Category Archives: South Carolina Government

Aiken County, March 2023, South Carolina Government

Rumblestripe

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DOT Addresses a Dangerous Stretch of Road

by Don Moniak
March 18, 2023
(Updated March 20, 2023)

South Carolina Department of Transportation crews added a rumble stripe yesterday to the center line on Highway 19 North, commonly known as Edgefield Highway, from Interstate 20 to the county line north of Eureka (below).

The SC DOT Project Viewer shows the stretch of Highway 19 designated for a rumble stripe due to past accident history.


According to U.S. Department of Transportation technical advisory, a center line rumble stripe is a:

“Longitudinal safety feature installed at or near the center line of a paved roadway. It is made of a series of milled or raised elements intended to alert inattentive drivers (through vibration and sound) that their vehicles have left the travel lane. In most cases the center line pavement marking is placed over the rumble strip, which is sometimes referred to as a center line rumble stripe.”

State Highway 19 north of Aiken is a hazardous undivided roadway, perhaps rivalled in danger only by Highway 78 east of Aiken. The two-lane road has only two turn lanes north of Aiken, and the only passing lane is at the I-20 interchange at Exit 18. Southbound traffic routinely backs up if a single driver is turning left onto Reynolds Pond Road. Left hand turns at the curved junction with Shiloh Baptist Road and Old Graniteville Highway are ill advised.

Residents on the west side of the road must navigate traffic to reach their mailboxes on the east side of the road where the Postal Service delivers the mail. In the era of distracted driving, a few long curves on the road create a higher risk of motorists crossing the center line. Even in the absence of curves, drivers drift towards the ditch or across the center line. Super-speeders are routinely obsessively compelled to pass on short straightaways.

In July 2017 three people were killed and three others were hospitalized when a driver crossed the center line and caused a head-on collision. In September 2020 two people were killed when they collided head on with a dump truck on the straightaway north of Shiloh Baptist Road (1). Another head on collision on that stretch killed one driver and hospitalized another happened in August 2021 a few hundred yards from the 2020 wreck. A collision in 2019 on the curve north of Shiloh Baptist Road resulted in hospitalizations but not any fatalities.

With that many deadly and injurious wrecks, the number of near misses, though hard to quantify, must be high. For example, this past Thursday a semi-truck driver avoided a major accident by veering off the highway at the entrance of the solar farm. Here you can see the tire tracks from where they applied their brakes.

Sign of a near miss collision on Edgefield Highway, north of I-20.

According to the USDOT, seventy five percent of deadly head-on collisions occur on undivided two lane roads. The rumble strip is designed and intended as “a countermeasure for driver error, rather than roadway deficiencies. They are designed primarily to assist distracted, drowsy or otherwise inattentive drivers who unintentionally stray over the center line. For this set of drivers, the audible and vibratory warning produced by center line rumble strips greatly improves the chances of a quick and safe return to their lane. Where drivers don’t safely recover, the warning created by rumble strips often improves driver reaction, reducing crash severity.”

The rumble strips can also aid drivers during periods of heavy fog or other low-visibility conditions. Studies have shown reductions in crashes causing injuries of one third to one half.

Rumble strips are not without any downsides. They are considered enough of an inconvenience and safety concern for motorcyclists that DOT recommends alerting bikers to the presence of the strip. The noise generated by vehicles crossing the strip during passing can be a major annoyance to residents along the roadway. They also serve as a symbol of the decline of alert driving—an inconvenient safety measure otherwise unnecessary for focused drivers.

The long curve on the South end of Eureka has been the scene of multiple wrecks involving drivers going off the road after failing to navigate the turn. A rumblestrip was added to the road yesterday, March 17th.

Update

SC DOT also has stretches of U.S. Highway 78, Williston Road; and State Highway 302, Wagener Road, scheduled for rumblestripe projects. The Hwy 78 rumblestripe will run from Hwy 302 east to Oak Ridge Club Road. The Hwy 302 rumblestripe will run from east of the Owens Corning plant to Montmorenci Road.


Footnote:

(1) Major accidents that block roads create serious secondary safety issues in the form of poorly conceived detours. Following the September 2020 fatal collision, SC DOT and the Aiken County Sheriff’s Department funneled motorists and truckers on a circuitous and winding detour (below).

