I-73: Horry County needs a hospitality fee settlement in order to keep SCDOT contract
It’s been almost 90 days since Horry County Council gave the City of Myrtle Beach an ultimatum: promise you’ll help fund I-73 or we will cancel current plans to do so.
For months now, county council has debated the future of a contract with the South Carolina Department of Transportation to start building the Horry County potion of I-73. If completed, the interstate would be the first to reach into the Grand Strand.
Council will revisit the contract and potentially vote on its termination at its Tuesday meeting. The discussion will be held in executive session alongside an update on the tentative hospitality fee settlement.
The county has a Dec. 1 deadline to honor the SCDOT contract, Horry County Council Member Johnny Vaught said. He said the hospitality fee issue will most likely need to be settled before the county can begin funding the work.
“If we don’t have a settlement, we cannot honor the contract because the money won’t be there,” he said.
Originally Horry County wanted to fund the road’s construction using revenue from a tax on hospitality services, but those funds are currently unavailable until a lawsuit between the county and Myrtle Beach is settled. The lawsuit is over the collection of a 1.5 percent fee within municipal borders.
In August, county council decided to postpone canceling the contract to give Myrtle Beach 90 days to decide if the city will formally agree to give money to the project.
Horry County Chairman Johnny Gardner said in August that the city had said informally they wanted to help build I-73, but the county would prefer if they put that in writing.
Bringing an end to the hospitality fee lawsuit could get the ball rolling on funding the contract and beginning the first steps toward building I-73, Vaught said. The city and the county have come to a tentative deal to end the legal battle, but it still requires approval from the governments’ councils and a judge before it is enacted.
Once the deal is official, the compromise will become public.
Details of the plan are not public at this time, but County Council Member Harold Worley said previously it was similar to a deal offered to the city during the spring. That offer included Myrtle Beach and Horry County contributing part of their hospitality dollars to fund the SCDOT contract.
Worley, however, was not happy with the plan because he said it could involve $6 to $7 million to be spent covering legal expenses for the city. His position that this deal is not good for taxpayers has not changed going into Tuesday’s meeting at 6 p.m. in Conway.
