Grand Strand residents have a lot of good ideas on how the accountability of S.C. government might be improved. But the administration of Gov. Mark Sanford apparently doesn't want to hear them.

If that weren't true, Sanford's accountability czar, Columbia attorney Ken Wingate, would have scheduled one of this month's six public hearings on government accountability somewhere on the Grand Strand. Instead, Strand residents wanting to influence Sanford's massive government-reform efforts will have to travel more than 70 miles to Florence on Aug. 26 or more than 100 miles to Charleston on Aug. 28 to be heard. Few, we predict, will make that effort.

There are now more than a quarter million South Carolinians in Horry and Georgetown counties. But Wingate and his commission apparently still see our community as a politically insignificant backwater with residents whose views aren't worth soliciting.

What we have here is the latest manifestation of a wearisome attitude. The Strand, over the past 20 years, has grown one of South Carolina's most dynamic, entrepreneurial economies. But because residents did this mostly with tourism and related leisure-based businesses, persons of influence in the state's older - and, dare we say it, stodgier - precincts tend to regard the Strand as inconsequential, frivolous and brash.

There's a strong whiff of hypocrisy in this attitude. Public entities, including state government, are more than happy to mine the Strand for tax money to support public programs - money that local folks are generally willing to provide as long as our community gets some respect for the integral role it plays in the S.C. economy.

Politicians running for statewide office stop here often when their campaign coffers need refilling. Wingate himself, as a long-shot GOP candidate for governor last year, had no trouble finding his way here and professing concern for Strand needs.

Are we hollering too loudly about this? Possibly. But the Strand deserves better from the Sanford administration and the state's political leadership. Until that is forthcoming, there's no percentage in suffering these indignities quietly.