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Decisions by County Government Determined by Who the Voters Elect

Ultimately the type of government we have is a consequence of those we elect to serve in it.

In Horry County, I submit some of our incumbent council members are the wrong choice. These are charlatans who hold elective office for self-aggrandizing, self-enriching or ego boosting reasons, or some combination thereof.

They are happy to serve themselves, their large campaign donors and those they perceive to be power brokers. The needs of the citizens at large are a rare afterthought.

For decades, the development industry in Horry County has held influence over this type of council member, using that influence to get virtually anything it wanted, including developing wetlands, flood plains and areas without the necessary supporting infrastructure, approved by council.

Three council members up for reelection who fit completely into that mold are Dennis Disabato, Cam Crawford and Gary Loftus, in my opinion. Disabato and Crawford each draw over 50% of their campaign contributions from the development industry. Loftus was appointed to the advisory board of a developer funded institute at Coastal Carolina University that the development donors hoped would “tell their side”, as one of the big donors put it, on any study completed by the institute.

Crawford, Loftus and Disabato strongly supported the reelection of Mark Lazarus two years ago. After Lazarus lost the council chairman seat to Johnny Gardner, they bought into the fictitious plot, devised by former administrator Chris Eldridge, in consultation with Lazarus, to attempt to keep Gardner from taking office.

After a SLED investigation concluded there was nothing to the allegations by Eldridge, these three did everything they could to keep Eldridge in his administrator’s position including a bombastic display by Disabato in a special council meeting held to discuss Eldridge’s future.

They continue to support the Lazarus agenda two years after Lazarus lost a primary for reelection. For example, when Lazarus worked behind the scenes to get an area designated scenic and conservation rezoned for development, Crawford, Loftus and Disabato voted for the rezoning regardless of the potential flooding issues associated with the development.

Council will be making important decisions over the next few years regarding land use regulations, impact fees and improvements to the county’s stormwater management plan. Citizens need council members who will consider the welfare of the county as a whole as these important issues are considered, not ones who consider nothing more than what developers want.

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The Incumbent Campaign of Misinformation and Desperation

Misinformation and desperation are seeping into incumbent campaigns as we move toward primary voting Tuesday.

We have seen the SCGOP ignore campaign finance and ethics regulations to send numerous mailers supporting the reelection of Alan Clemmons and Heather Crawford.

Why would the SCGOP feel the need to insert itself into the contests between Republican candidates?

Obviously the party leaders in Columbia are afraid of losing two representatives who will do exactly what they are told to do.

Doing what they are told to do in Columbia doesn’t help the constituents Clemmons and Crawford are supposed to serve in Horry County. That’s why the panic.

In the past several days Clemmons and Luke Rankin have posted individual pictures of themselves with President Trump. Those were photo ops taken when the president was in Horry County during the Hurricane Florence flooding.

Both reportedly talked up the Interstate 73 project to the president during that trip. If Clemmons and Rankin are as close to President Trump as they would like you to believe, where are the federal dollars to build the interstate?

In similar fashion, one of the SCGOP mailers for Crawford and Clemmons touted an endorsement of them by the governor. Again, if they are so close to the governor and the legislative leaders in Columbia, for that matter, where are the state dollars to build I-73?

Clemmons has consistently stated I-73 is his number one priority as a legislator. Yet, year after year, no money comes from the state for the project.

Meanwhile Clemmons represents a declining Myrtle Beach that he appears to ignore as the number of empty commercial buildings in the city continues to rise every year.

One of the SCGOP mailers for Crawford attempted to present her as ‘working hard’ to solve the flooding problems in her district. She has done nothing other than clean out some ditches to help the citizens devastated by repeated flooding events since 2016 nor to mitigate future flooding. Again, no state grants have been forthcoming to help these needed initiatives.

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Emotions Running High as Elections Near

Earlier this week I wrote an article about several candidates in the upcoming Republican primary elections to which some readers took offense.

