IRMO’S MAIN STREET “DOWNTOWN” DEBACLE

September 26, 2023

I wasn’t sure if I should put this article under local, political, or comical, but I will decide that later.

I read back in December 2022 where “Bill Danielson, Irmo Town Councilman and Mayor Pro-Tem gave a presentation to Council November 29th outlining a proposed main street in Irmo.” Where did this idea come from?

It also reported that “town residents had suggested for years that a main street would be an attractive addition to the town.” Danielson said, “Now we have a way to make this happen and everyone wins”. Except, in my opinion, the current owners of the property he was describing in his presentation, and the other hospitality tax dollar benefactors whom all those tax dollars go to pay for this property instead of going to where they previously went, and currently are going to, at the time of his presentation.

So who truly benefits? One would be developers and investors that normally develop commercial properties. They have real estate agents and acquisition teams to handle that process, if the numbers work, land cost, infrastructure costs (i.e. roads, sewer, water), construction costs and can be developed, resold, or leased then they move forward. If these numbers don’t work, then they don’t move forward. Or if an investor buys and waits, when none of these are viable, nothing happens unless you can get someone else to spend their money (not the investors or the developers) to buy land, pay for infrastructure which would then make them the developer/investor.

This is not the Town of Irmo’s responsibility or expertise, never was, isn’t now, never should be.

But funny things happen when elected officials have to run for re-election or higher office and they need to campaign on what they did, and can use tax dollars (hospitality, ARPA, undesignated cash funds) to spend. Then when opposition occurs from other elected officials, (may not be their idea) for the method of moving forward or not getting credit themselves, along with town residents, existing property owners, who don’t see a “win”, you get push back and make regrettable comments about “eminent domain” etc.

That is another article about “EMINENT DOMAIN, Who said What, When and Where” and the fallacy of believing you could even use eminent domain for this purpose. Also, “where did this downtown idea originate, and what was wrong with the original idea”, besides whose idea it was.

IRMO’S MAIN STREET “DOWNTOWN” DEBACLE

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Well, it must be Election time here in Irmo again.

October 15, 2025

Yes, I got a campaign brochure in my newspaper box the other day, I guess there is a good reason to keep those things. And thank you Councilwoman Barbara Waldman for it — you have my vote. Some things have changed and some things stay the same. Years ago, when you first ran, and being a neighbor of an individual who I assumed talked to you into running for his benefit, I did not vote for you. But over the years of your service, especially after seeing you stand up to the “bully” attempting to pressure you into seconding some ridiculous item he had on the agenda — and you refused — my opinion of you changed. Since your election, and seeing you do what you truly believe is in Irmo’s best interest, you have gained my trust and therefore my vote. I won’t spend much time commenting on the other candidates — that will be their job to introduce themselves and attempt to convince you to vote for them. But I will mention two of them. One, Gabriel Penfield , who has my other vote, has worked hard during his years of service to the town — improving and making better the things that he could. He is a great council member, has a good heart, and is there to make Irmo better. I will write more about him later. The other candidate, whom I will also write more about later (not too positively, however), is the one I wrote about before — being deceitful about where he lived and not residing at the address he listed on his candidate form. If you remember, he claimed to live in a house in Rose Oak that he hadn’t lived in for a couple of years, and at that time was actually living outside the town of Irmo. Anyway you look at it, it was not honest — it was deceitful. And even if someone who evidently doesn’t know the difference between dishonesty and being truthful tried to claim it was a “minor clerical error,” we all know better. We aren’t ignorant as he believes we are — that’s why he was a one and done. We’ve got two great candidates who have proven they put Irmo first. I urge you to vote to reelect Councilwoman Barbara Waldman and Councilman Gabriel Penfield. Thank you for your consideration. — Hardy King

American Virtues – 2025 Commencement Address

September 23, 2025

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on May 10, 2025, at Hillsdale College’s 173rd Commencement Ceremony.

The Significance of the Recently Released Russia Hoax Documents

September 23, 2025

Within hours of her 2016 presidential campaign loss, a devastated Hillary Clinton attributed her defeat not to the American voters who rejected her, but to Russia, echoing a campaign theme she had been developing for months. “Hillary declined to take responsibility for her own loss” and “kept pointing her finger” at Russia, according to Shattered, a 2017 book about her campaign—“Her team coalesced around the idea that Russian hacking was the major unreported story of the campaign.”