The State hosted its Columbia Mayoral Forum last night. Here are 5 takeaways

As election day approaches, expect to hear more about police, equity and growth in the City of Columbia.

The State hosted a forum for candidates seeking to be the next mayor of Columbia on Wednesday evening. Trudi Gilfillian, The State’s opinion editor, moderated the forum.

The candidates vying to lead South Carolina’s capital city include Tameika Isaac Devine, Sam Johnson, Daniel Rickenmann and Moe Baddourah.

Devine and Rickenmann are currently serving on Columbia City Council. Baddourah is a former city councilman and Johnson is the former chief of staff for outgoing Mayor Steve Benjamin. Benjamin, the city’s first Black mayor, announced earlier this year he would not seek re-election.

The election will be held Nov. 2. However, if no candidates gets more than 50% of the vote, a runoff election will be held Nov. 16.

Here are some key takeaways from the forum:

Consensus: fund the police

“Defund the police” may have been a popular idea throughout social justice circles amid 2020’s unrest, but it finds no allies in Columbia’s mayoral candidates.

The Columbia Police Department — as well as the fire department — is short dozens of positions, and all four candidates expressed a strong desire to increase police pay, bolster benefits and buy more advanced equipment to entice more to stick around.

More specifically, Devine proposed increasing starting salary and using block grant funding to build and rent houses to officers for low prices. Johnson wants to let every officer drive a car home and offer officers 10-year contracts with raises and retention bonuses at their third, fifth and eighth years. Rickenmann wants to invest $8 million in new police equipment and recruit locally. Baddourah wants to give officers more raises.

“Nobody is going to sit here and say we’re going to cut down police department funding,” Baddourah said.

To bike or not to bike?

Devine, who said she often relies on her bicycle to get around, is a proponent of making it easier to get around the state’s capital city on two wheels.

For neighborhoods that are skeptical about bike lanes, Devine said she wants to educate them on how bike lanes could benefit them.

“Not every community might understand the need for having bike lanes,” Devine said.

However, not all areas of Columbia want bike lanes. After Columbia installed seven miles of bike lanes on Farrow Road, the city paid to have them removed in 2018, following outcry from residents, The State reported previously.

Baddourah suggested getting neighborhood approval before building a bike lane in a given area.

“The challenge here is every neighborhood is different,” Baddourah said.

Does Columbia need a diversity executive?

Both Devine and Johnson promised, if elected, to hire a city employee dedicated to improving diversity, equity and inclusion in the city.

Rickenmann and Baddourah did not indicate either public support or opposition to the idea during the debate.

Colleges, cities and companies throughout the country have increasingly sought a dedicated diversity employee amid the nationwide push to include marginalized people.

If Columbia did add a chief diversity officer, it wouldn’t be the first in the state to go that route. Myrtle Beach is already planning to hire a top diversity official, according to media reports.

The job isn’t cheap, though. Even some of the lowest-paid chief diversity officers make more than $150,000 per year, according to salary.com.

Think outside the bag on food deserts

Following a question from Eau Claire High student Blonzine Louis, candidates gave varying and sometimes unconventional suggestions for increasing the amount of grocery stores in underrepresented areas, such as North Main Street and Monticello Road.

Perhaps the most conventional approach came from Baddourah, who suggested enticing grocery stores to move into crucial areas by offering tax incentives and removing regulations that make it costly to open restaurants.

Rickenmann took a more libertarian approach. He proposed reducing or removing the fee to hook up sewer and water, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and bringing back family restaurants.

“Asking somebody to take a bus all the way across town to lug groceries back is not fair,” Rickenmann said.

People often shop at grocery stores closest to them, and grocery stores — which have small profit margins — require a large volume to shop there to turn a profit. That’s why Johnson thinks increasing population density in areas of need would draw in grocery stores. He also wants to use the city’s parks as places for pop-up markets and expand community gardens, he said.

Devine, whose campaign focuses largely on improving diversity and opportunity for underprivileged areas, suggested incentivizing independent grocery stores to take root and pave the way for mobile grocery stores in areas of need.

“Food deserts are the results of years of disinvestment,” Devine said.

How to grow Columbia?

Candidates broadly supported growing the city by attracting new businesses and keeping talent inside the city, but varied on the best way to do so.

Johnson’s approach centers around education. That means partnering with trade schools and community colleges to increase their capacity to train skilled laborers in areas such as HVAC repair and welding and bolstering K-12 schools.

“We’ve got to make sure our children get the best education here in Columbia,” Johnson said.

Devine’s philosophy focuses more on uplifting historically underfunded or impoverished portions of the city. For example, the city needs more programs like Richland 1’s commercial driver’s license program, which offers specialized training for an in-demand job into a historically underserved part of the city.

“There are parts of our community that have been left out of investment,” Devine said. “We can spend on Bull Street and Main Street, but if we spend a portion of that” on other areas it will boost economic development.

Baddourah promised no new taxes, said he wants to improve water and sewer service, and develop Columbia’s riverfront area. A small business owner, he wants to end business licensing fees for companies with less than $500,000 in annual revenue or fewer than 40 employees.

“There are challenges out there. There is a lot of red tape out there we need to eliminate,” Baddourah said.

Rickenmann said Columbia has been growing more slowly than other Southern cities. He said lowering taxes, trimming regulations and “everything that makes a small businessman from making his way” would make Columbia more competitive.

“Our city government tries to control everything instead of… getting out of the way,” Rickenmann said. “We’ve got to make the soil conditions right to make (business development) happen.”

This story was originally published October 7, 2021 at 5:00 AM.