Recent editorials from South Carolina newspapers:
___
Oct. 16
The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette on whether Hilton Head Mayor John McCann should receive overtime pay for working extra hours during Hurricane Dorian:
Hilton Head Island Mayor John McCann deserves no extra pay for doing his job during the threat of Hurricane Dorian last month.
It’s appalling that the suggestion even appeared on a town finance committee agenda this week.
That shows a disconnect between Town Hall and how the public perceives the job of mayor.
McCann is not an hourly employee. He is not a full-time employee. He volunteered for a ceremonial job that pays quite well for someone not tasked with the day-to-day administration of town government.
McCann’s job is leadership. If that means hunkering down with emergency management and fire rescue staff at the emergency operations center on the island, so be it. He’s there - voluntarily - to calm the public, not perform duties of the professionals who very well may deserve overtime pay.
The mayor’s job is one of public service. If McCann is interested more in the payout, he should never have applied for the job.
No one said it’s an easy one. Three years ago, then-Council member McCann argued for doubling the speechwriter budget for the previous mayor, saying the mayor attends 20 meetings a month on the town’s behalf.
The mayor’s annual salary is $25,000, which is well more than mayors make in cities of similar size around the state. A quick look indicates $15,000 is more the norm. Plus, Hilton Head pays the mayor and council members an extra $50 per town-related meeting, with an annual cap. That raises the mayor’s potential total salary to $32,500.
Still, the mayor’s position should be about leadership, not personal income.
It is also disturbing that no one would claim ownership for putting McCann’s hurricane-pay item on the committee agenda, though McCann reviews each meeting agenda before it’s made public.
When the meeting rolled around, with a room full of citizens looking on, it was taken off the agenda at the suggestion of assistant town manager Josh Gruber. It should never come back.
This disappointment follows two dubious public expenditures involving the mayor - one to send McCann on an uber-first-class flight to Italy to make Hilton Head a sister city of Verona, and then to fly him to Washington this week for a White House reception during the president of Italy’s visit.
If the public is to fly the mayor to Washington, it should be to bang on doors for the nuts and bolts needed to survive, such as money for infrastructure, storm recovery or storm preparation.
Town Council should see the bigger problem it is creating. It must see that these moves threaten its credibility as a prudent steward of tax dollars.
Online: www.islandpacket.com
___
Oct. 13
The Times and Democrat on burglary rates in the state:
You’ve heard the old saying about blaming it on the weather, well a new survey kind of does that with the problem of burglary.
Using data from the 2018 FBI Uniform Crime Report, SafeHome.org found that the South accounts for nearly half of the burglaries in the nation at 44.9%. The West has more than a quarter at 26.3%, while the Midwest and Northeast have 19.6% and 9/1% respectively.
Here’s what the study has to say about those findings: “Weather seems to play a role in how common burglary is in each state. Among the states with the highest residential burglary rates, their median annual temperature averages out to about 59 degrees, while the lowest 10 states’ median annual temperatures average out to just 48 degrees.”
Not surprisingly then, South Carolina has a burglary rate higher than most states, ranking No. 10 among the states with 9.21 burglaries per 1,000 households. New Mexico is No. 1 and worst with a rate of 12.84 burglaries per 1,000 households. Mississippi is second at 12.55, Louisiana is third at 11.17, North Carolina is eighth at 9.42 and Alabama is ninth at 9.37. Georgia stands at 8.69.
Nationwide, burglary made up 15% of all crimes in 2017 and the total value of what was stolen exceeded $3 billion, according to SafeHome.org.
Other findings:
- Type of entry: 57% of burglaries involve forcible entry and another 6% involve attempted forcible entry.
- Time of day: More than 6 out of 10 burglaries occurred during the day.
- Value of items stolen: The average burglary in 2017 involved stolen cash and other items valuing $2,416.
- Recovery of stolen items: About 29% of the value of all items stolen in all types of theft, including burglaries, robberies and car thefts, was recovered in 2017.
- Arrests: Only about 13.5% of burglaries involve a person being arrested.
As much as burglary is a major crime problem statewide, it historically has been one in Orangeburg County. The State Law enforcement Division does not have a measure for burglaries per se, but it provides statistics on robbery and property crime. Robbery is defined as “the taking or attempted taking of anything of value from the care, custody, or control of another person by force or threat of force, by violence, or by putting the victim in fear of immediate harm.” SLED defines property crime as “the offenses of breaking and entering, motor vehicle theft, larceny, and arson.”
