The most competitive race in this year’s general election for the South Carolina Senate is taking place in Senate District 30, which includes Marion and Dillon counties and parts of Florence, Darlington and Horry counties. Five term incumbent Democratic senator Kent Williams is being challenged by Republican Rodney Berry.
What makes the race so competitive is Berry is not the normal type of challenger attempting to gain name recognition in the district. Before filing for office, Berry already possessed name recognition in the district at least equal to the incumbent Williams.
A graduate of Dillon High School, Berry was Captain and MVP of the Wildcats football team. He went on to graduate from Presbyterian College where he also starred on the football field serving two years as captain of the team and being named an All Decade linebacker for the 1990’s.
Berry served four years in the United States Marine Corps including being named as Parris Island Top Recruit and Company Honor Man. After his service to the country, Rodney entered the newspaper business founding the Dillon County Shopper, Marion County Penny Saver and his most successful venture of all “She Magazine”.
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Tag: Rodney Berry
Another Suspicious Poll from MBACC Alleges Support for I-73
The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce is up to its old tricks by again trying to convince local citizens that there is widespread support for the construction of Interstate 73.
Two days ago, the Chamber issued a press release and an eight-page document supposedly reporting the results of a poll conducted in July 2021 on I-73.
The document stated that 79 percent of 405 registered voters responding from across the state supported I-73. It also stated that 82 percent of an unspecified number of voters, included in the overall 405 number, from the 7th Congressional District supported I-73.
These reported results are in line with another supposed poll the Chamber said was conducted two years ago. The results from that poll supposedly said that of 1,774 respondents to a poll on I-73, 74.6 percent of the respondents favored the project.
Two years ago, I called B— S—- on the 2019 supposed poll and I submit the same sentiment applies to these most recent reported results.
The latest supposed poll results come at a time when the newest brainstorm, as reported in local media, to keep some life in the I-73 project is to have the local city and the county governments pledge by resolution a total of $250 million toward construction of I-73.
Myrtle Beach Mayor Brenda Bethune strongly supported local funding from the city, even though the city recently cancelled health insurance coverage promised to retired city workers and police manning is down while young women apparently can be snatched off the street in mid-afternoon only to have their body turn up in Florence several days later.
However, Horry County Council members are very reluctant to pass even a resolution supporting county funding of I-73, despite concerted effort by council member Dennis DiSabato. It took the county a year to reverse the debacle council had to extract itself from two years ago after a 2018 resolution pushed by then county chairman Mark Lazarus committed the county to providing $25 million per year to SCDOT for the I-73 project.
The idea is that state Rep. Case Brittain can take those pledges to Columbia to ask the state government to pledge $500 million toward the project. Then, with $750 million pledged, maybe Tom Rice can finally get enough out of the federal government to construct the road at least to connection to I-95 in Dillon, a total cost of approximately $1.5-2 billion.
How this is supposed to succeed is anyone’s guess as the best Gov. Henry McMaster could do last spring was get SCDOT to commit $500,000 per year for three years to the I-73 project IF the local governments provided a total match of $500,000 per year.
The reasons to question whether a poll was even conducted are many.
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Speak Up…