappoints on HCSWA Contract

The Horry County Administration Committee’s requests Thursday regarding a potential contract between the HCSWA and Charleston County were disappointing.

The Horry County Solid Waste Authority has been in negotiations with Charleston County to take its recyclables while a new material recycling facility is constructed in Charleston County.

One reason Charleston County approached Horry County is they stepped up to help the HCSWA when the old HCSWA MRF on Hwy 701 North burned some years ago.

But, the Administration Committee seemed to forget that when discussing potential contract terms with HCSWA officials at its meeting Thursday.

Horry County Council Chairman Mark Lazarus was reasonable in his initial comments, “I don’t want residuals to go in our landfill. I don’t have any problem doing it (taking Charleston County recyclables.) We need to be very careful in the final document that we don’t lose any money and it is not at the detriment of our landfill or at the detriment of the flow control ordinance.”

However, after an executive session regarding contract terms, Lazarus made a motion that “this body tell the HCSWA to move forward under the conditions that provisions stricken (from the original contract proposal) by Charleston County be put back in plus the contract have a 30 day opt out clause.”

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Chris Bain Understands Sacrifice

One might have expected that Chris Bain would serve in the military.

He was after all born at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in southern California and every male in his family had served in one branch of the military or another.

Obviously, he was going to enter the military, but the question remained — what branch.

“My dad was a Marine. My dad educated me and said don’t be a Marine just because I am a Marine and to pick the branch I wanted. I researched the Army and the Marines,” said Bain, who lives in Pennsylvania and was in Shelby County earlier this month as part of Indiana Grand Racing and Casino’s Salute to Our Armed Forces presentation, along with Helping Hands For Freedom.

“I had both the Army and Marines recruiters sitting there and I asked them both one question that helped me make my decision. I asked them if I didn’t like my career choice, could I change it. The Marines recruiter said no. The Army recruiter said I could put in a request and I liked his answer and decided to go with the Army. I tell people all the time when I was born, I was one of the few and the proud and when it came time for me to serve, I wanted to be all I could be,” Bain said.

In 1992, Bain enlisted in the Army and was sent to Somalia.

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Russell Fry Wins First Round

Russell Fry won the first round of the special Republican Primary for SC House District 106.

Fry gathered 1,152 votes for 44.88 percent of the votes cast. Tyler Servant, Horry County Council District 5 representative, was second with 851 votes or 33.15 percent. Roy Sprinkle finished in third place with 374 votes, 14.57 percent and Sam Graves had 190 votes for 7.4 percent of the vote.

Fry and Servant will face off in a special primary runoff in two weeks to see who will gain the Republican nomination and only name on the ballot for the September 15, 2015 special general election as the Democrats have no one in the race.

Fry, in his first attempt at elected office, said he was in complete disbelief when the returns started coming in and he was leading in the vast majority of precincts reporting.

“As late as yesterday (Monday), I was talking to people who didn’t know there was a special election,” Fry said. “I consider this a stunning upset in the first round, but the real work begins now.”

For Servant, it is the first time he has finished outside of first place in his short political career. He finished first in the primary voting for Horry County Council District 5 last June and won the runoff. He was unopposed in the general election.

Servant only assumed his county council seat January 1, 2015 and already he is looking to move on. Maybe he is finding out when you ask people to vote for you, they don’t expect you to come back after only seven months in office looking to get elected to something else.

One would think his political consultant and other advisors would have warned Servant that jumping into one race after another, as opportunity appears to present itself, makes it look like he is more interested in himself than the citizens he purports to represent.

We’ll see in two weeks.

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International Drive Clears One Hurdle

The International Drive project jumped one hurdle yesterday when a SCDHEC committee rejected another review requested by two environmental groups.

The committee voted 3-0 to reject a request for review of the project by the Coastal Conservation League and SC Wildlife Federation who put in a last minute appeal July 10, 2015 to stop SCDHEC and the US Army of Corps of Engineers from issuing permits that would have allowed construction to go forward.

