Facing reelection, Myrtle Beach mayor battling four challengers with different visions
A crowded field of challengers are aiming to unseat Myrtle Beach Mayor Brenda Bethune, criticizing her for not doing enough to prevent crime and saying she hasn’t run the city well.
But Bethune is running on her accomplishments in office, which include hiring 30 police officers, updating police technology for the department and luring new businesses to the city.
That dynamic was on display last week as Bethune and her challengers held campaign events in The Market Commons area, less than a mile apart, with just weeks left until the election on Nov. 2
Under a picnic shelter at Grand Park, Bethune and city council members Mike Lowder, Jackie Hatley and Gregg Smith met with supporters and offered a catered meal. Meanwhile, a conservative group called Patriots Reporting for Duty hosted a debate between Bethune’s four challengers at the Base Recreation Center. Organizers of that event said they had invited Bethune, but she did not attend. An empty chair with her name on it sat at the table with the other candidates.
Photographer Gene Ho, one of the people challenging Bethune, criticized her for not showing up to Wednesday’s debate.
“Ask yourself this, ‘Where is Brenda tonight to talk about these things?’ Where is our mayor tonight to come out to talk to you about these things?” Ho said. “When we first started this thing people said, ‘Oh, Gene, he’s never here, he’s traveling all around.’ Well I’m here now, where’s Brenda?”
Last week, Bethune said she didn’t attend the event because she already had planned to have her event.
Who’s running?
Mayor Brenda Bethune
A Myrtle Beach native, Bethune became the city’s first woman mayor in 2017 when she beat incumbent John Rhodes during a runoff election. She owns multiple businesses in the city, including Better Brands, a beer distribution company.
Gene Ho
Ho, a business owner, is originally from Long Island, New York, but moved to the area after high school. He runs his wedding studio, Gene Ho Photography, which he started 30 years ago, Ho’s campaign page states. He was President Donald Trump’s campaign photographer for the 2016 election and wrote “TRUMPography,” a political book about the the former president.
Bill McClure
Bill McClure was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Virginia before moving to Myrtle Beach in 2014. He is an army veteran and has worked as an analyst with the U.S. Dept. of Commerce and later became a consultant. He graduated from George Mason University with his bachelor’s degree in economics and business after his military service, according to his campaign page. In 2001, McClure started a Top 50 National car dealership group’s first-ever internet sales department.
Tammie Durant
Durant is a former police officer who was born and raised in Florence and has lived in Myrtle Beach for seven years. She is an army veteran and retired from the Florence police department in 2015 after 11 years of service.
C.D. Rozsa
Rozsa is from Virginia but has lived in the area for 25 years. He has been in Myrtle Beach for 15 of those years. Rozsa is a longtime mechanic and a water restoration technician. This is his second time running for mayor.
How much have the candidates raised?
Brenda Bethune
As of July, the most recent deadline for candidates to disclose their campaign contributions, Bethune has raised a total of $137,202 and has spent $30,289, leaving $104,642 in her campaign warchest. That total has been contributed by 123 donations from area residents, businesses and other local leaders. The company run by former Horry County Council Chairman, Mark Lazarus, for example, as well as the companies associated with the families of Burroughs and Chapin were donors.
Gene Ho
Though he’s raised significantly less than Bethune, Ho has collected more donations, with many of his contributors from outside of South Carolina.
Ho has raised $24,305 to date and has spent $3,890, leaving him with $20,415 in the bank. That total has come from 317 donors so far, though many don’t live in Myrtle Beach. His most recent campaign finance filing shows donors from California, Illinois, Massachusetts and Texas, among other states.
Tammie Durant
Durant so far has raised $1,100 according her first campaign disclosure report, which she filed in August. Of that total, $120 came from Durant personally. Her report also lists an $800 expenditure at B&B Soulfood, where she held an event in September.
Bill McClure
McClure has not focused on fundraising, according to his first and only campaign disclosure report filed, raising only $550 from himself. He did not list any campaign expenditures in that report, which he filed last month.
C.D. Rozsa
No campaign disclosure reports from Rozsa have been filed with the South Carolina Ethics Commission to date, according to the agency’s online database.
Where do the candidates stand on key issues?
Public safety
A discussion of various public safety issues, including hiring more police officers and firefighters, increasing training requirements for public safety officers and reducing crime featured prominently at Wednesday’s debate.
Ho said he’s basing a majority of his campaign platform on public safety, and pledged to reduce crime in the city.
“If in the next four years I did nothing else but make this city safe, it would make me the greatest mayor in the history of this place,” Ho said. “I’m here to make Myrtle Beach safe, and we’re going to do that and we’re going to do it together.”
McClure said he would take an approach to public safety that focused on the root issues causing people to commit crimes in the first place.
“Let’s look at what the crime is and what are the core reasons its happening and how do you deal with those core reasons,” he said. “Training for our police force is absolutely critical but it doesn’t stop there ... if we’re going to solve it, let’s solve it completely with training, with the right people and with the right discipline.”
Durant agreed, saying more police training is necessary. The city must recruit additional officers and pay them more, she added.
“The only way you’re going to do that is we have to get rid of the crime,” she said of Myrtle Beach retaining its family-friendly beach. “I don’t think anyone wants to come here if it’s murders and assaults, all that.”
Rozsa, for his part, said he would focus on recruiting more-qualified police officers. He called the city’s police force “weak.”
“These guys are coming in straight out of the academy with a badge, a gun and an attitude and that needs to stop because that’s not good for community,” he said. “They want to go out there and write tickets, they want to arrest everybody. So once we get a good police force underneath us, then we can start coming ahead.”
Bethune said crime has reduced by double digits each year in the last four years. There is not one specific thing that led to that, she said, but instead pointed to numerous reasons: expanding the police force, investing in a drone system and installing over 2,000 cameras in the city.
