Connect with us

South-Carolina

SC lawmakers to take a closer look at modernizing, improving state roads

Published

on

SC lawmakers to take a closer look at modernizing, improving state roads


COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) – One of the issues South Carolina lawmakers say they hear about all the time from constituents is the shape of the state’s roads.

They have some ideas on how to improve them but want to first hear directly from South Carolinians on what challenges they face during their daily commutes.

It will be part of the work of a new committee at the State House, which will take a closer look at the South Carolina Department of Transportation.

House Speaker Murrell Smith, who established the new South Carolina Department of Transportation Modernization Ad Hoc Committee, said its formation is not meant to criticize SCDOT but to improve and modernize it.

Advertisement

“This job is not to fix potholes. This is not to widen roads. Those are all being done right now. But it’s to build a foundation for long-term growth, safety and opportunity,” Smith, (R–Sumter), said.

It comes as South Carolina’s growth shows no signs of stopping.

But its infrastructure has not always kept up.

“When our road system was built, it was probably built with 2.5 million to 3 million people in mind,” Smith said, compared to the approximately 5.5 million people estimated to now call South Carolina home. “We have 71,000 miles of state roads, being one of the largest road systems per capita in this whole country, and so we have a lot of challenges.”

Areas where the Speaker wants the committee to focus include congestion, permitting reform and SCDOT’s organizational structure.

Advertisement

He also wants them to figure out whether South Carolina needs to revisit its decades-old toll statute and look at how it raises money to fix infrastructure, including potential new resident fees and raising the registration fee that electric vehicle owners pay.

“I do not think that we need to raise the gas tax. We just came off the gas tax increase over the last few years. If you look at where South Carolina is in comparison to other states, we’re right in the middle,” Smith said.

Not mentioned was determining whether the state should turn over control of more roads to local governments.

Gov. Henry McMaster believes that question is worth taking a closer look.

“I think that’s a good idea,” McMaster told reporters. “The specifics would have to be determined, but as you know, we have in South Carolina seems like all our roads are state-owned roads. There are some very large states that don’t have as many miles of state highway miles.”

Advertisement

Over the months ahead, this committee will be traveling around the state and holding public hearings.

Its goal is to have legislation and recommendations ready by the time the full General Assembly reconvenes in Columbia next January.

In response to the committee’s formation, the South Carolina Department of Transportation said it has made significant progress since the passage of the landmark 2017 roads bill, which implemented an increase to the state’s gas tax, which funds infrastructure improvements.

Nearly $7 billion in road and bridge construction is underway now, according to SCDOT.

“We recognize that there is more work to do and we look forward to working with the Study Committee to build upon that progress. South Carolina has grown and changed tremendously and we are committed to delivering a transportation system that will serve our state for generations to come,” the agency said in a statement.

Advertisement

Feel more informed, prepared, and connected with WIS. For more free content like this, subscribe to our email newsletter, and download our apps. Have feedback that can help us improve? Click here.



Source link

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

South-Carolina

Fixin’ to teach y’all something: How to speak South Carolinian

Published

on

Fixin’ to teach y’all something: How to speak South Carolinian


If you’re running late and need to tell the person waiting on you you’ll be there quickly, promise them you’ll be there in “two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” 

If a friend is looking for something and you find it right in front of them, you can say, “If it was a snake, it would’ve bit you.” 

If your frugal mother accuses your aunt of being cheap, tell her, “that’s like the pot calling the kettle black.” 

Another chastisement is “don’t throw stones if you live in a glass house,” a play on the Jesus story about those without sin casting the first stones. 

Advertisement

If a typically ditzy coworker lands on the right answer for once, you can (discreetly) say, “even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while,” or “even a broken clock is right twice a day.” 

If you’re anxiety is high, you might be “as nervous as a cat in a round room looking for a corner.” 

If you’re talking about young folks, they’re “knee high to a grasshopper.” 

If you’re young and/or naive, you might be “wet behind the ears.” 

If you’re feeling chilly, you’re “colder than a witch’s tit in a brass bra.” 

Advertisement

And if you’re hot, you’re “sweating more than a whore in church.” 







Graphic: Regions of South Carolina

Source: SCPRA

Advertisement



A guide to S.C.

We have four official regions in S.C. 

The Upstate encompasses the northwest corner of the state. Greenville, Spartanburg and Anderson anchor this region, which includes the rugged wilderness of Oconee County’s Golden Corner, and the Prohibition-era history of The Dark Corner. 

The Midlands is the middle swath of the state, from the suburbs of Charlotte down through the Columbia area and toward Aiken, which sits just across the state border from Augusta. The Midlands is home to the Sandhills, an ancient demarcation of where the ocean used to rise up to, and “the armpit of South Carolina,” a.k.a. the famously hot capital city of Columbia. 

Advertisement





Source link

Continue Reading

South-Carolina

Monthly ICE arrests triple in South Carolina, stats show

Published

on

Monthly ICE arrests triple in South Carolina, stats show


GREENVILLE, S.C. – New data shows immigration agents are making more arrests in South Carolina following President Donald Trump’s push for mass deportations.

The data shows most of these arrests are on people already facing charges or currently serving a sentence behind bars.

The data comes from the Deportation Data Project, a group that files public information requests with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE.

