Recently installed North Charleston Mayor Reggie Burgess has been sitting in the mayor’s office for a little over a month now, but he’s been serving the North Charleston community for 35 years.
While growing up in the city, he said he came to know the people and families that made up its many communities, several with what he called “deep roots” in the area. Burgess joined the North Charleston Police Department in 1989, rising to become chief of police in 2018. Now, he said he’s taking the experiences and education from that time into a new seat in the mayor’s office. We sat down with Burgess this week to discuss how he got there and what’s ahead.
City Paper: How is the mayor’s office different from your time serving as chief of police?
Reggie Burgess: The pace is about the same. When you’re in law enforcement, things happen all the time — it may be some small events, good things, bad things — your head is always on a swivel in law enforcement. Being the mayor is more holistic. I’m looking not only at law enforcement, but I have to think about all of the departments. I need to engage with the planning and zoning. I need to engage with finance. And I have to have patience — I need to listen intently to every department head in every situation. For me, it may be a listening session, but to them, it’s what they do. I have to slow my heart rate down.
CP: What were you able to take away from your time as chief of police that has helped you transition into the mayor’s position?
RB: I went to the University of Louisville in 2001 to administrative officers’ school … and when I got there, I’m with all these other leaders. At the time, I was just a lieutenant, and being around those people from these big cities, I’m learning in that command experience, we all have the same issues. That education I got early in my command life gave me a lot of institutional knowledge and the understanding of an organization and how to navigate and work through issues.
One of the biggest things I’ve learned is how to bring in people and have them think the way you’re thinking, even if we don’t see it the same way — what can you bring to the table that’s going to make our community better? That’s one of the biggest things you learn at command school. It gave me another key to use when I’m negotiating or bringing someone into the team.
Engaging people
CP: The community engagement factor was so important during your time as chief. How has that transposed into your mayoral role?
RB: It’s tremendous. A couple days ago, we had a food store chain invited to come sit with the mayor. And you know me, I’m not the only one who’s going to shop in this store. So I called the community presidents around the area that this store may want to possibly invest in, and brought them to the table. So you have the store owners, which is business; you have the government, which is me; and you have the community. You can’t lose. When you do that, you’re doing right by the people you serve, instead of us making decisions for the community
— especially when it comes to a food chain — we want them at the table at the inception of the decision-making process. It’s involving the people who are going to be the most affected — they’re the ones who are going to be walking in through those doors.
CP: How sustainable is that practice, considering how quickly North Charleston is growing. Can you do that every time?
RB: No, no you can’t do it for everybody. It’s not practical for every situation. I was on the SWAT team for over 10 years. There were two ways to go in: dynamic — when you just kick the door in — and then there’s stealth. You have to understand the situation you’re in. There are times when we as a government have to talk about the issues alone, but we know there are times when it is more valuable to bring in the community as well. When it’s practical, and you can include them from the beginning … they’ll take that back to their communities.
CP: Do you think growing up in North Charleston yourself has given you a lot of that perspective to help know which of those situations you’re in?
RB: My faith in God, first, has done that. But you’re right, growing up here in this community, knowing everybody no matter what color … North Charleston is the most diverse community of its size. Columbia is there, but with our situation it’s different. My great-grandmother was born in the late 1890s, but they were here since 1690. A lot of the people who live here in North Charleston, their roots go back all the way to the days when African Americans first arrived. You’re not just talking about diversity, you’re talking about people who have been here forever. And now their kids are here. And I’ve known these people all my life.
What’s ahead
CP: What are some of the specific challenges you want to tackle in your first year in office?
RB: We have a super team here. Mayor Keith Summey put this team together, and all I have to do is keep the team together and keep winning. As we try to win, we’re going to lose some things along the way. The main critical things for me as mayor:
Fiscal stability. We have to pay our bills — public services, recreation, trash and garbage, arts and culture — all these things we provide.
Second: Planning and zoning — we need it because we’re growing tremendously.
Then that third piece: Public safety. We have to keep law enforcement in those neighborhoods. The people not only deserve it, but they want it. Those are my three main objectives for sure — keep it going, keep us straight.
As the years progress, we’re looking hard at development. We are the No. 1 developing city in the state, and we have to keep that. North Charleston became a city due to economic development. We have to keep our businesses flowing in our city. When our businesses prosper, neighborhoods are elevated. We can take more funds and tax dollars and uplift things that need to be lifted in our communities.
And we are the center point — to get down to the city of Charleston, you have to go through North Charleston. To get to Mount Pleasant, you have to go through North Charleston. To get to West Ashley, you have to go through North Charleston. To get to Summerville, Goose Creek, Moncks Corner, you have to go through North Charleston. It’s a great thing. But you have to have the pieces together and keep them glued. Sometimes they come unglued, but that’s where leaders are made. The average person would just say “I don’t know what to do,” but when you’re a leader, you can almost feel what change may happen, and you prepare yourself to glue it back together.
CP: How do you find the line between supporting economic development and overdevelopment, which a lot of people see as a threat to those roots you’re talking about?
RB: I don’t believe any business we work with in the city has a sense of going in there trying to hurt the community. They see something they can make better. But we have to be realistic — there are houses in Union Heights that three to four years ago were at $52,000 to $58,000. Now you look at them and they’re at $283,000. That’s a great thing when you go into [these older communities] and you’re fixing it and building new homes, but the issue for the people living there … when equity goes up, taxes go up.
We don’t want the people in these homes to get pushed out. There are cities in America facing the same problem we are — gentrification — and we are absolutely not trying to move anybody out of their homes. We are trying to find innovative ways and new best practices to keep people where they are because that’s their home. That’s their neighborhood. That’s why I’m looking at these economic tools we can use to help them.
CP: One of your top three goals you mentioned was law enforcement, how are you working right now to reduce crime in North Charleston?
RB: As you know, our crime level has always been something that has plagued the city of North Charleston, but over the course of the last two years, our crime has reduced. That will continue. I contribute that to both the government and the citizens. There was a time when even me, a true homeboy here in North Charleston, couldn’t go into a neighborhood and get people to talk to me about who shot that person, who broke into that house — some cultures were not going to talk to you out in the open. You had to find a way to get them to trust you enough to even engage with you. That is one of the biggest things we had to overcome. When I became chief in 2018, it was my opportunity to implement those changes. And I did it.
Now, you walk into a neighborhood, and even if they don’t like you, they know who you are. You can go into a store, like Bertha’s Kitchen, in full uniform, and people will be like, “Hey, Burgess, what’s up, how are you doing?” Because now they don’t fear you. When you can do what you need to do to get their respect, they’re going to believe that you are there to look out for their best interests. That was the key. We had to change our approach. We could no longer sit back and say we were going to respond in these communities, we had to be a part of them. … That’s why we have less complaints now. That is what, to me, is the difference between public safety then and now. That’s what we have to keep going.
Help keep the City Paper free.
No paywalls.
No subscription cost.
Free delivery at 800 locations.
Help support independent journalism by donating today.