Richland County Council will have a special work session Friday afternoon to discuss Wednesday’s revelation from the Department of Revenue that the county’s transportation penny sales tax revenue would be cut off until the county brings the penny program into “compliance with state tax laws.”
Council will meet at 3 p.m. Friday in Council Chambers at 2020 Hampton St., Columbia, only to discuss the Department of Revenue penny tax issue. The discussion could move behind closed doors, as council has done regularly for updates and discussions on the matter during regular council meetings….
Executive session. Yeah, because, you know, what this situation needs is less transparency…
What kinds of things has the county been spending penny tax money on other than roads and buses?
You’ll never guess. Really. Not in a million years (unless you already know, which is cheating)…
Public Relations. That’s what it went for.
Yeah.
The Nerve reported this yesterday:
Analyzing months of reports from the Small and Local Business Enterprise Office – an office that the Department of Revenue (DOR) contends was improperly funded from penny tax revenue and which the county has agreed to repay in full through its general fund – the county paid:
- $169,687 to Strategic Business & Politics LLC, a single-employee business owned, S.C. Secretary of State records show, by Duane Cooper, the executive director of the South Carolina House Democratic Caucus. The business address is listed as 701 Gervais St., Suite 150-208, which is a mailbox at the UPS Store.
- $178,809 to Mizzell & Associates, a public relations/marketing firm held by former Richland County Councilman Tony Mizzell. Mizzell, a Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for Columbia City Council in 2010.
- $674,440 to P.J. Noble and Associates, Pat Noble’s Columbia-based marketing company that in 2010 was the subject of news reports questioning a $65,000 public relations contract with the City of Columbia over North Main Street improvements. Noble worked in the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety under former Gov. Richard “Dick” Riley.
- $486,201 to J.B. Ladner & Associates, a one-person firm owned by Clarence Hill, an independent planning professional and former S.C. State professor, for outreach work.
The $1.5 million in public relations/outreach payments is over and above the $3 million awarded to two private firms – BANCO Bannister and Campbell Consulting – for penny tax public relations work. Owners Heyward Bannister and Darrell Campbell are well-known Democratic consultants, with Bannister having run the political campaigns for the penny tax both in 2010, when it was defeated, and again in 2012….
So I have to ask — if county has spent $4.5 million on public relations, how come it keeps getting nothing but black eyes over the penny tax?
You can do a heap of image-building on $4.5 million. But here’s the thing: Where is all that image-building? There’s a website… and… well, I don’t know what else. (There was a public info meeting about the tax yesterday and I’m kicking myself because I missed it. If anyone attended, and got a good answer to that question, please share.)
Whatever it went for, it’s not working…
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It’s a slush fund.
This isn’t rocket science. I believe Doug has pointed this out about 200 times already.
It was never about roads. It was about stealing money.
The tax should be terminated immediately. And don’t tell me that’s not possible. It was a scam from the time the election was rigged with absentee ballots and limited machines in precincts that would have voted it down.
Where’s head cheerleader Mayor Benjamin? Nevermind the 16000 jobs he invented out of thin air to sell this ripoff.
The mayor is silent.
John Courson, Senator Jackson – silent.
Most of council – silent.
It’s hard to talk when your buddies are getting serious money to play the game.
Well, this is really none of the mayor’s business — or Courson’s, or Jackson’s (what we need our lawmakers weighing in on is the recreation commission — THAT’s their business).
The council, on the other hand — this is their baby…
Respectfully- I think that is pure baloney
If I were the mayor talking about the crumbling road infrastucture in Columbia (as Benjamin has done) and part of my job was to recruit business to relocate here it would certainly be my business anytime public transportation money was being misused. Plus, he is a well known and active citizen of Richland County. It’s his business.
If I were a powerful state senator from the same area, it would definately be my business.
Doug is very confused. There are problems with how some of the money is spent, and he leaps to “It was never about roads. It was about stealing money.”
This is not about the vote, which Doug’s side lost — fair and square, despite his wild suppositions.
