Watch our new BuySC ad by Coal Powered Filmworks!

Our gorgeous, professionally shot and edited BuySC ad/PSA is done! Loving the little "BuySC" flags stuck into the rows of sweets at Tiffany's.

Huge thanks to Wade Sellers of Coal Powered Filmworks for the incredible production quality and highly professional, friendly manner while shooting. And thanks to Be Beep a Top Shop in Forest Acres, Cayce Ace Hardware in Parkland Shopping Center, Tiffany's Bakery on Two Notch, and 2G's Clothing in Five Points for letting us use their shops as locations for the shoot!

Video still at Tiffany's Bakery: Wade Sellers, Coal Powered Filmworks

Did you know that you triple the local impact of each dollar when you shop at a locally owned, independent business? With its action campaigns and its free SC small business directory at BuySC.org, BuySC joins "shop local" movements across America, like Lowcountry Local First, the 3/50 Project, Small Business Saturday, Plaid Friday, and AMIBA's America Unchained. (See more, below.)

Who's behind it? We are! We're the SC Small Business Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit advocacy organization in Columbia, South Carolina. Join us!

Thanks again, Wade! We love it!

On the subject of shopping local, we just received the most recent AMIBA newsletter; it's a great resource! Reposted in part here, for your reading pleasure:

'Tis the Season to Go Local

"Despite the annual Black Friday media frenzy, our annual "America/Canada Unchained" campaign and grassroots counterparts like "Plaid Friday" helped generate buzz around the continent. While some of you have expressed concern over various companies promoting their own "buy local" brands, we simply encourage you to present them as evidence for the growing energy behind the Localization Movement and use them to amplify your message."

"AMIBA board member Stacy Mitchell and BALLE co-founder Laury Hammel teamed up for this Boston Globe commentary, while the Boston-area Concord IBA, Somerville Local First and Cambridge Local First all generated local media attention using the America Unchained or Plaid Friday concept.
The Fayetteville IBA (AR) used "Indie Bingo" to draw attention and customers to member businesses, while the Louisville IBA (KY) is using a Holiday Passport program to entice more patronage of its members. Local First Utah is promoting Take 10/Tell 10/Shift 10 during the holidays."

"The Boulder County (CO) and Flagstaff (AZ) IBAs both held early holiday events with business member expos, food and drink, prizes and more. Debbie Leavitt of FIBA reported event bartenders saying Christmas parties are mostly boring, but they loved the energy and fun at FIBAs event. Don't underestimate the power of a great party to build cohesiveness and attract supporters!"

See the whole newsletter here: http://mim.io/67c28 and "Like" AMIBA on Facebook!

How SCE&G Rate Hike Was Cut Nearly in Half

The Saluda Dam

On Wednesday, the S.C. Public Service Commission (PSC) approved an electric rate hike for SCE&G that was 48.75% less than the company’s request.

The 4.88% increase instead of a 9.52% hike was good news for all SCE&G customers, including small businesses. The increase will take place over 3 years instead of the proposed 12 months.

Intervention Matters
This was my 5th time intervening in an SCE&G rate hearing and the 5th time seeing significant cuts from original rate hike filings (43% in 2002, 49.4% in 2004, 20% in 2005 for natural gas, 35% in 2007). SCE&G has had other rate increases to cover the increased cost of fuel but those are pass-throughs so the company does not profit.

Catching the Same Breaks as the Big Guns
The S.C. Office of Regulatory Staff (ORS) has been a valuable asset to the Small Business Chamber in our efforts to keep utility bills as low as possible. They were particularly instrumental in the negotiations for this case in helping with my request to defer $3 million of the rate hike for small businesses from the first year of the increase to the second year in hopes for a better economy. SCE&G had intended to offer larger utility customers this break.

Small business customers of SCE&G will now see only a 1.35% (instead of 2.23%) increase in the first year, 2.52% the second year and 1.01% the third year.

At my request, SCE&G has also stated its intention to look more favorably on small businesses in future proposed adjustments—to make our rate more equitable compared to other classifications. The new rates moved us in that direction, although we’re not there yet.

Different Factors at Play -- This Time Around
But while we have seen reductions in rate hike requests as large as this one, the contributing factors were a little different.

In my radio interview with Dukes Scott, Executive Director of ORS, he pointed out the very diverse group of official parties to the case opposing the rate hike was important.

Large industrial, big retail, small business, conservationists, non-profits, and private citizens all were at the negotiating table—a richer mix than usual.

Wide Variety at Hearings Sealed the Deal
Then there were the very important public hearings. In addition to the Small Business Chamber, non-parties to the SCE&G case—including AARP-SC, S.C. Appleseed Legal Justice Center and S.C. Fair Share—sent e-mail blasts to their members encouraging attendance at hearings. Scott particularly cited AARP’s efforts in turning out large crowds at the hearings.

