By Tony Bartelme, Glenn Smith, Joseph Cranney and Avery Wilks
The Post and Courier

news@thepccourier.com

Editor’s note: The Post and Courier of Charleston, the largest newspaper in the state of South Carolina, has partnered with other daily and weekly newspapers — including the Pickens County Courier — to help report on corruption and wasteful spending in communities around the Palmetto State.

1. LIGHT

Corruption festers when people aren’t looking, when the spotlight doesn’t shine. Without fair scrutiny, public officials with weak ethical backbones bend the rules. They help themselves to public money. They help their cronies instead of people they represent. Like a virus, corruption mushrooms, and so do the costs to you and

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