Our View: Somebody needs to run against Cogswell

There’s a really important election in Charleston in just 18 months.

But so far, there’s no buzz about anybody serious who wants to take on freshman Mayor William “Backroom Billy” Cogswell.

And that’s a real shame. Because he’s a vulnerable, mediocre mayor who needs to justify how he’s changed the city’s governance. Charleston deserves better than city government mired in secret meetings, executive sessions, officials who won’t say anything, lemmings on city council and a developer mentality that overrides good governance, transparency and accountability.

Cogswell, elected in a squeaker of a runoff in 2023 after a poorly executed campaign by then incumbent John Tecklenburg, deserves plaudits for a couple of things he’s done as mayor.

First is the coordination by the city with nonprofits to steer the reshaping of Union Pier over the next three decades through an apparently incremental, intentional new neighborhood filled with residential and commercial spaces that aren’t a historic Disney. But in the rush to seal the deal over a tax-increment financing district for Union Pier, Cogswell gave up lots of office space at 75 Calhoun St., forcing the city to rush to rent space at 200 Meeting Street.

That space, at $50,000 a month for three years, was for seven departments but because of noisy renovations and inhospitable working conditions, only about 15 people actually worked there, the City Paper reported last month.

Second, Cogswell has continued progress started by earlier mayors to deal with frequent flooding conditions in Charleston. Moving that ball forward is a big deal to protect peninsular Charleston.

But then there are questionable moves by the mayor over the last 30 months that reinforce his reputation as being more focused on development — his past livelihood — than governance.

There’s a ridiculous, unachievable plan for 3,500 affordable housing units by 2032 that uses some kind of Martian math to set goals. Nobody really believes it’s going to happen. There’s his zeal to do lots of stuff around WestEdge, despite ongoing environmental issues. There’s a boatload of questions about his ongoing business interests in area developments.. There’s a zeal for executive secrecy. And there’s a “bro culture” that’s developed across city council that keeps it generally ineffective and quieter than a banditry of titmice.

Any of the current 12 members of city council could run against Cogswell. But with the generally supine approach to engagement by members, that’s about as likely to happen as the sun rising in the west. There also are good, solid business people who could run and fund a campaign to make Charleston progressive again, but no names are surfacing. There are effective activists and neighborhood advocates who could do it, but if they want to organize and raise $1 million to challenge Cogswell, they’d better get started instead of just thinking about it. Time is running short.

Charleston residents deserve a leader who will be accountable, transparent and dedicated to responsible and good governance. Anybody?