Swatzel support

Published in the May 19, 2010 edition of the Georgetown Times:

Unfortunately, Charles Smith is just wrong regarding the direction of the Georgetown County Republican Party and the actions of our chairman, Tom Swatzel.

As officers of the county GOP we approved the party’s stance against the school board deficit spending legislation that Democrat legislators tried to push through, as well as the party’s pursuit of greater school board transparency. We acted under the authority of the party executive committee.

The county GOP stands for lower taxes, limited government, less government spending, and openness and accountability, among others.

When the party can apply public pressure, through Chairman Swatzel, to hold officials accountable to our principles, we should do so.

Smith is the only member of the party executive committee that has expressed any concerns about our party’s positions or the actions of our chairman.

Indeed, all we have heard from the GOP faithful is that our chairman is doing a great job.

We have more money in the bank and more members than at any time in the party’s history. And the party has developed a high profile as being effective.

Chairman Swatzel is doing a great job and he has our complete support.

Georgetown County Republican Party

R.L. Port- Vice chairman
Howard Ward- Treasurer
Ruthann Howard- Secretary
Jill Kelso- State Committeeman
Vikky Ferris- President of Georgetown County Republican Patriot Club
Jim Jerow-President of the Waccamaw Neck Republican Club
Roland Lambert-President of Lower Georgetown County Republican Club
R.L.Port-President of the Upper Georgetown County Republican Club

http://www.gtowntimes.com/letters/Letters--May-19--2010

Tom Swatzel: School board decisions need to be more transparent

Published in the May 12, 2010 edition of the Georgetown Times

By Tom Swatzel

Republican Sen. Ray Cleary is to be commended for standing with Georgetown County taxpayers and Governor Sanford in voting to sustain the Governor’s veto of legislation that would have allowed the Georgetown County school board to use school construction bond money to fund operational deficit spending. . . Click here for the rest of the op-ed

Democrats advocate unconstitutional and irresponsible school board spending

Published in the Pawleys Island Coastal Observer- April 15, 2010

By Jill Kelso

The Georgetown County Republican Party has come out against an unconstitutional scheme by Democratic Representatives Vida Miller and Carl Anderson that would allow the county school board to borrow money to pay for operational deficit spending – something no unit of government in the state is allowed to do.

The party has asked Governor Sanford to veto Miller and Anderson’s legislation on the grounds that it’s unconstitutional.

The county GOP has also come out for more transparency from the school board, asking the board to post online a complete budget, an annual audited financial statement, a monthly check register, and board meeting minutes and decision documents.

What’s been the county Democratic Party response?

As to the unconstitutional scheme, effectively Democratic Party Chair Nancy Kolman says that unless you’re willing to violate the state constitution and be fiscally irresponsible you’re against public education. Sounds kind of like the rationale we’ve heard from the Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and President Obama concerning their healthcare bill.

As to the GOP proposal for more school district transparency, there has been utter silence from Democrats Kolman, Miller, Anderson, and others in the party leadership. The only Democrat that’s said one word publicly is school board chairman Jim Dumm, who says he supports the GOP proposals and should be applauded.

Perhaps transparency concerning school board spending is not something these Democrats want to see because the financial numbers that can be pieced together show a school board (both Democrats and Republicans) that over the years has engaged in spending taxpayer money at levels that are just not sustainable.

It came to taxpayers’ attention in 2001 that the school district had amassed a huge $28 million surplus, probably because of years of property tax rate errors. What’s a school board supposed to do with an unplanned surplus of that magnitude? Reduce tax rates and give it back to taxpayers?

No, instead the board spent the surplus just as fast as they could even under the threat of a class action lawsuit from taxpayers seeking to force a refund.

In 2006, during the boom in county real estate values, Georgetown County was required by law to reassess property values. The reassessment process is not supposed to result in property tax windfalls to local governments, however the school board worked to ensure that it did for them.

As a result of reassessment, according to county documents, property taxes collected by the school board for operations and debt service in fiscal year 2007 alone increased by an astounding $11 million, or 25%.

Beyond this huge windfall, the school board has managed to increase its overall property tax millage rate by 12 percent since 2006, according to state Commerce Department statistics.

From state Budget and Control Board and SC Department of Education reports, in 2008 the school board spent $126.4 million, including local property taxes, and state and federal funds, to educate 9,921 students, which is an incredible $12,741 per student.

