Dear Editor,

Kevin Fisher writes in his latest op ed piece that, “everybody likes Mayor Bob. I know I do. And he knows I do. Moreover, I dare say he likes me.” – Kevin Fisher City Watch (Sept. 5, 2007). I do like Kevin. Moreover, I admire Kevin for his political courage. If I had gotten the number of votes he received in the last two City elections after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money, I would have been too embarrassed to keep writing those columns in The Free Times. But Kevin, despite the humiliation and complete rejection by the voters, soldiers on with “Joe Azar” like determination. He is one tough hombre.

Former Mayor Bob Coble

So it was fitting that, in the last meeting for both council members, Coble voted “yes” to a water and sewer rate increase and a $250,000 contribution to the Midlands Housing Alliance, while Finlay voted “no” on both. The final votes sums up Coble and Finlay’s relationship for the last four years.

Of course, The State’s John Monk captured another moment Wednesday that left many City Hall insiders chuckling. It was included at the end of Monk’s profile of Coble in Sunday’s newspaper:

Coble took his final bow at his last council meeting last week with a display of his usual wit.

At the beginning of the meeting, Coble’s staff presented the outgoing mayor and Finlay with a huge chocolate cake. Touching the cake, Finlay smeared his index finger with icing and held it close to Coble’s face. The audience watched, knowing Coble and Finlay sometimes have been fierce rivals.

Coble licked the icing off Finlay’s finger, then smacked his lips and smiled.

“That,” said Mayor Bob to gales of laughter, “is the sweetest Kirkman has ever been.”

From the story:

The Washington-based think tank, in its quarterly report on economic conditions, ranked Columbia in the top tier of metropolitan areas, while Charleston ranked in the middle tier with the Greenville-Mauldin-Easley area.

The report looks primarily at fourth-quarter 2009 to first-quarter 2010 changes in employment, unemployment, gross metro product and the real housing price index.

Also this:

Mark Vitner, senior economist with Wells Fargo Securities, said economic growth in the state is strongest in its three largest metro areas. He said he expects Columbia ranked so highly because Brookings researchers tend to emphasize government employment and the city has a stable government and university employment base.

UPDATE: Click here to read the full report (Thanks to Mandi Engram)

That was especially true for Steve Benjamin. As I waited to talk with him, his spokesman took pity on me, grabbed a piece of paper and wrote out what Benjamin would say to me. Here it is:

In case you can’t read that, it says:

“Mayor Coble and Teddy Roosevelt were right, it’s not about the critic. It’s about having a bold new vision — for the future.”

Of course, me being the pesky journalist, I couldn’t accept a piece of paper. I had to ask Benjamin myself. So I did, and he told me exactly what was on the paper (plus a few other things in response to some follow-up questions).

But my favorite part of the night was watching mayoral candidate Sparkle Clark take her picture with everyone. I felt like I was watching Michael Moore the way she would ambush people and, before they knew what was going on, they had just been photographed with Sparkle.

(I was a victim as well)

My favorite was this picture of fellow mayoral candidate Steve Morrison, who looks like he was caught mid-sentence:

You can see the rest of the photos on Sparkle’s Facebook page.

Here we go:

10. Buffers

• The trouble started in 2006, when the state Department of Health and Environmental Control lodged an $830,549 fine against the county for failing to monitor storm water and ordered the county to improve. County staff members decided it would be a good idea to ban people from building within 100 feet of lakes and streams. These natural buffers would filter the county’s waters to remove pollution and sediment, prevent erosion, reduce floods, shade rivers and streams so the fish stay healthy and provide food and shelter for other wildlife. But the buffers would make some vacant lots on Lake Murray undevelopable. Lots of weeping and gnashing of teeth ensued until February, when council members agreed to buffers of 85 feet on free flowing streams. That did little to dispel the controversy. So council members established a citizen panel to discuss the issue. Another public hearing is scheduled for January.

