OH DRAT! ANOTHER MISSING PIECE OF THE PUZZLE

GE&P really enjoyed the beautiful half page ad District 6 Councilman Jack Schurlknight placed in the Berkeley Independent today. The ad was colorful, well designed and quite clever. According to the text of the ad, Mr. Schurlknight's intention is to "clear up some of the misinformation" circulating the county concerning his record. This is a good and honorable goal and we fully intend to assist Mr. Schurlknight's efforts in any way we can.

Mr. Schurlknight said, "I took an active role in developing Berkeley County's Strategic Plan". This statement is absolutely 100% true and accurate. BUT, here's where we find a missing piece of the puzzle and we would be happy to help provide some clarification. The problem we have is that Mr. Schurlknight didn't explain very well exactly what is involved in the "Berkeley County Strategic Plan". Here we can offer some help.

We can define the "Berkeley County Strategic Plan" in simple, easily understandable words. The BCSP is a brainchild initiated by Supervisor Dan Davis. One of the results of this grand plan has been the wasting of tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars (we don't have) on consultants who have suggested wasting millions of taxpayer dollars (we don't have) to renovate or build new facilities we don't need. There now, wasn't that simple?

Don't misunderstand. GE&P loves shiny new things as much as anyone. But, it is insane to go out and buy new things when one cannot pay for what one already has. No one in his right mind would decide to buy a beach house if he couldn't pay the mortgage on his home. No one would consider adding a new room when he couldn't buy food for his family. This is the precise result of a portion of the BCSP. We don't need new and better facilities when we can't even pay our loyal county employees. (GE&P will go into more detail on the restored furlough days in a later post)

We don't want to steal Mr. Schurlknight's thunder by disclosing any of the other pieces of his puzzle he plans to reveal over the next few weeks, so we aren't going to mention that, with a Republican majority, he cast the deciding vote to elect a liberal Democrat as the Vice-Chairman of County Council. Also, we will hold as a trusted secret that he strongly supports the Supervisor's efforts to steal 29% of our property tax relief AGAIN this year. We would never reveal that, when asked by another councilman, "How long do you plan to take the 29%", Mr. Schurlknight answered, "As long as we need to". As soon as we are sure it won't let the cat out of the bag, we are going to suggest that voters ask Mr. Schurlknight if he plans to vote for or against Mr. Fish's amendment to return the 29% of the property tax relief to the taxpayers.

We await with eager anticipation the next installment of Mr. Schurlknight's pieces of the puzzle. We stand ready and willing to fill in any of the voids.