May 17, 2012

You are here: Home / 2009 / May / Archives for 1st

Legislative week: Sanford continues to be Legislature’s lightning rod

May 1, 2009 By

Governor Mark Sanford continues to be a lightning rod for debate in both the House and Senate.

By a 31 to 12 vote, the State Senate approved a $5.7 billion spending plan Wednesday night after debating past midnight. The approval calls for Governor Sanford to request the $350 million in federal stimulus money. Republican Senator Larry Grooms of Berkeley says he was greatly upset with how the budget was handled. Sanford’s allies, like Grooms, say the Governor cannot be ordered to spend the money, for he wants to use it to pay down state debt.

“I support his fiscal conservatism one hundred percent. It is my belief and contention that we should hold some state dollars in reserve and then if he chooses to draw down those federal stimulus dollars lets spend them on education and health care, but only if we have a corresponding amount of money held in reserve in case state revenues decline.”

The issue of forcing Sanford to request the cash is likely to go to court. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Legislature, Politics & Government

SC private sector targets underage drinking

May 1, 2009 By

The private sector in South Carolina is stepping up to fight underage drinking in the state.

Janice Driggers has worked at The Kangaroo Express in North Charleston for about 7 months. Sometimes, she may have a customer, buying alcohol, present to her a fake I.D card.

“They’ll come through, they’ll either have a torn up I.D., or if you ask them for an I.D they’ll just back away and say ‘nope, I don’t have it.’ It doesn’t work with us, we have a strong program,” says Driggers.

The program is called “We I.D,” and all employees in the 284 Kangaroo stores in South Carolina have to participate in training on how to identify a fake I.D. or someone underage. Brad Williams is Senior Vice President for The Pantry Incorporated, that owns Kangaroo Express.

“We just want to communicate to the community that we are proactive in this fight for underage sales and we just want to draw awareness because it really should be a partnership,” says Williams

The Pantry has partnered with the leader in promoting responsibility, Anheuser-Busch for this prevention campaign. Spokeswoman Carol Clark-

“Well, we know that there’s been great progress in underage drinking across the country, in fact, government statistics show that 84% of young people ages 12 to 17 have made the smart choice not to drink, and here in South Carolina that number is even higher at 86%. So, we want to keep those numbers coming down, and there’s obviously more work to do though and that’s what this partnership is all about,” says Clark.

So, after the new training program and preparation, Driggers is ready for the next time she sees another fake I.D.

“Oh, yeah, we know exactly what to look for and it’s, they pretty much cooperate with us,” says Driggers.

Listen to full story here

Filed Under: Business, Human Interest, News

Women’s Campaign School sold out for weekend

May 1, 2009 By

Judge Kaye Hearn will lead the South Carolina Court of Appeals, the first woman to be their Chief Justice.

For a group gathering in South Carolina this weekend, this is the kind of news they want to hear more often.

Over the weekend, Southeastern Institute for Women in Politics is holding its 2009 Leading Women conference and campaign school.

Spokeswoman Barbara Rackes of Columbia says,”Again South Carolina is at the bottom of the rankings. We are fiftieth in the country, less than 10 percent of our elected officials are women.”

The group, formed in late 2007, is the only 501(c)(3) solely dedicated encourage and train women to run for political office…whatever the party or office.

“This is a bipartisan group,”says Rackes, “and I like to jokingly refer to it as a multi-partisan group, because each of us has our own political opinion. But we are bound by our bylaws to be very close to fifty-fifty in terms of Republican and Democrat. We do have two people on our board who identify themselves as Independent.”

Rackes says yes, women lead differently.

“It’s not that there just has to be some kind of equal share. We’re not espousing it only because we want to have 50 percent of representation in skirts to trousers. It’s because women makes decisions differently. Women have a much less confrontational approach to solving problems. Why is that? Because we have not had the measure of authority in many cases that men have had,”says Rackes.

This weekend’s campaign school is sold out, with 70 slots taken by women throughout the region who want national and state leaders to coach them into public leadership of some kind.

The success rate so far? Three women were elected to office who attended their first training school. As the Institute prepares for a soon-to-come campaign season, they have much work to do to reach their goal of a three-fold increase in the state running for office.

The group this weekend also honors former U-S Representative Liz Patterson of the Upstate and former State Education Superintendent Barbara Nielson.

Filed Under: Human Interest, News, Politics & Government

Pandemic not a pretty picture

May 1, 2009 By

At least one D.H.E.C. official says he’s anticipating a worldwide influenza pandemic in a matter of days or weeks, based on the word of leading scientists.

The World Health Organization has specific measurements for assessing whether a spread of disease will be considered a pandemic, which is merely a worldwide epidemic.

Epidemiologist Dr. Robert Ball co-chairs the South Carolina Pandemic Influenza Ethics Task Force. He says the pandemic declaration would not be without merit.  “The best experts in the world predict that this ‘H-1-N-1″ virus will soon become a bonafide pandemic, and that propagation throughout the general populous will continue for weeks, if not months.  After that, predictions become fuzzy, and only time will tell.”  [Read more...]

Filed Under: Health & Medicine, News
Newer Posts »