Tag: Myrtle Beach

Protest Planned for Grande Dunes Road Connection

Grande Dunes residents plan a protest Monday to demonstrate their opposition to a connection between their roads and roads serving the planned Grande Dunes North development.

The residents say such a connection would increase traffic, decrease security and lower property values in their high end community.

Connectivity between the existing Grande Dunes and planned Grande Dunes North communities has been a point of contention since it was first discussed after the purchase of the former Waterway Hills Golf Club by Grande Dunes owner L Star Property Management.

The residents of Grande Dunes have let both L Star and the City of Myrtle Beach know they do not intend to take this issue lightly.

A petition of over 160 signatures from Grande Dunes property owners has been presented to Myrtle Beach City Council opposing connecting roads from Grande Dunes North into the current Grande Dunes road network.

Grande Dunes residents have been promised that connecting roads from Grande Dunes North would require approval of an amendment to the planned unit development agreement that governs the Grande Dunes property. The road would require approval from the City of Myrtle Beach because it would cross incorporated property of the city.

None of these approvals have been obtained to date. However, according to several Grande Dunes residents, over the last few months, the Grande Dunes North road infrastructure has been built and is in position for connection to Grande Dunes road network.

According to several Grande Dunes residents, the City of Myrtle Beach is supposed to present L Star with cease and desist orders on Monday, stopping any encroachment onto city owned property.

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Myrtle Beach Parking Fee Lawsuit Pondered

A lawsuit against the City of Myrtle Beach for its paid parking areas along the oceanfront is being considered by property owners.

The basis of the lawsuit would be city violations of deed restrictions and covenants included in property transfers years ago.

Deeds from 1940 and 1968 in which Myrtle Beach Farms gave oceanfront property to the city include restrictions against commercial activity on the deeded property.

In the intervening years, some of that property has been converted to street ends and beach access on which the city now charges visitors to park.

According to a real estate attorney with considerable experience in the county, the deed restrictions do not go away on the portions of the property converted to public thoroughfares.

The deeds restrictions prohibit commercial activity by any “person, private corporation, municipal corporation or agency or instrumentality of government.” The land is specifically designated to be kept as a public park or common.

The city appears to violate these restrictions in several ways. The parking fees and fines are collected and disbursed by a private corporation contracted by city government. The city’s portion of the revenue goes to fund the Downtown Redevelopment Corporation, an agency created by the city.

The DRC is its own challenged organization, having accomplished little in the way of redevelopment and virtually none in the city’s historic downtown in the area of City Hall, Five Points and adjacent areas.

The DRC has set its sights on the oceanfront and rumored major new development projects that would first require the squeezing out of small business owners currently operating along sections of Ocean Boulevard.

Many have speculated that the parking fees in question will help squeeze out small business owners by limiting tourist traffic to their businesses.

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NMB Council Blinks on Tourism Tax

The North Myrtle Beach city council decided Friday that the voters would have a say on whether or not a tourism tax to benefit the NMB Chamber of Commerce will be imposed within the city limits.

The decision occurred during a public workshop on whether a local one-cent sales tax should be charged on sales within the city. At least 80% of the proceeds of the tax would go to the NMB Chamber to fund tourism marketing and advertising expenses that should be a responsibility of individual business owners.

The concept of a publicly elected body taxing citizens for the benefit of private businesses is abhorrent in any scenario, but, not allowing the voters a say in the process, as is practiced in Myrtle Beach, borders on dictatorial.

At least for now, the NMB Council nipped in the bud the question of whether to impose the tax by supermajority vote of council members, the way it was made law in Myrtle Beach.

NMB Mayor Marilyn Hatley alluded to a January or February 2017 time frame for a special election referendum question on whether to impose the tourism tax, but council would have to pass an ordinance on the tax before the referendum question.

The dynamics of a special election, with its traditional minimalist draw of voters, still allows the Chamber a better than average chance of winning the tax vote if a referendum is held.

But, it is better than in Myrtle Beach where the voters have no say at all.

The North Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce was established nearly 20 years ago with the specific goal of drawing additional tourists during the spring and fall shoulder seasons.

Funding for the NMB Chamber came from membership fees and the 30% of accommodations tax revenues collected in the city.

According to sources familiar with the Chamber, in recent years it has added employees and expenses, thereby eating up its funding.

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Myrtle Beach Parking Fee Problems

It is quite possible that Myrtle Beach City Council is collecting parking fees in areas that restrict such activity.

No, this is not about the federal grant for beach renourishment. It is potentially a lot more serious.