“I know that the testimony from the consumers at the night hearings was so important to us for getting a further reduction than I think we could have gotten without them,” Scott told me.

Workers’ Comp Rates to Drop Big

Where was that headline 11 days ago? 

On June 10^th, the S.C. Department of Insurance put out a media advisory saying that its Director, Scott Richardson, had approved an overall 9.8% decrease in worker’s compensation insurance rates (technically the cut was to something called “Loss Costs in the Voluntary Market” but I don’t want you to quit reading).

A 9.8% cut!!!!!!  In his economy this is great news for small business but I don’t know that any of our daily newspapers reported the story.

In 2005, a 32.9% hike in workers’ comp insurance was proposed, and in 2007, a 27.7% increase was put on the table.  Several South Carolina dailies reported these stories primarily because the big business organizations pushed the news as proof that reform was needed and claimant attorneys were driving up premiums.

“Blame the lawyers, not obscene insurance company profits,” they said.

But when it came time to fight these rate hikes in court, the big business organizations were nowhere to be found. 

Only The S.C. Small Business Chamber of Commerce and the State Consumer Advocate went before a judge to successfully fight the proposals.  Turned out that lawyers weren’t responsible for increased costs at all – and the judge dramatically reduced the proposed rate hikes to 18.7% (http://www.scsbc.org/view_press.asp?id=199) and 9.8% (http://www.scsbc.org/view_press.asp?id=256)  respectively.

So why did no reporter in the state pick up this very important, good news story about our businesses possibly saving big on future workers’ comp premiums?

Two reasons. 

First, there are far fewer reporters at our daily papers, as I pointed out in Monday’s blog.  This is especially true for pure business reporters.  The remaining ones simply don’t have the time to find and report every important story.  And, I hate to say this, but there might be no business reporter in South Carolina that knows enough about workers’ comp insurance to even understand how rates are determined.   I only found out about this 9.8% cut from Mike Whiteley of Workcompcentral.com in Texas.

Second, big business unfortunately sets the tone for what is a business story in this state and they had no interest in pushing this good news.  A cut in insurance rates doesn’t fit their tort reform story line.   “Only by cutting lawyers’ compensation can we ever reduce insurance premiums,” they scream year after year.   Ooops.

The reality is that while some reform in the civil justice system might be needed, it isn’t the lazy, ineffective kind of simply capping damage awards and lawyer compensation.  But that’s a story for another day.

Today’s message is this:

1. There are not enough hard news reporters at our dailies, and
2. There’s an undeserved big business special interest influence on reporters.

Both are keeping you from really being informed – and that’s not good news. 

The Mainstream Media's Epic Fail: Alvin Greene and the 2010 Primary

"I think the ultimate story that…should come out here is this is a major failure on the part of the media."  - Dan Cook, Editor, Free Times, Columbia SC, in radio interview on U Need 2 Know, WOIC (1230 AM,) June 17, 2010. 

Dan nailed it.  He was talking about the real story behind the Democratic U.S. Senate primary victory of Alvin Greene.  

Very few in the print media covered the contest the way that a U.S. Senate race deserves, until of course, it was too late to inform the electorate about the qualifications of Mr. Greene and his opponent Vic Rawl.  (My focus is on the print media because I hold them to a much higher standard for reporting the news.  Most electronic news is just ripping and reading what the print media has already reported or very shallow coverage dictated by the medium itself.  Bloggers might be the only exception.)

And depending on the results of the GOP Gubernatorial runoff, Dan’s comment might apply there also. 


Candidate Nikki Haley’s entire, long campaign has been about total transparency of a legislator’s voting record and income so that the public will know who they are really representing in the General Assembly. 


She garnered 49% of the Republican primary vote on that platform.

  "I knew her to be a connected person who had access to a lot of folks and information, and in my business, that sort of information is critical to get ahead." 
- Bob Ferrell, Wilbur Smith


Now only five days before the runoff she has been exposed as playing the same good ol’boy money games she has been sanctimoniously carping about.  Several years ago the Columbia engineering firm Wilbur Smith contracted with Representative Haley for one purpose only—information.  "I knew her to be a connected person who had access to a lot of folks and information, and in my business, that sort of information is critical to get ahead,” said Bob Ferrell of Wilbur Smith. (CNN’s “Political Ticker” Blog, 6/18/10)

Representative Haley wasn’t privy to this valuable information because of her family’s clothing business or her husband’s military service or her volunteer work for her church (whichever) or PTA.  The information she had was due solely to her serving in the South Carolina General Assembly.  Period.

Huffmon, courtesy ETV

John O’Connor, a print reporter with The State, finally broke the initial story on Representative Haley that has been hiding in plain view if anyone would have had the time to look for it earlier when it might have mattered to primary voters.

