Surprise! Laurens County Cop Killer Was Degenerate with History of Violence
A horrible story all around. Bennie Ray Brown murdered his long time and long suffering girlfriend Nichole Kingsborough and Deputy Roger Rice after getting out of jail for criminal domestic violence. The judge who let him out didn’t have this scumbag’s rap sheet in front of him when he released. Terrible:
Ladies if a man hits you he will eventually kill you. It’s a given.
Fountain Inn Police Find Largest Pot Grow House Ever Recorded in Laurens County!
Pot activist/fetish model/example of how pot kills careers Shelly Martinez couldn’t be reached for comment on what’s being called the largest “grow house” ever found in Laurens County. We can assume her comment would be something like “pot cures cancer and makes you a better driver!” while rambling about how aspirin is unnatural.
From WSPA:
FOUNTAIN INN, S.C. — The Laurens County Sheriff’s Office found what they say is one of the largest marijuana “grow houses” every found by their agency.
Deputies and Drug Enforcement Agency agents searched a home on Andrews Road in Fountain Inn on October 20.
LCSO investigators say they found approximately 125 pounds of high grade marijuana according to a posting on the office’s Facebook page.
The estimated sale value of the drug was $480,000.
There are pictures at the link so that stoners can cry over all the “primo bud” that is on it’s way to an incinerator. No arrests have been made or charges filed which makes me think that someone set up shop in an empty house, which is something we’re going to be seeing more and more of as the housing market continues to slide. With foreclosure sales being held up and banks dropping like flies the market is going to be flooded with houses with no one in them, the perfect situation for growers.
Fountain Inn Approves New Irresponsible Budget
As I said before Fountain Inn’s financial plans do not pass the Rob Taylor responsibility test:
While the 2009 financial report Fountain Inn has available on their official site paints a rosy picture of economic stability (using some creative accounting) table A-2 (pg 7) shows that there is a declining trend in wealth generating private business activity and an increase in governmental expenditures. Specifically, you’ll see that while governmental charges for services, government grants and property taxes have all increased by at least $500,000, private business activity (the fees the city collects from businesses) has decreased by more than $2,000,000. This would indicate to me that the city is raising taxes on businesses which are being forced to pick up the slack for businesses that have been hurt by the recession or have closed down completely. If that’s the case the loss in revenue will be worse for this year’s financial report.
Table A-2 also shows a decrease in government expenditure on city services with a simultaneous increase in charges on those services for private business. This doesn’t seem like a sustainable economic policy.
Table A-4 (pg 9) is more startling, showing that the city has racked up a little under $10,000,000 in long term debt which is a little more than 32% higher than the year before. At that rate, this year the outstanding debt will be over $13,000,000 but the city revenues may still be decreasing by almost 10%.
So now that it’s been reported that Fountain Inn approved the new budget (upon the first reading) I had some concerns:
Fountain Inn City Council approved the city’s 2011 annual operating budget on first reading Oct. 14 with a rollback of the city’s tax rate due to reassessment of Greenville County properties this year.
With the rollback of its tax rate from 66.3 mills to 57.29 mills, city leaders said finances should remain stable without a decline in revenue in a year when by law the city isn’t allowed to raise taxes to make up shortcomings.
The council voted 6-0 to approve the $5.88 million operating budget on an initial reading. It requires one more reading scheduled for a special called session at 6 p.m. Oct. 27 at City Hall.
The total budget reflects a 3.7 percent increase over last year’s $5.67 million operating budget.
[...]
The operating budget doesn’t add any capital spending other than those planned for under the city’s capital improvement plan, Case said.
The council voted in June to raise taxes 2.4 mills to fund the next year of its 10-year capital improvement plan. The city plans to spend $330,000 on three police cars, two brush trailers, a leaf truck and a new citywide phone system. It also will pay $89,700 in upgrades and new equipment for Recreation Department ball fields and its Activity Center on Fairview Street.
It does designate $46,375 as a city reserve line and another $222,932 as a fire department reserve line.
The city was able to withstand a $20,000 cut from the state budget to its local government fund, weathered the loss of $75,000 in a traffic safety grant that was not renewed and expects to see business licenses drop another 35 percent, or $50,000, said Mayor Gary Long.
Residents will see an increase in the city’s trash fee from $9 to $14 on their tax bills after the council voted in August.
In these days of unstable economic conditions there have been an explosion of blogs that talk about spending, taxes and the economy in terms that only the most wonkish will understand. If you want in depth analysis I suggest you look up sites like Zero Hedge, BoomBustBlog and Dr. Housing Bubble. For our purposes we only need to understand this: Fountain Inn is expecting less revenue (and their expectations are rosy to say the least) but they don’t have the political will to do the one thing that makes sense which is to cut spending to the bone.
