You can understand why Sumter officials don't want to talk about their fancy-schmancy "welcome center" next door to Shaw Air Force Base, which locks out the public and welcomes only a select few.
Well, make that "our" welcome center, since South Carolina taxpayers have kicked in at least $1.5 million for the $3.4 million lodge-like complex and are in the process of distributing another $4.3 million to "revitalize" a barn into an even larger meeting space. With no public plans to open it to the public.
As The Post and Courier's Tony Bartelme and Seth Taylor report in the latest installment of our Uncovered investigative series, the lodge is set on 900 acres of mostly undeveloped forests, ponds and fields and hosts private hunts for specially invited VIPs under circumstances that are not entirely clear. Also not entirely clear is who is allowed to use the lodge, which has accommodations for overnight guests and features a $10,301 conference table made of ancient cypress and a $14,218 security camera system at the gate to keep out the great unwashed.
Sumter bought land to preserve Shaw Air Force Base, then built a hunting hideaway for officials
Mr. Bartelme and Mr. Taylor tried to get more information about who can access the gated property and who can't, how much it costs to operate, where the money to operate it comes from and its use as what is essentially a private hunt club. They tried to get a site tour. They finally published what they know after being put off for three weeks by officials who say they really want to explain things but are just too busy.
It already had taken five months just to pry basic public information out of the city, and that came with a hefty price tag, even though most governments provide basic public information at no charge and in a matter of days, as state law encourages them to do for matters of public interest. But if you're trying to hide your secretive hunt club, it probably doesn't feel to you like it's in the public interest to answer questions about it.
Even after receiving $1,098 to hand over public records, Sumter is still refusing to release some records that state law very clearly makes public, including the personnel records of a caretaker who previously worked at a private hunt club, is paid $81,000 a year by the city and is allowed to live rent-free in a three-bedroom house on the property.
Scoppe: From fired superintendent to 12-year-old mom, what's really private under SC law
Certainly, this posh welcome center isn't the only example of public property that's off-limits to the general public. We can't just barge into the governor's mansion whenever we want, for instance. For that matter, we can't push past the welcome desk into the governor's office, or the offices of the directors of state agencies or state legislative leaders, or most state employees.
But most people would agree that we should provide a nice house for the governor to live in and that we should provide office space for the governor and other public officials to work in. More to the point, most people know that we provide a nice house for the governor, and office space for public officials.
Most people do not know that taxpayers have been forced to spend millions on a private "welcome center" in Sumter that operates like an exclusive hunt club to entertain selected state and local officials and military personnel. Or that we're being forced to spend millions more to expand it for reasons that nobody is willing to explain.
Scoppe: It's a favorite sport of SC officials; maybe we should start crowning champions
The whole mess serves as yet another reminder that the Legislature needs to put some teeth into the S.C. Freedom of Information Act to force officials to comply with it and to make it more difficult to delay and price the public out of getting some accountability and transparency from their government. No, the taxpayers shouldn't have to subsidize fishing expeditions, but neither should government be able to run the clock and use inflated costs to deter people from finding out how government is spending their money.
It's also a useful reminder of the problems with the Legislature's habit of distributing small and large pots of money to favored legislators. Although lawmakers have finally made budget earmarks public, the process of approving them is still far from transparent, or contested.
Scoppe: We can't get the pork out of SC budget, but we could reduce the rot
Where were the legislators asking how the state of South Carolina benefits from helping build a private hunt club? Or expanding it? Of course, even under the best system, it would have been tricky to get anybody to ask such questions about a couple of $750,000 earmarks requested by House Speaker Murrell Smith. That doesn't reduce the degree to which these expenditures illustrate the need for a different legislative mindset if not process for vetting earmarks.
Maybe the Commerce Department could have explained that, yes, building a posh-posh space for military brass was essential to keeping Shaw in South Carolina, although we'd like to think that members of our military aren't so self-serving. Maybe the state agency would tell us that the facility's main purpose is to entertain economic development recruits, although that almost certainly could be accomplished with a taxpayer-funded membership to a private club. In any event, it's hard to imagine a public benefit from a taxpayer-owned facility reserved for legislators and other special public officials to hunt and hang out. A private benefit to those selected VIPs, yes, but not a public benefit.
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