District 28 - Meet your Candidates for South Carolina House of Representatives

Meet Democrat J Fritz Weibel, South Carolina House of Representatives District 28 candidate in the November general election. ALso running is Republican Chris Huff who declined to participate. District 28 covers Conestee and most of Southern Greenville County with the exception of the lowermost southwest corner. In this episode, each candidate has 10 minutes to introduce themselves to the voters. Your vote is so important! Please take a listen and share with your neighbors.

Links:

J Fritz Weibel

Sample Ballot

Transcript

Katy Smith:
[0:02] When you go to the polls on November 5th or in early voting, you have the chance to vote not just for president. South Carolina voters will also choose their state, House, and Senate members. These members of our legislature make important decisions about things such as the state budget, policies on education, health care, public safety, the judicial system, and much more. I'm Katy Smith with Greater Good Greenville, and on this episode of Simple Civics: Greenville County, we feature an interview with one of your candidates for South Carolina House District 28, Democrat Fritz Weibel. We reached out to Republican candidate Chris Huff with an invitation, but he declined to participate. District 28 covers Conestee and most of Southern Greenville County with the exception of the lowermost southwest corner. Here's how the interviews worked. All candidates received the same question at the time of their invitation to join us, and they were given 10 minutes for their interview. Candidates were allowed to bring along a companion, such as a campaign manager, family member, or friend, and to record our session themselves. There were no edits made to the interview. We've put links to the participating candidates' preferred internet presence on the episode page. Here's Democrat Fritz Weibel. I'm pleased to be joined by Fritz Weibel, who is running for South Carolina House District 28 as a Democrat. Thanks so much for joining us today, Fritz.

J Fritz Weibel:
[1:21] My pleasure.

Katy Smith:
[1:22] Can you tell us about yourself and why you're running for office?

J Fritz Weibel:
[1:27] Well, I was raised in the Golden Strip. I was the first president student body at New Mauldin High School back in 1973. And I've been in politics since I was 18 years old. And my political resume is two sheets long. All the candidates I've held, the campaigns I've been in. So I've got extensive experience. Also, I've been an editorialist for over 45 years. Now, I've been published in every major newspaper in South Carolina and a few times on the national level. But my specialty is I don't mess with big brother. My specialty is little brother, the state, the county. This is what's so close to us. This is where you get hit the hardest is at that local level. And as I'm sitting here now, Greenville County's raised every tax in the book. Which is basically kill the Homestead exemption. It's only $45,000. Average home in the district is worth over $440,000.

J Fritz Weibel:
[2:44] Okay. My worry is that Crewell County is out of ways to get revenue. The only other thing they're going to be able to do is reappraise property. And when they do that, and you take somebody, It's been over 10 years since they've done this. So you're going to have houses bought 10 years ago, but when they get appraised for the county now on the new home value, the homestead exemption will be nothing. It's only $45,000. I want to move it to $90,000. It can be phased in, but that's going to have to happen. If not, when they repraise land, you're going to have open rebellion in this county. The other reason I'm running this is Duke Power has unfettered influence and power in this state. They just brought Progress Electricity. They brought Florida Power, and they came to us for a rate increase. Now, in 2018 was the last time they had one, and Judge Urban was the chairman. I brought up the fact that they were not using the cost-of-living adjustments for veterans, disabled veterans, disabled people on Social Security.

J Fritz Weibel:
[4:03] So the homestead exemption, it's not so much about young people in affordable housing. What I'm talking about is people that's paid for their house their whole life, and it's getting to the point where they can't stay in it because it's costing them so much money. So you've got to have a hedge against that high taxation for those that really can't stand it. So my idea is to increase the homestead exemption. It has not been done in 20 years. It's got to catch up. If it doesn't, mark my word, when they reappraise land at Greenville County, it's not going to be good. It's really not going to. And they've raised every attack that they could. but sales penny for rogues.

J Fritz Weibel:
[4:52] Penny for road, seven mil increase, and the vehicle fee. Okay. When they did the vehicle fee, they did away with the permanent disabled veteran tag because as a disabled veteran, I'm exempt from property tax. But not that vehicle fee.

