Friday, May 17, 2024
Those who think casino gambling is the answer to the next great tourist boom for Myrtle Beach may want to temper their enthusiasm with the Sun Cruz demise.
It was only a decade ago when casino boats were expected to flourish in Horry County and county officials were planning ways to cash in on the boom.
After several years of haggling over taxing the revenue of the boats was unsuccessful, a $7 per passenger fee was agreed to between the boats and the county.
The entire meeting took all of approximately 15 minutes – a complete waste of time.
To her credit, Haley refused to meet with the Atlantic Beach Town Council in executive session after arriving for the meeting, so a short open-session meeting resulted. A minor victory for freedom of information.
Haley addressed council for a short time, during which Haley said she would help Atlantic Beach return to the prosperity it enjoyed in the 1940′s if it would end its Memorial Day Bikefest.
Atlantic Beach Mayor Jake Evans said the town would appreciate any help that was offered, but Memorial Day Bikefest would continue.
Meeting adjourned.
You have to wonder what this was all about. Couldn’t there have been advance planning between Haley and Atlantic Beach officials so they actually accomplished something?
Gov. Nikki Haley and the Atlantic Beach Town Council are scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. Tuesday July 29th during a specially called council meeting.
To date, there is no official notice of the meeting, but it has been confirmed through media contacts.
The meeting is an apparent followup to Haley’s call for the Atlantic Beach Memorial Day Bikefest to end after the violence in Myrtle Beach two months ago associated with crowds for that event. Haley said she was going to meet with Atlantic Beach officials in June, but the meeting could not be arranged.
It has been reported that the meeting will be held in executive session. We don’t expect anything else of Haley who has made secrecy an art form during her time as governor.
Before the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation gets too involved in a search for a new CEO, Horry County Council should take a hard look at its funding of the agency.
Despite new names, reorganizations of the agency and increased funding from county council, there have been relatively few actual new jobs created over the last 20 years.
The Horry County Administration Committee is expected to receive its quarterly jobs update from the county’s grant administration department at its August 1, 2014 meeting. This will be a tally, by company, of the number of new jobs created, not announced or promised, but actual people drawing paychecks since departing EDC CEO Brad Lofton was first hired in April 2011.
Myrtle Beach City Council was informed at its council workshop today that the forced annexation referendum results from last week’s special election would have to be voided because of a “technicality.”
According to Myrtle Beach City Attorney Tom Ellenberg, the polling took place outside of the annexation area violating state law.
What is interesting about this is that the election notice for last week’s special election referendum specifically identified the polling places and their locations that would be used several weeks before the election was held. Why wasn’t this problem caught either before or immediately after the election notice appeared?
Another popular rally, Mustang Week in Horry County, has come firmly on the radar of Horry County officials after actions associated with the 2014 gathering.
There were reportedly over 2,500 cars and their owners in the Horry County last week celebrating that most American of automobiles, the Ford Mustang.
However, with popularity of social media and the apparent desire of a number of drivers for their 15 seconds of fame, the event is now under scrutiny by the Horry County Public Safety Committee.
Earlier this week, the S.C. Ethics Commission moved to restrict information flow to the media from agency personnel.
An announced new policy limits press inquiries and responses to Executive Director Herb Hayden taking the ethics commission attorney and deputy director out of the loop.
The new policy was announced by S.C. Ethics Commission chairman James Burns, a Gov. Nikki Haley appointee, during a commission meeting.
A lawsuit, with former SCGOP chairman Chad Connelly, the SCGOP executive committee and the SCGOP as defendants, will have a mediation hearing next week in an attempt to settle the case before trial.
The lawsuit was filed by Republican Party member Brian Frank on April 25, 2013 in Cherokee County court. Frank’s complaint alleges Connelly both slandered and libeled him with a series of verbal bombs in a speech to the Cherokee County GOP and in an e-mail to a wide group of party members.
In those two diatribes, Connelly compared Frank to the recent ‘Boston bombers’, accused him of “rant(ing) endlessly hateful stuff” and said Frank “has threatened me and my family.” Speaking about Frank, Connelly said, “I’m going to crush him.”
Congratulations to Myrtle Beach City Council on its 56-24 victory in Tuesday’s forced annexation referendum.
When it comes to creative ways to get around the intent of the law, or to create a new one, Myrtle Beach City Council stands preeminent.
Attaching commercial property to a residential annexation referendum, a decision in which the commercial property owners had absolutely no say, was a brilliant coup.
The vote on whether the City of Myrtle Beach will be successful in forcing at least 12 businesses into the city limits, with accompanying city taxes, will be held today.
The forced annexation of these businesses is part of an overall annexation referendum of approximately 640 acres. The initiative started with the Bridgeport community desiring annexation into the city to, hopefully, initiate road improvements.
State law prohibits forced annexation of property into city limits. One of the reasons is the additional level of taxation the properties will experience.
However, Myrtle Beach believes it has found a loophole in state law that allows the addition of commercial and undeveloped property to annexation petitions for residential property.
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