Of the $126.4 million, only 45 percent was actually spent in the classrooms for instructional purposes.

And at the same time this unsustainable spending level was growing, the school district lost over 800 students from its peak enrollment in 1995.

Instead of working to impose needed fiscal discipline on the school board and getting them to open their financial records, county Democrats are working at being deficit spending enablers, just like we see in Washington with Congress.

And ultimately the working families in Georgetown County, who are struggling to live within their means in this economy, will end up footing the bill for their folly.

Jill Kelso lives in Murrells Inlet and is a member of the state Republican Party executive committee

Ryan: SC District 108 needs more fiscally conservative voice

Published in The Georgetown Times- April 12, 2010

By Kevin Ryan

The South Carolina House of Representatives spent [a recent] week debating how to spend more than $5.1 billion of your tax dollars. This state budget for the fiscal year beginning in July now moves on to the Senate. I think it is important for the people of this district to know about a few votes that were cast by our current representative during the budget deliberations. These votes demonstrate why our district needs a new, more fiscally conservative voice in Columbia. We can no longer afford a continuation of the status quo.


Millions of dollars were slashed from the K-12 education budget despite threats of teacher layoffs and furloughs. In the course of debate, the House was presented with an opportunity to direct more money to classrooms by ending the practice of school districts using taxpayer dollars to pay for lobbying. The exact budget amendment read “no school district of this State may expend public funds in order to employ, or contract with a lobbyist, or pay dues to an organization which employs a lobbyist….” That sounds like a pretty good idea to me, especially in a tough budget year. Our current representative didn’t think so. Vida Miller voted to table this amendment and continue the practice of spending money for lobbyists instead of in the classroom to help teachers and students.

Additionally, the House was presented with a series of amendments which made targeted cuts to programs and agencies that don’t represent the true role of our state government. I applaud Rep. Garry Smith for having the courage to make a tough decision and introduce these amendments which would eliminate funding for the State Museum, Commission on Minority Affairs and the Human Affairs Commission, among others. Miller voted to table each of these proposals. Instead of making tough choices that recognize the true role of state government, she along with her Democrat colleagues and too many Republicans took the easier path and supported tax increases to raise revenues and avoid making targeted cuts.

Lastly and most unfortunately, the House voted to provide a $10 million loan for a PGA golf tournament in Hilton Head. Miller voted to leave this proviso in the budget. While the economic impact of the tournament may be important – it is neither the role nor responsibility of state government to allocate funds for this event, especially not in a year in which our students, business owners, seniors and all South Carolinians are struggling. This sets a precedent for state government to step in and provide bailouts for other events. It is also worth noting that all 124 members of the House received invitations to this tournament, including free tickets, parking and access to a special skybox, on the same day that the budget deliberations began.

It is my hope that the people of this district and our state will make their voices heard in demanding a more fiscally responsible approach to the state budget as it progresses through the Senate and in future years. If elected as your next representative I will join with the few responsible legislators who support proposals that recognize the true role of state government, protect essential state services, oppose wasteful spending and fight against tax increases. The next few years will require tough choices as the budget situation worsens and federal funds dry up. We can no longer afford to continue the status quo.

Kevin Ryan resides in Pawleys Island. He is a Republican candidate for S.C. House District 108

http://www.gtowntimes.com/Opinion/Kevin-Ryan--Need-for-fiscally-conservative-voice

A Reform Ticket

On Friday, John McCain introduced Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his choice for vice-president. Palin is a fiscal and social conservative. A mother of five, she's commander of the Alaska National Guard and is known for her government reform efforts.

Here's what the Wall Street Journal had to say in an editorial published on August 30th about the choice of Governor Palin:

A Reform Ticket

If any doubt remained that former fighter pilot John McCain loves to take unconventional risks, he put them to bed Friday by picking Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Introduced in Dayton by Mr. McCain, Governor Palin swung the bat pretty well. We'll now see if she can hit curve balls.

It's a daring pick because Mrs. Palin has never faced national scrutiny and hasn't had to deal with foreign policy. Most VP choices are designed to do no harm, and we tend to agree with the maxim. Democrats are already saying they can't wait for Mrs. Palin's debate against "statesman" Joe Biden. On the other hand, the record shows that Sarah Palin's political career is a case study in taking on the big boys. We suspect her record of fighting the status quo was uppermost in John McCain's decision.

