About
Adam Beam covers the City of Columbia for The State newspaper. Here, he blogs about local government. Reach him at (803) 386-7038 or abeam@thestate.com
Tag Archives: Steve Benjamin
Simple question, lots of answers
Eight of the nine candidates for Columbia mayor attended a forum this morning at the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce. This is one of more than a dozen scheduled forums, and with nine candidates the forums are hard to keep up with.
But today’s forum was especially hard to follow when it comes to the question [...]
Posted in Columbia elections Also tagged Aaron Johnson, Gary Myers Jr., Irwin Wilson, Joseph Azar, Kirkman Finlay, Sparkle Clark, Steve Morrison 5 Comments
Benjamin picks up police, firefighter endorsement
Mayoral candidate Steve Benjamin picked up the endorsements today of the Columbia Firefighters Association and the Police Benevolent Association.
Never heard of the PBA? That’s because they’re new, and endorsing Benjamin was their first official act.
The Firefighters Association has been around for awhile, and they’ve been growing restless with City Council members because of budget cuts, [...]
Audio clips from last week’s mayoral debate
Last week, I wrote about a mayoral debate at the Capital Senior Center. My story mostly focused on how the candidates would pay for public safety, but the candidates touched on a number of other issues I didn’t have space to write about.
On the city’s finances:
Steve Benjamin
Kirkman Finlay
Steve Morrison
On the proposed Main Street homeless center:
Steve [...]
Posted in Columbia elections Also tagged Columbia mayor's race, Kirkman Finlay, Steve Morrison 6 Comments
Overtime at the police and fire departments
Mayoral candidates Steve Benjamin and Kirkman Finlay disagree with each other on how the city should fund public safety — an argument that was on full display at last night’s debate at the Capital Senior Center.
The argument, in a nutshell, is that Benjamin laments the budget cuts at the fire and police departments, while Finlay [...]
Posted in Columbia elections Also tagged Columbia mayor's race, Kirkman Finlay, Mike King 2 Comments
Walter Powell Jr. picks up police, fire endorsement