9. Swansea troubles

• The tiny Lexington County town of Swansea is more than $3 million in debt. But that didn’t stop Mayor Ray Spires from giving himself an $8,000 a year raise, and other council members from getting a $400 raise. That prompted two town council members to resign, saying in identical resignation letters that “no matter how hard I try, things are not going to change.” Councilman Barrett Black: “Quite honestly, I feel like I’m butting my head against a wall.”

8. Hotel lawsuit

• Columbia officials tried to build a taxpayer-funded hotel in 2003. They even hired an architect, builder, realtor and developer. But after intense public scrutiny, council abandoned the plan and went with a privately funded hotel with some taxpayer subsidies. The architect, Stevens & Wilkinson, builder, Turner Construction, developer, Garfield Traub Development and realtor, Gary Realty, sued the city for millions of dollars. In March, a judge ruled the city owed Stevens & Wilkinson some “architectural fees.” In November, another judge dismissed the suit. To date, the city has spent $1.3 million in taxpayer money defending itself.

7. ‘Ready to Rumble’

• Richland County’s top planner learned this year to be careful what you write in an email. Richland County Council is considering some new storm water regulations that would address ways to keep trash, silt and other pollution out of lakes, creeks and rivers. However, the regulations would make it harder on home builders, who are already having a tough time in the down economy. Home builders lobbied County Council members to weaken the regulations, and that didn’t sit well with Joe Kocy, the county’s top planner. In an email, Kocy wrote that “the proposed regulation is dying a death of 1000 edits. If the environmental advocates don’t get active, I’ll be inviting you to Mother Nature’s wake. Let’s get ready to rumble!!!” Once the home builders got a hold of this email, they shared it with Kocy’s boss. Kocy later resigned, which was a controversy in itself. Critics said it showed how much power home builders have over county council members.

6. Developer drops ‘Green Diamond’ lawsuit

• Columbia Venture has tried for years to build a $1 billion “city within a city” on some land by the Congaree River. But FEMA, local governments and environmental activists have stood in their way, saying the flood prone land cannot be developed. In September, Columbia Venture agreed to drop its eight-year legal fight to get federal regulators to loosen building regulations. Some heralded the decision as a victory for environmental activists, but the fate of the property once known as “Green Diamond” is far from over. FEMA is scheduled to begin another flood review of the property this year, and developers believe that review will allow for flood levees and construction. Of course, developers would still need the cooperation of the City of Cayce, which annexed the property in 2008.

5. Empowerment Zone loans

• The Sumter-Columbia Empowerment Zone loaned Veronica Isaac $280,000 to purchase a small office building on Richland Street. Isaac bought the building, then leased it to her daughter, City Councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine, for Devine’s law firm. The Federal Housing and Urban Development department didn’t like this and ordered the city to repay the loan. The city appealed, and lost. HUD ordered the city to repay the loan because they said it did not create jobs, it just relocated an existing law firm. However, HUD did say they had some concerns about the ethics of the loan — which was cleared by the staff of the State Ethics Commission.

4. Benedict College’s dorm

• Benedict College leased a 300-room hotel on Horseshoe Drive to accommodate the college’s growing enrollment. There was only one problem: the hotel did not meet county fire standards. What ensued was a mysterious back and forth between the county and the college. First, county officials ordered Benedict to evacuate the dorm — whenever they could get around to it. Next, the college installed a working fire alarm. That wasn’t enough, according to the county fire marshal. Then, at 5:25 p.m. on a Wednesday, the county issued a news release ordering the college to evacuate the building immediately. Then county officials went home for the day and were not available to explain what that order meant. Some students packed up and left out of frustration. Others waited to see what would happen. Finally, the college agreed to move everyone out of the dorm so the college could make fire safety improvements, like installing a sprinkler system.

3. Charles Austin’s retirement

• Columbia’s budget was in shambles, and Charles Austin was taking a lot of the blame as council members met to discuss the city manager’s evaluation. Then they met again, and again, and again, and again and again. Unable to reach a consensus on Austin’s performance, Austin announced his retirement, effective at the end of March. That was January. But immediately after announcing his retirement, Austin disappeared. He stopped attending City Council meetings. He was never in his office. Finally Austin announced what everyone already knew: he was no longer the city manager.