Barack Obama aside, Senator McCain's biggest problem is a Republican brand that has suffered -- both among independents and the GOP base -- from the party's business-as-usual mentality in Washington. The public wants change. This pick could prove Mr. McCain is serious about changing his party.

Sarah Palin's reform resume would be remarkable in any political career. She entered politics at 28, winning a seat on the Wasilla city council as an opponent of tax increases. After she defeated Wasilla's three-term incumbent mayor four years later, she swept the mayor's cronies out of the bureaucracy.

In 2003, Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski appointed her to the state's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Bear in mind that Mr. Murkowski had already served as junior U.S. Senator from Alaska for 22 years. Mr. Murkowski was junior senator for so long because Senator Ted Stevens (who was recently indicted for corruption) had lifetime tenure in the senior post.

Shortly after joining the oil and gas commission, Mrs. Palin commenced an ethics probe of the state's Republican party chairman, Randy Ruedrich, involving conflicts of interest with oil companies. The probe resulted in a $12,000 fine for the party chair.

She crossed party lines in 2004 to join a Democratic representative's ethics complaint over an international trade deal against the Republican Attorney General Gregg Renkes, who had ties to the Murkowski machine. Mr. Renkes resigned.

In late 2005, Mrs. Palin announced her run for Governor before then-Governor Murkowski had announced his intention to stand for re-election. In a three-way primary, Mrs. Palin got 51% to Mr. Murkowski's 19%. At the center of this campaign was a debate over competing proposals to build a natural gas pipeline across Alaska.

These columns wrote about Gov. Murkowski's smashing defeat by Mrs. Palin, noting that his pipeline proposal had been tainted by reports of sweetheart deals with energy companies. The editorial ended: "If Republicans are run out of Congress in November, one big reason will be that, like Mr. Murkowski, they have become far more comfortable running the government than reforming it." That is what happened, as disgusted GOP voters turned away from their own party and ceded control of Congress to the Democrats.

Against the odds, Mrs. Palin won that 2006 election against the state's former Democratic governor Tony Knowles. Most recently, she promoted the effort of her GOP lieutenant governor to unseat U.S. Congressman Don Young, who with Senator Stevens created the earmark that sank the GOP, the notorious "bridge to nowhere."

Experience?

For starters, we'd say Governor Palin's credentials as an agent of reform exceed Barack Obama's. Mr. Obama rose through the Chicago Democratic machine without a peep of push-back. Alaska's politics are deeply inbred and backed by energy-industry money. Mr. Obama slid past the kind of forces that Mrs. Palin took head on. This is one reason her selection -- despite its campaign risks -- seems to have been so well received by Republicans yesterday. They are looking for a new generation of leaders.

Don't expect this remarkable personal Palin narrative to get an Obama-like break from the national media. Their main focus will be her lack of experience, claiming it undercuts Mr. McCain's criticism of Barack Obama. One mispronounced foreign leader's name, and she's going to be hammered.

If she can survive this gantlet, Governor Palin could help Mr. McCain with some liabilities of his own. The alternative would have been a ticket of two familiar GOP names in a political cycle where the Democrats have seemed to be the party of energy and freshness. A self-described "hockey mom" with a commercial-fisherman husband, Governor Palin will have more credibility with families than a Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee. With energy supplies and prices one of the top issues, Alaska's Governor also should bring some first-hand realism to the debate over drilling and the environment.

Democrats, reign in city bureaucrats

July 9, 2008

The following opinion piece from today's Georgetown Times takes on the Democrat Party controlled Georgetown City Council and Mayor for their role in allowing small business owner Jeanette Ard to be fined nearly $400,000 to date for not installing a public restroom in an addition to her Front Street business, even though the city approved her building permit without the restroom, and regulations do not require one.

Democrats, reign in city bureaucrats

By Tom Swatzel

You're a small business owner in a small city and you decide to invest significant money in an addition to your building that will hopefully increase your business and add some additional employees.

You submit your plans to the city building department, they are approved, and you hire a licensed contractor to build the addition. The city inspects the construction as work progresses and all work is found to be within the specifications of the submitted plans.

Your contractor finally completes all of the work specified within the city-issued building permit and it's now time to get a Certificate of Occupancy from the city so you can actually start using the addition for business.