That’s fine. Democracy is supposed to be messy and I don’t expect people to agree with me all the time nor I with them. If that were to happen, we wouldn’t have a democratic society, we would have a cult.

Some of the people who took difference to what I wrote were important members of the citizens’ groups who helped elect Johnny Gardner as Horry County Council Chairman in 2018.

Their and my primary goal is to elect candidates who will represent the general citizenry of Horry County, not special interests.

Specifically, they believed I was attacking Terry Fowler, a candidate for county council in District 9.

Actually that was not what I intended. What I intended was to criticize that many seemed to choose Fowler as ‘their’ candidate very early on before all the candidates in the race were even known.

When some of those other candidates emerged and a choice was already made by some voters, those candidates were immediately dismissed as candidates of the people because they sell real estate.

I don’t believe people should be condemned merely because of the job they have or the people they know.

If that were the case, consider this: there are ties in the Fowler family to a former job with what I categorize as a premier member of what I call the Myrtle Beach Mafia.  This employer was in the midst of the $325,000 in campaign donations to local and state incumbents who were responsible for the establishment and enactment of the tourism development fee in Myrtle Beach, as well as other special interest issues.

This is the same person who was a strong supporter and former business associate of Mark Lazarus, the former council chairman.

But, it goes further than employment. Only one candidate in the District 9 race has spoken with Gardner about county issues. That candidate, one of the real estate write-offs, is the only candidate in the District 9 race to date who has pledged to support the passage of impact fees in Horry County.

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Final Campaign Week Messaging and Oddities, Voters Beware

We are in the final week of campaigning before the June 9th primary elections and we are seeing all the oddities and sound bite messaging that come with a final week push.

Cam and Heather Crawford are attempting to use endorsements by Gov. Henry McMaster and the Chairman of the Governor’s Floodwater Commission to prove to voters that they should be reelected.

This pair loves endorsements. However, they didn’t work for their prize candidate former Horry County Council Chairman Mark Lazarus two years ago. The Lazarus campaign trumpeted endorsements by many sitting politicians but the voters weren’t fooled. They understood this is just a ploy used by the establishment to attempt to keep its minions in office. Which brings up the question, why is the SCGOP paying for so many mailers for Heather Crawford?

The Crawfords are bragging about getting ditches cleaned and attempting to get local governments to increase their debt obligations with a so-called ‘buyout program.’ If they were really effective, Heather would have been able to get state grant money, not loans, available for a buyout program. After all, the state had a 2 billion revenue surplus last year.

For that matter, they would have been able to get significant state funding for the Interstate 73 project they love to promote. That hasn’t been accomplished either.

When you look at their supposed list of accomplishments, it is obvious that the rhetoric is high but the performance is low.

Their most significant accomplishment, if you wish to call it that, is picking a fight with Horry County Rising, a citizens group with many members who are flood victims and who is actually trying to address flooding issues and mitigation.

If the Crawfords were really trying to help, they would attempt to work with this group, but that would take away from the photo ops and attempts to be center stage, which the Crawfords believe will fool the voters.

Another interesting quirk in campaigning comes from county council candidate Terry Fowler. From the beginning of his campaign, Fowler has made rash statements that after June 9th new home building in District 9 will stop. He has tried to paint several competitors as lackeys of the development industry because they are realtors.

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Absurdities of Candidates Coming to the Fore as Primaries Loom

It’s less than two weeks until polling day for the June 9th primary elections and silly season is shifting into the absurd.

There is one candidate who seems less interested in being elected than in spinning crazy conspiracy theories to the voters with her posts. Several of the theories follow the same general lines as the conspiracy Chris Eldridge and Arrigo Carotti attempted to spin on Johnny Gardner just before he took office.

Regardless of the reason or the content of the videos, spinning conspiracy theories and talking trash about politicians and their consultants is not the way to win an election.

The race for Horry County Auditor also had some interesting developments this week.

