How Myrtle Beach City Council candidates hope to tackle crime, Superblock properties

The race is heating up as nine candidates compete to fill three open seats on Myrtle Beach City Council.

Wednesday night, Ann Dunham, Matthew Hardee, Mike Hobeika, Brooks Myers, Gregg Smith, Keith VanWinkle, Jackie Vereen and incumbents Randal Wallace and Mike Lowder gathered at the Myrtle Beach Train Depot for the second debate of the season.

Hardee was late to the debate due to work at a church music ministry. He later provided his answers to the debate questions in a Facebook live video.

Key topics such as public safety and the Superblock properties took up much of the debate, and have been the biggest points of contention in the election so far this year.

Public safety

For many candidates the recently proposed public safety plan by Myrtle Beach Police Chief Amy Prock does not provide enough officers in enough time.

Currently, the plan states that 70 new officers will be added to the department over seven years.

A common consensus among candidates is that more officers are needed in the community rather than on Ocean Boulevard, and that more officers need to be on the streets instead of sitting in the department.

“We’re gearing up for mediocrity,” Dunham said. “We need to enforce the laws more, but when you look through [the plan] and see the officers you say ‘well that’s not enough.’ We have a new plan from a new chief for failure.”

By improving technology and focusing on the homeless and drug addicts, candidates agree that Myrtle Beach will begin to see less crime.

Lowder stated that he does not believe that plan will work, and that 20 officers need to be added each year, twice the number proposed. However, he did say that council made a good decision in choosing Prock as police chief, and that officer retention has “dramatically improved” under the new leadership.

Candidates also focused on paying officers more money as well as providing more training in order to further improve retention.

Hardee believes that by increasing diversity within the department, many people will be able to relate to officers.

“We need to make sure our community is able to relate with the police, especially in certain communities, Hispanic communities, African American communities,” Hardee said in his Facebook live. “We need to make sure that everybody has a vent in the police department that they can be able to work with and that these police officer know the needs in the community.”

Superblock properties

Currently, the Superblock properties are planned to be torn down to make way for a new children’s museum and library. However, many candidates did not believe that the government should use eminent domain in order to obtain the last remaining properties that are not yet owned by the Downtown Redevelopment Corporation.

“People have property, it’s their property and government shouldn’t go in and take it,” Lowder said.

The disagreements began whenever candidates began to discuss whether or not a children’s museum and library should go in the downtown area.

For many, the already existing museum and library are good enough. They stated that remodeling the buildings to update them was better than building brand new structures.

Others, including Wallace, thought that new structures in that location would be good for cleaning up downtown.

“People do use the library,” Wallace said. “The only time it thrived was when it was a local downtown. Anything you do has to appeal to local people. Millenials use the library. People will use it.”

Lowder and Smith did believe that having a children’s museum and library downtown would significantly help the area, but that the structures should not be placed along the Superblock.

There was a common consensus that downtown did need to be redeveloped. Vereen said that it is difficult to open a small business in the city because of the different committees business owners are required to go in front of, as well as the overreaching government.

“It’s too hard to open a small business,” Vereen said. “We need to get government out of the way. No one will take an interest for fear of what the government will do next.”

This story was originally published October 19, 2017 at 9:59 AM with the headline "How Myrtle Beach City Council candidates hope to tackle crime, Superblock properties."