Category Archives: Midlands

Hold your breath

You probably already saw the news story on the subject of this release from the Southern Environmental Law Center that came in Wednesday, but I thought you might be interested in the graphic above, so I pass it on now.

The SELC’s point is that the EPA’s new standard isn’t stringent enough. That seems like a bit like arguing about the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin from a Columbia standpoint, though: We can’t even meet the lower standard. The release:

South Carolina Upstate and Midlands still plagued by
unhealthy air, according to EPA
EPA’s
new standard fails to adequately protect public health, say environmentalists
and public health professionals

Chapel Hill, NC – New standards released today by the Environmental Protection Agency show most of the South Carolina Upstate and Midlands have unhealthy levels of ozone, including the Florence region, home to a new power plant proposal that will increase the region’s ozone levels. The new standards go further to protect the public’s health from ozone pollution, but fall short of the recommendations of public health professionals and EPA’s own scientists which recommended stronger protections.

“Unfortunately EPA has chosen to bow to political interests over the public’s health by releasing a ozone standard that falls short of the recommendations of doctors and other public health professionals. The fact that more cities than ever are being tagged as having unhealthy air should serve as a wake up call to all South Carolinians that this is a widespread and protracted problem,” said David Farren, senior attorney with the non profit Southern Environmental Law Center.

Under the new standard, Columbia, and Greenville are expected to remain in violation of the federal standard, otherwise known as being in “nonattainment,” while smaller cities such as Chester, Lancaster, Newberry and Seneca will likely be added to the list. These areas will face deadlines to reach the new standard or risk federal sanctions including tighter smokestacks controls and the possible loss of federal highway money.

“What we’re seeing is that unhealthy air is not just an urban problem,” said Farren. “Even small and mid-sized cities are going to have to tackle their air problems in order to protect the health of their citizens.”

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA must set air quality standards at levels that protect public health, including sensitive populations, with an adequate margin of safety. In 1997, EPA set the national air quality standard for ozone at 0.08 parts per million (ppm) averaged over an eight hour period. The standard announced today is a slightly more stringent 0.075 ppm. However, in 2006, an EPA panel of scientists and public health experts unanimously recommended strengthening the ozone standard even lower, to within the range of 0.060 to 0.070 ppm, to adequately protect public health.

Power plants are a leading contributor to ozone pollution. In fact, the proposed Pee Dee plant will emit 3500 tons of ozone-forming nitrogen oxides each year under the existing draft air permit.

In addition to coal fired power plants, cars and trucks are among the biggest sources of ozone pollution in the South. To improve air quality, South Carolina must focus on strategies to reduce how much and how far its citizens drive such as investing in transportation alternatives and coordinating transportation and land use planning to reduce sprawl. Recently enacted reform of the state’s transportation department, if faithfully carried out, should aid in this work.

Lobbyists representing the oil, coal, electric power and manufacturing industries lobbied heavily against improved air pollution standards in the weeks leading up to the decision. However, EPA and OMB studies repeatedly show heath care costs and lost productivity far outweigh costs of clean up.

Ozone pollution, also known as smog, is known to trigger asthma attacks, reduce lung capacity, and has even been linked to heart disease and premature death. At its worst on hot, dry weather, ozone pollution causes officials to warn children and the elderly to stay indoors on many summer days. Children, whose respiratory systems are still developing, risk permanent loss of lung capacity through prolonged exposure to polluted air. For senior citizens, the natural decline in lung function that occurs with age is worsened by air pollution.

Brian Boyer, Columbia City Council Dist. 3

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As previously noted, City Council candidate Brian Boyer was in the news today for his precedent-setting $50,000 media buy. He tried to place the expenditure in perspective by saying, "TV is a great way to reinforce the door-to-door campaigning I’ve done."

I can back him up on the door-to-door thing. On Saturday, March 1, I was at my daughter’s home visiting grandchildren. My wife and I were at the front of the house with the babies, and my daughter and her husband (the only ones present who could vote in this thing) were at the back, when somebody knocked at the front door. "Come in," we said. The knock came again. "Come in!" But the knocker allowed as how he’d better not: "It’s a stranger," he said.

But it wasn’t. When my wife opened the door I recognized Mr. Boyer and he recognized me back where I was sitting on the couch, so I got up and we all stood on the porch (he had a buddy with him) for awhile talking about the election.