Clark Parker, who announced his candidacy last August and spent over $35,000 from his campaign account by early January, has been rarely heard from since. Except for a few signs being put out and a couple of posts on his election Facebook page, little has been heard.

Parker was rumored to be suffering from some health problems in March and maybe that is the reason for so little activity.

However, a post went up on Parker’s Facebook yesterday that boggles the mind. The post urged voters to vote in the June 2nd Republican Primary. The main difficulty with that statement is that primary voting at the polls is June 9th.

I really don’t believe this was an attempt at voter suppression, which would be a serious legal problem. I believe it demonstrates a candidate who is so out of touch he doesn’t even know enough about the election to know the correct date. If he could screw up the date of the election, what could he mess up as auditor? Correct dates are very important in preparing tax bills.

This is another example of the Parker campaign being out of touch. Signs were put out by the campaign last fall even though the county limits the time political signs can be placed to 45 days before the election. The Parker campaign has demonstrated a serious deficiency in comprehending dates in the election cycle among other things.

Another auditor candidate and long-time employee of the auditor’s office, Beth Calhoun, was running what seemed to be a good campaign until recently. In her most recent video, Calhoun appears to take a shot at current auditor Lois Eargle by mentioning it’s important to come into the office every day.

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Weighing the Truth of Clemmons and Crawford Campaign Flyers

The truth of explanations for the campaign flyers sent out supporting the candidacies of Alan Clemmons and Heather Ammons Crawford, marked “Paid for by the SCGOP” and “authorized by” the respective candidates, in the races for SC House District 107 and SC House District 68 respectively, have been “weighed on the scales and found wanting”, as the Book of Daniel would say.

There have been three mailers each supporting Clemmons and Crawford marked “Paid for by the SCGOP” and “authorized by” the respective candidate. There must have been some polling showing both Clemmons and Crawford trailing their challengers for the SCGOP to take such blatant, biased actions in a primary election.

The Horry County Republican Party Bylaws specifically prohibit such action by party officials, ” Bylaws Section 1-A. Elected and appointed officials of the Horry County Republican party shall not endorse, work for, assist, or allow their name to be used in support of a Republican candidate who has opposition from another Republican candidate during a Primary or Run-off election.”

There is a very good reason for this prohibition. Primary elections are run by the parties. If an election challenge is made, it is heard by the Executive Committee of either the local or state party, depending on what office is involved.

In the case of Clemmons and Crawford, if the results of their elections are challenged, the challenge must, by law, be heard by the SCGOP Executive Committee, the same group that would have had to approve the sending of the mailers. How could there possibly be an impartial judgement from that committee considering they have already chosen their preferred winner?

I contacted the state party by email over two weeks ago asking why the SCGOP was involving itself in primary elections and who approved sending the mailers. To date, I have received no response.

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Republican Shenanigans for Clemmons and Crawford

The South Carolina Republican Party has dipped into its array of shenanigans to interfere in two Horry County races for the S. C. House of Representatives.

Earlier this week, the state party paid for and sent out mailers supporting Alan Clemmons (D-107) and Heather Ammons Crawford (D-68) against their Republican challengers in the upcoming June 9, 2020 primaries.

In all my years of covering politics in Horry County, this is the first time I can recall where a state political party felt the need to inject itself into primary contests.

The act is specifically prohibited in Horry County Republican Party by-laws:

“Section 1-A. Elected and appointed officials of the Horry County Republican party shall not endorse, work for, assist, or allow their name to be used in support of a Republican candidate who has opposition from another Republican candidate during a Primary or Run-off election.”

Obviously the SCGOP conducts itself with different rules.

However, according to SCGOP rules: “No one is empowered to incur indebtedness or financial obligation on the part of the South Carolina Republican Party unless expressly authorized to do so by the state convention or the state executive committee.”

Therefore, the SCGOP Executive Committee had to vote to approve these emails, according to SCGOP rules.