Southbound detour route during the emergency response to the September 2020 fatal head-on collision just north of Hankinson Boxing Gym. Some drivers also became temporarily lost along the route due to misplaced signage. The detour for northbound traffic was even more confusing.


February 2023, Pascalis 2023 - SRNL Lab, Plutonium Settlement, South Carolina Government

Letter to the Joint Bond Review Committee

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The following letter, signed by 39 South Carolina taxpayers and residents as of February 27, 2023, has been sent to the ten-person South Carolina Joint Bond Review Committee (JBRC), which is tasked to “study and monitor policies and procedures relating to the approval of permanent improvement projects and to the issuance of State general obligation and institutional bonds; to evaluate the effect of current and past policies on the bond credit rating of the State; and provide advisory assistance in the establishment of future capital management policies.”

Any state-funded capital project must be reviewed and approved by the committee. The committee last met on January 25, 2023, and is next scheduled to meet on March 23, 2023.

Dear Joint Bond Review Committee members,

On Monday night, February 27, 2023, Aiken City Council will vote on the second reading of an ordinance to “amend the 2022-2023 Budget to include Plutonium Settlement Funds.”

The proposed amendment involves $16.1 million of the $25 million allocated in Line Item 72(I) of the Savannah River Site Litigation appropriations in House Bill 290: “City of Aiken/Aiken County- Redevelopment and Economic Development in Downtown and Aiken’s Northside Toward I-20, $25,000,000.” According to the Executive Budget Office, the funds are intended for “revitalization and redevelopment for areas that have fallen into disrepair or are currently underutilized.” 

This line item is one of the few allocations in the final legislative appropriation of settlement funds that was not project specific. While the funding was approved by the State’s Joint Bond Review Committee, Part 72.1 of the legislation requires “Funds in this item may be released to fund an eligible project at the direction of the Executive Budget Office, upon the Executive Budget Office’s receipt of a written request from the receiving county.” According to Aiken County Council, the county has yet to receive this $25 million disbursement from the Executive Budget Office.

We undersigned citizen tax payers of South Carolina request the Joint Bond Review Committee reconsider the $25 million disbursement of Savannah River Site Litigation Funds, to allow for a project-specific approach to releasing these state funds and avoid any subsequent wasteful or unintended expenditures.

1. The $3 million proposal to repair the Fairfield Street Bridge in downtown Aiken, which has been closed due to structural deficiencies since 2017, should be approved. This project clearly falls within the broad project purpose of “revitalization and redevelopment for areas that have fallen into disrepair or are currently underutilized.” 

2. The $3.5 million proposal for the Northside Gravity Sewer project should be deferred until the City of Aiken identifies how this project on unincorporated county property affects county residents, notifies County residents of its annexation and growth plans, and reports whether this project is primarily maintenance-related or expansionist in scope. It is unclear how this project qualifies as a “revitalization and redevelopment effort for areas that have fallen into disrepair or are currently underutilized.”

3. The $9.6 million proposal to pay off the principal of the General Obligation bond used to “purchase downtown property” should be rejected. The properties in question are presently known as the “Pascalis properties” and were purchased by the Aiken Municipal Development Commission (AMDC) through a grant from the City of Aiken raised via this general obligation bond. The properties were purchased as part of a demolition and redevelopment plan involving half a block of downtown Aiken, known as Project Pascalis, that was formally canceled by the developer and the AMDC in September, 2022.

The reasons to reject this $9.6 million project request are as follows:

a. The true nature of the property purchases were not revealed to citizen taxpayers during the approval and hearing process.

When the bond ordinance was approved following during two public readings in August 2021, City Council and the AMDC presented the funds as necessary for a “land bank” proposal to purchase “blighted” properties in Aiken’s ~575-acre “Parkway District.” In reality, it was a proposal to purchase seven properties, held in an assignment contract by the Aiken Chamber of Commerce, from two property owners in a 1.7 acre area where nine small businesses were operating.

Only one building in the Pascalis demolition zone lacked a tenant, and the two buildings associated with the Hotel Aiken were closed for a reported renovation. It was not a blighted area and had not been declared a blighted area.