It is expected an appeal will be filed with the Administrative Law Court within the 30 day required period.

The two environmental groups objected to the elimination of three bear tunnels that had been included in the project at one point and to a four lane instead of a two lane roadway.

At the time, we called this ecoterrorism in the form of delaying the project for as long as possible, a move that has been going on since 2007 in one form or another.

According to sources familiar with the committee deliberations, one SCDHEC board member asked if Horry County and the environmental groups would agree to a compromise of one bear tunnel instead of the three the environmentalists were requesting in an effort to avoid more legal proceedings. Evidently nothing was mentioned regarding two v. four lanes.

An attorney for the environmentalists reportedly called the compromise plan interesting and worth exploring.

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Special Election Voting on the South End

Voters on the south end of Horry County will have special elections at least the next two and probably three Tuesdays.

Beginning tomorrow, voters in House District 106 will get their first crack at selecting a Republican nominee to replace Rep. Nelson Hardwick who resigned in the spring.

Russell Fry, Sam Graves, Dr. Roy Sprinkle and recently elected Horry County Council member for District 5 Tyler Servant will vie for the Republican nomination.

There are no Democrats or third party candidates in the race.

If no candidate receives 50 percent plus one vote from the voters who show up to the polls, a runoff election among the top two vote getters in the House District 106 race will be held Tuesday August 11th.

In between those two dates, the special general election for Horry County Council District 6 will be held Tuesday August 4th.

Republican nominee Cam Crawford will be the only name on the ballot, but we are hearing rumblings of a possible write-in vote campaign in a stop Crawford effort.

Write-in campaigns are difficult in the best of times, but voters who support Crawford should get out to the polls next week.

Voter turnout has been exceptionally low in the special primary summer elections. The District 6 primary saw 7% of eligible voters go to the polls.

Only a few hundred votes are needed to be elected in any of these races.

If you are a supporter of any of the candidates, be sure you make it to the polls. It is this type of low turnout special election where one vote can make a difference.

Our pick for tomorrow?

Fry and Servant will face off in a primary election runoff in two weeks.

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Horry County General Aviation Problems

An email making its way around the county highlights continuing problems with general aviation at the Horry County Department of Airports.

Discussions about general aviation were taken up during the Horry County Council March 2015 budget retreat. It was mentioned that the county’s general aviation operations were running approximately $400,000 in the red.

There is a general aviation terminal at Myrtle Beach International Airport and general aviation airports in North Myrtle Beach, Conway and Loris.

At the time of the budget retreat, GSD wrote that the problem was the county, and specifically Horry County Department of Airports, has neither a real business plan nor any idea how to develop one.

That’s a main reason the International Technology and Aerospace Park (ITAP) at Myrtle Beach International remains nothing but bare grass and why the nearly 200 acres of county land surrounding Grand Strand Airport in North Myrtle Beach has no aviation related businesses located there.

This was reiterated in the email, which was sent by a long time aviation business operating in the county, “I would tell you that you need someone in this job that understands aviation, how to promote it and educate the public on the benefits derived from it. Above all, a complete change of attitude on how best to attract good solid business people at these facilities to service the aviation community. Only then will these four airports become productive and useful to the county.”

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Budgets - Cuts, Spending and You

Ecoterrorism and Public Dollars

Last week I did an article on ecoterrorism causing further delays in the International Drive project.

The form of ecoterrorism I was talking about consists of environmental groups essentially taking the stand ‘submit to our demands or we will delay your project ad infinitum.’

The International Drive project is not unique in the use of this technique.

The environmental groups will tell you they don’t threaten or bully anybody, but the effect appears to produce the same result. And this ecoterrorism is apparently not limited to the specific requirements of a project. It can apparently go well beyond those parameters if the environmental groups desire.

An example is the wetlands mitigation done for the Boeing plant in North Charleston.