Anyway, that Wednesday he came in for his actual interview. We talked about his growing up in the district, and his schooling at Hand, Dreher and West Point. Once he got his commission, he went to Ranger School, did his airborne training, then tried out for the Ranger Regiment itself. He made it, and was sent to Savannah to join the 1st Ranger Battalion. He was just beginning to settle into the routine of being a peacetime Army officer (albeit in a crack regiment) in the summer of 2001. You know what happened then — he went to war as a rifle company commander. The battalion "lost a good many men" in Afghanistan during service on the Pakistan border, part of that in the Hindu Kush. The unit got back stateside in January 2003, figuring they’d done their bit. Two months later, the battalion joined the invasion of Iraq. He says he only served there for a couple of months. He was awarded the Bronze Star.

His career as a civilian is less dramatic. He went back to school to get an MBA, worked for awhile in Charlotte, then came home and started a homebuilding company (he is vice president of Hallmark Homes International, Inc., where he "supervises all aspects of land acquisition, design, marketing, and sales"). He bought "the ugliest house in Shandon," which had been split up into three apartments, and started fixing it up as a single-family residence. A year after he moved in, he heard Anne Sinclair would not be running for re-election to the 3rd District.

His community involvement has included service on the board of the Columbia Chamber. He takes pride in his service on the city’s Affordable Housing Task Force, and notes that he built 10 townhomes in the Historic Arsenal Hill neighborhood which appraised at $161K apiece and were sold at cost for $99K. He says he’s in the process of getting certified as a "green builder."

He would want to stress three issues on council:

Crime and Public Safety. He said adequate funding of this had not been a top priority of the city and should. He cited his military experience as being helpful in this area. He wants to get better technology in patrol cars so officers can file their reports from the field and stay out on the street more, something he called a "force multiplier." He’s distressed at the city’s and county’s inability to coordinate on youth gangs, and would want to be a bridge-builder on that.
Financial accountability. He criticized the lack of openness as well as competence, citing not only the failure to close books on time, but the secrecy about the former financial director’s severance.
General leadership. He said politicians "talk about I want to do this, I want to do that," but he has demonstrated the ability to follow through — both in the military, and with affordable housing.

He talked at some length about the failure to have an evaluation system in place for the city manager until recently. In the Army, he noted, you don’t go more than six months without a fitness report.

He would change the form of city government to a strong-mayor form, or the hybrid that’s been suggested.

When I asked him about the "factions" thing (see the elaboration on the Belinda Gergel entry), he said he couldn’t help the fact that his sister is married to Don Tomlin. "I’m about as independent as they come." As for the folks who are supposedly behind him, "none of them were there in the mountains of Afghanistan" or the "deserts of Iraq."

"I sort of feel that I’ve proved myself, and proved my decision-making ability, long before I knew those guys." At the same time, he’s proud to have their support.

But you can hear more about that on the video:

Belinda Gergel, Columbia City Council District 3

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When Belinda Gergel was an 18-year-old freshman at Columbia College, she first saw a house that she decided she must live in one day. Now, retired from chairing the history and political science departments at that college, she does. And her experience as a vocal community leader in the University Hill neighborhood shapes her campaign to represent it on Columbia City Council.

As president of the Historic Columbia Foundation, she led the fight to keep USC from demolishing the historic Black House and Kirkland Apartments, and sponsored some remarkably well-attended symposiums (symposia?) on the burning of Columbia and the assassination of N.G. Gonzales by the coward James Tillman. She’s currently a member of the board of Columbia Green, and is helping lead an effort to create a 22-acre Garden District in downtown Columbia.

But her interests hardly stop there. She is intensely interested in public safety — her home was burglarized the first night she was in it (not for the last time, either), and gang members shot a federal prosecutor on the same block within a month of that. "If our neighborhoods are not safe, nothing else matters," she said in our editorial board endorsement interview on March 5.

She has also reached out beyond residential concerns to form alliances with business people. She’s been endorsed by Five Points leader Jack Van Loan, who had not known her previously. (Full disclosure: Jack asked me to join him and Ms. Gergel for lunch one day in February, and I took Warren Bolton along — but all of our substantive discussion of her candidacy took place in our formal interview.)

