The Innovista Implosion Continues

The University of South Carolina’s increasingly-expensive “Campus In Name Only” is finally getting some long-overdue scrutiny from the school’s board of trustees, but whether that means taxpayers will be spared tens of millions of dollars worth of additional waste remains to be seen.

The “Innovista” project – a monument to government’s utter and complete incompetence on the economic development front – has once again landed in hot water after its second developer was discovered to be a glorified con man.  And just this week, the local alternative weekly responsible for breaking that story published numerous emails between the developer, Kale Roscoe, and USC officials that clearly show a project on shaky financial footing.

These revelations – coupled with the broader failure of Innovista to achieve any of its promised objectives – have taxpayers seeing red.

Meanwhile, the University is finally feeling some pressure from its hometown paper, a media outlet that it used to be able to rely on to look the other way while it continued pumping millions into empty buildings and holes in the ground.

Anyway, from La Socialista, here’s a little excerpt from the most recent game of “catch-a-liar-by-his-toe” involving Roscoe, USC President Harris Pastides and Innovista czar John Parks …

When Roscoe was fired, Parks said he had informed Pastides about Roscoe’s felony, but later revised his statement to say he informed unnamed university officials.

Roscoe reiterated Friday that he made USC aware of his past, but would not elaborate.

Pastides has said he was not informed about the felony when Roscoe was hired.

University officials said Friday the administration wouldn’t need board approval to fire Parks. They wouldn’t comment on Parks’ status, saying it was a personnel issue.

Efforts to reach Parks about his status were unsuccessful.

Talk about the “gang that can’t shoot straight.”

Unfortunately, Pastides is going “all in” on this failed experiment, which has thus far sucked up $140 million in tax dollars to “create” fewer than 300 jobs – most of which are taxpayer-funded positions.  That’s obviously a far cry from the “thousands of high-paying jobs” that Innovista backers had promised.

Not surprisingly, there’s also a whitewash … err, “investigation” underway at the S.C. State House to protect Innovista’s main legislative supporter, House Speaker Bobby Harrell.

So … what will USC’s board of trustees do about all of this?

We’ll find out on Tuesday …