Our View: Shame on Charleston 6 for Sumar Street gateway vote

There are two kinds of votes that elected officials make: political votes to needle someone and policy votes made on principle.

Policy and principle lost last week in the city of Charleston when six members of council voted against a well-researched plan to provide an economic gateway project for West Ashley. Under consideration for six years with input from more than 1,000 people, council deadlocked on the project by voting 6-6 on an option that many in West Ashley liked for the redevelopment of an old Piggly Wiggly store site.

Shame on the Charleston Six who cast ballots against the proposed Sumar Street development in what was an obvious petty political play against Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg. Shame on council members Boyd Gregg, Kevin Shealy, Robert Mitchell, William Dudley Gregorie, Keith Waring and Caroline Parker.

If you’re mad at any of them, check your anger at the polls. In the 2023 municipal election, only Gregg and Waring are up for reelection. The other four made it to council with less than 1,000 votes each in 2021.

If you’re so mad that you might consider running against Waring in West Ashley or Gregg in a downtown-Daniel Island district, you should know that you could win either seat without raising and spending an exorbitant amount of money. And you don’t need a boatload of votes to win a majority.

Waring, for example, garnered just 827 votes in 2019 after spending $29,475. His challenger got 647 votes. Gregg won a special election and runoff in January 2022 after spending just under $35,000. He won the runoff with 1,182 votes, compared to a challenger’s 553 votes.

A group of 19 West Ashley leaders on June 26 wrote a letter to Mitchell, who chairs the city’s community development committee, to express its disappointment with the Sumar Street vote on June 20, but to highlight how they hope the project will get another chance:

“We remain optimistic in light of your words at the
June 20 meeting, when city council voted to send it to the committee your chair [when you said], ‘If this comes back to community development, I am on the prevailing side so far as that I can probably come back and say, “Let’s do Option 1” if I see that is what’s happening.’ ”

After 15 public meetings and hearings, the Option 1 proposal has broad West Ashley support for a mixed-use project, community center and public gathering space. “The city is in a rare position to set the example for future development along Sam Rittenburg [Blvd.] by engaging in a public-private partnership,” the letter added.

Let’s turn the frown of the June 20 meeting upside down by approving the project to give the West Ashley gateway a renewed life.