As a member of the commission that studied Columbia’s form of government, she went in as an advocate of switching to a strong-mayor form. But she came out of that outrageously strung-out experienced convinced that such a change is not politically viable, and that we "need to fix the system we have now." A key element of that is developing a far more professional relationship between the city manager and the council. That would happen within the context of strategic planning — she says the council must set a vision, and the manager must be held accountable for implementing it, two things that have utterly failed to happen up to now.

She served on the metro-area committee that drafted a plan for a comprehensive approach to homelessness, and was "very disappointed" at the way the city went off on its own and essentially demolished the regional process. She would be determined as a council member to pick up the pieces, involve faith-based providers and all local governments in resurrecting the comprehensive approach.

She and Columbia College President Caroline Whitson rode the metro area buses last fall, and learned how hard it was to find out how to get where you want to go on that system. "When I was a student, the bus was how you got around," she said. Now, it was hard to figure out the schedule. She believes the city ought to be doing all it could to encourage people to take the bus, and get them the information to make that practical.

Probably the most interesting part of our interview was when Ms. Gergel directly confronted (she is direct and to-the-point on all issues) the talk about opponent Brian Boyer and her representing different factions in the city, despite the election being nonpartisan (the short version of that "conventional wisdom" — she is allegedly aligned with Mayor Bob Coble and other Democrats, and Mr. Boyer with his brother-in-law Don Tomlin, Daniel Rickenmann, Kirkman Finley III et al.).

"I am not in a camp," she said. "I believe in the nonpartisanship of this election, and I will not be seeking the endorsement of the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. I think that there’s a good reason for council membership to be nonpartisan."

"As far as this camps thing — I don’t know where this is coming from, and I have no idea why someone would focus on what camp Belinda would be in. I am a strong, independent woman; that is what Columbia College did for me as a student, and what we worked on as faculty to encourage in our students. I have no permanent enemies and no personal friends on council, that’s how I see it, but issues that need to be addressed, and I will work with each member of council to address those issues."

"And I know that’s what the residents of District 3 expect. They don’t want a factionalized, ‘camped,’ partisan city council. They want us working together, and moving the city ahead."

When asked at the end if there were any issues we had failed to cover, she brought up the fact that she had "sensed" that some people assumed that, because of her work in historic preservation, she was "anti-development." She said nothing could be further from the truth. As the daughter of a developer, "I have great appreciation of what development, and developers and homebuilders are all about" — a growing and vibrant economy. "That’s how we were brought up."

"We want great development," the sort that enhances a community, "and expect nothing less."

I don’t know what I just typed out all those quotes when I have those parts on video (which is how I checked the quotes). Here’s the video:

Bud Ferillo’s quote of the day

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No, I don’t normally have a "quote of the day," but this is a good time to start a tradition. You saw the piece today about Brian Boyer’s unprecedented media buy — spending 50 Gs on a TV ad that will be wasted on most viewers, seeing as how most of ’em don’t live in the district?

The best part of that piece was the response from Bud Ferillo promising, on Belinda Gergel’s behalf, a similarly extravagant gesture:

“We will not be outspent,” Gergel campaign consultant Bud Ferillo said.

Had our brethren in the newsroom more license to wax interpretive, the story might have said, "… Bud Ferillo said gleefully." Nothing like being a consultant in a spending war.

Ironically, I saw Bud standing around outside his house weekend before last as I was on my way to show my wife where Ms. Gergel lived. (Long story — Brian Boyer had stopped by my daughter’s house when we were visiting, which got us to talking about the District 3 race, which caused me to mention something about where the candidates lived, and my wife had trouble picturing it. Somehow, though, I made a wrong turn and we never saw it.) I didn’t make the connection, though, either not knowing or forgetting he was handling her campaign.

Bud, noticing that the left front fender and bumper of my pickup were about to fall off (a recent collision with a bigger truck I didn’t see coming in time), told me he had hit recently a deer with his truck in Andrews, doing all sorts of ugly damage.

I got my truck back from the body shop today. Maybe when the candidates in this race get done spending, Bud will be able to get his fixed, too.

