Airport and Horry County Council Shanagans

Well when was the last snow storm in Myrtle Beach? Ok, we do get some snow flurries, what once in the five years I have been here, but did you know that the Myrtle Beach International Airport is ready for the next big one.

This was let out of the bag and reported by the Myrtle Beach Herald back in February 2006 as well as the Sun News at which time it was reported by the AP:

(Myrtle Beach-AP) January 27, 2006 - Officials at the Myrtle Beach International Airport are ready for a snow storm.

The Federal Aviation Administration has awarded the airport a $355,000 grant to buy a snow plow, a giant broom and other snow removal equipment.

Never mind that Myrtle Beach has averaged zero inches of snow for the last 50 years.
 
Horry County Council Chairwoman Liz Gilland admits it may sound absurd, but she said it does make sense. A storm dropped 13.5 inches of snow on Horry County in 1989.

But Liz, how would the people get to the airport even if they got the runway cleared? Has the county also purchased snow removal equipment that we don’t know about?   

Why is HOODIES reporting on this old news at this time? Because we believe the taxpayers, not only here on the Grand Strand but the U.S. got “Hoodiewinked” as well. You see the FAA’s Airport Improvement Grants lists maintenance equipment and vehicles as an ineligible project, snow removal equipment is not. Since we have little or no snow accumulation the real reason this equipment was requested was so the trucks and the big snow broom could be used for the continual maintenance and upkeep of the airport. Check out this link http://www.flymyrtlebeach.com/news.cfm?id=6

Maintenance equipment is supposed to be purchased by the, owner manager of the airport, in this case, Horry County, and funded by the local taxpayers. This makes sense because airports have different regional maintenance requirements. Also the category “maintenance” could lead to $100 screwdrivers and $200 brooms.

This request was slipped into a county resolution, and included in the request for the funds for the “New Passenger Terminal” and taxiway improvements and was granted. We all know how that turned out.

We know this was done on purpose because as reported in the Sun News, airport director Bob Kemp was quoted as saying “if we don’t buy this as snow removal equipment we were going to have to buy it as maintenance equipment out of our own funds”.

This illegal action just keeps getting better; you see since we got the “snow removal equipment” we can now get legal federal funds to build a storage building for the “snow removal equipment”. It will probably be big enough to hold a 747. How good is that?

You wonder why the Horry County Council is losing face with the taxpayers? There seems to be one debacle after the other.  I could name them, but just go to the other Posts on my BLOG, and please if you know of any others please write them up in the comment section of this BLOG Post.

My question really is, do we need a new or even a makeover and extension of the old airport? I have never been backed up at MBIA. I had to wait once for my luggage a little longer than I would have liked but that’s about all. With the down turn of the economy, the price of fuel, the airlines are canceling service at the MBIA as well many other airports around the country.

The cost of building, a new terminal or extension there of, is probably at a high point at this time, driven by the cost of fuel. If anything is to be done I would say at most add a luggage carousel and another gate.             

Oh What A Web We Weave

This is an interesting side note that has me wondering if Horry County elected officials have our citizens in the fore front when it comes to Taxes or are we in the center of the Web waiting to be economically eaten by a tax spider.

Carolina Station Developers, International Paper Reality (IPR) had Costal Carolina University do the impact study for the project. The department that did that study is headed by Gary Loftus who just won a seat on the Horry County Council (HCC) taking office in January 2009, replacing Mike Ryan who has been voting “NO” on the rush to approve the “Station” project without knowing the full taxpayer impact. He also believed that IPR was not paying its’ fair share of the project’s cost.

At the July1st, 2008 of the HCC the Horry Country School Board pleaded in front of the HCC to put off the vote for another 60 days so the full impact of the new schools in the IPR project and other new schools, on the taxpayers, could be determined. Needless to say the HCC voted and approved the project without discussion on any of the subjects pleaded at the meeting.

School taxpayer impact is said to be not an issue which is included in any impact studies, by HCC ruling, because if they were no projects such as Carolina Station could be justified. School projects are approved at the School Board meetings which are not usually attended by the taxpayers to any degree. The taxpayers, however, get to vote on the approbations bill funding the schools which will affect their real estate taxes and or a raise in the sales tax.

Now! On the front page of the July 15^th issue of the Sun News, comes word that the Horry County School Board has voted to ask the taxpayer voters for a 1% sales tax increase which will be on the November ballot. Two of the School Board members abstained from voting; Why? The tax study was done by CCU which Will Garland, School Board Chairman works for and the other Board member who abstained is Kay Loftus, whose husband Gary Loftus heads up the department at CCU that did the tax analysis study for the School Board.

Garland said he did not want to lose this tax based on any technicalities so he proposed asking the ethics commission whether or not it was ethical for us to participate. The way I look at it was not just the vote participation that had the appearance of conflict of interest but the whole process of having the study done by the husband of a board member and the Chairman of the School Board, both who work for CCU.