This is about how some of the money is being handled NOW. Entirely different topic….
I’m not confused at all. If you look at the voting totals for the tax, especially the absentee ballots, you’ll see that there are some highly suspicious results.
Anyway, I guess you can take some credit for the tax being imposed on the rest of us. Thanks for that.
You’re welcome!
BTW-
as I said before- a good PR campaign could have been run by a local high school technology advanced placement class as a class project for under $800
But apparently there isn’t one person smart enough on council or in the county administration building to think outside the box for 2 seconds.
25 years ago my high school ag class teacher would use his students to help out the main gardening business in town by running their entire once a year flower show an d thousands of people would attend. It was a class project. If they could do that 25 years ago with no internet, just think what a good high school class could do now with a few hundred dollars to spend on a website and online campaign.
But it’s more fun to spend millions on non existent public relations efforts (read – send money to political buddies).
This is only going to work when every single dollar is transparently accounted for.
Until then, everyone around this seems to have treated the citizens’ tax contributions as graft.
Not everyone; Seth Rose has suggested the reforms that are needed but cannot convince the other Council-members, especially those representing unincorporated Richland County, to make the changes. Seth jokingly told me some time ago that if he disappears, please suggest that Richland County Council may be behind it.
Seth has been right on this, and has been doing about as much as one council member can do.
The “PR” referred to in the expenditures doesn’t really mean public relations…it probably means the money went to “PRetty awesome new car,” “PRetty awesome gold-plated bathroom fixtures,” of those on the receiving end of these payments and so on.
Those outraged by this should not be limited to those skeptical of all tax projects in the first place—it should be those who feel that the purpose of any taxation has to be for a pretty widely-shared common good. As I’ve mentioned a few times here, as somebody who does ride the bus (and more often since the penny tax spurred improvements) the money spent on COMET from this tax has done great good. Many if not most of the people that ride the bus with me don’t have the options I have for transportation. Doubling up the bus frequencies and adding routes and improving consistency and quality of service IS helping people get to jobs more reliably, getting to their health care appointments more reliably, providing benefits not only to those people but to our city/community as a whole as a result.
If this gets screwed up because people couldn’t resist setting up all their friends and relatives to “feed at the trough” of public money, it would be a real tragedy and should cause MORE outrage, quite frankly, among those of us who were OK with the penny tax to begin with, than it does among those who were skeptical or opposed to begin with.
Absolutely, Phillip. You are 100 percent right.
It’s already screwed up. It isn’t as if this is speculation.
We (the electorate) voted them in; we can vote them out. Does anyone have a plan for starting a campaign to get people to vote only for those candidates that clearly advocate transparency? I suspect if there were transparency there would also be more fiscal responsibility.
Ms. Pearson, I am late to reply here, but the sad fact is that many voters in our area do not care to hold politicians accountable for questionable spending, even graft and corruption, let alone transparency. Some officeholders, once they reach a certain level of popularity/power, are given a wide leeway on conduct in office. It is what it is, and is true across the nation, not just here.
Here’s some simple questions: Who specifically approved the payments to these PR companies? What is that person’s name? Somebody decide to pay to $169,687 to Strategic Business & Politics LLC. Is that person connected to Duane Cooper in any way?
Legal v. Ethical; a struggle everywhere, but a monumental problem in South Carolina. PG-13 language: INCESTUOUS!
I don’t know the answer to that, but we certainly deserve one.
You won’t get one because council seems totally shocked that this was happening as if we are to believe the money magically appeared in those bank accounts.
MR. Rush, chairperson, seems totally in the dark on anything related to the issue. Hmm….
MR. rose talks about the issue but no one pays him any attention.
Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley used to offer a succinct piece of ethics advice to newly elected aldermen. “Don’t take a nickel,” Daley told them. “Just show them your business card.”
From what I’ve observed, the Midlands is not quite as bad as Chicago but is working hard to catch up. Pay to play …
Joel Lourie ripped T. Rush a new one Monday night in a public meeting. chairman Rush never seems to fully know what is going on and Lourie called him on it.