When The Post and Courier gave the public its first very limited glimpse of the exclusive $3.4 million lodge S.C. taxpayers had helped build as a "welcome center" adjacent to Shaw Air Force Base, our reporters hadn’t been able to step foot on the property and had a lot more questions than answers about how and why our tax dollars were being used. We didn’t know who could access the gated property, how much it costs to operate, where the money to operate it comes from or to what extent it’s used as a private hunt club. We also knew practically nothing about a caretaker who previously worked at a private hunt club, is paid $81,000 a year by the city and is allowed to live rent-free in a three-bedroom house on the property. Five months later, we still have more questions than answers. City officials said last fall they were just too busy to give our reporters a tour of the place; this spring, they simply ignored a follow-up request. After a lot of cajoling, they did offer to give one Sumter activist a tour — as long as she agreed not to take any pictures or shoot any video, which strikes us as a bizarre demand for government officials who have nothing to hide. Sumter Mayor David Merchant agreed to talk to reporter Tony Barteleme about the welcome center and the $4.3 million barn renovation that’s underway. But as Mr. Barteleme reports, he didn’t seem to know a lot about the project that’s being funded by state taxpayers through a grant the city requested from the South Carolina Department of Veterans Affairs. What he knows is that Shaw Air Force Base “is a huge economic engine and great neighbor, and we do whatever we can for them.” We certainly appreciate that idea, and we want to support our military installations as well. But we want that support to be shown out in the open, so we can make sure our resources are being used efficiently and so we can tell whether our expenditures really are helping keep those installations in our state or whether that’s a cover to provide special perks to state and local political and governmental officials. All of that remains unclear, and that reminds us that the Legislature needs to put some teeth into our Freedom of Information Act — and that until it does, Attorney General Alan Wilson needs to bring some lawsuits against state and local officials who skirt its requirements.

What has become clear through Mr. Barteleme’s reporting is that Sumter residents are asking to use the existing facility in ways that seem consistent with its stated purposes and being turned down. Even an Air Force master sergeant who was retiring after 22 years of military service said he was turned down when he asked to use the welcome center for his own retirement ceremony , after attending one there for two colonels. What we know is that Sumter’s no-pictures policy seems to apply only to people the city doesn’t want visiting, not to all those special guests who have taken and shared photos. We know too that the barn renovation is being hit by the same inflationary pressures as all sorts of other public and private construction projects, to the point that construction has been halted while the city tries to figure out how to proceed. Whatever the answer, it needs to include a much larger dose of transparency than it has so far. The lodge is set on 900 acres of mostly undeveloped forests, ponds and fields and hosts private hunts for invited VIPs under circumstances that are not entirely clear. Also not entirely clear is who is allowed to use the lodge, which has accommodations for overnight guests and features a $10,301 conference table made of ancient cypress and a $14,218 security camera system at the gate to keep out the great unwashed. The tiny bit of additional information that’s come to light in recent months is the size of the “barn” facility — 6,200 square feet. In its 2023 application for a military enhancement grant , the Sumter city manager wrote that the welcome center “serves the military in our community and has hosted numerous events and functions” and that the barn will “open new opportunities to accommodate larger groups from Shaw AFB that will not only enhance the resilience of this military installation, but also enhance the quality of life for military members and their families.” What he didn’t say was that many and perhaps most members of the military and their families are not allowed to use the current facilities and that there’s no indication that they will have any more access to the larger facility. Also not included was that a relative of House Speaker Murrell Smith was taken on a special hunting excursion on the property, or that other politicians have also been given special permission to use the no-public-access property for private hunting outings.

The state Department of Veterans Affairs approved the grant even though a task force assigned to review the impact of six proposals concluded in 2023 that the barn grant and three others had a “relative lack of impact” on nearby military installations and proposed that they not be awarded yet in case more useful proposals arose. So one additional thing we don’t know is why, despite that negative review, the agency approved the grant anyway.