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IMPERIAL AIR
While no one is suggesting that Gov. David Beasley take the bus, his
frequent flying has radically redefined "official business."
Although the governor failed to list the purpose of many of the 72
flights he took during his first nine months in office, as required on the
passenger manifests, he did state that numerous trips were made to address
"Christian" events and organizations.
Beasley and his entourage took the state jet at $850 an hour to
Norfolk to be on the 700 Club show, and twice to Washington, D.C., to
appear at Christian Coalition functions.
Apparently, Beasley regards speaking to these groups on "welfare
reform" part of his job. It seems that his Excellency is conveniently of
the opinion that anything he does is "official business."
TEE TIME IN SEOUL
Nobody knows how much money it took to send nearly 40 people along
with the governor to South Korea in September. They haven't added it up
yet.
The Department of Commerce organized the trip to participate in the
Southeast US-Korea Association meeting in Seoul. These trips have been
going on for years with the ostensible purpose of recruiting industry.
Optimism was last fueled by the Japanese plastics company Carroll Campbell
landed in the late '80s.
The spokesperson for the Department of Commerce said it was only
responsible for the four people who accompanied department head Bob Royall
on the trip. Royall picked up the tab for his wife's flight.
As for information on the other participants in the delegation, the
Commerce Department wouldn't comment.
"Ask the Governor's Office," the spokesperson suggested. But inquiries
to the Governor's Office have gone unanswered.
Beasley didn't win any contracts, but he did win the golf tournament
and gained great face with Korean capitalists.
MAXING OUT THE OPPORTUNIST QUOTIENT
State Treasurer Richard Eckstrom wrote to state Republican officials
last month suggesting that the Party not welcome those he referred to as
"Republicans of convenience."
Recent defections by eight Democratic legislators, two solicitors and
the Adjutant General have Eckstrom worried that the GOP's conservative
blood is being mongrelized by faux fundamentalists.
What Eckstrom is really saying is that now that Republicans are the
majority party, thanks in part to recent converts David Beasley and Bob
Peeler, the GOP can afford to become principled about whom it takes into
the fold.
Eckstrom, who used the state jet this summer to attend a conference of
state treasurers in Providence, R.I., hasn't explained why he used the jet
to stay overnight in St. Simons, Ga., during the conference.
"We represent conservative principles and common sense mainstream
values," Eckstrom advised party leaders. "We cannot ever allow
opportunistic politicians to compromise those values and principles."
Sorry, Richard, that's already been done.
IF YOU'VE GOT IT, FLY IT
In 1992, the Legislative Audit Council pointed out that there was no
justification for South Carolina having the largest fleet of airplanes in
the southeast, one of the largest in the nation, and perhaps one of the
best in the Third World.
In late October of this year, the state Budget and Control Board went
along with a Department of Commerce proposal to trade five old aircraft
for a shiny, new $2 million helicopter.
Beasley, a frequent flyer who enjoys an entourage, supported the trade
for the six-passenger, twin-engine helicopter because most top executives
are afraid to fly in single-engine aircraft.
In a recent editorial in the more gullible state newspaper, Beasley
claimed credit for selling the aircraft without mentioning that they were
actually traded for the expensive helicopter.
It may be that the golden parachutes these corporate high flyers wear
don't function in engine flame-outs. It may also be that the governor sees
a need to keep his bourgeois guests far above the madding crowd. The
majority of the peasants on the ground are making about $200 a week, and
their desperate expressions are easier to take at several thousand feet.
LOST TRUST, AGAIN
Five years ago, when Gov. Carroll Campbell's best friend, State
Development Board Director Dick Greer, pled guilty to cocaine possession,
they both hoped that would be the end to the Lost Trust investigation.
But ongoing appeals of representatives busted for selling their votes
to Greer's cocaine buddy Ron Cobb continue to threaten Campbell's
political career.
Revelations during the appeals of the convicted legislators point to
a cover-up of the former governor's involvement in a capital gains tax
roll-back that benefited his supporters. A handful of Campbell supporters
benefited by millions of dollars from the bill that we now know was
greased by bribes.
Former U.S. Attorney Bart Daniels is in the hot seat because he told
Judge Falcon Hawkins that Greer should be sentenced to probation for his
cocaine possession because of his help with the capital gains
investigation.
This was an investigation that apparently never got beyond the box of
capital gains-related documents that the FBI "found" in its Columbia
office Oct. 11 this after denying that the documents existed for the past
four years.