But there is a problem. City inspectors appear and tell you out of the blue that before you can actually use the addition, a public restroom must be installed at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, even though your city-approved plans don't contain a restroom, no prior inspections had ever mentioned the need for one, and there is no regulation requiring a restroom.

And, by the way, until you install a restroom the city is going to fine you almost $1,100 a day.

How would you feel?

You would feel the outrage and extreme sense of injustice that Colonial Floral Fascinations owner Jeanette Ard has been feeling for the last year, since City of Georgetown building department officials arbitrarily and capriciously decided she had to install a public restroom in an ice cream shop she had added to the rear of her building on Front Street, and fined her nearly $400,000 to date.

And, to add insult to injury, Ard has been forced to hire expensive attorneys to file a lawsuit against the city for gross negligence to protect her interests.

What's really at issue here is not Ard's compliance with all applicable laws; she's clearly done that. It's unelected city building officials attempting to make law and a Democrat Party-controlled city council and mayor that, as far as taking responsibility for the city's actions in this ridiculous and outrageous case, apparently exist in name only.

The city council and mayor have refused to exhibit any decency or fairness in helping Ard by simply reining in the city bureaucrats and telling them to issue her a Certificate of Occupancy and to drop the outrageous fines.

The actions of the city have harmed Ard, but they also send a very strong antibusiness message to businesses that may locate or want to expand in Georgetown. This will harm the city's ability to attract businesses and jobs.

Because five of the six city council members and the mayor are members of the county Democrat Party, I asked my counterpart, Democrat Party Chairman Jamie Sanderson, to use his influence with council and the mayor to resolve this issue in favor of Ard, under the assumption that the county Democrat Party would stand with the Republican Party in bipartisan support of economic development and job creation, and fairness for Ard, herself a past Democratic city council candidate.

To my disappointment, Sanderson and his party refused to help Ard and job creation, stating that Ard's problem "is not a political issue, but rather a legal matter," and that she needed to let the courts decide the issue -- a response I'm sure lawyers will love.

If you're a property owner in the City of Georgetown, you should be very concerned about Ard's plight because until the city bureaucracy is reined in by a politically elected council and mayor, you'll be at risk, the next time you build a home, shop or office, to be subjected to a completely arbitrary city requirement and the threat of fines so outrageous that they make Georgetown city government look absolutely foolish.

At this point, I suggest the Democrat city council and mayor simply resign because it appears they have, for all practical purposes, delegated all of their policy making authority to the city's bureaucrats.

I don't even think city residents would know they are gone.

Mr. Swatzel is chairman of the Georgetown County Republican Party

School Politics- Partisanship didn't hurt public-education debate in Georgetown County

March 29, 2008

Below is an editorial from today's Sun News that highlights the need for Georgetown County school board elections to remain partisan- a position the Georgetown County Republican Party has vigorously supported.

EDITORIAL
School Politics
Partisanship didn't hurt public-education debate in Georgetown County

As part of its recent voting-rights settlement with the U.S. Justice Department, candidates for the Georgetown County Board of Education will run on a nonpartisan basis, beginning this year. No longer will school board ballots identify school board candidates as Republicans and Democrats.

This is OK. But in comparison with the main issue the Justice Department sought to address in forcing this change in the school-board electoral system, partisanship - let's face it - was a side issue.

The main issue, of course, was that the county's at-large school board voting system has tended, in recent years, to disenfranchise black voters. Under the settlement, which will take effect once the S.C. General Assembly "blesses" it, seven of the nine Georgetown County school board members will serve schoolchildren from single-member districts. Those districts will be drawn from the County Council district map. Only two school board members will be elected at large - by all county voters.

That change should address the Justice Department's main concern: that black school-board candidates be able to win elections. Because of shifting demographics and - yes - because of the rise of the Republican Party in Georgetown County, the at-large system now passing into history has yielded all-white school boards in the past two elections.

Since 2004, board members tended to be from the Waccamaw Neck and the city of Georgetown, where Republican strength is greatest. Black Democratic candidates have been unable to win elections. So it's understandable why some saw partisanship as part of the problem.

The problem with the end of partisanship, as county GOP Chairman Tom Swatzel has pointed out, is that school board candidates could have trouble distinguishing themselves from one another on the issues. There is no better instrument for honing and presenting political issues than a political party. There is no better instrument for getting voters interested in the issues - including education issues - than a political party.