General obligation economic development bonds were issued by the state of South Carolina to pay for infrastructure associated with the construction of facilities to ultimately be used by the Boeing assembly line. Included was a $5 million bond for wetland mitigation.

After paying the issuance cost of $250,000, the remaining $4,750,000 of bond proceeds were paid into the account of ACRET (Ashley Cooper River Environmental Trust), a non-profit entity established by the SC Department of Commerce.

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HCSWA Board Gives Go to Contract Talks

The HCSWA board gave solid waste authority staff approval yesterday afternoon to negotiate a recycling contract with Charleston County.

HCSWA board members heard a short presentation on the proposed contract from authority staff, then, asked questions about the proposal for over an hour before voting 7-0 to move forward.

Contract negotiations between HCSWA staff and Charleston County staff will go forward based on the projections presented during the presentation with key items requested by HCSWA board members included.

The contract will only be for recyclable materials generated in Charleston County, basically from its curbside pickup operations.

Key elements that board members requested to be included in the contract were a 90 day notice termination clause by either party for any reason, arrangements with Charleston County for removal of any residual waste from recycling operations so residual waste will not be buried in the HCSWA landfill and do everything possible to make sure the HCSWA will not lose money on the deal.

According to the staff presentation, a base market value per ton will be negotiated for the sale of the recycled material. If the revenue falls more than 10% below the BMV, Charleston County will make up the difference to get back to the 10% margin. If the revenue exceeds the BMV by more than 10%, revenue above that threshold will be shared according to a negotiated percentage between Horry and Charleston counties.

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HCSWA Board to Hear Recycling Proposal

The HCSWA (Horry County Solid Waste Authority) board will hear a proposal to take recyclable materials from Charleston County today.

Charleston County recycling took a big hit when Sonoco, the contractor that ran the Romney Street recycling facility for Charleston County, notified the county it would cease operating the facility July 31, 2015.

Charleston County reportedly is looking at several options but the option to truck the waste to Horry County seems most viable at this point. The HCSWA material recycling facility (MRF) has operated under capacity since it opened for operations in March 2008.

Other options for Charleston County include the county operating the Romney Street facility or hiring another contractor to operate the MRF. However, according to sources familiar with the Charleston County MRF, the Romney Street facility is reportedly old and not in good condition.

Charleston County decided last year to build a new, single stream recycling facility, but it became bogged down with a proposal from RePower South to include new and untested technology for producing fuel pellets as part of the operation.

The situation with Charleston County is compounded by the fact that Dorchester County has been taking its recyclables to the Romney Street facility and apparently must be included in the new planning. Berkeley County also shipped some recyclables to Romney Street, but it also has a contract with Sonoco with another year to run and will bring its recyclables to the North Charleston facility run by Sonoco.

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SC House District 106 Forum

The South Strand Republican Club is hosting a candidate forum for the four candidates in the SC House District 106 special election.

The forum will take place at the Horry County Burgess Community Recreation Center on Scipio Lane beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday July 21, 2015. The first hour will consist of a social hour where you can meet candidates informally. Questioning will begin at 7 p.m.

This is another opportunity for House District 106 voters to see and hear the four Republican candidates who filed for the special election Republican primary prior to voting.

The four candidates who have filed for the special Republican primary are Russell Fry, Sanford Cox “Sam” Graves, Tyler Servant and Dr. Roy Sprinkle. No Democratic candidates filed for the vacant seat.

Voting in the special primary election will be held Tuesday July 28, 2015 with a primary runoff Tuesday August 11, 2015 if no candidate garners 50% plus one of the votes cast.

Former Horry County Council member Carl Schwartzkopf will be acting as the moderator of the forum.

Questions will include both state issues and legislative delegation coordination with local governments so Horry County citizens are not forgotten in Columbia.

Special elections, especially in the summer months, can turn on a few votes. It is important to hear the candidates’ speak on their qualifications and the issues they consider most in need of addressing at the state level.

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