The test of participation should be if it smelled of non-ethical behavior than the study should have been by some other firm.

The stink is really coming from the Loftus connection, with CCU doing the School Board tax study and the Carolina Station impact study. Don’t forget what we are talking about here; Building 15 new elementary schools, 3 new middle schools, 2 new high schools, plus renovations and other construction projects over the next 15 years, totaling close to $1 billion dollars. We are talking about just building the schools, not the cost of running them, new teachers, or busses and gas.

Do you see the spider coming toward us?

At least we can get to vote on the schools which, because of the fiasco Carolina Forest IPR development and now the impact of the IPR Carolina Station, I give the sales tax increase or any other tax increase, at this time, with this economy, about a 20% chance of passing.

I think the HCC ruling of not allowing the costs of building and running schools should be thrown out and they should be part of any new proposals for future developments. The developers should include the related cost of them in the price of the housing in the project. The developers have a choice to absorb the cost with a narrower profit margin, or price the housing with the school cost included.      

Carolina Station:

As I left the Horry County Council meeting on July 1, 2008, my friend Joe said “Jack we have lived in the last great generation”.

The decision made at that meeting, approving the Carolina Station project, will cause the next generation not to be so great by leaving them with major County budget shortfalls for the next 30 to 40 years or more.

Carolina Station is a planned unit development (PUD) on 6259 acres in the Loris area off Highway #905. This is a mega development of 13,800 homes, housing 41,000 people, 3 or 4 schools, commercial business and buildings. Carolina Station will be a major size city within Horry County, being develop by International Paper Realty (IPR), and will resemble the new Market Common in Myrtle Beach.

The Horry County Council approved the project even after hearing valid pleas of water availability not being addressed and with the school board pleading for an extension so they could present the Council with a reasonable impact study showing the financial load the new schools would put on the Horry County Budget and ultimately on the Horry County Taxpayers. Since this project is not going to start anytime soon it would seem reasonable that a sixty day extension would not impact the start. 

Anybody who lives around the area and uses South Carolina roads know that the roads are barely adequate to support current traffic load and by adding the approximately 27,000 cars plus service and support vehicles along with construction equipment traffic, will add a whole new meaning to the word gridlock.

Now to be fair the Carolina Station project will take many, many years (like 20 to 30 years) to complete, so hopefully added road lanes and roads would be added, however, being County and State roads we all know how good they are in keeping up with road expansion and improvements?

That is precisely why Horry Country P.R.I.D.E.Com (Promoting Responsible investment in Infrastructure, Development, & Environment) decided to get involved. PRIDE is an On-Line group of citizens who are concerned that taxpayers currently pay more than a fair share of taxes, especially concerning Mega projects such as the Carolina Station. Usually in project developments of this size the developers tend to error projections showing net revenue to the county on the plus side. They also set aside land at inflated values instead of cold hard cash. The fact is that they have to do both.

Special interest groups such as realtor associations, builder and developer groups all have the attitude the more money they can get the tax-payers to pay the bigger their profit.

The developers, Realtors and the County Council got the upper hand at that July 1st meeting but they certainly now know there is a watchdog group, of concerned taxpayers, who by utilizing the power of their vote will soon be able say we at least helped the next generation get a jump on being  great too.

EARMARK REFORM:

U.S. S.C. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE, JAMES CLYBURN

Democrats put in place a structure that calls for new transparency, accountability and disclosure, and we have reduced the total dollar amount earmarked in appropriations bills by 43 percent.

The above was taken from SC Rep. James Clyburn’s Web-site, so what is this new structure? Does it allow for the, or delineate the setting aside Earmarks that would have highlighted the questionable actions of Rep. Clyburn directing millions of Earmark dollars to organizations that family members belong to or work at? And does the new structure allow for the House Majority Whip to set aside about $40 million in Earmarks, which he was the sole sponsor?

What really bothers me, besides the volume of money, was how many people of the Clyburn Clan are earning a living which is derived from the taxpayer money. As an old saying goes, anybody who would allow themselves, to be dependent on the Government for their “daily bread”, they, will eventually have to submit to the demands of the Government.

Who really knows the reasons the organizations are given the money, is it because members of the Clyburn Clan are working there, or were they hired with the intent of being put a position where they could solicit money from Rep. Clyburn?

All these connections between Rep. Clyburn, his Clan members and the Earmarked organizations, which are confirmed on Clyburn’s Web-site, seems to me to be a lot more than a heap of coincidental confluence and in my opinion, it smells of wrong doing.   

A John Adams Quote comes to mind: “Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases”.

Rep. Clyburn’s increased importance came with him becoming the U.S. House Majority Whip which gives him a lot of power and now his actions affect the entire State.  Since he also accepts campaign money from the entire State he should have his E-Mail allow submissions from all districts.