Thursday, Aug. 07, 2008

Beach party

WHATEVER ELSE YOU want to say about the Legislature’s so-called competitive grants (“they’re a boondoggle,” comes to mind), usually they’re at least popular with the folks back home. That, after all, seems to be the point: Take state tax dollars that could pay for fuel for school buses or guards for prisons or any number of actual state needs and use them instead on hometown ventures that are likely to win votes for the local legislator who landed them.

Not so with what The Sun News says is the largest grant to any Myrtle Beach area project — $100,000 to pay for “a group of German politicians to visit Grand Strand attractions and party at the Hilton Myrtle Beach Resort.”

It seems that the legislative patron of this grant, Rep. Liston Barfield, went first to the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce to ask officials there to ask for the grant, arguing that the 120 visitors coming to the Grand Strand under the auspices of the German-based Partnership of Parliaments would go back home and spread the word about the area.

The chamber declined, saying if the state was going to pony up money to attract tourists, it’d just as soon have a check, with which it could purchase advertisements, thank you very much. Chamber president Brad Dean told the paper that such ads in regional papers in the United States would draw far more visitors. And unlike Mr. Barfield, it’s his job to know such things.

Undeterred, Mr. Barfield went to the Myrtle Beach Area Hospitality Association, which agreed to put its name on an application. And voila, the grant was approved. So S.C. taxpayers will pick up the tab for the German visitors to visit Brookgreen Gardens, Hard Rock Park, day trips to Columbia and Charleston, a reception and a gala dinner and dance. It may not win Mr. Barfield any votes, but at least he’ll get to enjoy the festivities, since he’s been a member of the group for at least a decade.