LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Give governor a break, give credit where credit is due

By: DEAR EDITOR | SCNow
Published: November 24, 2009

I am just about sick of all the negative articles about Gov. Sanford’s possible misuse of taxpayer money for flights. I am sitting here reading for the umpteenth time where he might have wasted as much as $8,000.

The article states, “The ethics commission reviewed 772 flights and 622 of the governor’s campaign expenditures and 98 percent of them were found to be in complete compliance.”

I’ll bet this review cost a million dollars. Talk about waste, how about the former finance director of DSS stealing more than $5 million over four years and admitting spending it on alcohol, gambling and strippers, unbelievable. How about the contractor in West Columbia overbilling the defense department from 1997 to 2006 for shipping? One charge includes nearly $1 million to ship two 19-cent lock washers and almost $500,000 to ship an $11 threaded plug, I am not making this up. I just read where the deal has been finalized to protect more than 39,000 acres of wetlands, working forest, and wildlife area in South Carolina with the purchase of the Woodberry tract in Marion County and the Hamilton Ridge tract in Hampton County. This was because Gov. Sanford signed into law a measure that would allow the South Carolina Heritage Trust to borrow $32 million for forest acquisition across the state. I would liken this to Teddy Roosevelt’s foresight 100 years ago to preserve the land for our national parks. Thank God or we would have condos and McDonalds’ in Yellowstone. In closing, I say give the man a break and give credit where credit is due.

Paul Worthington
Florence