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Volunteers Help Fund Wheelchair Mats in North Myrtle Beach

Volunteers of the Adaptive Surf Project and the Surfrider Foundation began installing 6 new wheelchair mats across North Myrtle Beach this week. These wheelchair beach access points allow those that have a disability to enjoy the shore more easily.

Created using UV resistant plastic, the beach mats reduce the distance that wheelchairs must travel over the sand. North Myrtle residents volunteered their time installing these to better improve a beach they know and love.

“These six wheelchair mat locations along the North Myrtle Beach coastline meet South Carolina Department of Health & Environmental Control (SCDHEC) and South Carolina Office of Ocean & Coastal Resource Management (OCRM) regulations,” read a post on the city’s Facebook.

You can find the mats in place at the following locations:

4200 North Ocean Boulevard
3400 North Ocean Boulevard
6th Avenue South
33rd Avenue South
47th Avenue South
Shorehaven Drive in the Crescent Beach section.

North Myrtle beach remains to have 140 beach access points, of which 44 of them are wheelchair accessible.

Featured

Santee Cooper Extends Executive Contracts And Sponsors Golf Tournament Amid Financial Disaster

Featured Image: The State

As debt continues to pile up for Santee Cooper, lawmakers still remain halted at their decision for the future of the state-owned utility company. After lawmakers were forced to take a break earlier this year due to COVID-19, the utility’s fate will linger even longer.

With the decision to sell still on the table, Santee Cooper in an attempt to continue reform plans is spending more ratepayer money on extending high-paying contracts to executives and on golf tournament sponsorships.

The company recently announced that they will be extending contracts to Mark Bonsall, the CEO, and Charles Duckworth, the deputy CEO who were both brought on last year after former CEO, Lonnie Carter retired from the company when the utility’s debt began making headlines. Carter left with an initial payout and an annual retirement salary of $800,000 for 20 years, that Santee Cooper customers are still paying for.

Last year we reported that Bonsall was guaranteed $1.1 million over the next 18 months in addition to bonuses, exceeding Carter’s previous salary of $541,000, while Duckworth made a reported $560,000 annual salary. All of which the utility’s direct serve and electric cooperative customers pay for, and it doesn’t look like it’ll be changing anytime soon. The two will remain with the company until July 2021 and will continue to oversee all political and legal challenges. Bonsall and Duckworth will even have the opportunity to earn bonuses, pending their performance.

Lawmakers have been debating the future of the company for the past three years since it undertook $4 billion in debt from the failed V.C. Summer project. Because of this, Santee Cooper has been under scrutiny with where they spend their money since the company’s debt is nearly $7 billion, has no Public Service Commission Oversight and its ratepayers are the only ones responsible for past bad financial decisions. Many, therefore, are not happy that the state-owned company decided to sponsor the Heritage Golf Tournament for yet another year. The tournament which was played 2 months later due to the coronavirus pandemic and without fans, was a large investment. This large expenditure is seen as unnecessary by many and has resulted in another level of concern with taxpayers and ratepayers.

As customers are left holding the bill for the interim and Santee Cooper fails to acknowledge the long term burden on them, they also fail to stop spending large sums of money that will only add to the already existing and growing debt. For some, a sale of the public utility “dinosaur” cannot come soon enough.

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South Carolina State Senator Luke Rankin To Face Off Against Gallman In Runoff

South Carolina Senator Luke Rankin is heading to a runoff for the Republican nomination against John Gallman for District 33.

Rankin, who failed to walk away with more than 50% of the vote on the June 9 primary election, has been serving in the senate since 1993; however, his support for the gas tax and Santee Cooper has been a complaint of his opponent and some voters in his district.

Gallman, who is a conservative favorite, ended up with 35% of the votes, just 4% behind Rankin’s 39%.

Now the two will face off on June 23.

The winner of this election will win the Republican nomination and become the Republican candidate for the District 33 seat.

To find your polling location or find more information voting, visit SCVotes.

District 33 – Serves part of Horry County

Candidates:

Featured

Ways to Support the Black Lives Matter Movement in Myrtle Beach

Across the globe, peaceful protests have taken place in support of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Myrtle Beach is no exception. Hundreds of locals gathered in Grand Park at The Market Common to speak out against injustice for the death of George Floyd. Officials, including Mayor Brenda Bethune and Myrtle Beach Police Chief Amy Prock, joined organizers at the Sunday afternoon event.

If you were unable to safely join protesters, there are still many options for how to get involved. You can directly donate to the cause using the Black Lives Matter online forum. In order to directly support the Myrtle Beach Black community, Travel Noire has adopted a list of Black-owned restaurants you can directly support.

