‘What message does it send?’ Mayor says official’s racist comment doesn’t represent Cayce
The mayor of a Midlands city is speaking out against racist comments made by a city official, after a city council vote this week allowed the official to continue in his position.
Cayce Mayor Elise Partin denounced the comments attributed to Marion Hutson, a member of the Cayce Historical Museum Commission, who reportedly told a city employee that neighboring Columbia “did not need another colored person as mayor.”
“I am concerned about having this commission member continue in his role and about the message the Council vote sends to our city employees and our citizens,” Partin wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday.
“What message does this send to the rest of our employees about having the courage to speak up when something is wrong? What message does this send our citizens who expect us to stand up for all of them and not just some of them?”
Hutson reportedly made the comments to a city employee visiting polling stations during Cayce’s City Council election on Nov. 2. When the employee mentioned to Hutson that she needed to vote in Columbia’s mayoral election the same day, “he hoped I was voting for Daniel Rickenmann,” the employee later reported to the city.
“He stated that Columbia did not need another colored person as mayor. He stated that there were three colored people and one Arab running for mayor. He then stated that in the past more than one white person had run for mayor which split the vote causing Mayor Benjamin to win,” the employee said.
The top two vote winners in last week’s Columbia election, who will take part in a runoff next Tuesday, were city council members Rickenmann, a white man, and Tameika Isaac Devine, a Black woman. Two other candidates in the race were former mayoral chief of staff Sam Johnson, who is Black, and former City Councilman Moe Baddourah, who is of Lebanese descent. Steve Benjamin, who is stepping down this year after three terms, is Columbia’s first African-American mayor.
At Tuesday’s Cayce City Council meeting, members heard the employee’s statement, which Partin said all council members “said they unequivocally believe.” Partin and Mayor Pro Tem Skip Jenkins, the council’s only Black member, voted to remove Hutson from his role on the museum commission, but Councilmen Phil Carter, Tim James and Hunter Sox voted against the motion.
Instead, they said they wanted to investigate the complaint, although Partin notes no action was taken Tuesday to start such an investigation. The mayor said an investigation is unnecessary if the council already believes their employee is telling the truth about the encounter.
“What message does it send when Council doesn’t take action even after our Mayor Pro Tem, the only African American member of our Council, says that ‘kicking the can’ by delaying taking action with an unnecessary investigation is how he has seen justice be delayed or avoided in these types of situations all his life?” Partin wrote.
“The commission member is entitled to freedom of speech and their opinion,” she wrote, but “no commission member is entitled to serve, nor are we required to have them serve, in a role that represents our City.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, both James and Sox said Hutson’s statement was “deplorable” and not tolerated by the city. Sox and James asked for an “immediate investigation” into the matter in hopes that more people might have heard Hutson’s alleged statements. Sox, a newly elected council member, expressed regret that Hutson was at the polling station that day representing Sox’s City Council campaign.
“I do not condone” Hutson’s statements, Sox said. “I hate that he was out there saying things like that and campaigning on my behalf.”
Hutson declined to discuss the statements attributed to him when contacted by The State earlier this week.
Cayce City Council will next meet at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 17, at Cayce City Hall. Partin concluded her post by encouraging residents to come to the meeting.
“I ask us all to take this opportunity to find more ways to come together as one, more ways to stand up for each other and more ways to create community,” she said.
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