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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To All Horry County Taxpayers:

(Below is a letter from Joe DeFeo, the District 3 Representative to the Horry County School Board to all voters regarding the recent approval of Carolina Station. Every taxpayer in the County should read this letter and take action.)

Dear Voters,

I am responding to all about Carolina Station. (July 1) several school board members, including myself, went to the council meeting to make one last effort to stop or delay Carolina Station… in its current form. As you may have read from the newspaper we were (as expected) unsuccessful. I have met and talked with council members over the past few months to try and change the agreement with the county. The bottom line is the schools district is getting very little from International Paper for the burdens that this development will put on the school district. We could not even get them to agree to give us the future high school land rather than having us purchase the land… They did concede to cap the price at today’s level for a few years. They also donated the land for 2 other schools. I can only tell you that this is peanuts compared to the 110 million dollars it will take to build those schools. (HCP emphasis)

Unfortunately current law provides NO CONTROL whatsoever for a school board in these developments!!! I have talked with several of our legislative delegation members about allowing school boards to impose impact fees in areas where needed in the county (or county wide). Although I have always voted against new “taxes” and have always opposed tax increases… these impact fees will not be imposed on current residents and are a very minimal impact to a buyer. It will be very hard to get this through the statehouse but… I believe it is the ONLY way to solve this problem in growing counties such as Horry County, when you look at the current tax structure.

I can only ask that you write all our legislative delegation about allowing school boards to impose these fees on future development…

Thank you for all of your concerns. I wish we could have been more succsecful.

Joe DeFeo, District 3 Representative
Horry County School Board

What happened at the July 1, 2008 Council meeting on Carolina Station…

Carolina Station gained final approval from County Council members by a vote of 6-5. Disappointing…but not discouraging. 6-5 is a far cry from the overwhelming approval developers are used to getting in Horry County.

The actual vote..
FOR: Allen, Foxworth, Frasier, Grabowski, Hardee, and Prince.
AGAINST: Barnard. Gilland, Ryan, Schwartzkopf, and Worley. Please remember to thank them.
(Council email address: countycouncil@horrycounty.org.)

With each vote on Carolina Station we made progress…
Although disappointed, we were not surprised by the outcome last night. Let’s be sure and acknowledge the progress we’re making.

1st reading 5/13 was approved by a vote of 8-3.
2nd reading 6/17 was approved by a vote of 6-4.
3rd reading last night was approved by a vote of 6-5.

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CAROLINA STATION STATUS
We are ONE VOTE away from stopping Carolina Station at 3rd reading July 1!

TAXPAYER ADVOCACY IS ALIVE AND WELL!

SUMMARY: Although the Horry County Council approved the 2nd of 3 readings on the Carolina Station development Tuesday night (June 17), IT WAS A CLOSE VOTE…6-4! (See Voting Specifics at end of email to see why we only need one more vote.)

For the 40 or so of you who went to Conway, we want you to know you made a difference. Your presence, clapping, and cheering made a huge impression on Council members and developer representatives. According to our records, at least one Council member was still undecided as to how to vote Tuesday night. Your presence, your energy, and your enthusiasm helped him or her (can’t tell you who) decide to vote NO!

For those of you who were not there, your friends made you proud. HCP leaders Pam Creech and Jim Paullin and Growth Impact Action Committee leader George Edwards presented EXCELLENT statements outlining specific, logical, economic, and business reasons for opposing approval of the Development Agreement with Carolina Station until they are paying their fair share and it is a GOOD DEAL FOR TAXPAYERS. We say excellent because that’s the feedback we’re getting from Council members and the public.

Pam told Council members “No business person would sign the International Paper Development Agreement because they would go BANKRUPT, and the only reason you would sign such an agreement is because you can raise taxes. If you vote yes, you will be making it possible for the developer to make hundreds of millions of dollars AND you will be consigning taxpayers to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to build and maintain the infrastructure needed. A business person would not sign this contract. I would not sign this contract, and I am asking you to not sign this contract for me as a taxpayer.”

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