Defense Contractor Attorney Near Cayce, SC

CAYCE — Two regional tourism organizations that had their funding stripped from the city are firing back at a longtime councilman who expressed concerns about their record-keeping process.

“We follow the law,” said Miriam Atria, president of Capital City/Lake Murray Country. “It’s been very upsetting, as someone who’s been doing this for 40 years, and doing it right.”

On June 3, City Council voted to give $44,175 in tax accommodations money to the Greater Cayce West Columbia Chamber of Commerce. Last year, council split the money evenly among the chamber, Lake Murray Country and Experience Columbia.

Then, at a June 18 council meeting, Councilman Phil Carter accused Lake Murray Country and Experience Columbia of not submitting budgets in previous years for council to review.

The District Four councilmember said he went back through council meeting agendas dating back to 2015, and found that no organization had submitted budgets before receiving the accommodations tax funding — or expenditure reviews afterward.

“Should we hold these people to come back and let us know what they did with the money? Absolutely. Did we ask them to? I don’t know. We may have, we may not have,” Carter said.

At the center of this controversy is a concern over how the chamber plans to spend this money. In their initial application, the chamber did not submit a budget, nor a formal application detailing when and where they'd spend the advertisement money.

At the June 18 meeting, Mayor Elise Partin asked for more information from the chamber regarding how they spent previous expenses, and a more detailed look at how they plan to spend their money in the upcoming fiscal year.

There was no representative from the Chamber present to explain the document they had submitted, which included dollar amounts equal to more than four times the amount of funding the city had awarded them.

Officials from the Greater Cayce West Columbia Chamber could not be reached for comment.

Because Carter couldn't find the records of expenditure reviews submitted previously, he claimed the city had to “clean up” their process going forward. But when asked if that applied to the current vote on the chamber’s budget, Carter said he wasn’t going to hold the chamber to something when “I haven’t asked anyone to do it for at least 10 years.”

According to reports from the South Carolina Tourism Expenditure Review Committee, as well as emails shared with The Post and Courier from Lake Murray Country and Experience Columbia, the city has been receiving budgets and expenditure reviews from all of the tourism organizations through at least 2023.

Like Lake Murray Country, Experience Columbia was similarly confused by Carter’s comments.

“Experience Columbia SC always provides all reports required and requested by our funding entities, including the City of Cayce,” President Bill Ellen wrote in an email to The Post and Courier.

Carter could not be reached for comment, but Cayce spokesperson Ashley Hunter later clarified to The Post and Courier that Carter specifically meant council had never asked applicants to present their budgets to them after they had allocated the money.

How the accommodations tax process works

Among council and the general public, there seems to be confusion about where this funding comes from and how it's allocated.

The Accommodations Tax is collected from a fee tacked onto lodging bills, like hotels and motels, in the Cayce area. It’s sometimes referred to as a “heads on beds” tax.

Thirty percent of that balance goes toward a “special fund.” Money from this fund can only be used for advertising and the promotion of tourism. The law gives local municipalities the authority to direct these funds toward one or more organizations to manage those promotional efforts.

The process works like this:

Organizations must submit their applications, including their planned budgets, to the Citizen's Accommodations Tax Committee. The committee, made up of local hospitality-industry professionals, makes recommendations to the Council on how they should divide the funding.

Who gets the funding, and how much they get, is ultimately left up to a vote by Council. Though, the full application for funding is never submitted to council — unless they specifically request to see those applications, they'll only see the recommendations.

This isn’t the first time Cayce has been confused about the accommodations tax process.

A letter from the city’s municipal clerk to the Tourism Expenditure Review Committee in 2017 reveals that the full amount of funding that was supposed to be awarded was, in fact, never doled out.

The letter names the reason for this as not being able to keep the administrative coordinator position filled for “several years.” The administrative coordinator serves as the go-between for staff and the citizens advisory accommodations tax committee, and is in charge of submitting the reporting forms to the oversight committee.

Cayce has been under fire for turnover in several high-level positions in recent years, most recently hiring their third city manager in a year. Combined with in-fighting among council members, it's sparked concerns that the loss of institutional knowledge has led to confusion and loss of oversight in the small town.

According to the Congaree Riverkeeper, thousands of gallons of sewage spilled into the Congaree River on Saturday.

CAYCE, S.C. — A sanitary sewer overflow in Cayce has forced the closure of part of the city’s Riverwalk after erosion damaged the boardwalk structure.

Cayce resident William Terry said he’s frustrated by the repeated sewage issues in the area.

“Something's got to change to make our waters cleaner and better for the future,” Terry said. “It's been going on for years and years. Every time it rains hard seems like we have a sewage spill, and I just think it's a shame this day and age that you can't stop raw sewage, thousands and thousands of gallons of water or raw sewage going into our rivers.”

According to the Congaree Riverkeeper, thousands of gallons of sewage spilled into the Congaree River on Saturday. As a result, Cayce Mayor Elise Partin confirmed that parts of the Riverwalk are closed to the public.

“It was a utility line that broke,” Partin said. “Our utility team reacted very quickly and made sure that that spill was stopped as quickly as they could get to it, but also to bypass that broken line.”

The closure affects the area near the railroad trestles downstream to Kelly Jones Park. Officials say the area will remain off-limits until further notice.

“You'll see these piers that, uh, are built with a foundation, um, down in the, the water, uh, that helps to stabilize it,” Partin said. “Well, that is unfortunately eroded and that's what's not safe. So we, we definitely have to keep people out of there until we can get that navigated and, and repaired.”

The spill is impacting businesses that rely on access to the river, including Palmetto Outdoor, a company offering tubing and kayaking excursions.

“We are opening and launching a new trip from Gervais Street Bridge down to the Kelly Jones takeout,” Andy Byler said. “of course with that kind of section being closed up, it makes access a little bit harder, but we're able to work around that slightly. But of course when that is back open, we'll be able to fully operate with our new sea to sea trip.”

According to the Congaree Riverkeeper, this is the city’s second-largest sewage spill in the past week, raising concern among local residents.

“It impacts me a lot. I have 7 grandchildren, 4 great grandchildren, and I want them to be able to enjoy the river like I've been able to enjoy it all my life,” Terry said. “There's got to be a better solution than what's been going on for years.”

The Riverkeeper advises people to avoid contact with the river downstream of the spill for several days.