Monday, March 16, 2026
The Horry County School Board has completely mishandled the resignation of Superintendent Dr. Cindy Elsberry.
To pay someone who has resigned their position nearly $430,000 of taxpayer money with no explanation and then to use a disparagement clause in the negotiated agreement as the excuse for not talking is the height of arrogance.
Board chairman Joe DeFeo may be influenced by his New Jersey roots in thinking ‘Silence is Golden’ on this issue but it isn’t playing well among voters.
It’s two weeks til Christmas and Horry County Council is in the gift giving mood to AvCraft again.
This is an act that plays in December almost as regularly as “A Christmas Story.”
And every time it plays it provides another lesson about everything that is wrong with the concept of giving incentives to companies in the name of economic development.
What it really boils down to is corporate welfare.
A bill prefiled with the S.C. Senate last week could go a long way toward limiting the excesses of economic development incentive agreements between government and private business.
S. 134, with senators Tom Davis and George Campsen as sponsors, would tighten down on not only what, but how governments can give away public money as an economic development incentive.
Most importantly, it would make the process transparent so the taxpayer could see in advance just how much public money is being thrown at a company to relocate, or expand its business.
Ethics reform and a gas tax increase head the bills prefiled in the S.C. Senate December 3rd.
Sen. Larry Martin is again attempting to end the practice of the S.C. House Ethics Committee and the S.C. Senate Ethics Committee from policing members of their own bodies and meeting in secret. Martin is proposing revamping the State Ethics Commission so it will have first look at ethics complaints against state legislators before those complaints go to the House or Senate ethics committees.
Martin’s bill would also require candidates and public officials to disclose more details about their incomes; bring political groups back into the reporting fold for revenue and expenses and tighten laws on how campaign funds may be spent.
The Atlantic Beach Bikefest announced tentative agreement on a 23-mile traffic pattern yesterday achieving its number one goal.
The goal? Sealing off the north end neighborhoods of Myrtle Beach from bikefest traffic as much as possible.
Beyond that goal, there doesn’t seem to be much planning at this point.
A story making its way around the state is that S.C. Education Lottery scholarships are costing taxpayers money from the state’s general fund budget.
This is one way of looking at expenditures on the LIFE and Palmetto Fellows scholarships, but it’s too simplistic.
The LIFE scholarship pays up to $5,000 per year to qualifying students statewide while the Palmetto Scholars scholarship pays $6,700 for the freshman year and $7,500 for the sophomore through senior years of college matriculation to qualifying students.
As riots go, even in this country, the one in Ferguson, Missouri is a pretty small deal.
But, it does demonstrate that this supposed nation of opportunity, at least equal opportunity, is still more myth than reality.
Riots generally result from frustration and at least perceived injustice and inequality whether it be Lexington and Concord in 1775, Paris in 1789, western Europe in 1848, Russia in 1917 or Ferguson today.
The S.C. General Assembly will be hearing proposals for new taxes in January and they won’t be coming from Democrats.
It looks like Grover Norquist and his pledge will be forgotten when the S.C. General Assembly convenes in January looking for more money for the state’s crumbling roads and inadequate schools.
Need more funding for road maintenance and repair? Raise the gas tax.
Need more money for schools? Pass a new property tax.
The process for bidding for work at the Horry County Solid Waste Authority (HCSWA) appears to have serious flaws with respect to how public dollars are spent.
The flaws became apparent during a workshop held Thursday November 20, 2014 to discuss why approval of a change order in the amount of $395,000 was justified for current work on the East Hill Fill Closure Project.
When an RFQ for a project at the HCSWA is publicized requesting bids, authority contract engineer Vance Moore told the board, the specifications in the RFQ for scope of work and material needed are only estimates.
A S.C. House Ethics and Freedom of Information Act Study Committee will recommend legislation that could make government information more open to request.
The committee is proposing to put a time limit on the production of public documents of between 30-35 days after an FOIA request is agreed to.
However, like everything regarding public information in South Carolina, there is a hitch. After two free hours of work on producing the documents, a public agency would be able to charge the citizen requesting the documents up to $100 per hour for the time needed to fulfill the FOIA request.
Speak Up…