South Carolina as a whole had a robbery rate of 7.7 crimes per 10,000 people in 2017, with 44% of the cases involving residences. Orangeburg County ranked 10th worst among the 46 counties with a rate of 8.8 per 10,000 people.
The statewide rate for property crimes in 2017 was 324.4 per 10,000 people. Orangeburg ranked sixth worst with a rate of 441.3.
Of note, the arrest rate in Orangeburg County for robbery was 19.5%, better than the national average for burglary as cited by SafeHome.org. No so, however, for property crimes, where the Orangeburg County clearance rate was 6.1% in 2017.
Orangeburg is the state’s second largest county in land area. Its metropolitan makeup in Greater Orangeburg with a large area not in the city makes for huge challenges for the sheriff. Couple that with the vast rural area to the east and west, and the sheriff’s office has its hands full - too full. Yet to get the number of deputies and other personnel truly needed for crime prevention in this county would send taxpayers into a frenzy.
More has to be done to get those who rob and steal out of the habit of preying on so many.
Yes, more law enforcement officers are needed, but there also should be commitment by the judiciary to be certain that robbery and property crimes are punished to the extent that there is a heavy price to pay for committing them. Those willing to rob and steal too often are on the road to worse.
And there is the public obligation. Neighbors must be willing to watch out for neighbors. People must be willing to cooperate with law enforcement by providing information when they have it. Citizens cannot just turn a blind eye. The victim may be someone else today - but you tomorrow. And you won’t blame it on the weather.
Online: https://thetandd.com
___
Oct. 11
The Post and Courier on hemp farming rules and regulations:
S.C. Agriculture Department officials probably should have gone easier on a permitted hemp farmer near Harleyville before unleashing law enforcement on him, resulting in 10 acres of his crop being destroyed.
The highly publicized Sept. 19 arrest of farmer Trent Pendarvis, and the first such seizure in South Carolina, will likely make other farmers think twice before getting into the potentially lucrative business.
The crop in question was growing in a field where it shouldn’t have been, what Mr. Pendarvis called a technicality that he tried to correct. And certainly the Agriculture Department, which called the violation willful, should have fined him. But sending a platoon of officers to arrest him and a tractor rig to shred his crop was overkill.
Mr. Pendarvis told Post and Courier reporter Thomas Novelly he believed “. they wanted to make an example out of me.”
Part of the reason hemp is so tightly regulated is because it’s nearly identical to marijuana, at least to the untrained eye.
State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel said his agency, which consulted the attorney general’s office and the local solicitor’s office before taking action, was just doing its job. When making an arrest, “we treat everybody the same,” he said, adding that SLED was acting at the request of the Agriculture Department.
As part of the permitting process, Mr. Pendarvis had signed an agreement that allowed his crop to be destroyed without compensation if he were found in violation of the law, Mr. Keel said.
“The bottom line,” he said, “is that it’s not fair to farmers who are . trying to do it the right way.”
Further complicating the matter is that hemp can be smoked to get the supposed benefits of cannabidiol, or CBD, the non-psychoactive component. Mr. Pendarvis reportedly was growing a strain of hemp to be smoked and, about a week after his arrest, Mr. Keel said some of the seized crop tested higher than the allowed limit of 0.3% percent THC.
Regardless, Mr. Pendarvis’ attorney, Brad Hutto, also a state senator, was aghast at his client’s arrest. He questioned if officers violated Mr. Pendarvis’ right to due process by destroying the crop before he had his day in court. Mr. Pendarvis was handcuffed, and his smartphone was taken from him by officers who deleted photos he’d taken of the scene and denied him a call to a lawyer before being taken to jail, being booked and posting bond, he said.
After the passage of the 2018 federal farm bill, which lifted limits on hemp cultivation and delisted the plant as a Schedule I drug, South Carolina farmers began growing the crop under tight state regulations that include background checks, plant testing to ensure it is indeed hemp and not pot, and letting authorities know the precise location of crops.
Mr. Hutto said his client changed the location of where one hemp field was supposed to be planted because of weather conditions and notified the Agriculture Department. “He never tried to hide anything,” Mr. Hutto said.
The popularity of CBD is what’s driving the hemp craze, and the market is nearly saturated. Regionally, Kentucky is the leader with about 42,000 acres planted this year, up from 16,000 in 2018, according to U.S. Agriculture Department.
But as production spikes nationally, prices are sure to fall. And South Carolina could miss the boat if law enforcement is too heavy-handed.
Depending on how the case plays out, the Legislature may well need to revisit the hemp statute and loosen rules for what triggers the destruction of a potentially valuable crop.
Online: https://www.postandcourier.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.