Is Columbia South Carolina Ready for A Black Mayor?Columbia, SC (WLTX) -- Seven of the eight candidates running for mayor gave their vision for the city Tuesday night.
Voters filled a banquet hall in North Columbia to hear from those seeking election for mayor. As each person entered, they had a chance to write down a question of their own for the candidates.
Each mayoral hopeful was given two minutes each to answer a series of those questions. Topics covered included the bus system, law enforcement, and how much power a mayor should have in office.
To finish up, each candidate shared their number one priority if elected. Below you can read some of what they had to say.
"I want to make sure that each one of your children and grandchildren have the same opportunities I had as a child. Our focus on our campaign is clear, we want to focus on, our priorities will be making sure we have a safe city," said Steve Benjamin.
"You want safe, secure streets and homes and you want to know that your money is being spent responsibly by your city government. If you don't have those two things you don't have confidence and you don't have trust," said Steve Morrison.
"Trim the budget, you know, get rid of any unnecessary items. Clean is the crime free neighborhoods, and of course that comes from funding the police department," said Sparkle Clark.
"When I'm mayor of the City of Columbia, everybody will be heard, not everybody will be agreed with, and at no point will an individual "want" overwhelm a collective good," said Kirkman Finlay.
"The first thing we have to do is fix the budget, period. We have no idea how much money we have, we have no idea where it's going," said Gary Myers.
"My priorities are number one take care of the budget and our finances. Number two take care of our city employees. You gotta have city employees who care and want to stay here to take care of you," said Joseph Azar.
"If we can have true civic involvement, and we can make people feel like their government does care about them, and does want to listen to them, I feel like that's the solution. Because right now there's not any money," said Aaron Johnson.
Columbia's elections take place April 6th.
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yatahey wrote:
Who won?
2/2/2010 11:45 PM EST on wltx.com
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anchor425 wrote:
lol...now we get a new stooge.....hummmm vision for the future??....wez goin back to the 30's 3rd world time.....if we are lucky enough to hold on to it...if not Columbia will be back to the stone age in no time.......look around !...soo how much smoke where theses guys blowin at us?..................hang'em all and bring in a fresh batch.........................capt.k.fred
2/2/2010 11:49 PM EST on wltx.com
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yatahey wrote:
I have a question. Where's the racial slur film?
2/3/2010 12:01 AM EST on wltx.com
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trixsterl wrote:
anchor425....all you do on this commet site is whine....why dont YOU get off your high horse and run for Mayor?
2/3/2010 6:06 AM EST on wltx.com
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Dapandico wrote:
Where is the educational video on graffiti at the Cola City Hall?
Trixsterl - Check your thermo control panel.
2/3/2010 6:12 AM EST on wltx.com
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tonkatoy wrote:
Columbia should have gotten some of the cash fro clunker cars, given them to the bus riders, and disbanded the bus sytem, which is a tragic drain of money.
I'm glad I live in Lexco.
Oh, yeah, did they ever release the tapes of the City Hall Grafitti Artist?
2/3/2010 8:11 AM EST on wltx.com
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donnielex wrote:
If I were to have the opportunity to run Columbia, two of my platforms would be- placing cameras outside of the homeless centers and photographing, identifying and investigating every homeless person.
Cleaning up the river. Columbia needs to adopt my proposal from fifteen years ago to make use of the Green Diamond property to create a man-made wetlands to remediate the effluent from the wastewater plant. They need to take the many millions of dollars received in water and sewer fees and start treating stormwater during low-flow periods.
2/3/2010 1:12 PM EST on wltx.com
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CensorProof wrote:
Please, can we all agree to not vote for Sparkle Clark? SC's been through enough in the past year without the added embarrassment of having a mayor with a stripper name.
2/3/2010 3:23 PM EST on wltx.com
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bugtussell wrote:
colubia has
Posted by Andrew S Light breaks through
Now that the voting has been done it is clear that the answer is yes.
"Steve Benjamin Elected First Black Mayor of Columbia, SC"
http://www.bvblackspin.com/2010/04/22/steve-benjamin-elected-south-carolinas-first-black-mayor/
Orignal From: Is Columbia South Carolina Ready for A Black Mayor?
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