My name is Dick Leavitt. My wife and I have lived here for 17 years. On July 1st County Council approved 3rd Reading of the Carolina Station Development, and loaded the cost of the 4 new schools at Carolina Station – $125,000,000 – squarely on the shoulders of all Horry County Taxpayers. I am here tonight to inform you I do not think that will happen.

I only have 5 minutes so my comments are limited to the schools. However I am aware there are additional legal concerns regarding this Agreement – they pertain to requirements to include specific scheduling information; requirements to list all the I.P. owners’ names; and waiving an ordinance regarding serving alcohol within 500 feet of a residence.

It is puzzling that some Council members have pleaded for years for the State Legislature to provide Counties with a funding tool to pass infrastructure costs on large developments along to Developers. Here we have the largest single development undertaken in this County, and the State Legislature provides you with that tool in the form of the Residential Improvement District Act, and you turned your backs on it. In todays’ tough real estate climate, waiting a couple of months to iron out the R.I.D. agreement with International Paper was not unreasonable. One reason Will Garland asked you to defer 3rd Reading was the School Board knows it is not fair to tax all the residents for these schools. However, Council rejected Mr. Garland’s request. One Councilman argued the R.I.D Act lacked what he called “enabling legislation”. I checked with an attorney in the State Legislature in Columbia who assured me the Residential Improvement Act IS the “enabling legislation”.

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Coast RTA is a participant in the Food Lion Shop & Share Program. Ara Heinz, Grants/Procurement Specialist at The Coast RTA has requested support from HPC while shopping at Food Lion.

Coast RTA is eligible as a non-profit organization to participate in this program. The program works this way:

Food Lion offers MVP Cards to all customers. These cards allow the customers to receive savings on certain items in the store. Additionally, the cards can be tied to a non-profit agency as a fundraising effort. If the customer decides to link their MVP card with Coast RTA, each time that customer shops at Food Lion and uses their MVP card, a portion of the total grocery purchase will be donated to Coast. (Coast must have at least 25 MVP cards linked in order to participate.) At the end of each quarter, Food Lion will divide the funds proportionally among the Lion Shop & Share organizations (including educational, religious, and civic organizations) depending on their accumulated sales. Coast RTA is eligible to receive up to $350.00 per quarter ($1,400.00/year).

The money received from this program will be used as a form of local match. This “match” will be used to access the grant funding from the state and federal government. (Every little bit of local match helps!)
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