Wednesday, May 8, 2024
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 good first step toward ethics reform in South Carolina would be to fire S.C. Ethics Commission Executive Director Herb Hayden.
Last month, Richland County Circuit Judge Alison Lee approved a consent order ruling Hayden propagated a “falsehood” to a state ethics watchdog agency and in responding with a falsehood violated the Freedom of Information Act.
As part of the settlement, Hayden and the ethics commission maintained the falsehood was inadvertent and unintentional.
The most interesting contest in this fall’s general election in South Carolina will be the special election for S.C. House District 114, the former seat of deposed Speaker Bobby Harrell.
The S.C. Election Commission has determined a special election is called for after Harrell’s resignation from office and has set the date for a Republican s[ecoa primary as November 25, 2014. The Democratic Party candidate, Mary Tinkler, and Green Party candidate, Sue Edwards, are already set through the normal election primary process.
The election commission has set the special general election date for December 9th.
Nearly three years after it signed its latest economic development incentive package with Horry County, AvCraft Technical Services has one last chance to demonstrate its promises are more than hot air.
Sources within county government said AvCraft is currently three months behind in rent payments to the county. Additionally, according to those sources, AvCraft has not begun to make improvements to the fire suppression system and other improvements at the hangars it rents as agreed to in the latest incentive package.
Horry County Council voted Tuesday night to send AvCraft a “Right to Cure” notice that will specify how many days the company has to bring its rent arrearage up to current status or eviction proceedings could begin.
This wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so predictable.
The 40 mile traffic loop proposed by City of Myrtle Beach officials is quickly becoming the Achilles Heel of Atlantic Beach Bikefest planning.
Yesterday, Horry County Council Chairman Mark Lazarus proposed an alternate plan during the county’s Public Safety Committee meeting.
The Lazarus Plan would take traffic down Ocean Boulevard to the traffic light at Market Commons. A right turn on U.S. 17 Business to Harrelson Boulevard where a left turn onto Harrelson Boulevard would take traffic to U.S. 17 Bypass. A right turn on U.S. 17 Bypass to the intersection at 29 Avenue North with a right turn onto 29th Avenue North to Ocean Boulevard would complete the loop.
It seems the main planning items for the Atlantic Beach Bikefest that came out of the two day law enforcement summit in Myrtle Beach earlier this week deal with federal programs.
The City of Myrtle Beach has expressed significant interest in taking advantage of several U.S. Department of Justice grants that will provide the department with patrol rifles, ballistic riot control shields and diversity training.
Those three put together seem to be mixed planning unless diversity training means putting daisies in the barrels of the patrol rifles.
Interstate 73 was not among the list of TIGER grant recipients announced late last week by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The S.C. Department of Transportation had requested $30 million to widen the shoulders on S.C. 22 to bring the road up to interstate standards so it could be redesignated I-73.
The USDOT didn’t think the project worthy of funding. Except for a few members of the local legislative delegation and a few tourism leaders, neither does anyone else.
Politics abhors a vacuum and moves began immediately to fill the one left by the suspension of S.C. Speaker of the House Bobby Harrell last week.
Hampered with his nine indictments, Harrell’s political career is probably over. He is on the ballot in November and could be re-elected to his House seat while suspended and awaiting the legal process to go forward. But he cannot assume that seat again unless exonerated and the vote for a Speaker to lea the House in the next legislative session will be long past by then.
In the meantime, it appears Speaker Pro Tempore Jay Lucas, the man filling the Speaker’s position until the organization meeting after the November general election, is in the lead to succeed Harrell as the next Speaker.
Casino gambling emerged from the shadows and directly entered South Carolina political discussions yesterday when S.C. House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford disclosed his plan for funding road repairs in the state.
Rutherford said he plans to introduce a bill into the General Assembly next year to allow casino gambling in Myrtle Beach to create a revenue stream for roads.
From what we understand, Rutherford’s plan is for commercial gambling casinos not Indian gaming, but it fits into the overall discussions that have been going on around Horry County for the past six months or so.
Horry County’s so-called movers and shakers want casino gambling legalized. This is just another option.
Much has been made about the extra money from accommodations tax that will be available to purchase the services of extra police for next year’s Atlantic Beach Bikefest.
Thanks to quick work in the General Assembly, approximately $2.3 million dollars will be allowed to be diverted from tourism marketing and promotion to law enforcement costs next year.
I have even heard some talk about some of that money being used for private security firms, such as Blackwater Security, if a few additional changes can be made to state law to allow it.
Speak Up…