Our first post from July 2008

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to deceive…”

As a group of taxpayers in Union County, SC, we have begun this website as a sounding board for what we believe is corruption in politics in our county. There are numerous questions that need to be answered.  It is not a place to slander, but merely a place that we as normal citizens can pose questions to our local officials concerning what is going on in Union County, questions that are on the minds of the citizens who are intimidated into not asking.   Many of you may have been shocked about the recent arrests of our illustrious mayor and his building inspector sidekick.  It is a shame that the hard working people of this county, of whom most live a little above the poverty level, is so misinformed.  It is time to take a stand and be heard!  So let us begin this site by asking a few questions of city, council and county council, mayor pro tem, the supervisor, and others who are paid by your taxes.

Updated  7/27/08
State law prohibits any public official from accepting a financial gain not only for themselves but also for family members personal gain.
The following in the actual SC code

RULES OF CONDUCT

SECTION 8-13-700. Use of official position or office for financial gain; disclosure of potential conflict of interest. (A) No public official, public member, or public employee may knowingly use his official office, membership, or employment to obtain an economic interest for himself, a member of his immediate family, an individual with whom he is associated, or a business with which he is associated. This prohibition does not extend to the incidental use of public materials, personnel, or equipment, subject to or available for a public official's, public member's, or public employee's use which does not result in additional public expense.

According to the ethics code it is not legal for an elected official or family member of an elected official to gain financially by the use of his or her public office.  Therefore it does not look good when property transactions are taking place by family members of some of our elected officials that directly involve property foreclosures that are handled by the county.  The supervisor’s dad sold a piece of property that was bought in foreclosure to an elected county council member for a rental business the council member operates.  How much are these properties bringing on the courthouse steps?  Most properties that are up for auction on the courthouse steps are never sold there, they go back to the mortgage company by being bid back in by a county employee.  Is this not a conflict of interest?  Do these mortgages companies know how much the properties bring on the courthouse steps?

Are they being sold for less money than what is actually bid for them?  Do the mortgage companies know how much some of these properties are bringing at the courthouse only to be bid back in by the county?  Who ends up with some of these cheap foreclosed properties?  From some research recently done it looks like some family members of public officials, public employees, and elected public officials themselves are getting their hands on some of this property and looks like they are paying less for these properties than were bid at the public auction.  How does this work?
Maybe someone should go and question some of our public officials to see how it all works.  This has been going on for so long that that some of these people who are involved believe no one knows or cares or maybe they just think they can get away
with doing what they want to do. Several family members and close aquaintances of our elected officials, county and city, seem to be bypassing the system.  Research is being done to uncover properties being bought at a premium.  These people are buying up condemned properties and foreclosures as fast as they can.  Apparently though, they believe that they are not doing anything wrong. Think again! We have a sneaking suspicion that some "LLC" companies are just a front, in fact we know that they are.  Also it is known through research there are a lot of people with very, very close family ties listed as purchasing property, one county councilman and one assistant building inspector to name a few. 

As long as these types of things are going on in our County we will never be able to grow.  When the leaders are those who prosper our county cannot.  One of the things
the Clerk of Court promised to do if elected was to get the county tax records and land transactions online so that everyone in the county could get easy access to pay taxes as well as be able to see all the property transactions in the county.  That has not been mentioned since he went in office, and as long as these guys are able to do what they are doing we never will be able to go online to see what is going on.  There was money set aside to put all of these records online but that money was spent on the bank building on Main St.back in 2005 and the offices that were supposed to be placed there have not.  Our county needs some HONEST leadership.    

We need leaders who will stand up and do the right thing, not those who are always
out looking for a vote.  We also need leaders who want to help the people of our county and not those who just want to go in office to get on the county insurance.  Why not cut out the availability of insurance for all council members?  Then maybe someone will run who truly wants to benefit the county and not themselves. We need to form a union of people who are concerned about these issues in our county.