2. Bob Coble’s retirement

• Eight months after Charles Austin retired, his biggest supporter followed him out the door. Mayor Bob Coble, mayor of Columbia for 20 years, announced he would not seek reelection. His reason? “20 years is enough.” Critics pointed to the city’s budget problems and the fact that Coble was facing some serious challengers for mayor — attorney Steve Benjamin and City Councilman Kirkman Finlay.

1. Budget Cuts

• Clearly, this is the number one local government story in 2009, where Columbia officials discovered they were overpaying workers, paying their bills twice and had given employees a collective $5 million raise during a period where taxpayers lost $24.7 million because of poor accounting practices. Weak oversight lead to three consecutive years of the city posting multi-million budget deficits. The result was a 2009 budget year that required reducing staffing at some fire stations, eliminating garbage collection for Dumpster-like containers and laying off and furloughing employees. But the budget cuts weren’t limited to Columbia. Richland County officials cut their budget by 5 percent, the Lexington-Richland 5 and Lexington 1 school districts eliminated 120 jobs through layoffs and attrition and Lexington County Council cut almost $400,000 in requests for aid from agencies that help victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and house fires, and National Guard armories.

People said the same thing to me about Mayor Bob Coble. I asked the mayor in February if there was any scenario where he would not run for mayor in 2010. His response:

“No. Not possible.”

We all know how that turned out.

In an abundance of caution, I asked Finlay today if there was any chance he would drop out of the mayor’s race. Here’s what he said:

“That’s wishful thinking for some people. Why else am I out raising money? We’ve had a very nice quarter. (raising more than $130,000, he says.) I’ve got a sneaking suspicion you’re going to have to run an article about the next biggest quarter ever.

“If something happened and my wife got sick, yeah. But I’m in it to win it. And if I’m not in the mayor’s race, I’m not running for district 4 because the world’s come to an end.”

Take that for what it’s worth. Filing for city elections officially opens Jan. 4. It closes at  5 p.m. Feb. 5.

Mayor Bob Coble told me that’s something the council hasn’t done during his 20 years as mayor. So how could council members legally reverse themselves? That’s not clear. Section 2-53 of the city codes states:

“Except as otherwise required by state law or ordinance, all proceedings of the council shall be governed by Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised, and the city attorney shall act as parliamentarian.”

I found a copy of Robert’s Rules of Order in The State’s library. Here’s what it says about reconsidering:

“When a question has been once adopted, rejected or suppressed, it cannot be again considered during that session, except by a motion to ‘reconsider the vote’ on that question. This motion can only be made by one who voted on the prevailing side, and on the day the vote was taken which it is proposed to reconsider, or on the next succeeding day.”

My reading of that rule means City Council can’t reconsider because a week has passed, missing the “next succeeding day.” But Robert’s rules also includes this note:

“When a motion to reconsider is entered on the minutes, it need not be called up by the mover till the next meeting, on a succeeding day. If he fails to call it up then, any one else can do so. But should there be no succeeding meeting, either adjourned or regular, within a month, then the effect of them motion to reconsider terminates with the adjournment of the meeting at which it was made, and any one can call it up at that meeting.”

It could be awhile before council sorts all of this out.

The only other time I have come across this is last year when the Richland County Council was voting on whether to place a referendum on the November 2008 ballot for a sales tax increase to pay for road improvements and public transportation. Council member Kit Smith, who was for the referendum, was absent from the meeting. It was obvious from the debate that council did not have the votes to approve the referendum with Councilwoman Smith absent. So when it came time to vote, Councilman Paul Livingston, who was for the referendum, voted to kill it.

Livingston knew Robert’s Rules of Order, and he knew only someone on the prevailing side could make a motion to reconsider. Livingston’s plan was to make a motion to reconsider at a later meeting, when Councilwoman Smith was present, and presumably overturn the council’s previous decision and approve the referendum.

