With just under a month before North Charleston residents cast votes Nov. 7 for a new mayor, candidates are getting serious about the biggest issues facing the community.
This year’s race is the first time in nearly three decades that Mayor Keith Summey won’t appear on the ballot. With this year’s packed field of 10 candidates, discussions range from public safety and overdevelopment to LGBTQ+ issues and pedestrian access. Local advocacy groups like Lowcountry Local First (LLF), the Alliance for Full Acceptance and more have said this year’s election is one of the most important in years.
At a Sept. 26 public forum hosted by LLF at Royal Baptist Missionary Church in North Charleston, eight of the 10 candidates in North Charleston took the stage to answer questions.
Former North Charleston Police Chief Reggie Burgess, retired veteran Russell Coletti, retired summary court judge Stephanie Ganaway-Pasley, business scholar Curtis Merriweather Jr., former North Charleston city councilman Todd Olds, Charleston County councilman Teddie Pryor, North Charleston businessman John Singletary and community advocate Jesse Williams attended. Candidates Rhonda Jerome and Samuel Whatley did not attend.
Economic development
Event moderators asked one question and gave each candidate about 90 seconds to answer before moving onto the next question, alternating between long-form answers and “yes or no” questions. The first few questions centered around local businesses and economic development in North Charleston.
“North Charleston has done a dismal job in terms of supporting small businesses,” Singletary said.
Other candidates agreed small business was vital to the city and there was more to be done to support it.
“Small businesses, entrepreneurships and nonprofits are the backbone of the city of North Charleston,” Burgess said. “We have to look at our business community and understand that the majority of the people in North Charleston need to have access to small businesses. Small business is the lifeblood of the city.”
Minority- and women-owned businesses are especially a focus moving forward, several candidates said.
“I believe in working closely with businesses and associations representing various industries to create programs and initiatives that benefit local businesses,” Ganaway-Pasley said. “I think it’s important to educate our community and those who want to be business owners … and have a track record of supporting these local businesses, especially in underserved communities.”
Affordable housing
Candidates also said affordable housing remains a huge issue in North Charleston, one of the fastest-growing cities in the state.
“The city has, over the last ten years, not taken affordable housing seriously. But this is a problem,” Pryor said. “We shouldn’t have to have our workers live in Summerville, Goose Creek or Moncks Corner to commute every day to come to work when they work in the city of North Charleston.”
Candidates said the problem is simple in theory: supply and demand.
“A part of the reason why we have the housing crisis we have in North Charleston is because it’s a supply and demand issue,” Merriweather said. “There’s not enough homes [in] the real estate stock we have.”
Other candidates said it is more complicated, especially for lower-income and minority families that are more and more often pushed out of generational homes to make room for new, often more expensive, communities.
“We are one of the richest cities in South Carolina,” Colletti said. “For 30 years, only small pockets of our city have received funding to improve those communities, while others were bulldozed over and half-million-dollar homes built. Why not reinvest the money into the homes that are already there and in incentive programs for people who live in their homes to beautify their communities, streets and parks?
“Our money needs to stay here in the city, not be given to developers and investors,” he added. “Yes, we can build communities … but not at the expense of our citizens who are suffering because we are taxing them out of their houses.”
Education
Earlier this year, North Charleston leaders considered pulling the city’s schools from the Charleston County School District, alleging that the district was not making lower-income and minority students a priority. The controversy sparked a bigger conversation on the state of education in North Charleston.
Candidates weren’t asked specifically about the proposal, now a bill in the Statehouse by S.C. Rep. Marvin Pendarvis, D-North Charleston. But several candidates spoke on the improvements they would like to see in the city’s education system.
“I went to elementary [school] in Charleston County. I went to high school in Charleston County,” Burgess said. “I’m proud of being a Charleston County school kid. But what I’m not proud of is what I’m seeing.”
Others mentioned the proposal, but weren’t totally in favor of splitting from the school district.
“I don’t believe that the schools should be in a new district,” Ganaway-Pasley said. “I think that would create financial implications as well as administrative challenges.”
Singeltary agreed, adding that working with the district would be the key to success. Almost all candidates agreed that an education liaison between North Charleston the district would be a great step forward.
“We sit down with CCSD, and we develop a contract for success where we lay out some ground rules of what our expectations are for the quality of education for our students,” Singletary said.
Other issues discussed included zoning projects along the Rivers Avenue corridor, especially as they relate to the Lowcountry Rapid Transit plan; short-term rentals in the city; public safety and more.
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