Scott Huffmon, political science professor at Winthrop University, agrees.  “This could have helped tarnish Nikki’s image three months ago, but not at this point.” 

I’m not criticizing our state’s print reporters.  There simply aren’t enough of them.   


Every daily in this state – heck, across the country – has cut their hard news staff to save money. 


Brent Nelsen, unsuccessful GOP primary candidate for S.C. Superintendant of Education, spotted this problem in his contest.  

“The media need to play a more active role in sorting through candidates," notes Nelsen. "The state’s financially strapped newspapers have cut back the number of reporters writing articles and opinion columns on politics.”

Most of the hard news reporters remaining hardly have time to look behind a press release to really understand the complexities of an issue.  Being able to do real investigative reporting is probably what most aspire to, but there is no time when your editor keeps handing you more and more story assignments to turn around by press time that day.

“The media need to play a more active role in sorting through candidates." - Brent Nelsen

Our reporters have simply been beat down, grateful to still have a job and looking for that one break that can help them escape a collapsing industry.

The consequences of all this are more than just Alvin Greene and Nikki Haley; the public is missing important stories on government and business every day.  In fact, I’ll share with you one of those stories in my next blog post here at UnConflicted.

Governor's Small Biz Veto Overridden

First, the good news:

The House in action, Courtesy SCETV

Overridden!

The House voted Wednesday to override Governor Sanford’s Veto #14 of the Small Business Development Center’s budget and the Senate followed suit today.

The small businesses of this state greatly appreciate the House and Senate votes and send special thanks to Rep. Dwight Loftis and Rep. Anton Gunn. More about them later.

Low Profile, Major Significance
The media has so far overlooked the House vote on Veto 14 and instead has focused on the higher profile overrides that allowed funding for DHEC, technical colleges, the State Museum and others. But all of us who worked very hard to save the SBDC budget need to understand the importance of that vote because it was the first veto override the House permanently agreed to.

House Floor Play-by-Play

As the House began taking up the budget vetoes Wednesday morning, there were a lot of nervous and glum faces in the lobby, mine included. As the House voted on the electronic board, it quickly became clear that red—the color on the board indicating a vote to sustain a veto—was going to dwarf green—the color to override. Only one veto was overridden out of the first 13 but even that one was quickly reversed.

I was not optimistic.

Every sports fan knows that when your team is being routed, something needs to happen to break the momentum of the game. Most often the easiest thing to do is call a timeout and refocus the attitude of the players.

Skelton's Word of Caution
With the House clearly in the mood to sustain Sanford’s vetoes (see The State newspaper's blog updates from Tuesday), Representative B.R. Skelton (R-Pickens) took the podium just before Veto 11 and urged his fellow members to consider the consequences of their votes. He cautioned the body that the next several votes involved critical elements of economic development for the state.

Smith (D)

Following Mr. Skelton to the podium was Representative James Smith (D-Richland) who chastised the House for sustaining vetoes dealing with education, healthcare and clean rivers funding yet overriding a veto for money going to consultants (the House immediately reconsidered that vote and the board quickly switched to red). Mr. Smith joined Mr. Skelton in calling for more thoughtful voting.

Several more votes lit up the board to sustain and then it was time for #14. Good fortune struck. The mood was still red but the House’s attention was diverted to deal with a non-budget bill.

Veto 14 was now up for a vote.

Loftis (R)

Loftis Goes for the Green
Representative Dwight Loftis (R-Greenville) took to the podium. Mr. Loftis has been a supporter of small business, and earlier I had asked if he would have my letter arguing for keeping the funds for the SBDC placed on each member’s desk.

He not only agreed to do that but also said that he would speak in favor of an override vote. And that he did, eloquently stating the case for maintaining the budget for the only state agency providing direct and tangible services to our small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Gunn (D)

Gunning for the Override
Following Mr. Loftis to the podium was an old friend and advocate for small business, Representative Anton Gunn (D-Richland). He too cited the benefits of the SBDC telling of his own family’s use of their services.

The red spell had been broken, and the message of support for our small businesses and economic development took hold. Green lit up the board 102 times to only 15 reds—an amazing turnaround (just look at blogger Brad Warthen's exchange with House Majority leader Kenny Bingham on June 13, 2010.)

A Shift in Momentum
Sure, the House sustained many more vetoes (see FitsNews) after that crucial vote. But the momentum had been altered. It was OK to push green when merited. Lighting did not strike. No electric shock came with pressing the button. Even GOP Gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley voted green with us.

It was clear that not every Sanford veto was justified. The Governor had made errors in judgment and the House not only had the power, it had the responsibility for the good of the State to say so. And it did.

Thanks to all who contacted their House and Senate members asking for an override of Veto #14. All the efforts paid off.

And thanks to the members of the Legislature for doing the right thing.