ANOTHER SCANDAL INVOLVING CORRUPT TRANSPORTATION COMMISSIONER …
|| By FITSNEWS || Last month this website busted the S.C. Department of Transportation (SCDOT) for hiding audit information from the public (and from state lawmakers).
The man at the heart of that corruption? SCDOT commissioner Mike Wooten.
Not only did Wooten deliberately conceal the results of these incriminating audits, he threatened to fire the auditor who blew the whistle on the treachery.
Missed our report on all that? Click here …
This week, reporter Cassie Cope of The (Columbia, S.C.) State has uncovered fresh corruption involving Wooten.
According to Cope’s report, the transportation commissioner was caught trying to convene a secret meeting involving state officials – all so he could hide the results of a taxpayer-subsidized study on Interstate 73.
Helping to “facilitate” this study? The notoriously corrupt Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce – which is where Wooten requested a “private presentation” on the study’s results late last month.
“I can’t stress the importance of keeping this close to the vest until the time is right to unveil it,” Wooten wrote in an email to a chamber official. “As you know, timing is everything, and we don’t need to give the intervening groups time to produce the drivel they will put out questioning the results.”
Wow … that’s a pretty audacious statement to make considering the history of this proposed road.
South Carolina’s leaders need to cough up $2.4 billion for Interstate 73 – well, in addition to those $110 million “interchanges to nowhere” they’ve already built in an attempt to present taxpayers with a fait accompli. Billions more would need to come from federal taxpayers.
State leaders – including governor Nikki Haley – are so desperate to build this road they recently included its cost in their so-called annual “road funding shortfall.”
Wait … there’s a road funding shortfall? No. Not in the slightest. SCDOT has seen its annual funding soar from $1.13 billion to $1.84 billion in the last four years alone.
Despite this, “Republicans” in Columbia, S.C. – including Haley – tried to push a variety of tax hike proposals this year. In fact were it not for S.C. Senator Tom Davis’ impassioned filibuster, they’d have passed hundreds of millions of dollars in gas tax hikes.
(Even though Palmetto State residents pay more of their incomes on fuel than the residents of any other state save Mississippi and West Virginia).
In addition to raising taxes, our leaders want to make Interstate 73 a toll road – which would drain another $33 million a year out of the economy, according to the super-secret SCDOT study.
What’s South Carolina’s history with toll roads? Um … it’s not good. Remember that “Southern Connector?” We do …
No wonder our corrupt leaders want to keep this under wraps!
29 comments
I am pretty sure that when he was referring to groups producing drivel, he was referring to FITS, and he was correct.
Says the man sporting the campaign banner of a self admitted socialist.
+10
I heard the old fart giving a speech to a group of Dims over the weekend. He will give everything to everybody for free and the one percent will pay for it. LOL They laugh at Trump for suggesting that the Mexicans pay for the wall and this jerk wants it all. LOL.
Do us all a favor and don’t listen to Bernie. You are obviously too stupid to understand anything he says anyway.
Will the real Slim Shady please stand up, please stand up, please stand up. (Entire SCDOT Commission stands up)
Wooton should’ve used his own personal server for his emails and kept it in his home.
Just like your hero, Hillary!
I just want that new expressway from Pelion to Barnwell. That will spur huge economic growth. Huge!!!!
It would make my trips from east of Columbia to Barnwell State Park go quicker. They have nice cabins and camping there. One of the nicest and most over looked state parks in the state.
Camping in solitude is the only reason someone would got to Barnwell.
No, glowing deer at cool. And two headed gators.
It’s quite peaceful and not really close to SRS. Even in a different river basin. The park is near healing springs, which even if it has no medical benifits is some of the best tasting water I’ve had around SC.
http://www.sciway.net/sc-photos/barnwell-county/healing-springs.html
I’d just like them to finish fricking I-26 to Charleston.
Now now – not until Volvo is in place.
I think there is an entry in the Genies book of World Records for the slowest road improvement . I believe they have it locked up. LOL If we had taken that long to do road improvements in Vietnam they would have fought the entire war in the mud. LOL
What we were really hoping was for that new expressway from the airport in Columbia to Aiken. But….. Christie got in trouble and that Samson guy in NY/NJ quit. Now we’re screwed.
Expressway from Columbia airport to Aiken ???? Ever try I 20 ?
No, need a direct one. For United.
No corruption involved in this?
I Wooten count on it!
Criminal conduct is rampant at SCDOT. Hundreds of laptops stolen over the years. Thousands of dollars in fraudulent SCDOT credit card transactions. Thousands of dollars in gasoline stolen.
As Will reminds you, I have been on the case of I-73 for years. https://www.fitsnews.com/2011/10/19/stickler-i-73-study-riddled-with-errors/
So far, I have not gotten my hands of this new, taxpayer-funded study on the economics of building I-73 as a toll road. Financing I-73 with tolls was the real reason behind Wooten’s failed application for a $15million TIGER grant from the federal government to upgrade the shoulders of SC22. That bypass around Conway was built over ten years ago with Horry County tax money, and is proposed to be the final link for I-73 into Myrtle Beach. Upgrading that stretch for “safety” would have allowed it to be tolled: otherwise, not.
If anyone thinks tourists will pay a toll to travel on I-73 when they can drive for free on a parallel 4-lane highway, I have a failed toll road around Greenville they can pay for.
Is it hard to get to Myrtle Beach right now? I’m asking because I’ve driven into the area dozens of time and never encountered traffic until I reached the edge of the suburban sprawl. But I don’t live there so I’m curious if anyone there sees any need whatsoever for this interstate.
Boosters claim that I-73 could save 40,000 lives in a hurricane evacuation. But SC22, which would be the final leg of I-73, already exists, and already can take evacuation traffic north of Conway, feeding off to many other “bleeder” roads along the way. The main evacuation choke points are the bridges over the Intracoastal Waterway on other roads, and I-73 offers zero help there.
If you are coming to Myrtle Beach, unless your final destination is on the northern end of the Grand Strand, I-73/SC22 is not going to be your route anyway. Basically, all the arguments for I-73 are bullshit
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Tricky Niki strikes again. The most corrupt Gov. in SC history just keeps on going.
At the DOT: St. Onge, now Wooten.
Her unqualified, now corrupt appointees.
At DHEC:
Fires the Board and puts her corrupt people in charge so they can sell out Charleston Ports for big Georgia Bribes paid to Haley for the Savannah Ports expansion.
Uses DHEC as her own little Nazi Army to run over SC Health Regulations.
Appoints a girlfriend with no qualifications to run it, and she doesn’t even leave her mansion on Sullivans Island to show up for work in Columbia.
At SLED:
Uses SLED as her on personal Mafia, to threaten law-abiding people and agencies she thinks are a threat, like Planned Parenthood, and many others.
At State Ethic Commission:
She railroads 2 Ethics investigations in the first 6 months in office.
Both of which should have led to her being Impeached!!!
ETC. ETC. ETC.
You slow and dumb readers will appreciate Will’s focus on
the symptoms INSTEAD of the disease and let us proceed to tell you all why
After ripping down the flag of patriots and inviting felon
payday lending (kicked OUT of GA and NC)—the SC Legislature—best money can BUY
!!!
The same dot that will leave sections of highly traveled roads In Lexington county alone that desperately need paving… But will repave roads that are in great shape. (Basically spend money to show a shortage but leave the ones the voters travel on more often in bad shape to make it appear the roads are falling apart). I wasn’t fooled….many others down here in the south end aren’t either!
Being that federal money is involved one way or another, I think it’s time to start slinging around federal criminal charges.