BIG DEAL FOR PROMISE ZONE. Cypress Creek Renewables will invest $66.8 million to build six solar projects across Hampton County, according to state and regional officials. What great news for people who live in the S.C. Lowcountry Promise Zone. Since the federal designation was announced in late April, there’s been $8.6 million in federal funding for the six-county region and $74.2 million in capital investment, as reported by the state and the SouthernCarolina Alliance. More.
IN THIS ISSUENEWS: Thousands still helping in flood recovery
BRIEFS: Dems to hold Nov. 6 town hall; Progressive Caucus formed
COMMENTARY: If you want a friend, get a dog
SPOTLIGHT: AT&T
FEEDBACK: Send us your letters
SCORECARD: Up for Horne, middle for three
NUMBER: 8,000+
QUOTE: Policing the police
S.C. ENCYCLOPEDIA: Boykin spaniel, state dog
NEWS
Thousands continue to help in flood recovery
By Bill Davis | The flood that soaked South Carolina this month was so massive that there’s not a good adjective to describe its size. Now, the recovery looks more like a patchwork quilt than a safety net from the perspective of state Disaster Recovery Coordinator Kevin Shwedo.
“We’ve got everybody coming to help,” said Shwedo, the state’s head of the Department of Motor Vehicles who has been tasked to lead a pop-up state team of professionals to deal with the recovery. “The federal government with FEMA and the Small Business Administration, state government, counties, cities, non-governmental organizations, and even bumblebees and grasshoppers.”
Umm … bumblebees and grasshoppers?
Shwedo was referring to faith-based rescuers: teams of trained disaster responders from the Southern Baptist Convention who wear yellow shirts (bumblebees) and responders from the United Methodist Committee on Relief who wear green (grasshoppers).
Shwedo praised the bumblebees and grasshoppers for always being visible and available at disaster response centers throughout the state, and for being able to act quicker than some government arms, tied at times by red tape.
Sue Harmon, operations director for the South Carolina Baptist Convention’s disaster relief office, said that while her organization doesn’t track total numbers of volunteers its bigger sister has provided in South Carolina, it does track total volunteer days.
As of close of day Thursday, the convention had contributed 4,279 volunteer days. But, Harmon added that number represents many volunteers pulling multiple days, and it changes constantly. So far, the convention has welcomed responders from as far away as Oklahoma, she said, and expects to welcome more from states hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. “Canada’s coming next week,” Harmon said.
FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said recently that the agency “has the authority necessary to lean forward and leverage the entire emergency management team in response and recovery efforts. This team includes not only government but also the private sector, non-profits, and citizens themselves.”
FEMA spokesman Jim Homstad said close to 1,300 agency personnel are on the ground in South Carolina, responding to assistance applications from over 70,000 residents spread out over 24 designated counties, with residents of Richland County comprising over one-fifth of that number.
So far, Homstad said that FEMA has approved more than $53 million in grants across South Carolina so far. As for reports that families in mobile homes having an even harder time of getting approved for assistance, Homstad said that all cases are dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
It’s tough to gauge how many non-governmental and faith-based groups have shown up to help out South Carolina, according to Tim Ervolina, chief executive officer of the United Way Association of South Carolina.
Ervolina’s organization’s Columbia office this week served as a rallying point for the various groups, but had to keep getting chairs as the number swelled and swelled.
And the state is going to need all the help it can get, according to Ervolina, because of the scope of the storm’s damage across the state, and for the amount of time he expects it will take for South Carolina to rebound fully.
While neither FEMA nor the state have released a damage estimate in the wake of the flooding, unofficial estimates have hit the $1 billion mark, according to several sources.
“This is going to be a ‘deep ask,’” said Ervolina, explaining that it was vital for those who already donate to charitable organizations to maintain regular contributions and dig deeper to give even more at this crucial time.
Ervolina caused a storm last week in this publication when he said FEMA was more focused on denying claims than filling them. This week, Ervolina did not change his position, but added that he was trying to “tamp down expectations” of a speedy recovery paid in full by the federal government.
Shwedo said he saw it differently — that the federal workers were “good people bent on helping,” and that persistence will be the key going forward. Both said that residents impacted by the flood needed to keep going back to FEMA repeatedly and not be deterred by initial rejections of claims.
Shwedo said it’s even been tough on him just learning a “whole new language” of FEMA nomenclature and that the inspectors will help residents jump through what Ervolina called the agency’s “narrow hoop of proof.”
FEMA, which took a beating for its response to Hurricane Katrina, has changed its scope and mission, according to Ervolina, who reminded everyone that the agency has new restrictions placed on it these days.
Bill Davis is senior editor of Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
PALMETTO POLITICSDems to hold town hall before Nov. 6 presidential forum
Staff reports | With Democrats selling out of tickets in just five minutes to a Nov. 6 presidential forum at Winthrop University, they’ve come up another way for people to be heard: a town hall meeting on the same afternoon.