We know: Swatzel's thinking runs afoul of the view that school board elections are somehow above politics. Not for nothing did a spokeswoman for the S.C. School Boards Association recently reiterate her group's position that school boards should be nonpartisan. "Education," she said, "is a nonpartisan issue."

This is fantasy. The Georgetown school board incumbents who stand for re-election later this year will still have party affiliations - and partisan feelings - even though they're technically nonpartisan. And the black candidates who run for the school board in hope of securing one of the new district seats are still likely to be Democrats - and feel like Democrats - even though they're technically nonpartisan.

Moreover, it's possible - even desirable - to apply "Republican" and "Democratic" principles to public education. Republican school board members, for instance, are more likely to be budget hawks than Democratic members.

None of this is to find fault with the deal as cut with the Justice Department and blessed by the federal courts. It's time to move on in hope that black voting power in Georgetown County will find fairer expression in future school board elections. But Swatzel is not wrong to express regret that partisanship will no longer directly shape the public-education debate in Georgetown County.

Out of the Mainstream

This commentary from a former Clinton administration official in the May 1st edition of the Wall Street Journal is instructive in showing just how wildly out of touch the current field of Democratic presidential candidates are with most Americans when it comes to the issue of partial-birth abortions and the recent US Supreme Court decision to uphold the ban on those abortions.

Out of the Mainstream

By Kirsten Powers

May 1, 2007; Page A20 Brian Williams asked a revealing question at the Democratic presidential debate in South Carolina last week. The NBC News anchor, who was serving as moderator, inquired whether criticism of the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the federal partial-birth abortion ban put the Democrats on stage at odds with the majority of Americans who applauded the decision.

John Edwards, apparently missing the rhetorical nature of the question, responded, "No, I don't believe it is."

Polls show between 60% and 70% of Americans oppose late term abortions, except to save the life of the mother. The Democratic candidates -- all of whom vocally criticized the ruling -- are out of touch with most Americans, including many who are pro-choice, on this important issue. Even some Democrats who voted for the ban four years ago -- such as Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Joe Biden (two of 17 Senate Democrats to vote for it) -- have dressed down the Supreme Court for upholding a law they voted for.

It's tragic that abortion rights have become synonymous with modern day feminism. But it's mind-boggling that late-term abortions now enjoy the imprimatur of every one of the presidential candidates of one of the two main political parties. Many early feminists -- the Suffragettes -- opposed abortion. They viewed it as an affront to human rights. There is little doubt that they would have recognized elective, late-term abortion for what it is, a gruesome, uncivilized and inhuman procedure. Feminism was meant to establish women as having equal legal rights to men. Yet, in today's twisted debate, women are not mere equals. Instead, they have been elevated to a special status where they have the "right" to determine whether a five-month or older "live fetus," as the court called it, should be partially delivered outside of their body and killed in the most gruesome manner imaginable, even if carrying that fetus poses no threat to their life.

Some elected Democrats ignored this faux-feminist canard, and supported the ban, including Rep. James P. Moran, of Virginia, who said, "It's not about a woman's right to choose. It's about a baby's right to life." The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a pro-choice Democrat, called the practice "infanticide." It needs to be said that there is no constitutional right to crush a living human's skull and suction out its brains, no matter where that life may reside -- inside the womb, or partially outside the womb, as is done in the so-called partial birth abortion. It's immoral and contrary to the values of the Democratic Party, which prides itself on standing up for the weak and voiceless.

If Democratic power brokers aren't swayed by moral arguments, then they should consider how their reflexive pandering to the left wing of the party will play in a general election.

The Democratic Party has made a huge show of reaching out to religious voters, for whom abortion is a central issue. Overtures have been made to acknowledge the moral dimension of abortion, with Sen. Hillary Clinton's famous remarks that, "we can all recognize that abortion in many ways represents a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women."

But terrified by the left wing of the Democratic Party, the presidential candidates are aligning themselves with organizations that malign opponents of unrestricted late-term abortions as misinformed hysterics. Yet some of the people who run those organizations are themselves bereft of factual information about the procedure they champion. Recently, National Organization for Women (NOW) President Kim Gandy was asked in a radio interview to describe the procedure she so vigorously supports. She couldn't. When pressed, she sputtered, "I'm not a doctor."