Alongside the Food and Bev industry, there are many ways to support the movement. By sharing content from Black creators and educating yourself using online resources, you can help fight racial injustice. The easiest being signing petitions that call against systematic racism.

There are many ways to get involved globally and locally. We urge you to join as we fight to dismantle the injustice instilled against the Black community.

Featured

What You Need To Know Before Voting On June 9

The South Carolina primary election is on June 9, 2020, and it’s more important than ever that you use your voice and vote.

The June 9 primary election will determine the democrat or republican candidates that will then move on to the general election on November 3, 2020.

If you’re confused about what you’re voting for, who to vote for, or where to even start, we’re here to help.

First, make sure you’re registered to vote. Once you’re registered, there are three different ways to vote:

Request absentee ballot and mail it in. For the ballot to count, the voter registration office must receive it no later than 7:00 pm on June 9.
Request absentee ballot and drop it off in person. You can do this up until 5 pm on June 8.
Vote on June 9 in person. You can check your polling place at SC Votes.

What positions will you be voting for on June 9?

Depending on your county, you will be voting for:

State House of Representatives
U.S. House of Representatives
State Senate
U.S. Senate
County Council
Coroner
Sheriff

Your elected officials will be the people who represent your interests on issues such as education, law enforcement, medical marijuana, Santee Cooper, offshore drilling, and many others at the local, state, and federal levels of government.

To find out who you can vote for in your district, you can visit Ballotpedia for a sample ballot or find what district you’re in using the maps below and search the list below to see State House Representative candidates and State Senate candidates in your district.

South Carolina House of Representatives By District

District 57 – Serves part of Horry County

Candidates:

District 68 – Serves part of Horry County

Candidates:

District 105 – Serves part of Horry County

Candidates:

District 107 – Serves part of Horry County

Candidates:

South Carolina Senate By Districts

District 30 – Serves part of Horry County

Candidates:

District 32 – Serves parts of Georgetown and Horry County

Candidates:

District 33 – Serves part of Horry County

Candidates:

Featured

Santee Cooper South Carolina Coronavirus Funding

Santee Cooper’s Actions Caused Certain Senators To Derail Emergency Coronavirus Funding Legislation

The South Carolina Legislature was called back earlier this week for what was supposed to be a quick one-day session to pass a piece of emergency legislation that would help prevent a government shutdown and provide emergency funding to address the coronavirus crisis. But a familiar roadblock caused that plan to crumble.

While this was expected to be a quick vote, a resolution in the legislation involving Santee Cooper prevented senators from coming to an agreement, while House members decried action taken by Santee Cooper in recent days to deceive the legislature into believing they had negotiated a deal with Central Electric cooperative.

The latest move by Santee Cooper has angered many including Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina CEO, Mike Couick and Speaker of the House Jay Lucas.

Couick was quoted as saying “I grew up watching ACC basketball and Dean Smith mastering the game of four corners. If Santee Cooper is an expert at nothing else, it is an expert at delay, and delay of reform and transformation…”

In a letter to Santee Cooper’s leadership, Speaker Lucas wrote, “If state law gave me or the House of Representatives the authority, I would seek the immediate unqualified removal of each member of the Santee Cooper Board and the dismissal, for cause, of the entire senior management. Unfortunately for the people of South Carolina, I do not have that authority. However, I do predict and will applaud your ultimate removal from your positions in the appropriate manner.”

You can read the full letter from Speaker Lucas here.

The proposed emergency legislation included plans for COVID-19 funding, education funding for teacher salaries, funding to ensure South Carolina primaries can still take place safely on June 9, and other necessary government-funded operations that would allow the state to continue to run in the case that a budget isn’t passed before the start of the next fiscal year.

It also included a provision to postpone the debate on Santee Cooper and prevent the utility from engaging in any long-term contracts of more than a year until the work on what should be done with the state-owned utility is fully explored.

As reported by the AP, Santee Cooper spokeswoman Mollie Gore apologized for their actions in an email calling the utility’s words ‘presumptive and premature’.

Moreover, Governor McMaster slammed Santee Cooper on Twitter, saying, “There appears to be no tactic or action too deceitful or reckless for the leaders of Santee Cooper to employ,” accusing the utility of exploiting the current pandemic to avoid a sale or any type of reform.

Senators, on the other hand, debated the resolution for over five hours only to come back with an amended resolution that sent it back to the House for review. Certain senators such as Senator Rankin and Senator Grooms refused to approve the emergency legislation needed to keep the state running because of their support for Santee Cooper and did not want to put any limitations on the utility despite their history of mismanagement and lack of transparency.

Currently, there are plans for either the House or Senate to return to take further action.

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