Tax Payers, please pay attention to where your tax dollars are going. Skip Hoagland Makes a FOIA request to Beaufort County.
The FOIA, freedom of Information act, should include a complete ATAX accounting, with receipts with their matching invoices for all Chambers and non profits funded by Beaufort County.
The request was for the list of all non profits, the amounts issued to each, how they qualified under the ATAX funding law, how the funds were used, and any documentation these expenditures provided any measurable return for tourism as intended use of these funds.
A copy of a DMO contract and if such a document does not exist, one drafted by the county legal department detailing the proper terms and conditions for how taxpayer monies are legally and properly used, and how the accounting and usage must be reported, to include receipts with their matching invoices. And, these monies were used for their intended purpose of tourism promotion and marketing, and nothing else. If technology has, in fact, replaced this failed DMO business model, then the money must be used here, locally, for improving tourism related projects such as bike paths, parks and recreation facilities, beach repairs etc. These Chambers must get back to being private, member only business leagues, not wearing multiple hats and worse, illegally misusing and co-mingling private and public monies for their personal profit and not for the public good, use, benefit, reason, and intended ATAX publicly subsidized DMO purpose.
Tax recipient agreements—-anyone who receives money from the government, whether they be tax funds, bank loans or private investments must do so in writing, with a complete understanding of the terms of the agreement. No signed contract or agreement, no money. It's that simple. Taxpayer money is real money, not play monopoly money.
South Carolina non profit corporation act compliance —from all Chambers to the County and Towns, as they are all members, due to Town Managers using tax money in secret to purchase memberships to these organizations. Thus, all council members are the taxpayer's proxy, with the same rights on their behalf to see how Chamber leadership used private and taxpayer dues money, where/ how all SCPRT matching grant funds were spent, all ATAX fund expenditures, and the illegal use of same to buy apps and websites to upsell advertising for private profit. Also determine why the Chamber CVB DMO claims ownership of these ATAX funded apps and websites that are, in reality, owned by the Town and not the Chambers. And what happens to these apps and websites when a new DMO eventually replaces the Chamber(s)? Taking over 1m of Atax funds to Canada versus USA is another big concern !
Did Ms Jacobs, Gruber, Riley, Orlando also re-join. We need to find this out and get a copy of the last checks written to all private Chambers. Again, this has zero to do with a hired DMO....SC law says you can’t use public funds for private purposes not for the public good, reason, benefit and use. Again Council and Town managers who wrote these public tax checks for private purposes, are now tax payers proxy.
Please confirm you can comply, or will get this info to comply as the SC Supreme Court said you would and could. Tax payers Foia laws and Chamber members rights under the SC non profit corporation act laws are clear. Please inform all Chambers, CVBS, Dmos and all non profits there are no secret sauce laws in SC or the USA I am aware of.
If any tax recipients refuse to provide this info I have FOIAed, you will need to defund, and file a lawsuit to force compliance to my Foia. This is further reason for contracts and Procurement laws followed.
If the county continues to not comply, to my tax payers Foia this is grounds for a tax payers Foia lawsuit, and seems many more problems for the county and cities will result..I don’t think any individual or entity is worth non compliance to sc laws.