The records they receive and publish contain details about each arrest made by the agency: when it happened, where and the type of arrest.

Advertisement

Last year, ICE arrests hovered around 100 each month. This year that number was doubled and then tripled.

So far, March saw the most arrests topping out at 345.

chart visualization

“I think this is just the beginning,” said Alexander Gorski, an immigration and criminal law attorney in Greenville County. “I think [President Trump will] probably find the resources, or the funding, necessary to probably keep it at these rates or probably increase it.”

Gorski said most ICE arrests are on people already facing charges or those already serving time in prison.

According to the data, 47% of the ICE arrests in South Carolina this year were on people with pending charges. Another 41% were on people already convicted.

The remaining 12% were described by ICE records as people who had committed other immigration violations.

However, there has been at least one major raid in South Carolina.

Advertisement

On June 1 in Charleston County, 80 people were arrested at a nightclub.

“So what’s happening is a lot of my clients are looking at just trying to limit their activity and limit their exposure. So that way, what they are hoping to do is kind of to lay low until this wave kind of goes past them,” Gorski said. “It’s very stressful for my clients and of course, like anything, there’s a collateral side.”

Charleston County has had the most ICE arrests by far, according to records from the...
Charleston County has had the most ICE arrests by far, according to records from the Deportation Data Project.(FOX Carolina)

While there hasn’t yet been a major documented ICE raid in the Upstate, the Homeland Security Investigations Office of Greenville arrested eight people on immigration charges at a Mexican restaurant in West Union during a human trafficking investigation.

John Agular, a Marine and former law enforcement officer who now owns a dog training business in West Union, said his community has felt different ever since that day.

“I’ve grown up with these people. I’ve gone to church with these people. I’ve, you know, worshiped. I’ve protected these people, gone to calls, you know, seen them on their worst days and all that,” Agular said. “And somebody told me this one day and they called me an anchor baby.”

Agular is the son of two formerly undocumented immigrants. Both of them are now immigrants.

He said the eight arrests have emboldened people in his community.

Advertisement

“Just to see how at the time when they needed me, I was great.” Agular said. “I was one of the good ones. I’ve been called one of the good ones more than once. But now when my community is hurting [and] my community needs somebody, now that I choose to stand up now I’m a bad guy.”



Source link

Continue Reading

South-Carolina

Andy Beshear introduces himself to South Carolina as the normal Democrat

Published

on

Andy Beshear introduces himself to South Carolina as the normal Democrat


Beshear, who will lead the Democratic Governors Association into next year’s midterm elections, was introduced at most stops as the “most popular Democratic governor in America.”

He had not been able to stop his party’s decline down the ballot. Democrats lost their 70-year grip on the state attorney general’s office when he left it to run for governor; he also benefited from the state’s off-year elections, which meant he never shared a ballot with Trump.

But South Carolina’s Democrats were in worse shape than Kentucky’s. Last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom toured the state with a robust defense of his state and its progressive pluralism. Beshear traveled a different route, quoting from the Bible (“the Parable of the Good Samaritan says everyone is our neighbor”) and saying he knew how to win when outnumbered.

“What we’re seeing out of Washington DC is incompetence, and it is cruelty,” Beshear said in Greenville. “It’s putting all of those things that people care about at risk. The tariff policy is going to hurt jobs. The big, ugly bill is going to devastate rural health care in your state and in mine.”

Advertisement

In each city, as Beshear delivered short stump speeches in a button-down blue shirt and khakis, he was joined by ghosts of the Democratic Party’s past. Former Gov. Richard Riley sat in at the Greenville house party; former Rep. Joe Cunningham attended the event in Charleston.

“The Democratic Party brand’s become toxic across the country,” Cunningham told Semafor. “Democrats have done a terrible job, not only speaking above people, but also talking down to folks who don’t know or don’t care to understand what those terms mean. I don’t know what they mean!”

In Columbia, former Gov. Jim Hodges was particularly enthusiastic about Beshear’s advice on speaking to voters in “normal” language.

“I’ve been saying that for a long time, and I’m glad to hear him say it,” said Hodges. “We talk down to people and we use words that people don’t use in their everyday lives.

“We need a grocery store, but we Dems have to call it a ‘food desert.’ What’s that term for moms we use — ‘birthing persons?’ It’s hard to connect with voters when you use language in a way that creates barriers,” Hodges added.

Advertisement

Beshear’s riff on “normal” language focused on three areas that aren’t controversial with Democrats: How to talk about prisoners, how to talk about drug addiction (“addiction,” not “substance use”), and how to talk about hunger (not “food insecurity”).

He agreed that Hodges’s example of “birthing people” — a gender-neutral term, reflecting that transgender men can also get pregnant — was needlessly alienating.

“For an individual that’s in that situation, I want to show them as much kindness as I can,” he said. “But for 99.9% of the American population, they can’t understand what it is that you’re saying.”

Beshear still criticized how the Trump administration had gone after the rights and health care access of transgender people. The administration’s shutdown of a trans suicide help line was “ridiculous,” he said, and its orders restricting gender-affirming care for minors went too far.

“I’m against surgeries on minors, okay?” he said. “But when you look at the other gender-affirming care, there’s a lot of research out there that suggests that parents ought to have the opportunity to consider: What is the best health care for their kids?”

Advertisement



Source link

Continue Reading

Trending