J Fritz Weibel:
[5:14] And I had to change the whole system for Bramble County just to get that vehicle fee. So it's just things out of control these all non-deductible taxes sales taxes all that that's just wrong because system works like this as your local taxes go up by deduction your federal tax comes down when they reduce the income tax by one point they gave away 800 million dollars in write-offs for the people in south carolina what that means is as you lose your deductibility at the state level you you have to take that income and put it back into your net income all of a sudden that tax cut at south carolina became a tax increase under the federal tax code so by cutting the state income tax by one point okay cost the people in the state 800 million dollars and then of course that brings us around to where that will be in and a half dollars we don't know where where it came from so these are the things these are the reason i'm running people need a choice number one they need somebody knows what they're doing and the only thing i can tell you is this duke power's on the mark the.

J Fritz Weibel:
[6:42] Things they've done electric vehicles solar.

J Fritz Weibel:
[6:47] They even want to put the last one i got and this is so ridiculous duke power wants to pay you say you got a standby generator and a battery pack in your garage they want to pay you six dollars and 50 cent a month to be able to come in your garage in your battery pack and commandeer it for 48 hours at a time without saying how often can they do it when they're gonna do it it's just wrong and they just got too much power what they found out was it was easier to go down in that legislature and peddle that influence as opposed to doing things before the commission for the people to come forward. So, on April 8th, when they came for the rate increase, I was there with the cost of living adjustment argument, which was set precedent in 2018. Now, they wanted 14% straight up, and in 2026, they want 6.7%. Do the math. It's 21% increase. Well, when I got through and the decision came out, the commission, the Madam Chairman, took my argument, and the first part of it's only going to be 7%. So I killed half of that.

J Fritz Weibel:
[8:09] Then the 2026 amount, which would be like 6%, plus, that's been chopped back to 3%. So the chairwoman and the commission accepted that cost to live in precedent. And i have now saved the people in my district in seven counties in the upstate about 11 on their power bill do the math that's the only thing i tell people do the math now in 2018 when the grade increase came was limited to four percent after my argument okay that set the precedent They wanted 14% back then, but they only got 4% after I presented the cost-of-living adjustment argument. So from 2018 to this month, I've saved everybody in the district in seven counties in the upstate over 9% on their fire bill since 2018. Do the math. Who's the man who's done for the people in the district and knows what he's doing? He knows how to get it done. I studied state government for 50 years. I've written on it. I'm renowned in it. That's why I'm in this, because it's time for play is over with. There's so much money floating around in South Carolina, and it's just getting out of hand.

J Fritz Weibel:
[9:34] Two record budgets in a row, and I believe they're both unsustainable. And the day's going to come when the Speaker and the Governor come to grips with what they've done.

Katy Smith:
[9:47] Thank you. What do you believe are the biggest issues facing your constituents, and what would you do about them if elected?

J Fritz Weibel:
[9:53] First of all, Duke power is important to everybody in the district. And I've spent my life fighting them tooth and nail. Been doing it a long time. I have no fear of them. Back in the pandemic, Henry Maestro would never seem back up to be public. Okay, there was a hearing there concerning the solar tariff, which was Duke's commandeering of the solar installers, the solar companies, and they just took that over. If you think you're going to put solar panels on your house and sell, send, oh, you're going to put so and sell power to Duke Power, it's not going to happen. Don't do it. It's not going to happen. They got the blank check to 2026, and believe me, they're doing everything they can to cradle to the gravest, basically. They're a publicly traded company, but they got a line in the legislature in our pocket. Wait a minute. They don't want to accept the cost of doing business. They think we have to pay for everything they do. So that's big. Also, education. I'm for 10% teacher raise.

J Fritz Weibel:
[11:14] 10% teacher raise, full funding for the ABC daycare program, more money for teachers in the classroom, and the pension fund is $26 billion in the red.

Katy Smith:
[11:26] Well, thank you so much for joining us, and thank you so much for your willingness to serve the people of South Carolina.

J Fritz Weibel:
[11:33] Thank you for having me. I think this is a wonderful format, and it's been great. I enjoyed this.

Catherine Puckett:
Simple Civics: Greenville County is a project of Greater Good Greenville. Greater Good Greenville was catalyzed by the merger of the Nonprofit Alliance and the Greenville Partnership for Philanthropy. You can learn more on our website at greatergoodgreenville.org.