Politics

Katrina Morrison Endorses Johnny Gardner for County Chairman

Local activist and former county council chairman candidate Katrina Morrison announced yesterday that she is endorsing incumbent county council Chairman Johnny Gardner in the June 28th Republican Primary runoff election.
“There is no question Johnny Gardner is a much better choice for county council chairman than Mark Lazarus,” Morrison said. “I intend to do everything I can to see Gardner is reelected.”
One of the four candidates who initially filed in the county council chairman primary, Morrison has been a vocal critic of the virtually unrestrained development, especially in or near wetlands, that has gone on in the county in recent years.
Morrison received over 6,000 votes in the first round of the primary virtually all of which would have gone to Gardner had Morrison not been in the race, leaving Gardner and Lazarus in a virtual tie in the first round of voting.
Lazarus outspent Gardner nearly 10 to 1 in the first round of the primary with virtually all of his campaign contributions coming from the development and tourism cabal. The Lazarus campaign was also the beneficiary of four mailers paid for by the S. C. Association of Realtors PAC, which added approximately $80,000 more to the elect Lazarus effort.
The cabal’s goal is to elect candidates who will remove all restrictions on development and who will vote to use county tax dollars to fund Interstate 73 construction.

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Gardner Made the County Safer in His First Term

The election for Horry County Council Chairman is down to the same two candidates who contested the seat in 2018.
The choice is exactly the same. Chairman Johnny Gardner is the candidate of the people of Horry County while challenger Mark Lazarus is the candidate of the tourism and development cabal.
An estimated $300,000 has already been spent on Lazarus messaging of totally false statements about his record in the 2013-2018 period he served as county chairman.
Lazarus has run around the county bragging about all he did to improve public safety in the county and what a great leader he is.
Here’s the real story.
The local Fraternal Order of Police and International Association of Fire Fighters organizations both endorsed Gardner in 2018 and have done so again in 2022.
Four years ago, the county’s Public Safety Division was in terrible shape with officers routinely leaving for other jobs and morale historically low.
Gardner’s motto for his 2018 campaign was “Public Safety Priority One Day One.”

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Last Minute Swamp Tricks in 7th Congressional District Race

Three months ago, 7th Congressional District candidate Mark McBride claimed that Myrtle Beach SC publisher David Hucks offered a bribe to McBride on behalf of candidate Ken Richardson.
According to McBride’s subsequent Facebook rant, McBride was asked to drop out of the 7th Congressional District race and throw his support to Richardson for the promise of some type of job.
Grand Strand Daily has learned that SLED will issue a press release shortly, which will state after an investigation McBride’s claims were found to be totally without merit.
The fact that there was no basis for McBride’s rant is not surprising. He was never going to be a factor in this race whether he stayed in or got out. Tomorrow’s voting will demonstrate that statement.
But, there is quite possibly a darker side to this entire affair. Richardson was an early candidate in the race building momentum against incumbent Tom Rice.
Then, Gov. Henry McMaster and SCGOP Chairman Drew McKissick worked hard to get an endorsement candidate Russell Fry by Donald Trump.
According to information received by Grand Strand Daily, SLED completed its investigation of the false claim within several weeks and the report of the investigation lay untouched in the office of Attorney General Alan Wilson for at least eight weeks.
Now, in the late afternoon of the day before polls open and after the two-week period for early voting has ended, the announcement will be made that there is no wrongdoing on Richardson’s part.

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Cabal Flooding Dollars to Defeat People’s Candidates in Tuesday Primary Elections

There are reasons hundreds of thousands of dollars are being spent by candidates hand-picked by the development and tourism cabal for county council and other races in Tuesday’s primary elections.
Those reasons are not to improve Hwy 90 or 905, improve flood mitigation efforts or increase public safety resources.
Those reasons are to control enough votes on county council to pass cabal favored issues such as local funding for Interstate 73 and several upcoming development schemes that will net cabal players tens of millions of dollars in their pockets.
The old saying ‘you have to spend money to make money’ is in play – spend money on the campaigns of certain candidates to make money when the votes go in the right direction.
The last time I remember this level of spending, especially on county council races, was in the elections prior to the push for approval of the Burroughs and Chapin Multi County Business Park development concept over 20 years ago. Some of the same players involved with campaign funding of preferred candidates then are back again in this round of campaign financing.
The most contributions to individual campaigns are those of Mark Lazarus for Horry County Council Chairman and Jenna Dukes for Horry County Council District 1.
The belief is Horry County Council Chairman Johnny Gardner and Horry County Council District 1 member Harold Worley have to be removed from office for cabal plans to go forward.

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Update on School Board Chairman Race

Voters will be voting Tuesday for which of three candidates they want to lead the policy making board of Horry County Schools for the next four years.
Two of those candidates, David Cox and Helen Smith, are currently serving members of the school board. The third candidate is retiring teacher Darrell Ricketts. Smith, in fact, has prior service as school board chairman, although Smith’s six-year tenure as chairman ended 20 years ago.
Ricketts presents an interesting question about his qualifications to lead the school board.
I researched old files to review the reasons for Ricketts dismissal as principal from Aynor High School in summer 2004.
Ricketts served as principal of Aynor High School from 1994-2004 until he was removed from that position after an independent investigation, ordered by the school district, concluded in its report that Ricketts improperly altered transcripts and tampered with grades and credits in an attempt to manipulate the school’s state report card rating.
In an initial response to the investigative findings in the report, Ricketts called them one opinion that he disputed.
Later media reports quoted Ricketts as saying his actions were civil disobedience (the refusal to comply with certain laws as an act of protest) to keep marginal students in school.
However, his actions were also apparently taken to get around exit exam requirements established by state legislation.
A Sun News editorial of November 18, 2004 stated, “Ricketts gave up on the youngsters for whose benefit he manipulated the testing system. In doing so, he effectively denied them their last chance to learn critical skills they need to be successful as adults. For that reason, especially, he deserves the punishment that the Horry County Schools bestowed upon him.”
It is now up to voters to decide if those past actions are acceptable in someone who is a candidate for the chair of the policy making body of Horry County Schools.

