Conservatives Of The Upstate

Thank you to everyone in attendance at last night's school board meeting ... Conservatives Of The Upstate again made a strong showing ...

Much to my dismay and disappointment the School Board of Pickens County passed the bond refinancing program.  The vote was 5 to 1with Alex Saitta the only one against.

Saitta did claim that the refinancing should be done in 2016 when the original revenue bonds could be called (at 10 years).  

Franny Hiesel made a quick appearance, and told the Board that the lease-purchase agreement that was contested in the Colleton County Case was opined as Constitutional and statutorily ok.  I don't recall anything about Constitutionally, but I would stipulate that the courts might have ruled that way.  

Still missing was the fact that the Supreme Court also defined SCAGO, the dummy corporation, as a completely separate entity from the School Board.  This made it possible for SCAGO to borrow money and purchase revenue bonds for Pickens County and not have it count against the 8% Constitutional Limit of the appraised county property values.  However, Pickens County cannot handle these bonds in any way because of the Constitutional limit, and because of the separation between the Board and SCAGO.

The School Board is going to borrow another $300,000,000+ so they can have more money to buy all the stuff that they have on their wish list. (They will have to bank the money until the December 2016 payoff date.)

A travesty and it is illegal.  We should insist that the bond revenue be in two accounts: One of general obligation debt and the other for SCAGO's revenue bonds debit and credit.

I tried to talk with the attorney in the hall as she tried to leave, but she blew me off, and said that she didn't have to talk with me.  She said she would only talk to the Pickens County School Board and I said that they worked for me so what was the problem.  She left!

Junius Smith

President, Conservatives Of The Upstate