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One of the major battlegrounds in the 2008 Republican primary races was Spartanburg County, and now it looks like the enmity among different groups in the Upstate is carrying on into this years legislative session.

According to a story in Sunday’s Herald-Journal, the Spartanburg delegation is sparring over appointments that were made in August of last year. For people not used to the arcane rules of state government, local delegations have power to appoint some local officials.

However, part of the problem is that Gov. Mark Sanford will not approve the appointments because seven of the 13 members are freshmen (not exactly an efficient way to run the government, Guv — rules are rules).

So, now, there are apparently two chairmen of the delegation, though only one is legit, according to state law. Rep. Lanny Littlejohn, by the rule that a simple majority of seven is required for an election, is the chairman. However, Sen. Lee Bright, Sen. Glenn Reese, Sen. Shane Martin and Rep. Joey Millwood seem to have done their own thing and given Millwood (God help us) the chairmanship.

For a total account of the bizarre, you have to see the story:

Many of the nine remaining delegation members, however, said they had not been contacted about the appointments and said they were unaware of the changes. Sanford again refused to sign off, saying he wanted all members to be aware of the changes.

“From a legal standpoint, the bare minimum was met to make the new list legal,” Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said. “But we were concerned that all members had not seen the list.”

Martin said the others had been consulted.

“The problem is they have trouble following the law,” Martin said. “Now it seems they have trouble with the truth. We (Bright, Martin and Reese) have businesses to run, and Representative Millwood has a job. We don’t have time to fool with these good ol’ boys. We’re going to move forward and do what is best for Spartanburg. It’s not right to leave these fire department and other board members wondering whether they’ve been appointed.”

Rep. Steve Parker, also a business owner, said he was not informed of the changes. Rep. Keith Kelly, an attorney, and Rep. Rita Allison, a former Sanford employee, also said they were in the dark.

“I guess I’m a good ol’ girl,” Allison said. “They do have the weighted majority, and that’s not a problem with me. But nobody ran anything past me or asked me to sign off on anything.”

The four also did not contact the seven August appointees they removed. Bright said he thought the Governor’s Office would notify them. [Ed. note: Yeah, this guy is a smarty.] Sawyer said the Governor’s Office would only contact those appointed, and only after the governor signs off on the appointments.

Cheryl Jeter Jones, who was appointed to the Department of Social Services Board in August, learned from the Herald-Journal that the four had replaced her with Jimmy Tobias, Martin’s Democratic opponent in the November election.

Jeter Jones, a longtime community activist, said she was operating under the assumption that the application deadline was Jan. 26, as she was told in the letter from Littlejohn, and that the appointments would be made Feb. 2.

When asked why the four had decided to replace Jeter Jones with Tobias, Bright said: “It’s good to have a set of fresh eyes to look at things sometimes.” He was unaware that Jeter Jones also was a first-time appointment.

Oh, man — it’s like Bright is Charlie in the Flowers for Algernon’s denouement. If Sawyer is to be believed, though, it is good to see that the governor isn’t totally brain-dead about this issue.

One thing is for sure — Rep. Keith Kelly isn’t going to let four members usurp power from the other nine.

Millwood, who was elected chairman of the four at a meeting they held on Nov. 24 – a meeting that might have violated a state law that defines a quorum as a simple majority of the body, which would be seven members – on Friday sent a letter to all delegation members saying he has called a meeting for 7 p.m. Thursday in County Council chambers to address the appointments.

Kelly said that’s not going to happen.

“There’s no such thing as a chairman Millwood,” Kelly said. “So he has no authority to call a meeting.”

Game on.

Appointments divide delegation [Herald-Journal]

By Steve Millington

I work at Michael’s Restaurant, one of the most power-friendly restaurants in the city. I rub shoulders with CBS (CBS) CEO Les Moonves, Revlon (REV) CEO Ron Perelman, Time Warner (TWX) chairman Dick Parsons, literary super-agent Esther Newberg and Broadway producer Terry Allen Kramer, to name a few. These people are sophisticated and complicated. Ms. Kramer became a regular after being treated rudely by me.

Let me tell you the story. This day was also the day we lost Michael Wolff, the Vanity Fair writer, as a customer.

I came into work — I suppose this was four years ago — and looked at our reservation book. I counted the tables and was flabbergasted to find us 20 tables over-booked. To say I was flustered is an understatement!

At that point, it didn’t matter how the overbooking happened (human error and a computer glitch, I later learned). It was all about how to correct our mistake. Phone calls were made to our most understanding guests in hopes of weaning our numbers down. We got down to about 175 guests when I got the call from Michael Wolff — a notorious last minute reservation maker. He wanted a 1 p.m. reservation.

