Outgoing Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg has a lot that he’s proud of accomplishing in his eight years as mayor. But he says the coolest — something that reaches deep into his heart — is how the community came together to make a big dent in homelessness.
Flash back to 2016 when Tecklenburg took over for longtime Mayor Joe Riley. Scores of people lived in a tent city under Interstate 26. Tecklenburg and the city brought together area leaders to work with the Palmetto Project to start the Homeless to Hope Fund to provide emergency help to people facing homelessness. In the years since, thousands received aid.
“What we’ve developed are the resources to help people either when they’re homeless or at risk of becoming homeless to keep that time period as short as possible and to help people get to a better place,” he said Monday in his first interview since the Nov. 21 runoff election.
And then he and his wife, Sandy, went a step further to work with others to help people find new places to stay. And today, years later, there’s a program that keeps a warehouse filled with donated home goods to help people get a start.
“We help you find a place,” he said. “We have you outfitted with furniture and belongings from a nonprofit warehouse. And it all gets delivered and set up by former offenders who have a moving company. All at no charge. So yeah, I think that’s pretty cool.”
Plethora of accomplishments
But there are a lot of other accomplishments related to Charleston’s challenges over the last eight years.
“We built a lot of stuff — new fire stations, a police forensics center, and we improved the firefighter memorial,” Tecklenburg said. “We bought property for future parks, improved government operations and efficiency and dealt with eight named hurricanes, a pandemic and a national, if not global, reckoning on race relations. The pandemic was like having a whole another job added on top of the one we have.”
Water. With a Sunday nor’easter that reminded residents of the power of water, dealing with water and managing it for the future has been the biggest, continuing challenge that will persist. Tecklenburg said the city made great strides in dealing with water, from the Dutch Dialogues about learning to live with water to multiple projects that now are underway and will be finished in coming years to drain and manage high tides and flooding.
Examples include rewrites to the city’s zoning laws to reduce density in low-lying areas and projects like the Spring-Fishburne tunnel system to drain the Crosstown Expressway, the Low Battery infrastructure renovation, the King-Huger street pump station and the proposed perimeter protection plan. “It’s a work in progress,” Tecklenburg said Monday. “But [the storm from] yesterday is a prime example of the continuing need to protect our city long-term.”
Climate. Charleston is the only city in the state to have a climate action plan, Tecklenburg noted. “We’re beginning to make some significant progress — electrification of vehicles, composting, recycling, reducing plastic bags in the environment, reducing energy through changing out all of the streetlights and redoing city energy systems.”
Parks. In the Nov. 7 general election, Charleston voters approved $70 million for future parks. They will be built on new land purchased in West Ashley, James Island, Johns Island and Daniel Island. The city also opened several new parks during his terms.
New bridge. Tecklenburg pointed to the bike-walk bridge that has been contracted to be built over the Ashley River. “That’s huge. It’s the last missing link of the East Coast Greenway,” he said, adding, “It will be the first safe connector between the peninsula and West Ashley.”
Employees. The mayor also said he was proud of the city’s 1,800 employees who serve residents every day. “We’ve improved communication and reduced silos,” he said, noting bolstered efficiencies of city government. For example, it instituted a Citizen Service Desk that now handles 7,000 calls a month in a coordinated fashion that results in 1,500 work orders to fix problems and make repairs.
Race relations. Tecklenburg said the city moved forward during his tenure in “telling the full story of our sometimes horrid history of slavery and [making] our apology for slavery.” He also listed taking down the John C. Calhoun statue in Marion Square as an accomplishment.
IAAM. Tecklenburg said part of his legacy is tied to the legacy of the former mayor, Riley, who spearheaded the creation and multi-million-dollar funding of the International African American Museum. During Tecklenburg’s terms, the city broke ground on the building — “the most complicated building ever built in Charleston” — constructed it and opened the museum.
What’s next on tap?
When the 68-year-old Tecklenburg leaves office Jan. 8 after former GOP state Rep. Williams Cogswell is sworn in, he says he’ll probably hang his commercial Realtor shingle again and dabble in real estate.
And he’s planning to write a book about his Uncle Fud — Charleston native Joseph Anthony Livingston (1906-1957), an American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, arranger and composer who made a major impact on Big Band music of the 1930s. By 1924 after being kicked out of The Citadel, he was in Chicago playing music with two other teenagers — Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman.
“It’s a great story,” Tecklenburg said. “He was just awesome and talented.”
Tecklenburg, also known for playing jazz piano, said he’ll probably also do a little tickling of the ivory in his post-mayoral life. And he and his wife will keep doing the one thing they’ve always done — helping more people.
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