WHEN BUSINESS STINKS
Just when you think that you couldn't possibly be shocked by further
stories of DHEC's malfeasance, the state agency does something else that
begs the question: Are these people that inept or are they corrupt?
This particular horror story deals with a citizens' group in
Spartanburg fighting the largest garbage company in the world, Waste
Management Inc.
Or so they thought.
In a move to limit its corporate responsibility for closure and clean
up of dump sites, Waste Management of America Inc. liquidated its holdings
(on paper) and formed a new corporation, Waste Management of South
Carolina.
DHEC was not advised of the change, but rubber stamped it after the
fact.
The renamed and rapidly growing dump was started in 1990. Located,
ironically enough, on New Hope Road, west of Spartanburg, it covered 100
acres and brought in 200 trucks a day before the company sought expansion.
 The dump, adjacent to a residential neighborhood, has generated
complaints of stench, noise and traffic problems, as well as causing
groundwater contamination.
When the dump applied to DHEC to double its size, Spartanburg attorney
Gary Poliakoff volunteered to take up the fight against the proposal.
Poliakoff fought the expansion for a year before a DHEC hearing
officer determined that there were too many "statutory violations in the
permitting" and that the process had to be started over.
At the next DHEC board meeting, last fall, the board reversed its own
hearing officer's decision and granted the expansion permit.
"The room was full of lobbyists," Poliakoff recalled. "The waste
industry, textiles, they were all there. You couldn't tell the DHEC staff
from the McNair firm." (McNair represents Waste Management.)
"We never even got to the evidenciary stage of the hearing before the
board intervened and granted the permit [to expand the dump]."
The dump can now cover 270 acres, up to 150 feet high. "That's as tall
as a 13-storey building," Poliakoff said. "They're building a mountain out
there."
What makes Waste Management grow is not just corporate greed, smart
lawyers and DHEC's corporate bias, but an unusual provision of South
Carolina law that has created an especially lucrative brand of garbage.
"Special waste" is a category unique to South Carolina that ranks
between municipal waste and hazardous waste. Sewer sludge and lead paint
cannot be buried in a municipal dump, and in all other states must be
shipped to the more expensive hazardous materials dump.
Smart marketing on the part of those who would sell South Carolina's
last gasp of clean air and drop of pure water created this special waste
category to make money. Nineteen counties in North Carolina are now
dumping their municipal and "special" waste in Spartanburg, and saving a
bundle.
Once the area of the dump was increased, the company had to apply for
a permit to increase the amount of waste it could accept.
After four days of hearings in May, a DHEC administrative judge found
that there was no justification other than maximizing corporate profit to
double the tonnage rates.
In August, the DHEC board reversed its own judge and doubled the
dump's capacity to 400 tons a day.
Waste Management bullied the Spartanburg County Council into accepting
the dump's expansion by threatening to quadruple the county's disposal
rates if it didn't go along with the plan. Since DHEC the county's last
line of defense could be counted on to side with industry, the county
buckled.
"It's not just infuriating," Poliakoff said, "it's disgusting."
IF NO ONE NOTICES, IS IT STILL ETHICAL?
The Ethics Act last year prohibited registered lobbyists from
contributing to the campaign efforts of elected officials. This has
amounted to a small hurdle for a number of Republicans running for office
who mail fundraising letters to the registered lobbyist list with tiny
print at the bottom that reads: "Invitations inadvertently delivered to
registered lobbyists should be disregarded."
The thin veneer of their ethics is pierced when you look at who's
mailing and who's receiving the invitations. The Republicans apparently
don't realize that all lobbyists aren't total sell-outs and that some of
them actually lobby for something they believe in and don't even get paid.
Tom Mullikin, for example, is running for the Camden Senate seat as a
Republican. Mullikin is a lawyer who represents Laidlaw and other toxic
waste handlers. He is apparently mailing his $150 minimum donation
invitations to the entire lobbyist list, judging from the fact that a
number of environmental lobbyists were invited to join Mullikin's
"Conservative Campaign for the South Carolina Senate."
NAME THAT SLEAZEBALL!
This month's sleazeball is the director of a state agency who stood up
in front of his board to say that his staff had no problem with granting
a permit to double a certain dump's capacity. Six days earlier, this
sleazeball's staff had submitted a memo that evidenced "serious concern"
about the expansion.
Be the first caller to correctly identify this sleazebag and win a
free trial subscription to POINT.
Last month's sleazeball was DHEC.
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