It didn’t work.

The question is will it work for City Council?

“After a lot of thought and prayer and talking with friends and family I am not going to run for the City Council position,” McCutchen said. “I’ve talked with Kevin Fisher and Ben Brantley and Troy Roberts, and my goal is to have someone who is pro business and fiscally conservative fill Kirkman’s shoes there, and I think one of thsoe three would do a fine job with that.”

Columbia Planning Commission member Mark James has already dropped out. For those of you keeping score, that leaves:

• John Adams, a residential Realtor with Bollin Ligon Walker Realty who serves on the board of Historic Columbia and is a son of former Mayor Patton Adams
• Ben Brantley, a commercial Realtor with CB Richard Ellis who serves on the board of the EdVenture children’s museum
• Kevin Fisher, who ran a hard-fought race against Mayor Bob Coble in 2006 and is president of Fisher Communications, an advertising and public relations firm
• Troy Roberts, a State Farm insurance agent who is originally from Sumter.

Last Thursday, the few living crew members of the U.S.S. Columbia — the Navy light cruiser named after Columbia that fought in World War II — were honored during their reunion, the first since 2004. According to The State’s Jeff Wilkinson, the U.S.S. Columbia”

“… participated in most of the sea battles in the Pacific theater, sustained three separate kamikaze attacks and lost 60 of its sailors.”

Normally, Mayor Bob Coble would preside over the ceremony and hand out the necessary proclamations. But Coble was in Washington chasing stimulus money, so Kirkman Finlay — the district four City Councilman who is running for mayor — was to do it for him.

But Finlay never showed up.

Here you have a group of sailors in their 80s and 90s, war heroes from a ship that was named after the Capital City, and the man who wants to be mayor stood them up at their own ceremony. That spells doom, right? Not necessarily.

Finlay made amends later that night at the Confederate Relic Room at the State Museum. He brought along his two daughters, ages 7 and 6, and began his speech by apologizing for the “miscommunication” that morning, but said he was glad he could come that night because it gave him a chance to introduce his two daughters to “the greatest generation.”

Then he called out the names of the sailors one by one as his daughters handed them their proclamations. The sailors loved it, posing for pictures with the girls and taking turns showing them a model of the ship that was displayed at the museum. No complaints.

Finlay blamed the scheduling “snafu” on a miscommunication with the mayor’s office. He thought the event was Friday, despite this front page story that ran in The State on Monday, which even included the order of events

“Everybody is happy with the outcome,” Finlay said. “I imagine that in the next six months I’ll make another snafu at some point.”

Columbia Mayor Bob Coble

I wrote a story for today’s paper about how Steve Benjamin raised $102,475 in his bid for mayor — a sum many believe to be the most ever raised by a candidate for City Council in a single quarter. City Councilman Kirkman Finlay, in the nine days between when he filed his initial campaign disclosure report to the end of the third quarter, raised $6,100.

But what about Mayor Bob Coble, who last month stunned many in the city by announcing he would not seek a record sixth term?

Coble raised $2,400 in the third quarter from seven people:

• $500 from Neil McLean (EnginuitySC leader)
• $500 from John Lumpkin
• $100 from Gordon Livingston
• $100 from Michael Ugino
• $1,000 from Andrew Sorensen (former USC president)
• $100 from Simmons Hane
• $100 from William Johnson

He spent $5,450.35, including $3,000 to Crantford & Associates, his long time consulting firm. That expenditure has fueled speculation that Coble paid for a poll leading up to his decision to not seek re-election — an allegation what Coble denies.

After his expenses, and money from past quarters, Coble has $11,149.11 on hand.

What will he do with all of that money?

Answer: Not give it back. In fact, even though Coble is not running for re-election he’ll still be raising money so he can pay off some of his debts from previous campaigns.

As for who he will support in the April mayoral elections, Coble said:

“It’s still too early. I wouldn’t comment on that.”