This week, The Manning Times interviewed each candidate for the Summerton Mayoral election. Their answers are provided in chronological order of their interviews. If the candidates were asked a follow-up question, that question is indicated with bold italic font.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Summerton, for the most part. A little bit in New York, of course. I graduated from Scott’s Branch High School in 1983.
How long have you lived in Summerton?
Oh, we’d have to go back to ’96, ’97. And then you went to New York and came back? Yes. Two years ago, I left New York and came back home.
Do you have any professional achievements that you’d like to share?
My current job, I work for South Carolina Community for Economic Development, which is a state-wide trade association that works with nonprofits, municipalities, corporations, banks, and so forth. And what we do is build communities’ capacity to make change. My area of expertise would be access to food, broadband, and promoting heritage-based tourism. So, success for me looks like when Allendale County gets broadband and those students have access to high speed internet to do homework or businesses and health facilities can service their clients and patients. That was one of the successes we had. In the age of COVID, as you know, broadband became a very popular topic that folks were concerned about and so, my position at the state level helped facilitate communities’ access to broadband resources and employing them to where they can start receiving the benefits of broadband like Allendale did. Community wise, I’ve been involved in Summerton since 1999 where I was involved in restoration of Warsaw Park. Prior to 1999, Hugo had come through and destroyed all the playground equipment there and I was part of an organization that led the effort to restore that park. Then, we went downtown to Railroad Avenue and we beautified Railroad Avenue and subsequently from that we worked with the town, back in 2000, to redo the street scape. The street scape is a little different if you can go back that far, where we have lights up and the intersections were changed a little bit and the way you park was reconfigured to beautify the Main Street area. So those are some of the successes that I’ve had as community person and professionally.
What do you believe qualifies you for this position?
That’s a good question. Well, the years, twenty years or better of serving this community in many different capacities. As community organizer and now as a community developer at the state level. I serve 46 counties, rural counties, helping them access, as I said to you earlier, broadband, food access, and tourism. As well as helping our agricultural, farmers and land owners, access resources to sustain their farms. That experience in working for the community for 20 years has prepared me. Also, I think my education with a nonprofit degree, understanding how government works, how the resources flow from the federal, state, and other entities to help communities address their concerns. I guess it qualifies me as a resident, to meet the bare minimum.
What will be your top priority if you’re elected Mayor?
Good question again. The three things that I like to focus on, and I’ve been campaigning for 15 months now, and in that, I went throughout the community, talking to folks door to door, hearing what their concerns are, what they think the town could be doing a little better than what they’re doing. My campaign is about building a better Summerton and where I will focus, one area being the water and the infrastructure. That’s a major concern of people that we’ve heard. Clean drinking water, the aging infrastructure, so that would be first priority that I would to address. The second one would be economic development where we’re proud to see what’s happening over the interstate section, Bluff Boulevard where we have the new development of Love’s gas station. That’s bringing in traffic and we want to continue that development, fill out that area over there. There is some land that’s available for sale and I think there’s opportunities where we can develop that area, for economic development, with the goal of going back around to downtown from there. Just swing around that area, if you can visualize that. The third thing would be to work on the social and economic conditions of the people, more or less. We have seniors and young people I’m concerned about. That they have that quality of life that we all desire. With seniors, making sure they have access to healthcare and transportation, food. That was another big thing that came up, you know, you need a grocery store. And for our young people, after school programs, community center. Things that will get them involved in understanding community service. I served with a mayor called Vista during my graduate days, so I know how important it is to get those opportunities to show different skills, different careers. And one of those things, if I’m elected, is to have young people work in the government office, understanding how government works. Those the areas, that I would work on.
What, specifically, will you do to facilitate the water clean-up in Summerton? How will you work with town council?
Well, I think one of the things is a comprehensive plan that we’d have to have in place, right? We’ve got to have a comprehensive plan that really assessed what the problem is. And that the people are aware. They know the problem but they don’t the extent of the problem. Is it the homeowner’s side? Is it the infrastructure side? Is it the town not keeping up with DHEC regulations? We don’t know, to be honest. We just know we got problems. So the first thing is to really do a comprehensive assessment of the problem. Second, is to identify those resources that can address the problem. There is some state, there is some federal, there some other resources, that can help address the issue. Again, got identify them and secure those resources to address that issue. So, in my opinion, the first thing that needs to be done is a serious comprehensive assessment of the problem. And then putting a plan together with the community, not the professionals. Professionals are always there, they’re the ones that do the job, but the community needs to be involved in that process so that they understand the importance of it, they understand how long it’s going to take, and the challenges that comes with that. Also, tell us where they believe we should put our focus. The community has some say. These are taxpayers dollars so we want them to be involved. And I don’t think the current administration has been engaging with the community in that regard. That’s my thoughts on that.
Do you have any regrets in your professional career so far? If so, what did you learn from it?
You always learn lessons. Politics, government, public service is not easy. It’s not one way, so you do a lot of learning on the job. I’ve learned quite a bit of lessons over the years, working with people, it’s about relationships. If I had to pick one project or one issue that I can say I learned a lesson from, so I started work in Summerton around 1999 and at the time what was new for me was politics. Being gung-ho, excited about doing community work, and saying, ‘this is the way it has to be done. I think this is the best idea. Everyone should get on board.’ Ha! That’s not the case. They were like, ‘yeah, right. You gotta sell me, you gotta convince me, I don’t see it.’ Just all kinds of ways to say no, we’re not having that. So, you learn from rejections. You have to build relationships with people. That’s a key lesson that I learned from all this is relationship building. You’re going to get rejected on a number of fronts and you stay persistent and focus on trying to get it done. You have to know it’s not just your way. There are multiple ways to skin a cat, as they say. You want to be open to that.
What do you believe Summerton needs or is lacking? What will be your main objective as soon as you enter office?
I think that one of the things that is lacking is really good leadership. I think we have some members on council who are familiar with how government works but I don’t think everybody’s singing from the same page. I think one of the things people have seen in this last election is some of our elected officials have not been concerned about their concerns. They’re not really in public service, they’re doing other things. So one of the things would be to lead the people, to be a good public servant. To be available to address their concerns, not play part-time mayor. Some folks who claim that they know nothing about what’s going on in the town, it’s really, really strange to be the leader for eight leaders and didn’t know the concerns of the people. So, one is good leadership. Really good leadership. And the second, again, working back on the water issue because without the water issue being resolved, we don’t have a town, in my opinion. No business, no residents coming in, wanting to live here, make a life with their family, business, if they don’t have clean drinking water and the infrastructure is always going wacky. That’s just got to be paramount to whoever’s elected, to make sure we get that under wraps.
Tell us a little about your family life and/or hobbies.
Well, I’m a father. I’m a stepfather. I enjoy just the quality of life, the ruralness here. I came from the city, as we talked a little bit earlier, two years ago. So, just that whole quality life. The fresh air, the grass, you know, is different from the city so I can really appreciate that. And then just the folks, they’re different from the city folks. City folks are always busy and going. Here is a little slower and folks take the time to really engage and have conversations. A little slower pace, so I enjoy that. Occasionally, I get out and enjoy some good music, but COVID has kinda stopped that. Hopefully, that will pick up and I’ll get a chance to enjoy outdoor concerts again.
Any additional remarks or comments that you would like to close with?
Thank you for that opportunity. I just want to say that if I’m elected, I would be the mayor of all the people. That’s very important, that can be said because, again, folks have not been in the role of public service, they’ve been doing something else, in my opinion. I would like to be the mayor for all the people of Summerton. That could be quoted, that I would be mayor for all the people and serve them in the mind of public service.
