Stopping growth propelled new mayor in Chapin, SC. Is it worth the other stuff?
It has been a topsy-turvy year for Chapin.
Events in just the past few months have turned the small town upside down. Chapin residents have been hit with the death of their incumbent mayor, followed shortly thereafter by a chaotic election to choose his successor, and then a string of sweeping changes and disputes surrounding the town’s new chief executive.
This small town of less than 2,000 people prides itself on being the “capital of Lake Murray.” It is an area that is dealing with the pressures of growth as more people move further up Interstate 26 from Columbia, leading to conflicts over home construction, zoning for new subdivisions and the seemingly inexorable growth of traffic.
That frustration partly explains the victory in November’s election of new Mayor Bill Mitchell. Even as local residents who recently spoke to The State expressed bewilderment at some of the changes, they are were mostly supportive of the agenda of Mitchell’s agenda, who won office on a promise to be a more hands-on leader who would tackle the once rural area’s growing pains.
“In this area, it’s really been unchecked,” said Chapin resident Mitch Gaskill, who like many people in the area are concerned about the explosion of new development in the area and its impact on locals.
“I think developers need to share the responsibility on roads, sewer, infrastructure impacts,” Gaskill said. “They reap the benefits while the people here feel like they can’t get in and out of town. There needs to be a more community-based strategy, if the government can force them to do that.”
But other challenges facing Chapin’s new mayor may distract from the focus on addressing those needs.
The State repeatedly reached out to Mitchell to interview him for this story. Chapin’s mayor did not respond to calls to his personal cell phone or his town hall office, or to emails sent to his official and private email accounts. Requests for comment from Mitchell on multiple other stories about the town since his election have also been met with radio silence.
When asked after a recent town council meeting, Mitchell told members of the media he felt good about the direction the town was moving in.
“It’s been more difficult than anticipated, but we’re working through it,” he said. “I have not missed a beat as mayor. I can deal with the distractions on one hand and town business with the other, so citizens, don’t be worried about me being distracted.”
‘I would think politics gives you enough stress’
Mitchell filed to run in August against incumbent Mayor Al Koon, who was seeking his second term in the top job after previously serving on the town council. As the founding pastor at Chapin Fellowship Church for more than 25 years and a Chapin resident for more than 50, Mitchell ran on a platform of doing more to tackle the area’s challenges with growth.
But before voters got a chance to make their decision, Koon died just days before early voting started in the race to lead the town .
It was too late to take Koon’s name off the ballot, and instead election officials posted in polling stations that votes for Koon would not be counted. In the end, Mitchell won two-thirds of the vote to become Chapin’s new mayor, while a quarter of the vote went to write-in candidates. Ron Colley, a retired home builder, won 7%, while Koon garnered a single vote.
Besides his pastoral role in the community, local resident and real estate agent Gina Breland has long known the Mitchell family through work connections.
“They’re very well thought of,” Breland said. “His wife is in real estate. I’ve known her through that. His son-in-law too.”
Mitchell was aggressive in getting into office quickly. After the election on Nov. 4, he was sworn in Nov. 7, as soon as the results from election night were certified. A new mayor normally wouldn’t be sworn in until January, but Mitchell argued that the opening caused by Koon’s death allowed him to fill the role immediately.
But that decision ensured Mitchell’s reign started in controversy. The town staff was by all accounts surprised by the new mayor’s decision to get sworn in early, and one alleged in a police report that she was “grabbed” around the shoulders by the new mayor during his entry to town hall, something that is now the subject of an investigation by the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED).
That investigation was closed last week without any charges being, although the woman alleging the assault, who was placed on administrative leave after filing the police report, is now considering legal action.
People in Chapin who spoke to The State seemed unsure how much credence to give to the allegation and the resulting legal probe.
“I would think politics gives you enough stress,” Jan Stevens said of the investigation. “That one shocked me, and the more I read, I didn’t know who to believe.”
Others seem to think rancor at town hall since Mitchell’s election underscores the problems they saw in town government and how it was operating before.
“I hope they leave no stone unturned,” said Wesley Moore, but mostly because Moore expects the investigation could turn up deeper issues that led to Mitchell’s victory in November, thanks to what Moore called the “crooked,” “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” nature with the previous council.
Moore doesn’t know the new mayor personally, but like many in this small community, he has friends who know Mitchell’s family.
“My family watched the fire-side chat he did [on Facebook before the election],” Moore said. “I like the mayor.”
He thinks there must be deeper issues at town hall behind the allegations against Mitchell, wondering aloud if something shady wasn’t going on there.
“Maybe it’s a very emotional, charged situation, but where does that come from?” he said. “I hope they follow the money.”
Changes in and outside Town Hall
Sine taking office, Mitchell has acted quickly on a campaign promise to aggressively use one of Chapin’s only tools to control explosive growth outside the town limits – the need for town approval to connect to its municipal sewer system. He froze approval for any new connections in November, saying at the time he wanted to “ensure the long-term reliability, safety, and capacity of our Town’s critical infrastructure.” Mitchell said the pause would continue until a “comprehensive review” of the system’s capacity could be carried out.
