Hundreds protest Myrtle Beach mayor, council

Hundreds of people showed up for a meeting in Myrtle Beach for an open forum about the spring 2009 Harley-Davidson motorcycle rally.

Many of the people at the open forum said they blame Myrtle Beach council and several other city leaders for their loss of business during the spring Harley-Davidson motorcycle rally.

Myrtle Beach business owners, Horry County business owners, Myrtle Beach city residents, Horry County residents and dozens of others packed into Revolutions for an open forum hosted by the organization, H.E.L.P., or Help Eliminate Lousy Politicians.

H.E.L.P. member Don Emery, who also said he’s running for Myrtle Beach City Council, said the group’s goal is to register people to vote in Myrtle Beach and then get them to vote in the November elections.

Emery said the group intends to support qualified candidates to replace Mayor John Rhodes, mayor pro-tem Wayne Gray and council members Randal Wallace and Chuck Martino.

”The end goal with H.E.L.P is over the next one hundred and thirty-three days, leading up to October third, to get everybody in town that lives here and works here, to get their friends, their family members, their neighbors, signed up, registered to vote so that we make an impact on the election, so that there’s a true representation of what the people in this town really want.”

Emery said council failed to find a happy medium between business owners, residents, and bikers. He said council made a knee-jerk reaction and chased out a very valuable high dollar tourist with no plan on how to fix it. Emery also said the group wants to get rid of Public Information officer Mark Kruea, city manager Tom Leath, and city attorney Tom Ellenburg. “All of them have to go; they’ve all been a big part of this problem,” Emery said.

Dozens of people got up on the stage at Revolutions to talk about how they feel about what city council did and how those decisions impacted their lives.

One man even called for every business owner in the room who is a member of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce to resign. That comment prompted a loud applause from the crowd.

Kathy “Sunshine” Campbell, a biker, said she’s lived in Myrtle Beach all her life.

”This where I was born and raised this is where my heart is, so they’re not only messing with me and my family, my heritage, the community that I was born and raised in that I love, that I love with every ounce of me,” she said.

Campbell said she worked part-time at B&M Custom Cycles for eight years, before the owner, Ben Brown, closed the business, because he said Myrtle Beach council’s new laws, including mandatory helmets, put him out of business.

Campbell said decisions by the Mayor, city council, and even some Horry County council members, put the area in turmoil.

”The unemployment lines are enormous, over 14 percent, so I think it’s time for all of those people to get back to work and city council, the mayor and the city manger can go stand in those lines,“ she said. “This is where my heritage is, my roots are here, my heart is here, my mother’s here, my grandfather died here, his father died here and you know I have a problem with someone who comes in and wants us to do things differently than they way we’ve been doing it for sixty-nine years.”

Campbell said people who moved to Myrtle Beach from other places didn’t do there homework on Myrtle Beach, she said Myrtle Beach is bike week and tourism and said bikers will be here, they just won’t be in Myrtle Beach and city council can’t cancel bike week.

At the forum, many people stood up on the Revolutions stage to talk about how much money they lost in May because of low rally turnout. Many of the people at the meeting said the reason for the low turnout was the new laws passed by Myrtle Beach council. The said the laws kept bikers and their money out of the city.

Michael Munford said he’s been working as a bartender in Myrtle Beach for almost fifteen years and the new laws have hurt his income considerably.

”It’s not about the bikers anymore, it’s really not, the bikers obviously have been kept away, now it’s about blue collar workers and people feeding their families and taking care of their families,” Munford said.

Munford said the city and the mayor have not paid attention to blue collar workers and are not helping him or the economy.

Mumford said council made a terrible mistake and selective tourism is wrong. He said he may have to get a second job to feed his family, cut back on expenses and that means not spending money in other city businesses.

”I’ve got to formulate ideas about where this revenue’s going to come from to pay my mortgage, my light bill, my cable bill and everything else,” Munford said.

The crowd at Revolutions was full of rally supporters and local politicians, past and present. Horry County Councilman Marion Foxworth and former Myrtle Beach Mayor Mark McBride were also at the open forum.

Tom Herron, with B.O.O.S.T., or Business Owners Organized to Support Tourism said the biggest concern B.O.O.S.T had is that people who want to make a change have one voice and can rally behind a couple of strong candidates.

”It’s not just replacing bad politicians or politicians who we think haven’t done well for the business community,“ Herron said. “It also the entire overall appearance and what’s happened in the city of Myrtle Beach and the message that we’re sending out to tourists all over the country.” Herron said the message is that some tourists are not wanted.

When asked about the forum and the concerns expressed by those in attendance, Kruea said the rallies outgrew Myrtle Beach and the rally organizers and promoters could not or would not reign in what the community continued to say was an event that had become too big, too long, too rowdy, and too deadly.

Kruea said the rallies caused the reaction from the community because organizers and promoters had been unwilling to tone down the noise, not to speed, shorten the event, or respond to the community’s requests for a scaled back event.