What makes a state party feel the need to support an incumbent over a challenger in their own primary election?

Obviously this is good ole’ boy politics at its best.

One interesting fact about this whole mess is that Mark Epps, challenger to Crawford, is a 24 year retired Army combat veteran.

It would seem the SCGOP is attempting to deny to Epps the rights that Epps put his life on the line to protect. So much for a party that professes to support veterans.

Epps said he believes the district to which he returned after retiring from the Army has been underserved by Crawford, especially with respect to flooding.

(Click below to view the entire story and the link to video story about these shenanigans)

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Budgets - Cuts, Spending and You

Clemmons, Crawford, Crawford, Parker You Got Some ‘Splaining to do

Campaign funds and the lax laws controlling them allow politicians the ability to do almost anything they want with donations they receive.

But, the donors and the voters have a right to know exactly what is being done with campaign funds just as they do with public money. How, why and to whom is it paid? What goal toward being elected or reelected is achieved by its expenditure?

This is why nearly $150,000 over a four year span from Rep. Alan Clemmons’ campaign fund to now Rep. Heather Ammons Crawford (she was only a SC House member for the final $2,250 of that amount) listed as contract and/or campaign services leaves many questions.

Clemmons had no opponent in either a primary or general election in 2008, 2010 and 2012 election cycles. Yet, Crawford was paid an average of $37,500 per year for four years from Clemmons’ campaign account.

The voters deserve to know exactly what work did Clemmons pay Heather Crawford for? Was it all associated with political functions?

Heather Ammons Crawford, her husband and current Horry County District 6 council member Cam Crawford and SC Rep. Russell Fry have a political consulting business called Crescent Communications.

By way of comparison to the Clemmons payments to Heather Crawford, three campaigns run by the firm for former Horry County Council chairman Mark Lazarus provide stark contrasts.

Crescent Communications provided consulting services for three Lazarus campaigns, a special election in 2013 and regular election in 2014 and 2018. In those three campaigns, Lazarus spent a total of approximately $300,000 from his campaign account, all for election purposes. Approximately $41,000 was the total sum paid to Crescent Communications for those three campaign cycles.

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Alan Clemmons Campaign Account, Big Expenses No Opponents

Rep. Alan Clemmons campaign website has a link for visitors to make contributions to his campaign.

This is something most candidates do in an effort to help fund the costs of campaigning.

In the case of Clemmons campaign chest, one must ask what is this money used for?

A review of Clemmons’ campaign fund quarterly filings from the years 2008 – 2018 inclusive show that Clemmons raised a total of $460,409.23 in campaign donations. He had $231,224.62 on hand in his campaign account at the beginning of 2008, according to the records.

Over the same span, 2008 – 2018, Clemmons spent a total of $480,912.51 from his campaign funds. The 2008 – 2018 time frame includes six election cycles, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018, in which Clemmons was a candidate for he S. C. House. He was first elected in 2002, but records for his first three campaigns are not available online.

Raising and spending campaign contributions for election is what all candidates do.

However, in the six election cycles covered by these records, CLEMMONS HAD NO OPPOSITION!

He had no opponent in the primaries and no opponent in the general elections.

It must be asked, how and why does an elected official spend over $480,000 in six elections cycles, an average of $80,000 every two year election cycle, when he has no opposition in any of the races? You can’t make this stuff up, it’s too outrageous!

Part of the answer is in the globe-trotting Clemmons has paid for out of his campaign funds, including several trips to Israel and one to Egypt. He also paid for numerous trips around the United States out of the campaign account.

One interesting item in the Clemmons’ records is that between April 2008 and December 2012, Clemmons paid Heather Ammons Crawford a total of $146,830.69 out of his campaign account. He paid Crawford $2,000 per month from April 2008 thru April 2009 for “campaign” and/or “contract services” From May 2009 thru December 2012 Clemmons paid Crawford $2,500 per month for those services. There were also monthly payments to Crawford listed as expenses.

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