Many choices await Lexington County voters at GOP ballot

Retirements and resentment are producing many choices for Lexington County voters to settle at the June 14 primary ballot, all among Republicans.

The bumper crop of candidates is fueled by the decision of many veteran officeholders to step down and a backlash against a penny sales tax that remains under consideration as a way to fix crowded, crumbling roads.

“Those factors mean it’s one of those times where a lot of challenges happen,” political consultant R.J. Shealy said.

Longtime county officeholders such as Clerk of Court Beth Carrigg, County Councilman Johnny Jeffcoat of Irmo, Register of Deeds Debbie Gunter and Solicitor Donnie Myers are not seeking re-election.

Those four held office for at least 12 years and as long as 40 years, tenures that discouraged challengers.

The multitude of candidates is forcing many voters, even those politically attuned, to ponder their options. “There’s a lot of choices out there that most of us aren’t familiar with,” Batesburg-Leesville Mayor Rita Crapps said.

The retirements and simply having choices in other races open the way for a new generation of county leaders across the ballot, as voters in a questioning mode could re-evaluate incumbents. “People seem ready to give someone else a try,” Carrigg said.

That mood is on display chiefly in County Council races.

Many challengers in the five council races are rapping incumbents both for submission of a flawed penny sales tax increase rejected at a 2014 referendum and for considering a referendum again before backing off.

“It’s left a bad taste in many mouths,” said Shealy, who helped lead the fight against the 2014 referendum and continues to question another attempt. “It’s not something you can take off the radar.”

The tax referendum gave voters the choice of paying more to undertake many long-awaited road improvements. With state support dwindling or non-existent, supporters say it is the only way to make fixes happen quickly.

“It was an attempt to see how voters stood, and we got our answer,” Councilwoman Debbie Summers of Springdale said of the 2-1 rejection.

Some council candidates are offering alternatives such as refinancing debt and additional fees on new development as ways to make roads safer and less congested. But none of those ideas would produce the nearly $300 million that the penny tax is estimated to generate over eight years.

There’s also what Shealy calls “unfinished business” in a few matches.

Council challengers Brian Duncan and Darrell Hudson are back after being taken off the ballot by courts in 2012 for failure to report finances properly at the start of candidacies then.

Memories of that purging, which affected candidates statewide, “are still under the surface,” Shealy said.

In one race, former Councilman Brad Matthews is attempting a political comeback of a different sort.

He is running for a council seat in the Lexington area after moving there following his retirement from another seat in the Irmo area two years ago.

“I didn’t move across the (Lake Murray) dam with the intention of doing this, but the stars aligned to allow me to try,” he said. He faces three other challengers in the match.

Meanwhile, register of deeds candidate Tina Guerry says the “plethora of candidates” led herto self-finance their campaigns.

She chipped in nearly $20,000, tops among those relying on that approach, according to reports to the State Ethics Commission.

Others in the race are self-financed as well.

Guerry opted for that route after deciding it would be difficult to get donations in a contest for a low-profile office as more than three dozen candidates vie in more visible local and legislative races.

“I developed my (campaign) plan and decided it had to be done this way to make it happen,” she said.

Some candidates are trying to turn fund-raising difficulty into a plus, saying it avoids suggestions that contributions make a candidate beholden to major donors.

Solicitor candidate Larry Wedekind says the $100,000 loan he took out is letting him avoid IOUs to lawyers that others in the race could face.

Other candidates are regularly publicizing how many homes they have visited to approach voters individually.

Seeing people face to face is a way to “earn your trust” with people unfamiliar with political leaders, said Dino Teppara, who is running for a council post in the Irmo-Chapin area.

Meanwhile, it’s clear sailing politically for Auditor Chris Harmon, Sheriff Jay Koon and Treasurer Jim Eckstrom, each of whom has no re-election opponent.