Impossible, I told him. I asked if he could do 1:30. He politely declined and said he would come another time. Moments later, he was to call Keith Kelly of the New York Post and say he planned on never returning to Michael’s. (He had been a thrice-weekly regular for 10 years up to then). Keith put his comment in his column the following day. I was surprised at how many calls of congratulations I received. Like I said, this is a power pinnacle and everyone likes a nasty divorce!

But, on to Terry Allen Kramer, Terry is a veteran of power venues and fine dining restaurants. I hadn’t laid eyes on her until that day.

Terry came in with Pamela Gross, the editorial director of Avenue Magazine, and Judy Giuliani, Rudy’s wife. I was red-faced, in the middle of the floor, correcting a seating error when I saw them being led into our garden room. Even today, I could swear that I heard the sound of metal against metal brakes as they did an about-face. I could clearly read Terry’s lips: “I’m not going back there,” she pronounced sternly. I had never met her, but just by her iron-fisted aura, I knew that I was done for.

As I was still persuading a guest to relinquish the table that we had mis-sat, Terry approached me and exclaimed in a cigarette-stained voice, “Do you know who I am?” I turned to Ms. Kramer in a vile mood and said, “Listen ma’am, I don’t care who you are. Would you mind just waiting in the lounge? I’m having a tough day here!” She looked at me with empathy and simply uttered, “Very well.”

That day, I found out how classy some of our guests are. Katherine Oliver – a great lady who heads the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting — told me that she wouldn’t mind giving up her table to dine at the bar. So I brought Terry and her guests to that prime table and apologized for my rudeness. I was amazed at how easily Ms. Kramer was able to “let it go” and meld into the power nest that is Michael’s.

What an exhausting day.

Steve Millington is General Manager of Michael’s, the power lunch spot for media execs and other heavy hitters on West 55th street in Manhattan.

Last week I went to cover a panel discussion with a handful of media watchers like Keith J. Kelly, David Carr and Michael Wolff.

The best line of the night was when Carr said that news was the most popular thing on the web, except maybe porn. Michael Wolff also said, perhaps presciently, that “if Newsweek is around in five years, I’ll buy you dinner.”

See my post on The Huffington Post below:

Vanity Fair media columnist Michael Wolff said today he’d be surprised if newsmagazines like Newsweek survive the next half-decade, given how much the print media have been squeezed by the shift of readers to online.

“We’re looking at our own obsolescence,” he told his fellow panelists at an I Want Media forum on “The Future of Media” held as part of the first ever Internet Week in New York City.

Read more.

Keith Kelly in a Walter Mitty Moment

It doesn’t take a PhD in advanced statistical theory to recognize that all is not right in South Carolina’s public schools. Learning about the worst in the nation graduation rate is usually all it takes to clue in most people to the fact that something drastic needs to be done to change the way we fund education in South Carolina.

When we say “most people,” we mean everyone but power hungry bureaucrats and their bevy of fawning politicians and parasitic lobbyists.

Spartanburg legislator Keith Kelly minces no words regarding his personal feelings on bureaucratic waste and redundant administrative spending. His opinion?

“It’s not broken, folks, and let’s don’t fix it.”

What an encouragement that is! What a burden lifted from our shoulders!

There’s nothing that allays fear during a crisis quite like unfounded optimism. Got kids in a failing school? Forget about it. Just let Keith Kelly’s soothing down-home platitudes wrap around you like a warm and comforting blanket.

Here are a few facts about our unbroken school system that Kelly is apparently quite willing to let you live with.

Statewide, South Carolina spends over $11,000 per public school student, but less than 45 cents actually reaches the children and teachers. The rest goes into the abyss of bureaucratic waste and patronage. The facts leave us with two conclusions. Either 1.) Kelly is just too ignorant to be crafting educational policy, or 2.) He is trying to mislead voters to make himself look like he’s on the right side of the ball.

Let’s be charitable for a moment. Perhaps Kelly just thinks his schools in Woodruff are not “broken.” Does that mean he is perfectly satisfied to let the “other” kids wallow in failing public schools down in the Corridor of Shame?

Maybe, but he’s still wrong. According to the SC Budget and Control Board’s local government finance report, Spartanburg schools are no exception to the rule of waste, spending a mere 47 cents per dollar on student instruction. The pitiful amount actually going to the classroom should help explain why Spartanburg’s seven school districts, described by Kelly as excellent, earned an average SAT score 15 points below the national average in 2007.

Kelly’s obtuse defense of failing schools doesn’t exactly bolster his credibility as a lawmaker. If he isn’t insightful enough to see his that office should be used for promoting true education for children, not blindly defending the system that fails them,then maybe he needs to stick to lawyering.

“It’s not broken, folks, and let’s don’t fix it.”

Thank goodness Kelly isn’t a mechanic.