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Cabal Candidates vs. the People’s Chairman in County Chairman Primary

The current campaign for the Republican nomination for Chairman of Horry County Council is a contest to decide whether the citizens of Horry County will have their voices heard for the next four years or whether the tourism and development cabal will call the shots over that period.
One only has to look at campaign disclosure reports of the candidates to see the money that has been lavished on the cabal ‘A team’ candidate Mark Lazarus and the cabal ‘B team’ candidate Johnny Vaught in an effort to unseat current Chairman Johnny Gardner.
In a nearly constant stream of mailers and television and radio ads, Lazarus has attempted to rewrite the history of the 2013-2018 period he served as chairman of county council as well as his “leadership” abilities.
The alternate reality is that Lazarus has a proven record of investing in road and infrastructure improvements, supporting police and fire first responders and recruiting industry to diversify the economy.
The $600 million in roads and infrastructure stated on the Lazarus campaign literature actually refers to the Ride III projects. Ride projects are identified by an independent commission, approved by an up or down vote of county council with no amendments allowed and submitted to the voters in a referendum for approval and funding by a one-cent local option sales tax. The chairman and county council in toto have virtually nothing to do with Ride projects decisions or approval.
Lazarus’ alleged support for public safety is virtually non-existent. There is a reason that the local branches of the Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Fire Fighters endorsed the candidacy of Gardner over Lazarus in 2018 and have again endorsed Gardner in the current 2022 campaign.

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Are Voters Being Asked to Allow District 1 to Become the New ‘Dukes of Hazzard’?

In Horry County, where politics is often a full contact sport, the campaign to defeat Harold Worley for the Republican nomination for Horry County Council District 1 will go down in history as one of the ugliest ever fought.
Since the beginning of the campaign, information from the campaign of Worley’s opponent, Jenna Dukes, has misrepresented Worley’s record on county council.
Mailers from the Dukes campaign say Worley is a millionaire developer “who does not reflect the concerns or needs of the residents of District 1.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. No member of county council has more consistently voted against special interests and for the needs of average citizens than Worley during his 20 years on county council.
Whether or not Dukes is aware of Worley’s voting history, her handlers and contributors, solid members of the developer cabal, certainly are.
Dukes’ signs are prominently displayed on the trucks of the A. O. Hardee and Son, owned by developer Benji Hardee. You can’t go past land being developed in District 1 without seeing Dukes signs prominently displayed.
There is no question there is a candidate for the development cabal in the Horry County District 1 race, but that candidate is not Harold Worley.

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County Council Candidate Brings Unique Experience to Development Issues

David Ellis, a candidate for Horry County Council District 8, is developing a plan to help county planners with infrastructure needs associated with new growth.
“Development in Horry County is not going to go away as some residents seem to wish,” said Ellis. “Council must be constantly aware of infrastructure needs, especially roads, when considering new development rezoning requests.”
Ellis believes he can bring his unique experience in the development industry to help county council discussions on improving infrastructure in growth areas.
“I believe I can bring a different perspective to council, especially where rezonings are being considered,” said Ellis.
That different perspective includes using state laws that provide for local agencies to do what is called a Public Works assessment.
A Public Works assessment can be thought of as a complement to impact fees without the onerous charges the state impact fee law causes on commercial structures.

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Local Veterans Dump Fry to Support Richardson

A group of local disabled veterans who initially supported Russell Fry for the 7th Congressional District Republican nomination because of the Trump endorsement, have decided to switch candidates and now say they will vote for Ken Richardson.
Several of these veterans were included in the veterans’ coalition helping the Fry campaign.
The reason for the switch, simply put, is Fry wouldn’t listen to concerns of the veterans. Richardson did listen.
“The veterans coalition was a way for Fry to get vets together to give him talking points,” said former coalition member Keith Brooks. “Russell never gave us more than a minute or two to hear our story. You can’t tell Russell anything,”
“Russell is trying to be just another career politician,” said Brooks. “The last thing we need is another self-absorbed ladder climber.”
The story the veterans wanted to tell was the personal difficulties they have experienced in trying to obtain medical care at the Myrtle Beach VA Outpatient Clinic at Market Common.

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Howard Spreading False Narrative of his Record in Campaign for Reelection

Horry County incumbent District 2 council member Bill Howard is another spinning creative reworking of history to influence voters in next week’s Republican Primary.
Howard tries to present himself as a council member who works for the people, but reading his campaign disclosure reports it is apparent that Howard is funded by the same developer and tourism cabal interests who also fund Mark Lazarus, Jenna Dukes, Johnny Vaught and Carla Schuessler to name a few.
In a recent mailer, Howard listed among his accomplishments, “Working hard to keep the budget balanced and keeping property taxes low. No increase.”
Howard is on record voting for the largest tax increases in Horry County history – 7.2 mils plus stormwater fee and road maintenance fee increases in 2015 and 7.5 mils and another stormwater fee increase in 2021. This is hardly the work of a council member bragging about “no increase.”
Howard listed another accomplishment as being “proactive in addressing flooding problems.” However, it its rating of the voting records of county council members on flood mitigation legislation , Horry County Rising rated Howard and Vaught tied for the bottom position.

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