The town has seen 35 sewer overflow incidents between 2022 and the middle of last year, according to an action plan Chapin submitted to the S.C. Department of Environmental Services. That’s partly due to increased pressure on the small town system, but town officials said at the time that improvements to Chapin’s water system infrastructure should alleviate some of the challenges.
By the end of the month, Mitchell announced the departure of Town Administrator Nicholle Burroughs, the official tasked with overseeing town employees, declaring that he would be acting as the town’s “full-time mayor” going forward.
Town Councilman Mike Clonts said he feels “anxious” about all the disruption the town has experienced since the new mayor took office.
“He seems to be doing some things that don’t seem right to most of us,” he said. “Him running off the town administrator, when we have an ordinance that says how the town is supposed to be run... I think [running the town] would be a pretty full-time job, and he’s also a full-time pastor. I think that’s more than most people can do.“
But Moore, the mayor’s supporter, was less worried about Chapin losing an administrator.
“There wasn’t a town administrator two mayors ago,” he said. “I have mixed opinions [about the move], but I’d rather not pay six figures to somebody who doesn’t live here.”
Public records show that Burroughs was paid $126,000 a year in the role. The former administrator declined to be interviewed for this story, but confirmed she does live outside the town limits.
Mitchell was able to remove Burroughs as town administrator because Chapin has what’s known as a mayor-council or “strong mayor” form of government, in which the elected mayor exercises the authority of a town’s chief executive. Other municipalities in South Carolina operate a council-manager form of government, which vests more power in a professional manager appointed by the city or town council.
Chapin’s form of government is the more popular in South Carolina. The Municipal Association of South Carolina, which represents the state’s cities and towns, records that 135 municipalities use the “strong mayor” form of government compared to 35 with council-manager.
Normally, changing a town’s form of government would require a referendum by the voters. Such a referendum can only be called every four years, and any change requires notification to the secretary of state’s office and potential pre-clearance by the U.S. Justice Department under the Voting Rights Act, according to an elected official’s guide printed by the Municipal Association.
Back in 2013, then-Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin tried to get the capital city to approve a change from council-manager to strong mayor when Benjamin was at the height of his popularity in the city. He handily won re-election to a second term that year, but a separate referendum on changing Columbia’s form of government went down to defeat by 14 percentage points.
Benjamin had support for making the change from GOP figures such as then-Gov. Nikki Haley and future Gov. Henry McMaster, as well as former Democratic Gov. Jim Hodges and state Sen. Vincent Sheheen. The measure was also endorsed by Joe Riley, the long-time strong mayor of Charleston. But opponents of the change prevailed by rejecting what one of them called “absolute power” for the mayor, and keeping a full-time city manager in charge of running the city’s operations.
But Chapin chose a more direct form of government when it adopted “strong mayor” back in the 1970s, and its mayor will have a stronger hand going into 2026.
Where does Chapin go from here?
Clonts, the town councilman, said he was hoping to work with the new mayor, but he said Mitchell and the four other members of the town council have not had a chance to really communicate about any shared goals they may have for Chapin.
“We haven’t really had a good sit down to talk about what the future looks like,” Clonts said. “I’d like to see us continue to do what we have done to make us strong and healthy. We’re supposed to be a sewer and water supplier, and we should be doing that. The mayor put a hold on that, but we need to have some sewer taps to have businesses to come into town.”
But Breland, the real estate agent, said there’s a need for stronger action to tackle the growth challenges in Chapin.
“That’s not new,” Breland said of Chapin’s growing pains. “That’s a concern that has been growing. We don’t want the issues that Lexington is having with unmanaged growth. We need to take a hard look at that.”
She’s supportive of the restrictions even if it might affect her professionally.
“It affects me in the short term,” she said. “The market is healthy, but it needs to be well-managed.”
Town Councilwoman Vicky Shealy agrees with Clonts that the existing town council has not really had a chance to establish a working relationship with Mitchell, and is concerned that the town no longer has a professional in the town administrator position. “He went in with the attitude he is going to do it all himself,” Shealy said.
Shealy said she thinks Mitchell may have more support on the council when they are joined in January by two new members, Ainslee Bost and Warren Burritt, who won election alongside Mitchell in November.
But she worries that the pause on sewer taps and turmoil in town hall could ultimately lead to the town having to defend itself in lawsuits.
Just two days before Christmas, Chapin Town Council met in a specially-called meeting that agreed to hire an outside attorney to “investigate employment issues,” raising the possibility of further changes at town hall early in Mitchell’s run as mayor.
That tension worries local resident Gaskill.
“How are you going to be able to work with the administration when you’re strong-arming them?” he asked. “It’s like there’s just a vein of authoritarianism running through government now that’s a little scary.”
“We need to be involved, but not with rule from the top.”
This story was originally published January 12, 2026 at 5:30 AM.
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