Suspended Atlantic Beach mayor Retha Pierce and her supporters have filed a $50 million lawsuit against two state lawmakers and a long list of other officials.
The suit claims the defendants conspired to get rid of the town of Atlantic Beach for their own benefit.
State Representative Tracy Edge and State Senator Dick Elliott are among the 16 defendants targeted by the suit. From audits to zip codes, the suit spells out in detail what it claims were attempts by various officials to destroy the historically black town.
The suit, filed in federal court in Florence, claims the defendants "conspired to bring about the demise of Atlantic Beach." The plaintiffs claim the Horry County Legislative Delegation, including Representative Edge and Senator Elliott, continues to "...push their agenda of either using the town for their own purposes through a puppet government or eliminating the town... Completely..."
Much of the suit deals with the town's troubled election history, including claims that citizens were denied voting rights and that Pierce and her supporters were harassed and discriminated against.
The suit claims Representative Edge tried to take away Atlantic Beach's police jurisdiction over Highway 17. Elliott gets singled out in the suit for being a real estate developer heavily involved in redevelopment plans for the town that were never acted on.
Among other things, the suit claims census takers didn't try to get an accurate count of the town's residents, that Atlantic Beach doesn't have its own zip code because Horry County lawmakers want the town to use North Myrtle Beach addresses, and that town residents pay extremely high water fees.
The suit goes on for 41 pages. It claims the plaintiffs suffered at least nine different forms of discrimination and constitutional rights violations and it asks for actual and punitive damages of $50 million.
Our attempts to reach Tracy Edge were unsuccessful. Dick Elliott said he hasn't seen the suit and doesn't know anything about it. Other defendants we managed to reach, including former Atlantic Beach mayor Irene Armstrong and acting mayor Charlene Taylor, declined to comment.
Though the suit claims the defendants are trying to destroy the town of Atlantic Beach, the town itself is listed among the defendants.
