‘It’s well over two dozen,’ City of Myrtle Beach turns over one email from FOIA request

Last month, The Sun News filed a Freedom of Information Act requesting emails about the new theater in downtown Myrtle Beach.

The city’s response was a copy of one email.

A few weeks earlier, on Aug. 16, council member Bill McClure said that “the city itself has received a number of emails, and I can’t tell you how many.”

Some of the emails McClure received were in favor of the project and some were against it.

“So we’ve seen emails both ways,” he said. “Personally, the emails that I have received, I don’t have the count right in front of me, it’s well over two dozen, and I would say probably 70% of them question whether this is the type of project that we should be pursuing.”

The original request asked for “All emails addressed to city councilmembers and Mayor Brenda Bethune that include the words “theater”, “CCU”, “Coastal Carolina University”or “Downtown” that have been received within the past 90 days from today’s FOIA request,” an Aug. 30, 2024 email to city FOIA paralegal Agatha Puleo said.

In response to that request, the city sent back a PDF of one email on Sept. 9, 2024. The singular email was addressed to the Dear City Council email address, and was received on July 4, 2024.

Puleo confirmed via email to The Sun News on Tuesday morning that the one email was correct based on their search.

“Yes - there was only one responsive email captured once the search was completed,” she said.

The email was sent from a constituent and was about Coastal Carolina University’s new library.

This request follows months of public discussion about a new $22 million theater downtown. With interest, loan documents show the theater is expected to cost closer to $31 million.

The project consists of gut renovating three historical buildings in downtown Myrtle Beach and creating a 300-seat theater in a partnership with Coastal Carolina University.

The lease agreement for the new theater carves out 150 minimum “use” days for CCU for plays and other performances and 100 other days available for third-party use via CCU. The city will have 30 “use days” a year based on the lease, according to director of public information Meredith Denari.

When asked how the city collects emails from council members for Freedom of Information Act requests, Denari previously said their Information Technology department goes into their government email addresses and collects emails from the back end.

The city hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for the new project earlier this summer on July 22, 2024.

Construction is scheduled to be completed by Summer 2026, a CCU press release said.