This basic information about the actual real estate purchase intentions was withheld from citizens of Aiken until the first week of November, 2021, when the AMDC announced Project Pascalis , a $75-100 million project involving the demolition and redevelopment of the 1.7 acres and forced relocation of nine small businesses.

b. The properties were purchased without due diligence and were an unnecessary and ill-advised investment of taxpayer funds. The properties were purchased for $9.5 million without the AMDC or City of Aiken conducting any appraisals, and only required property inspections on two of the seven properties. After the Chamber of Commerce took assignment of the properties in late May of 2021, two developers offered the AMDC only $1 million for the most prominent property, the Hotel Aiken, in response to a solicitation for proposals that was not publicly advertised as mandated by SC Community Development Law. This offer was less than half the agreed-to price of $2.25 million in the assignment contract.

Existing Aiken County appraisal data, which City officials routinely use as a point of reference for other purchases and sales of city properties, showed the property + improvement values were collectively appraised by the Aiken County assessor at $4.683 million of market value. But since the AMDC intended to demolish the property, it essentially paid $9.5 million (not including demolition costs) for land with an appraised market value of $1.487 million. On a per-square-foot basis, the AMDC paid nearly five times more than the Aiken County appraised market values of the land at surrounding business properties. Notwithstanding the fact that the AMDC essentially assigned a zero value to the buildings on the seven properties (which were consigned to demolition), an alternative evaluation using recent sales of nearby business properties indicated the AMDC overpaid by “only” a factor of almost three.

These analyses in the summer of 2022 were validated in November 2022 by the revelation that the AMDC had signed a contract to sell the properties to the newly formed development consortium RPM Development Partners for $5 million, just one month after the commission had paid $9.5 million.

c. Aiken City Council counted its chickens a year before they hatched. According to the Executive Budget Office’s description of the entire $25 million line item allocation, submitted to the JBRC in January 2023, the City of Aiken’s “plan also includes the acquisition and assembly of land or properties for the purpose of redevelopment in the downtown area to promote economic development for the city, it’s residents and visitors

In reality, the bond was approved in August 2021, with the expectation of future allocation of plutonium funds, months before a single budgetary proposal was issued in the legislature. The bond was finalized in October 2021 and the properties were purchased in November 2021. Aiken City Council took an ill-advised risk by committing taxpayer funds in the expectation of state reimbursement from the Savannah River Site litigation settlement; which has resulted in a foolish expenditure of taxpayer funds.

The AMDC’s and City Council’s manifold instances of careless disregard for well-established business practices and fiduciary responsibilities should not be so easily finessed by conveniently applying Plutonium Settlement Funds to pay off the bond. In short, the proceeds from the bond issuance were used to further the folly of an illegally-formulated, ill-defined, and mismanaged project–which has now found a home in Aiken City Council’s dustbin.

d. There is no project. Since Project Pascalis was canceled in September, 2022, the general obligation bond is no longer associated with a redevelopment project or any project at all. Paying off the principal is not a development strategy, it is a bail-out strategy. Furthermore, the details of the failed project that resulted in the AMDC and City of Aiken owning seven properties in the downtown commercial district have yet to be fully revealed to taxpaying citizens. At a minimum, a full, independent financial and project audit should be completed prior to any state funds being released to the City of Aiken to pay off this unwise debt.

Summary: City Council has announced its intentions to transfer the Pascalis properties from AMDC control to city control and dissolve the AMDC. There is no development project presently involved with any of the properties. There is only a feasibility study underway for three of the properties. After the city takes control, it will replace the AMDC as a commercial real estate landlord for the six businesses that did not yield to the AMDC’s pressure to relocate; at least until the properties are sold on the open market, or transferred to another party.

Paying off the general obligation bond condones the city’s ill-advised investment, which no longer qualifies as a redevelopment project. Paying the debt for a failed project is not worthy of plutonium settlement funds that are intended to address real community needs: education, infrastructure, and well-planned economic development for the common good.