She said those investments are important because “the police can’t do it alone” and adding those components help the department and reassures the residents that we are watching and solving crimes quickly.
City employee issues
In recent weeks, retired Myrtle Beach city employees have begun protesting against Bethune and the city council over a policy change in which the city would stop paying health insurance premiums for retired employees under 65. Previously, retired city workers younger than 65 could remain on the city’s health insurance plan as long as they paid the premium themselves. But the city moved to drop those 100 retirees from the plan, saying they could get cheaper healthcare elsewhere. Retirees and others, many of whom worked in public safety departments, disagreed, saying the premiums elsewhere were twice as expensive.
Bethune has previously said council will look into the matter but can’t make any promises.
“This council supports, values and appreciates all city team members past and present, and I believe we have gone above and beyond our call of duty to show that,” she said.
At Wednesday’s debate, Bethune’s challengers criticized her for the move and tackled the question of how they would have handled the situation had they been in power.
Durant said she would have worked to find money in the budget to cover the retirees’ premiums.
“Our city employees are the ones that help run the city. I think that instead of saying, ‘It’s not in the budget’ you find it in the budget and you get to work,” she said.
McClure agreed, but conceded that public safety employees are often hired young and retire young, meaning a city could be on the hook for their healthcare for 10 or 20 years in some cases before they’re eligible for Medicare.
“Yeah, it’s a drain on the city, there’s no question about it, but it’s a young person’s game. I am certain we’re not going to see any 55- or 65-year-olds running into a burning building or busting up a drug ring, so you have to account for that, and you have to make the right changes to do it,” he said.
McClure added: “Yes, we would have to take the budget, which has to be balanced, and we would have to redistribute funds.”
Rozsa took a simpler stance.
“These guys have put their lives on the line to get what they deserve and we’re not going to be like the Northerners, we’re not going to take everything away from you,” he said.
And Ho said he would take a hard-line stance to the issue, and would refuse to compromise with other city leaders on the issue.
“When it comes to the retirement benefits that were taken away, it’s very simple. How do you not go to city council and say, ‘Guys, this is wrong. Figure it out, we’re all in a room together, figure out how to get these benefits back to the retired firefighters,” he said. “It’s as simple of that.”
Interstate 73
Bethune to date has championed I-73, an interstate highway that would connect the Grand Strand to I-95 near Latta and Dillon. She is working with local and state leaders to commit local funds to the project. Local governments are aiming to raise $200 million for the project between Horry County, Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach.
Bethune told The Sun News the interstate project would be beneficial to the area.
“It’ll impact us greatly, especially when it comes to public safety during Hurricane evacuations and reentry into the city, but also to diversify our economy,” she said. “We have not been able to diversify our economy because we don’t have an interstate connection.”
Asked if they would support committing local funds to I-73, Bethune’s challengers took a variety of stances.
Durant was vehemently against using local funds for the project.
“I don’t support it at all if you’re using local funds, we need those funds,” she said. “We need a lot more of that stuff in our city so why do we have to use our funds? I don’t support it at all.”
Ho said he supported I-73, but that the city should only contribute local funds if it didn’t have another use for the money.
“The I-73 highway is kind of like if you have a house and you want a swimming pool in the backyard. Everyone wants it but then you have to figure out how to pay for it. That’s the problem,” he said. “I’m all for I-73 if you can pay for it in a proper way but if you can’t pay for it in a proper way then you have to look at it.”
McClure touted the potential economic impacts of I-73 and said he supported the project, but said he wasn’t sure if using local dollars to build it was a good idea.
“Using local funds to complete that last 18 miles, just not a really good idea. But completing I-73, completely ... with appropriate funding is really a great idea,” he said. “Oh, and by the way, wouldn’t we like to have good jobs here so our grandchildren grow up here and they don’t have to go somewhere else to make a living?”
And Rozsa said now is “not the time” for a project like I-73.
“Now’s not the time for I-73, we don’t have the infrastructure,” he said. “Until Conway gets the infrastructure to hold this, we can’t do anything with it. If we take the money and throw the money out there, it’s going to be a waste of money.”
He added: “That money can go to the fire department.”
The continued growth of Myrtle Beach
Bethune’s challengers were also asked about how they would handle the growing pains of a rapidly growing area. Recently released U.S. Census data showed that Horry County added nearly 82,000 new residents between 2010 and 2020.
In response, some of the candidates called for impact fees, a charge placed on developers building new homes and businesses that helps play for local infrastructure and services. Horry County over the summer implemented impact fees for the unincorporated areas of the county for the first time. Other candidates called for a moratorium on new building.
Ho championed impact fees.
“When a community grows so big like we are, it’s going to have to come a time where we’re going to have to have an impact fee,” he said. “If it’s not impact fees, you get the opposite problem where we’re going to have a moratorium on growth and we don’t want that, we’re at the point where we want impact fees.”
McClure said he supported a limited building moratorium that led to impact fees.
“I think we do need a moratorium on growth right now for a short period of time, we don’t have the necessary infrastructure to support this growth and until you do you’re going to be in trouble,” he said. “A form of impact fees so that it does support the infrastructure for the growth is a good idea and I applaud Gene for that idea.”
Rozsa said he favored impact fees but that Myrtle Beach should have implemented them years ago.
“I agree with the impact fees but the problem is we should have done that well over a year ago,” he said. “We’re a little too late for impact fees but if we slow the building down and just hold off for a bit, let us work it from the inside, we need to be more prepared for building.”
And Durant called for more responsible growth, but didn’t explicitly endorse impact fees or a building moratorium.
“It’s not bad that we’re growing but are we growing in the right direction?” she said. “And I think that’s just putting everyone together and finding the right solution.”
This story was originally published October 13, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