The DNC Southern Caucus will hold its first of what it expects to be a series of town hall meetings offered during the 2016 presidential primary cycle. The topic the Nov. 6 event is: “The New South: Shifting Cultural Norms.”
S.C. Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, the Orangeburg Democrat who chairs the caucus, said the discussion will focus on the increasing political importance of the South in terms of “shifting attitudes toward race and equality; the environment; the growth and inclusion of Latino communities; and, the next generation of leaders.”
Those scheduled to attend include:
- The Rev. William Barber, organizer of North Carolina’s Moral Monday movement;
- The Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta;
- Laura Cahue, a member of Somos S.C. and Young Immigrants in Action;
- Columbia attorney Nekki Shutt; and
- Louis Elrod, president of Young Democrats of America.
The town hall will be held 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Nov. 6 in Dina’s Place auditorium in the Winthrop student center, 701 Oakland Ave., Rock Hill. The event is open, but you are encouraged to register online here. About 200 people are expected.
Progressives form a new caucus
Staff reports | There’s a new legislative caucus in Columbia and longtime legislative leader Gilda Cobb Hunter wants people to take notice.
“I’m tired of talk,” said the Orangeburg Democrat, now in her 24th year in the S.C. House of Representatives.
The S.C. Progressive Legislative Caucus, formed over the summer by Cobb Hunter and six House colleagues, got notification a week ago that it is a nonprofit in good standing with the Secretary of State’s office.
The caucus will focus on often-neglected issues that are important to working families: equitable and fair funding for public education, raising the minimum wage and passage of an Earned Income Tax Credit in South Carolina to benefit the working poor.
Cobb Hunter emphasized the new caucus wasn’t seeking to take away from work done by her party.
“It’s simply giving us an opportunity to focus on issues that make a difference,” Cobb Hunter said Sunday at the fall retreat of the S.C. Progressive Network at the Penn Center on St. Helena Island. “[Through the years,] I have learned how to prioritize things. Some of the issues important to working families have gotten the short shrift.”
Cobb Hunter said fellow caucus members included six other House Democrats: Leon Howard of Columbia, David Mack of North Charleston, Walt McLeod of Little Mountain, Harold Mitchell Jr. of Spartanburg, Joe Neal of Hopkins and Seth Whipper of North Charleston.
COMMENTARYIf you want a friend, get a dog
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher
OCT. 30, 2015 | Life got darker this week when a shining light of my family’s lives went out.
Our 14-
year-old dog passed on, leaving our daughters without an elegant presence that’s been with them ever since they were born.
There were lots of tears for our Simon, a Labrador-Dalmatian mix whose long legs suggested a speck of greyhound thrown in for good measure. Rescued from a local agency, he joined us a year after my wife and I married.
This week after hundreds of miles of walks, thousands of pounds of food and a million smells that kept his world alive, old age caught up with our friend who looked like he wore a tuxedo every day. Two of the hardest things my wife and I have ever done happened within hours — making the decision that his time had come and then telling our daughters that their friend wouldn’t be coming back home.
For a large number of us, treasured pets like Simon sometimes feel like our only friend. They can sense our pains. They seem to understand. They often offer stability when the world is crashing down. And unlike people, they don’t judge. Instead, they give calm, unrelenting, complete love.
A Greenville friend, Chip Felkel, jokes that he had an open affair with another women in his own house under his wife’s nose. And today, almost a dozen years after his dog is gone, he still gets emotional thinking about her enormous blue eyes.
“She stole my heart, endearing herself in sometimes subtle, sometimes bold ways. She showed her loyalty and her commitment, and her jealousy and her individuality. She punished my wife for having the audacity of becoming pregnant with our son – by systematically tearing up the most expensive pairs of shoes she could find until she was banished from the house for what seemed like an eternity to me but what was really only one night. And, yet the same child whose arrival she seemed to dread she protected, sleeping by his crib before he was born, lying between him and a roaring fireplace during a power outage, even though the popping scared her immensely, and the result of being burned herself….
“She was my friend, my companion and at times both confidante and counsel — whose ability to answer with just the right words without ever speaking is something that will always amaze me and a memory I will always cherish.”
I’ve long thought the world would be a calmer, better place if politicians and leaders acted more like dogs.
President Harry S Truman wisely said, “You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.”
Dogs are trustworthy, loyal, helpful, obedient and brave — all of those Boy Scout things that many of our politicians seem to forget. Dogs can sniff out a phony. They’ll stick with you, unwilling to turn on someone when it’s convenient. They are willing to give someone they don’t know a chance. Dogs stick with you. And they’ll go out on a limb if you need help. People, however, don’t consistently do these things, letting you down more often than doing what’s right.
These days in a South Carolina marked too regularly by random violence or turmoil caused by nature, perhaps we should turn more for inspiration from our pets, the friends of our souls, to inspire us to do what’s good and right.
