Mayor's race may feature familiar faces
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Bill Rauch's three-term tenure as Beaufort mayor has brought the city unwanted growth, expensive civic building projects and an erosion in public trust of government, three potential opponents to the mayor's re-election said last week.
The City Council is expected to pass an ordinance Tuesday that will open filing for mayoral and City Council candidates Wednesday. Candidates must file by Aug. 15 for the election Nov. 4.
Rauch said Sunday that he has not yet decided if he will run for re-election, citing time commitments devoted to John McCain's campaign for president.
"This is probably the only time in my life when a friend of mine is running for president and might win," said Rauch, who first met McCain when he came to Beaufort during his presidential campaign in 1999. "For somebody like me, who really loves campaigning and loves to work on the strategy of them and work in the trenches of them, it presents to me a unique opportunity."
Rauch said he has been raising money for McCain's campaign and has "been helping in Washington" as well. The presidential election and the mayoral election will take place the same day.
Rauch served on the City Council from 1993 to 1999, when he was elected mayor in a special election to succeed David Taub, who served as mayor from 1990 to 1999. Taub said Thursday that he is "thinking very seriously" about running for mayor again but won’t make a final decision until after the City Council meeting Tuesday. The council will vote Tuesday whether to issue $15 million worth of bonds to finance construction of two city buildings and renovation of a third.
"I have very grave concern about this incredible increase in taxes that will come up in about a year and a half," Taub said. "The city needs capable leadership and a strong, steady hand because we’re going to have to make some real difficult decisions because we’re going to be straitjacketed because of this huge debt service."
City Council members have unanimously supported spending about $20 million to renovate the Ribaut Road fire station and build a new city hall and a building to house the city's courts and police department. The city has set aside about $5.5 million in cash and has preliminarily approved the sale of $15 million in bonds to pay for the projects.
The city would be required to pay about $1.2 million annually to pay for the bonds and about $7 million in interest. Property taxes would therefore grow about 40 percent in fiscal year 2010, if the city's operational costs and the total value of property in the city remain the same.
"There's only going to be three or four months of grace (after the new council takes office) before we have to vote on that budget that will have a $1.2 million payment with the bonds," said Taub, who serves on the board of directors of the Beaufort-Jasper Water & Sewer Authority. "Consequently, there needs to be somebody who has dealt with 10 city budgets and five water authority budgets and somebody with the political courage to make hard decisions."
Rauch said he does not expect the property tax rate to increase 40 percent because the value of property in the city will be reassessed next year, and an increase in property values would allow the city to pay off its debt without such a large increase in the tax rate. The last reassessment was in 2004.
He added that the city may use other sources of money aside from tax hikes to pay off its debt.
Rauch also said he has had better relationships with neighboring governments than Taub did when he was mayor, and those relationships have financially benefited the city. For instance, Beaufort County contributed $1.5 million toward the renovation of Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park during Rauch’s tenure, he said.
"When David was mayor, he didn't go to meetings and when he went to meetings, he didn't like to listen," Rauch said. "If you don't like to go to meetings and don’t like to listen at those meetings, you will inevitably end up where the city ended up, which is in lawsuits. … And where it really costs you money is in lack of cooperation from other governments."
Taub, however, said he has developed a regional perspective while serving on the board of the water authority and would make intergovernmental relations a top priority during his first days in office.
City Councilman Mike Sutton said he is also considering a run at Rauch's seat because Sutton's leadership style would increase public confidence and participation in government.
"I think Bill Rauch's done a great job at (getting) the end-of-the-day results but a poor job in building relationships with the population at large," Sutton said. "He's aggravated some people along the way, and we've lost some trust in government.
"We need to get that trust back, and we need to do it in the old-fashioned way: at the street level, with open and honest government leading us in the direction we need to go."
Sutton also said the city had grown too much under Rauch's leadership, specifically pointing to Lady's Island as an area of concern. While the city was busy with annexations, Sutton added, important issues within Beaufort fell through the cracks.
"We need to focus on the public safety issues that traffic has brought," he said. “Neighborhood safety, speeding through neighborhoods, crosswalks and sidewalks — we haven't been able to focus on that because we have been focused on growth outside the city."
Rauch agreed there has been too much growth on Lady's Island but said most of the development has occurred in areas that are in Beaufort County. He added that he has taken criticism for supporting the annexation of 4,151-acre Clarendon Farms, but that annexation will likely lead to minimal growth.
"There's no question, on the basis of what the property owners have said, that the intention is to put it in conservation easement," Rauch said. "So the number of housing units on Clarendon (will be) about a dozen units. It might be 16."
Peter White, who ran against Rauch in 2004, had similar criticisms.
"I don't see the mayor looking after the best interest of Beaufort, with all these land deals and annexations and then the turmoil over his head with the possibility of things in the (State Ethics Commission)," White said.
A complaint filed against Rauch by the Ethics Commission was dismissed in April. Former mayoral candidate Billy Keyserling had accused Rauch of attempting to solicit a bribe, but the commission ruled that such an act would not violate state law because no exchange took place. The commission did not attempt to determine if Keyserling's allegation was true.
White said Rauch should have been more open with the city about the ethics allegation and said Rauch's lack of communication was typical of his current style.
"Everything might be on the up and up, but he could have done a lot better job of making the people feel more at ease in the way he talked about it," White said. "He seems to have dropped out of sight a little bit. He used to be out on the streets a lot more."
White also criticized the mayor for focusing too heavily on city growth and said that focus detracted from key issues such as crime. "He is not watching out over Beaufort as well as he could and addressing other issues — even the smaller ones," White said. "(Those issues) are not in the paper every day, but they do affect people."
Rauch pointed to the creation of Southside Park, the renovation of several other city parks and the creation of a master plan for the development of Boundary Street as key accomplishments of his time in office.
Keyserling said he will not run for mayor or City Council this year, a decision he made when he contacted the Ethics Commission in August.
"When I wrote the letter to the Ethics Commission, I made a decision that I could not run for mayor or council because I never wanted anyone to have any reason to believe that what I did was politically motivated or would in any way advance my political career,” he said. "When I decided to contact the Ethics Commission, I had to eliminate that option for a period of time."
George Singleton, president of the Beaufort Black Community Council, said a member of his organization may also join the fight for the mayor's seat, but no candidate has been chosen.