When the host cited testimony of a doctor, one Dr. Martin Haskell -- the man who pioneered and has performed at least a thousand of these abortions -- Mr. Gandy replied "I don't know who Dr. Haskell is." It's important to know who Dr. Haskell is, since he has debunked a central claim of unrestricted late-term abortion proponents, that they are critical to protect the "health" of the mother. According to an interview in American Medical News, Dr. Haskell said, "I'll be quite frank: most of my abortions are elective in that 20-24 week range. . . . In my particular case, probably 20% are for genetic reasons. And the other 80% are purely elective."

Rather than defending the indefensible, rather than parroting the propaganda that elective late-term abortions are "health-care decisions" akin to an appendectomy, the Democratic Party should be taking the lead in eliminating a still legal form of elective late-term abortion where, as the court described it, "The fetus is usually ripped apart as it is removed, and the doctor may take 10 to 15 passes to remove it."

Sen. Barack Obama pointed out that late- term abortions account for less than 1% of all abortions. Sounds sort of benign, until you consider that in the last 10 years more than 10 million babies have been aborted in the United States.

Ms. Powers served in the Clinton administration from 1993-98 and is a Fox News political analyst

Road Paving Decisions Bad for County Residents, Good for Politicians

This opinion piece is from the May 17th edition of the Pawleys Island COASTAL OBSERVER. It points out the politics that Democrats, particularly State Rep. Vida Miller, are playing with Georgetown County road paving funds.

Road Paving Decisions Bad for County Residents, Good for Politicians

By Tom Swatzel

Recently the Georgetown County Transportation Committee (CTC), after being captured and strong-armed by the Democratic-Party-controlled county legislative delegation, agreed to spend almost $800,000 in taxpayer money to pave five very sparsely populated roads in Democrat State Senator Yancey McGill's district in the far western part of the county, and as a result blew a $200,000 deficit in the CTC's future budget.

Incredibly these five roads jumped ahead of all 28 of the Waccamaw Neck roads listed on the CTC paving priority lists that are in the district of State Rep. Vida Miller, a Democrat.

Two of the roads do not appear on any of the CTC priority lists, and one, the 1.5 mile long Center Road and has no houses on it at all.

All of the listed Waccamaw Neck roads have a substantial number of houses per mile.

Miller and McGill, who with Democrat Rep. Carl Anderson control the county legislative delegation, tried to entice the CTC to approve the paving work as a "pilot project," while promising to seek project-specific funding in the state budget. When the pork did not materialize (not unexpected because of Miller's and McGill's minority party status in Columbia), and the CTC members balked at approving the project using existing committed paving funds, Miller's and McGill's solution was to start getting rid of the members who opposed them.

Ricky Horne, Miller's opponent in the last election, was conveniently removed after he opposed the Miller-McGill paving plan.

He was replaced with a person that actually lives on one of the roads involved in the questionable funding, effectively reducing Waccamaw Neck representation on the CTC.

Linwood Altman, a Democrat and respected former state legislator from Pawleys Island, who strongly opposed the paving plan, resigned from the CTC rather than participate as a rubber stamp.

This type of "Boss Hogg" action is not new.

Georgetown County Council used to have the power to appoint the CTC members. This made sense because council members actually reside in the county (McGill does not), are closer to the people, and therefore generally more knowledgeable about local road issues and making good committee appointments.

However, several years ago Miller and McGill appeared before the CTC to ask the committee to commit transportation funds to pave a parking lot.

Yes, a parking lot at a proposed library in McGill's district.

Shortly after the CTC denied the parking lot funding, Miller and McGill collaborated on legislation that removed the appointment powers from County Council and gave them to the legislative delegation. None of this passes the smell test.

Why would Miller abandon her constituents on important road issues within her district and cause her district to have less representation on the CTC?

The only answer that might make sense is simply partisan politics.

I would guess that perhaps a back-room deal may have been cut to have Miller help McGill look like a hero to his constituents because of the likelihood that he may face strong opposition in the upcoming election next year.

I'm not sure what Miller may have gotten in return politically. I do know that unfortunately she has become part of the problem with state government and not part of the solution.

On this issue Miller has surely taken her constituent support very much for granted and undermined an objective process for improving roads within her own district and the county.

She has reinforced the stereotypical notion that good old boy, and in this case gal, politics are alive and well in South Carolina, and made an excellent case for the need for eliminating the antiquated county legislative delegation system statewide.

The writer lives in Murrells Inlet and is chairman of the Georgetown County Republican Party and a former Georgetown County Council member