A review of deeds from 1940, 1968 and 1992, in which Myrtle Beach Farms gave land to the city along the oceanfront brought to light some interesting deed restrictions and covenants.

Most interesting is a restriction on all three deeds that says, “…property shall not be used for commercial purposes by any person, private corporation, municipal corporation or agency of government.”

Collecting fees to park is certainly a commercial purpose, especially when the city has seen fit to outsource the collection to a private, third party corporation.

Many of today’s street ends, especially in the south end of the city where parking fees have been charged for a number of years, came from land that was given to the city in these deeds.

The restriction on commercial activity appears to include the boardwalk area also.

Unfortunately, Myrtle Beach City Council is going to continue with its current practices until someone forces them to change through the courts. Remember the helmet law?

A lawsuit would be very interesting, however. Can you imagine the city having to refund parking fees it has collected for a number of years if it is established in court that the deed restrictions were violated?

This could have an obvious effect on the Downtown Redevelopment Corporation, an agency of dubious value, which uses parking fees for funding.

Another of the restrictions and covenants makes the possibility of a lawsuit interesting.

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Myrtle Beach Tourism Tax Renewal Hits Bump

The effort to renew state legislation that allows the Myrtle Beach tourism tax hit a bump this week in the SC House Ways and Means Committee.

The bill, S1122, originally introduced in the SC Senate in February 2016 by local senators Greg Hembree, Ray Cleary and Luke Rankin breezed through the Senate without a single no vote.

The SC House reported the bill out of the Ways and Means Committee with an important amendment that could have an interesting overall impact on whether the current one-cent local sales tax for tourism promotion gets renewed.

The Ways and Means Committee struck the provision that the tourism tax could be renewed (reimposed) by “an ordinance adopted by a supermajority of the municipal council which must be at least two-thirds of the members of the municipal council.”

The only provision remaining in the bill for reimposition of the tax is the “approval of a majority of qualified electors voting in a referendum held pursuant to this section called by a majority of the members of the municipal council.”

Myrtle Beach City Council imposed the tax on the general public in 2009 with a supermajority vote of council. The tax was never put before the voters in a referendum, allegedly for fear it would not pass.

If the amended bill successfully passes vote of the full House, it will be interesting to see if the elimination of the supermajority option to renew the bill withstands conference committee.

When it was first passed through an ordinance approved by a supermajority vote of Myrtle Beach City Council in 2009, the local option tourism development fee became the first and only local option sales tax (that’s what it is) to be enacted in the history of the state without a referendum vote of approval.

The result of the tax is the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce receives over $20 million public tax dollars each year to spend on out of area tourism advertising.

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Dennis DiSabato Announces for Horry County District 3

Dennis DiSabato announced recently that he is a candidate for the Republican nomination for Horry County Council District 3.

DiSabato is a 2000 graduate of the State University of New York Binghamton and graduated with a Juris Doctor degree from New York Law School in 2004. He is a member of the bar in New York, New Jersey and South Carolina.

DiSabato moved to Carolina Forest in 2006, currently residing with his wife Laura DiSabato in the Sawgrass East community. He operates a law office on Renee Drive in the Carolina Forest area, focusing on residential and commercial real estate transactions, real estate and commercial litigation and estate planning.

Since moving to Horry County, DiSabato has been active in local issues. He is a founding member of the Carolina Forest Civic Association, serving as that organization’s president from 2010-2012 and 2013-2014.

DiSabato is a graduate of Leadership Grand Strand Class XXIX, a member of the Coastal Carolina Sertoma Club having served as that organization’s president from 2008-2012. He is also a member of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and is a founder and past president of Horry County Citizens for Responsible Government.

DiSabato said infrastructure issues will be one area of focus if he is elected to serve the citizens of District 3.

“Revitalization of the downtown and south end areas of Myrtle Beach to bring jobs and businesses back into that area is important,” DiSabato said. “In the Carolina Forest area, road issues, especially widening of Carolina Forest Boulevard are important needs.”

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Myrtle Beach Needs to Show Citizens More Respect

The harsh words between Myrtle Beach Mayor John Rhodes and community activist Tim McCray at last week’s city council meeting demonstrate how little respect city council has for the citizens it supposedly represents.

Rhodes had only recently returned from a 16 day trip to China from which he brought back expectations of a soon to come $100 million investment in the area by a Chinese group.

“We’re doing whatever we can to try and improve things and, in order to do that, you have to talk to potential investors,” Rhodes said in speaking about the trip.

Since Rhodes first ran for mayor in 2005, he has said the number one job of the mayor is to be an ambassador for Myrtle Beach.

