South Carolina News and Sports
Governor Mark Sanford will join SC Commerce Department and Anderson County officials Friday for a major jobs announcement in the region.
First Quality Tissue is expected to open a paper mill, hiring up to 1000 employees.
The announcement is slated for the Anderson Civic Center at 11 a.m.
The South Carolina Senate wrapped up debate late Thursday that lasted since last week on the issue of a regulation that would require fire sprinkler systems in all newly constructed homes.
The Senate gutted a House bill that would override the regulation, and replaced it with one that would support the regulation, but delays its implementation until January 1st, 2013. The legislation goes to the House next week following third reading that is expected to happen by Tuesday. If the House doesn’t agree to the change, a conference committee will try to reach a compromise.
The South Carolina Association of Fire Fighters says the requirement would save lives. Home builders argue that it would price new homes out of the reach of lower income home buyers.
Georgetown County Republican Raymond Cleary has pushed the legislation to allow the requirement, saying that there has been a lot of misinformation against it. Cleary says the price will quickly come way down for spinkler installation, from what some said was more than $6 per foot of piping, to less than $1 per foot.
Cleary said it was beneficial to everyone to delay implementation of the sprinkler requirement, beneficial to homebuilders as well as firefighters.
(Cleary on sprinklers MP3 4:15)
Cleary on sprinklers
Cleary originally submitted a plan for gradual implementation, that would require sprinklers in 2012 for houses of 3500 square feet or larger, but he changed that Thursday to the plan that applies to all new construction in two-and-a-half years.
Cleary says where the requirement has been mandated for 25 years in Scottsdale, Arizona, sprinklers have saved greatly on property loss.
Cleary says sprinklers will pay for themselves through insurance deductions, possibly in two year.
The South Carolina House failed Thursday afternoon to override the governor’s veto that blocks a proposed court fee increase. The vote was 58-51.
The increase would have generated more than $21 million for the court system. Supporters say the extra money was needed to avoid layoffs in the courts.
Marlboro County Democrat Doug Jennings, an attorney who supported the increase, emphasized that the fee would only have applied to lawsuits, not criminal cases. He said the court system is desperate for funding.
State Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal had asked legislators to approve the fees.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Harrison said that half the litigation in South Carolina is business suing business. He said the state’s big businesses support the fee increase because they support the court system.
And Harrison appealed to those who supported abused and neglected children, saying that support of the court system is essential to their welfare.
By a vote of 33-13 – the Senate overrode the governor’s veto and set a new cigarette tax rate of 57 cents.
In the midst of applause in the Senate –Oconee Senator Thomas Alexander, who says he worked hard for the increase– got to say his thanks, and mentioned Senator Jay Verne Smith of Greer, now deceased, who started the push and convinced him years ago to support the tax.
Thanks for the opportunity to work with people in a bi-partisan way to the point where we are today, of raising the tax into law as of July 1, 2010, from 7 cents a pack to 57 cents, going from the 51st in the nation, to being tied at 42nd.
The House voted 90-29 for the override on Wednesday. Governor Sanford objected to the increase, saying that it would hurt the economy if not offset by a tax decrease somewhere.
Supporters say the increase would generate nearly $125 million for Medicaid programs and provide $5 million each for smoking cessation programs and cancer research.
Summer is quickly approaching, and more and more boaters will crowd the state’s waters. However, more boaters could mean more hazards. South Carolina currently has a law that requires any person under the age of 16 to take boater safety courses before operating a boat in the state’s waters. There is currently discussion among state lawmakers about making those mandatory for all new boaters, but no formal proposal says Department of Natural Resources spokesman Mike Willis. He says that safety courses are always a good idea.
“There does need to be more training and the waterways would be safer if all boaters would take a boater education course. They are really easy to take, you can go to the DNR website which is dnr.sc.gov and you can get the date, time, and location of a free boater education course in your area,” says Willis. [Read more...]
