JW: I don't fail to understand. You have emphasized what is is exactly my point. Until our elected leaders take a stand and start to move things forward, nothing happens. But when they do, progress is made. In another posting I complimented Mayor Barber for persuading the steel mill to tear down the unused and rusting towers, etc. on the Wood to Dozier stretch of the site. Seeing the potential profit in doing just that, they tore down the structures, scrapped the metal and started to clean the place up some. That's progress. Now what the owners need to understand is that the clock is ticking on their heavy industrial use of the property. They have stopped producing steel. That triggered the one year time period for the resumption of production. There are no loopholes stopping that. There is no labor dispute to toll the clock for them. Save another revision of the ordinance (which would take an unacceptable level of cowardice by the city council during an election year for the mayor and three council members), the mill will be barred from going back into operation once the present shut down runs for more than a year. Sooner or later reality will have to take over, both for mill owners and for local politicians. Meanwhile, I'm trying to gently prod things forward. I regret that I haven't be clear enough to make what I've been up to apparent to even the most casual reader.
The real question here is just how long are mill owners going to continue to pay a skeleton crew to keep an eye on things, their electric bill, whatever they pay in lieu of property taxes and the like, based on the very speculative prospect that the domestic steel industry is going to make a comeback at any point in time during the next six months or so (what they have remaining under the one year limit in the present ordinance) to be able to make a profit. Liberty Steel isn't a non-profit charity. It is not a creature controlled by the union. It is a business. It is run by adults, not children. They understand quite clearly that for the mill they own to survive it has to make a profit. Now, if its owners have enough money that they can afford to piss away the value of this otherwise potentially profitable piece of real estate indefinitely, well, good for them, but I seriously doubt that they are so careless or indifferent with their money. Folks don't get really, really wealthy by pissing away money or by speculating on whether Donald Trump or anyone else can keep a campaign promise to revive the domestic steel industry given the state of the world economy either now or in the reasonably foreseeable future. Sorry to say it, but the steel industry isn't coming back for small producers like Liberty Steel and Winyah Bay isn't going to be dredged so that the Port of Georgetown can reopen Those ships have sailed.
So, elected officials -- Senator Scott, Rep. Rice, Senator Sabb, Rep. Anderson, Mayor Barber, City and County Council members, damn it, get to work. You aren't important people. It is the responsibility of the offices that you hold, the people and the future that are important. if you want a legacy as a do nothing, know nothing, say nothing, seat warmer, just continue to sit on your asses. Brendon Barber has shown you what's possible by starting the clean up process. Give him a hand. DO SOMETHING!!!!!. There, that plain enough for you JW?