What seems to have been forgotten in the intervening 10 years is that the mayor of Myrtle Beach also has responsibilities at home.

It’s wonderful, I guess, to go on 16 day junkets to China promoting the city. (Personally I have always preferred Europe or South America to Asia.)

But, if the city is torn by crime and disparate treatment among neighborhoods, as it obviously is, what is said overseas is just so much hot air.

Unfortunately, hot air is also what is being offered when a community comes to city council asking for help. And, to make things worse, being attacked in an arrogant, aggressive tone by the mayor.

Several community leaders, including McCray, went to city council asking the city to help in conducting a series of public forums with a view to promulgating a comprehensive plan to address crime and lack of work opportunities for Myrtle Beach community residents.

It ended with Rhodes verbally attacking and finger pointing at McCray and a visibly upset McCray retorting Rhodes’ comments were lies.

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The Donald Trump Experience

I went to the Donald Trump campaign rally Tuesday night at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center in order to experience the current Trump phenomenon first hand.

I came away less than impressed.

Whoever did advance, if anyone, for the Trump visit blew it by ultimately choosing the convention center. Neither the advance team nor the convention center staff had any idea how to set up the site for a political rally.

The Mitt Romney event of 2012 at Horry Georgetown Technical College on the old air force base, while much smaller was much better put together with only one day notice.

To any candidate looking to hold a rally in Myrtle Beach in the future, don’t choose the convention center.

Now to Trump.

His speech, if you can call it that, he proudly said was without teleprompters. Of course, it would have been hard to put it on a teleprompter because even he, apparently, did not know what he was going to say before he got up to the microphone.

The first 20 minutes was a recitation of what great crowds attend his events, polling numbers from many of the early primary states that show him in the lead and how great he is compared to the other candidates.

He felt the need to introduce all his family members who had accompanied him to Myrtle Beach and gave the microphone to his current (third) wife, Melania, for a few comments about what a great president Trump would be.

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Ignoring Problems in Myrtle Beach

I saw a Facebook post by former Myrtle Beach mayor Mark McBride yesterday that highlights why the city will continue its downward slide.

During the recent Myrtle Beach City Council elections, McBride was targeted by a third party group with hit pieces to keep him from being elected.

The Myrtle Beach Mafia was successful in its attempt to keep McBride from gaining a seat on city council.

The problem is the message was false, as is normal with hit pieces on a candidate. One said “Mark McBride is back and preying on voters.”

Actually, it’s the Myrtle Beach Mafia that preys on voters, at least those in the south end of the city.

During the campaign when challengers for city council seats were talking about rising crime in the city, Mayor John Rhodes donned his rose colored glasses and looked north to claim that crime was at its lowest level in 20 years.
It probably is in the Dunes Club and Pine Lakes areas. The south end is a different story.

McBride quoted some crime statistics collected by neighborhoodscout.com, which is really a real estate resource website to help those searching for homes.

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Bob Kelly Campaign Offers Bubba Owens Bribe to Quit

Bob Kelly and his consultant Jim Wiles have so little respect for Horry County voters they offered opponent Bubba Owens a bribe to quit the runoff election.

The runoff election for the Republican nomination for the vacant Horry County Council District 3 seat is set for November 17, 2015.

However, Kelly and his henchmen seem to want to avoid that by bringing Northeast big city machine politics to Horry County in the form of a bribe for Owens to quit the race.

If you question the use of the word bribe, its definition in The Free Dictionary is “Something offered to induce another to do something.” Merriam Webster dictionary states, “Something that serves to induce or influence.”

A November 6, 2015 voicemail message from Wiles to Owens’ campaign consultant said, “Team Bubba should put together a shopping list of stuff that they would want for downtown Myrtle Beach for Bob Kelly to commit to in exchange for Bubba dropping out…”

South Carolina Code of Laws Section 7-25-200 states it is unlawful to offer anything of value to induce a person to withdraw as a candidate.

The only question here is whether a court would view the offer ‘give Kelly a shopping list of what they (Owens and his consultants) want for downtown Myrtle Beach in exchange for Bubba dropping out’ as a criminal act. It certainly goes right up to that line, if it does not, in fact, cross it.

We’ll leave that decision to the solicitors and federal prosecutors. But, the message certainly violates the spirit of the law if not the actual letter of the law.

However, in addition to inducement to quit the runoff election, another criminal consideration is that Kelly’s team is offering to commit public dollars to proposed projects for the personal gain for Kelly of Owens dropping out of the election.

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