And that will hurt, a lot. But financial reality is that the unending flow of debt based wealth is over and city governments have not yet been made aware of this. Worse, rather than accepting austerity measures the residents of Fountain Inn are actually demanding taxes be raised which will drive more business and people from the area and this will reduce revenue. Even the Mayor released a statement claiming that there should be small tax increases every couple of years to coincide with inflation! Madness!
Meanwhile he’s putting a little under $90,000 into some baseball fields which the community could fix up -if they were interested. If Fountain Inn wasn’t restrained by law they would slap huge taxes on their residents then shrug as they come up short again.
Clearly they’ve never heard of the Laffer Curve.
The housing market makes it unrealistic to suggest Fountain Inn residents head for greener pastures, but I advise all FI residents to start preparing for the shortfalls Fountain Inn is setting themselves up for and the inevitable tsunami of new taxes the “leaders” there will attempt to lay on you to fund their fantasy of turning Fountain Inn into Little Greenville.
Fountain Inn Sets Up Civilian Review Board to Handle Non-Existent Police Abuse Problem
More taxpayer money well spent:
Residents with police complaints in Fountain Inn now have a place to air their side of the story.
Fountain Inn has set up a Police Review Committee made up of seven city residents who will review formal complaints against officers as well as cases where police officers use force.
Fountain Inn Police Chief Keith Morton welcomed the new committee saying it would help the Police Department be transparent.
“We’ve never had anything to hide at the Fountain Inn Police Department,” Morton said. “This is just an opportunity to let citizens from our community see what we do.”
Fountain Inn agreed to start a review panel after mediation between the city and members of its black community following the July 2007 hanging death of a black man in the city jail. Greenville County Solicitor Bob Ariail ruled the death of Richard “Jabo” Johnson, 25, Fountain Inn, a suicide, but citizen outcry led to involvement by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The new committee has great responsibilities, Mayor Gary Long said.
“We hope we don’t have to use it very often but when we do, at least we have one now that we have an appeal to go to,” Long said.
It took three years to establish the committee, partly because it took time for the two sides to agree on a list of criteria to be involved on the committee. Members must be a city resident, registered voter with a driver’s license, and must either have completed the Police Department’s Citizens Police Academy or pledge to complete it within one year, Morton said.
So…Fountain Inn was bullied into creating a bureaucracy hostile to law enforcement after a guy hung himself and the people who wanted the board actually fought the city on requirements that make sense, like understanding the law and police procedures. As of now the people who will handle civilian complaints against police have merely “pledged” they will take a course at the academy, but will begin their duties before doing so.
What could go wrong?
Here’s a question people should be asking. How much does this cost? Do these board members get paid? How will they conduct investigations? What’s their budget?
Cost should be first and foremost in residents minds. While the 2009 financial report Fountain Inn has available on their official site paints a rosy picture of economic stability (using some creative accounting) table A-2 (pg 7) shows that there is a declining trend in wealth generating private business activity and an increase in governmental expenditures. Specifically, you’ll see that while governmental charges for services, government grants and property taxes have all increased by at least $500,000, private business activity (the fees the city collects from businesses) has decreased by more than $2,000,000. This would indicate to me that the city is raising taxes on businesses which are being forced to pick up the slack for businesses that have been hurt by the recession or have closed down completely. If that’s the case the loss in revenue will be worse for this year’s financial report.
Table A-2 also shows a decrease in government expenditure on city services with a simultaneous increase in charges on those services for private business. This doesn’t seem like a sustainable economic policy.
Table A-4 (pg 9) is more startling, showing that the city has racked up a little under $10,000,000 in long term debt which is a little more than 32% higher than the year before. At that rate, this year the outstanding debt will be over $13,000,000 but the city revenues may still be decreasing by almost 10%.
So again, does Fountain Inn have the resources to throw at what is at best a vanity project for political activists and at worse a money grab by opportunists which addresses a problem that may not even exist? I don’t think so, do you?
Courtney Lynn Campbell Likes Sharing Child Porn, Probably Won’t Like Prison
61-year-old Courtney Lynn Campbell was busted by Mauldin police after he was caught sharing child pornography over a peer-to-peer network by the Crimes Against Children Task Force. The Fountain Inn resident distributed pictures of very young children engaged in sex acts and will be charged with one count of Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, 2nd Degree. He’s looking at a 2-10 year stretch so he’ll be out in a couple of years.
Campbell’s computer was found to contain more child porn when examined by the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office and he’s got a $30,000 bond.
I wonder if he’ll like peer-to-peer sharing in prison as much as he does from the comfort of his home?