Thank you,

Donald Moniak
(and 38 South Carolina Taxpayers and Residents)






January 2023, South Carolina, South Carolina Government, Uncategorized

Don’t Mess With Carolina Gas, Oil, or Coal

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Aiken State Representative Melissa Oremus Stands Up for Texas with Copy and Paste Legislation

by Don Moniak

January 16, 2023

South Carolina State Representatives Melissa Oremus (R-Aiken) (1) and James Burns (R- Greenville) are the sponsors of legislation that would prohibit public “investment in companies that boycott energy companies.” Specifically, the law would require South Carolina’s State Fiscal Responsibility Authority (SFRA) to prepare and maintain a list of companies that all state agencies must use to “sell, redeem, divest, or withdraw all publicly traded securities” of any financial company determined by the authority’s Executive Director to be involved in boycotting investment in fossil-fuel producing companies or companies that do business with them. 

The legislation is not just modelled on other legislative examples, it is a duplicate (2). If there were a rule against legislative plagiarism, the bill would be discarded.

.With a few fill-in-the-blank exceptions to allow for differences in South Carolina pension management, House Bill 3525 (H3525) is otherwise word-for-word identical to Chapter 809 in Texas’ Public Retirement Systems code, including provisions prohibiting lawsuits for breach of fiduciary duty, or any other claim or cause of action against government entities or employees who may cause losses to pension funds as a result of enforcing the law.

The Texas law was enacted in 2021, and quickly stirred up considerable controversy, especially after dominant financial firms such as Blackrock and Vanguard had funds listed in the fossil fuel energy company “boycotters” category by the Texas Comptroller. The law has been described as “Infowars Investing,” by free-market investment supporters, and “cancel culture from the right” in an otherwise staid analysis by Forbes contributor and Oxford University economist Robert Eccles.

The Texas law was intended to dissuade ”environmental, social, and governance” influence in the financial sector, particularly as it pertained to Texas fossil fuel energy companies. Chapter 809 mandates that the Comptroller prepare and maintain a list of companies who “boycott energy companies,” defined as:

“without an ordinary business purpose, refusing to deal with, terminating business activities with, or otherwise taking any action that is intended to penalize, inflict econonic harm on, or limit commercial relations with a company because the company engages in the exploration, production, utilization, transportation, sale, or manufacturing of fossil-fuel based energy and does not commit to meet environmental standards beyond applicable federal and state law.”

Once on the list, any government entity such as a pension program is required to meet a schedule to sell, redeem, divest, or withdraw the firm’s publicly traded securities. There are a few loopholes that allow divestment to be delayed, such as if the move “will likely result in a loss of value.”

The Texas law was intended to protect Texas fossil fuel companies, an industry that employs an estimated 450,000 workers who collectively produce 43% of the nation’s crude oil and 25% of our natural gas supplies. Because of the massive size of Texas’ public retirement systems, lawmakers sought to prohibit involvement in the system by companies deemed to be a threat to the state’s largest industries; and thus try to deter efforts to use the financial system to deprive fossil-fuel companies of investment funds.



In contrast, South Carolina is not a coal mining, oil and gas production, or refinery state. Efforts to prevent off-shore oil and gas drilling have bi-partisan support. Texas energy production is measured on the Department of Energy charts by the thousands of trillions of BTUs, South Carolina is measured by the hundreds of trillions of BTU’s. Yet, according to The Nerve, South Carolina politicians appear as adamant as their colleagues in Texas about protecting fossil fuel energy companies as Texas and coal mining states like West Virginia; but almost entirely from an ideological perspective and not one of economic self-interest.


Could Oremus (2) and Burns’ legislation mean South Carolina’s public pension fund management decisions, as they pertain to “fossil-fuel boycotting companies,” will be influenced by the Texas Comptroller’s listing decisions? Since the law does allows the divestment list to be prepared using information provided by “governmental entities,” why prepare a new list when the Texas Comptroller already has completed the task and the intent of the legislation is clearly to emulate Texas?

Footnotes

(1) An example of the word for word nature of the legislation:

The South Carolina bill:

The Texas Law:

(2) Representative Oremus declined to answer questions posed in an email. Oremus is locally notorious for conducting closed debates. She deleted her official Facebook account sometime in late 2021 or early 2022; and requires permission to comment.