Our pets might not be able to talk, but when we look deeply into their eyes, we can almost hear them say, “Scratch me behind the ears. Rub my belly. How about a treat? Don’t forget others.”
We already miss our Simon’s contented, smiling pant. It won’t be long before his musty scent drifts away from our rugs. Soon, we won’t find tumbleweeds of his inch-long black and white hair in a corner here, under a table there. But he’ll always be with us, inspiring us to do better.
Saint Simon Brack, 2001-2015. Rest in peace.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report. He can be reached at: brack@statehousereport.com
IN THE SPOTLIGHTAT&T
The public spiritedness of our underwriters allows us to bring Statehouse Report to you at no cost. Today’s featured underwriter is AT&T Inc.
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Thumbs up
Horne. We’re a little disappointed we didn’t break the news on S.C. Rep. Jenny Horne’s candidacy for Congress against incumbent and former Gov. Mark Sanford, but we’ll get over it. We’re glad she’s running.
Birthdays. Hats off to author Pat Conroy, who is celebrating his 70th birthday this weekend with a big literary festival in Beaufort, and to Parris Island, which last weekend celebrated its 100th anniversary as a major part of the Marine Corps.
In the middle
Lott. Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott is rightfully getting high marks for his reaction to a disturbing incident at Spring Valley High School involving a school resource officer who dragged a student out of a classroom. It’s good he acted quickly and fired the officer. We’re a little more cautious about pinning too much blame on the student. And we’re very concerned about a student bystander being arrested, too, for videotaping the incident. More.
Graham. South Carolina’s U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham did well in the “undercard” forum before this week’s GOP presidential debate but still isn’t connecting, leading him to wonder earlier this week how he could be losing to political newcomers Donald Trump and Ben Carson in the polls. More.
Templeton. We don’t really understand why former DHEC Director Catherine Templeton resigned from a big $235,000-a-year job at the S.C. Ports Authority, but stranger things have happened. More.
Thumbs down
New Emanuel info. Mainstream media squawked about needing more information about the Emanuel Nine shootings in June and asked for a court gag order to be released. And what did we really learn from these new documents provided to the media: Not much. And what did the media do soon after photos and documents were released: They posted them online — just like we predicted and advised against earlier. It was unnecessary, added little new understanding to a tragedy and the impatient media could have waited until a trial.
NEAP scores. Not good news that S.C. students still lag those from other states on scores of the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests. More.
NUMBERS8,000+
Chesterfield County authorities seized 8,000 to 10,000 guns in a raid on a home and trailer near Pageland, leading most people to wonder why anyone needs that many guns. There were so many guns that it took authorities nine hours to clear them out of the man’s property. The man was arrested on charges related to stolen property, according to reports.
Policing the police
“I would hope that every citizen that has a cellphone that has a camera on it, if they see something that’s going on and they have questions about it, they need to film it. Our citizens should police the police. That’s their job, too.”
— Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, who fired a school resource officer who dragged a high school student from a classroom. The episode was videotaped and went viral nationally, much like the shooting of Rodney Scott earlier this year by a North Charleston officer. More.
S.C. ENCYCLOPEDIABoykin spaniel
S.C. Encyclopedia | The Boykin spaniel was originally bred in South Carolina before the 1920s. This amiable, small, dark brown retriever is a superb hunter and loving family pet. It was bred to provide an ideal dog for hunting fowl in the swamps along the Wateree River, which demanded a sturdy, compact dog built for boat travel and capable of retrieving on land or water.
Lemuel Whitaker “Whit” Boykin, a planter and sportsman from the Boykin community near Camden, tested many dogs to answer these needs. With luck and selective breeding, the multipurpose retriever was being bred to type by the 1920s. The precursor of the breed was reportedly a stray spaniel-type dog that befriended Spartanburg banker Alexander L. White around 1905.
After the spunky dog showed an aptitude for retrieving, White sent the dog, called “Dumpy,” to his friend and hunting partner Whit Boykin. In Boykin’s hands this little stray developed into a superb turkey dog and waterfowl retriever. The popularity of the breed grew steadily, and the Boykin’s ability in the field and amiable nature brought the dog praise in all forms. The Boykin Spaniel Society was founded, with headquarters in Camden, in 1977 and counted 2,544 human members by 2000. In that same year the official Boykin spaniel registry, begun in 1979, listed 16,285 Boykins in 49 states and many foreign countries.
On March 26, 1985, Gov. Richard Riley signed into law an act making the Boykin spaniel the official South Carolina state dog.
– Excerpted from the entry by Mike Creel. To read more about this or 2,000 other entries about South Carolina, check out The South Carolina Encyclopedia by USC Press. (Information used by permission.)
CREDITSEditor and Publisher: Andy Brack
Senior Editor: Bill Davis
Contributing Photographers: Michael Kaynard, Linda W. Brown
Phone: 843.670.3996
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!