During the past year and some change of my residency in Georgetown, I have heard it remarked by many that they wonder how the city, in its governmental operations, must look to an outsider. I believe that my short time of residence and migration from a variety of other locales within the US and international qualifies me as an outsider. With that in mind, as an outsider, I would like to point out that it appears that deceit and public bullying are standard practice, if not long-held tradition in Georgetown.

Recently in the Georgetown News-Graphic a couple of rather disturbing deceits were published. One of these was the claim by Pat Foley that her previous Opinion pieces were attempts to foster discussion over the city’s budget, rather than declarations of support for particular items on the legislative agenda. The other was David Trimble’s rather inane assertion that the driving issue behind the Civil War was states’ rights rather than, as South Carolina’s Declaration of Secession so clearly stated, slavery and enforcement of the Fugitive slave Act. The prevalence of deceit as a means to accomplish political agendas and make political statements is not limited to the Georgetown News-Graphic; it has been demonstrated in City Council meetings by the opponents of Sunday alcohol sales and the proponents of the restaurant meal tax.Deceit was recently used by neighbors of 180 Recycling in front of the Planning and Zoning Board in order to block 180’s zoning exception, which 180 needed to survive. In all of these deceptions, the intended effect, whether by ignorance or malfeasance, was not to help the greater community of Georgetown, but to promote limited minority interests at the expense of the City as a whole.

Ms. Foley promoted her agenda quite clearly and often in the pages of the News-Graphic. Although her early opinions feigned neutrality, she, a short while later, clearly stated that she opposed Sunday alcohol sales and supported the restaurant meal tax. She also called upon city employees, specifically emergency workers, to “step up” and make sacrifices, as if they hadn’t already. Ms. Foley has consistently sought to recommend that the fix for the city’s large financial problem is found in wreaking havoc upon small segments of the community. She has never made any suggestions for reducing pay and benefits at the top of city government, which is where the biggest “bang for the buck” can be found. Nor did she suggest that perhaps a quarter million dollars for a new garbage truck, as the mayor’s budget proposed, might be a bit much since the city promised residents curbside recycling. Supposedly, the city made an attempt at curbside recycling after nearly doubling the garbage fee, but that curbside pilot program proved economically unfeasible. I think that, if Sanitation can afford a $260,000 garbage truck, Sanitation can afford to make the curbside recycling work. Besides, quick internet research indicates there is no reason to pay more than $200,000 for a garbage truck to the city’s requirements. In walking back from her statements and claiming to merely encourage discussion, Ms. Foley is practicing deceit.

Mr. Trimble’s piece on sovereignty versus states’ rights argued that antebellum conditions and arguments over states’ rights issues were the cause of the Civil War. This is revisionist drivel dreamed up after the Civil War in protest of the Northern domination of Southern governments and economies during Reconstruction. Most of these arguments were originally advanced by men who happened to also belong to the KKK. The argument is nuanced racism in its deliberate lack of recognition for the true issue behind the Civil War: slavery. His support and promulgation of this distorted viewpoint makes Mr. Trimble not an historian as his blog claims, but a distorian. Those were dangerous words Mr. Trimble wrote; words based on lies.

The opponents to Sunday alcohol sales also misrepresented the truth in their arguments, both in the News-Graphic and in City Council chambers. On 1 December, they succeed in combining their falsehoods with a deliberately staged demonstration of widespread community support to bully the Georgetown City Council into shelving the proposal for Sunday alcohol sales.  Virtually everything they said and wrote was incorrect if not outright falsehood. They quoted studies that didn’t indicate what they claimed. They made claims contrary to all available evidence. They even cited the Bible, which also didn’t support their claims. They were willing to forego the truth and advance a plethora of untruths, violating their own Ninth Commandment to get their way.

The Welnicki family and their business, 180 Recycling, recently came under a similar deception-based attack in their application for a zoning exception to run their operations from their home on Frankfort Pike. A few of the Welnicki’s neighbors banded together to present to the zoning board a list of complaints based upon misperceptions and outright falsehoods. They claimed the recycling did or would create pollution; it did not and it would not. 180 Recycling takes clean, dry material that never comes closer to water supplies or the ground than a pallet on pavement. Their operation is in fact cleaner than many of the private garbage dumps found on other residential county properties. They claimed there was excess noise; there was not. 180 Recycling used two pieces of equipment that might generate noise; an electric compactor/baler and a propane engine forklift. Neither of these makes so much noise as to require hearing protection, and neither makes more noise than a standard lawnmower, which is less than many of the motorcycles that run around Georgetown. They claimed traffic issues, which was patently untrue, as 180 recycling went to the customer to pick up material. There was no traffic beyond that created by a family of five in normal comings and goings. They claimed the property was an eyesore; but only one neighbor living adjacent could even reasonably make that claim, and the Welnicki’s promptly erected a privacy fence. From the street or other adjacent properties, the operation was invisible. 180 Recycling underwent numerous inspections apparently demanded by their neighbors, and passed every single inspection. They were proactive in addressing the neighbors’ complaints, of which there was only one which was legitimate for only one neighbor, the others being fabricated from whole cloth, but still that was not enough. The neighbors, headlined by one Ms. Lyons and one Ms. Miller, as I recall, pressed their desire to close down 180 recycling to the Scott County Planning and Zoning Board. The P & Z ruled, having not personally seen the property in question, and having not done any actual investigation, in favor of the neighbors who could put forth not one single valid reason for the closing of 180 Recycling. The complaining neighbors simply showed up in force and put forth a litany of unfounded complaints and demanded that their will be inflicted upon another.

All of this has occurred since December. That is a lot of, to borrow Mr. Colbert’s term, “untruthiness” for a town so small. It causes this outsider to wonder what else is hiding under Georgetown’s many rocks.