The Midlands Subway System

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Taking off on the subject of this recent post, I thought I’d hark back to a column I wrote in 1998, way before this blog was ever thought of. In it, I set forth my vision of what it might be like if the Midlands had the mass transit amenities of New York or Washington or even Atlanta:

Imagine: Say it’s a few years from now, and you live in Lexington and work in Columbia. You drive the mile or so to the station and leave your car in a parking lot. You take your seat and ride the old Southern line that parallels Highway 1 into the city. Call it the A line.
Despite all the stops, you get downtown in less time than it takes to drive, while getting ahead on work or (better yet) reading the paper. You change trains at the Vista Center station near the new arena and conference center.
Say you work where I do, near Williams-Brice Stadium (and why wouldn’t you; this is my dream, after all). You take the C line down one of the very tracks that used to frustrate you in your driving days (if you can’t beat the trains, join them). You get off within a block of work.
A few hours later, when you have a lunch appointment in Five Points, you take a quick ride back up to Vista Center, then through the underground stretch beneath the State House complex and the USC campus on the eastern reach of the A line.
Need to shop after work? Take the C all the way out to Columbiana, or the D along Two-Notch to Columbia Mall. (Where does the B line go? Out toward Lake Murray, which means it runs between 378 and the Saluda River, right by my house.)

Now that there’s so much more growth out to the northeast I suppose we could extend the D farther out. The C would be longer, too. And the A might need a spur that would run out Garners Ferry. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Yeah, I was dreaming then and I’m dreaming now — like the guy in that movie "Singles," who kept talking about his mass transit dream (in Seattle, I think it was), and anyone he told it to would say, "Yeah, but I love my car."

But it’s a nice dream. Here’s the rest of that column, by the way — but I already gave you the relevant part.

Live it or write it

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Folks, the last couple of days things have been too hectic for blogging, and the next few might be as well.

Part of the problem (and you don’t want to know all the reasons) is that dilemma I’ve cited over and over again in the past (but please don’t make me look it up to link to it right now): It’s hard both to have experiences worth blogging about, and blog. A cake and eat it too sort of thing.

Yesterday, we had three city council candidates come through on a day that would have been long, stressful and overloaded without a single one of them. The interviews were very interesting, though, and I think I have some good video, but haven’t had time to look at it. If at all possible, I’ll post something on them this weekend.

We talked to Belinda Gergel, Brian Boyer and Cameron Runyan (whom I referred to this morning yet again as Damon Runyon, but was corrected; sorry about that, Cameron). We have two council candidates (both at large) left, to whom we’ll be speaking on Tuesday. Eventually, I’ll post about all of them.

Right now, I’ll just make the overall comment that this is an unusually strong set of candidates so far, given what we’ve sometime seen in Cola city elections. More later.

Daniel Rickenmann on his record

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This video also comes from the very start of our interview, this time with Daniel Rickenmann, the incumbent at-large member of Columbia City Council who is up for re-election April 1.

Mr. Rickenmann stressed some highlights of what he’s done and tried to do in the four years since he was first elected. We’ll be talking with his opponents over the next few days…

Reed Swearingen on what he likes in a city

How is crime in Columbia a federal responsibility?

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OK, I get it that there should be standards for federally subsidized housing. But "security?" In what sense? Today’s story seems to suggest that those looking to the federal government to require beefed-up security are thinking in terms of — I’m not sure, but it looks like this — landlords having to hire rent-a-cops, or turning subsidized housing developments into gated communities:

Columbia City Council members on Thursday will lobby the state’s
Congressional delegation to attach security requirements to laws
governing apartment complexes that accept federal housing vouchers…

I’ve got another idea. How about if city council members "lobby" their own city administration to enforce the law within the city limits? How about that? Note in this other story today that a lot of folks in that part of town feel like it’s not doing that. Doesn’t the city manager’s responsibility in this matter extend beyond declaring a portion of the city "a community in crisis?"

You would think so. An interesting topic to have in mind as we begin interviews with city council candidates today.

Contacts: Rickenmann, mental health advocates, McMullen

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As Doug Ross might testify, I make a point of breaking my fast most mornings in a place where I’m likely to run into newsmakers who tell me things I was not trying to find out, but needed to know anyway (to sorta, kinda paraphrase Dirk Gently).

At this time I will head off those of you who think this is an elitist pursuit by saying I also frequent Wal-Mart — but there, few people come up to me and tell me things I can publish.

Anyway, in keeping with my sporadic efforts to let you know about folks I interact with (part of the whole transparency thing, letting you know who might be trying to influence what you read on the editorial page, yadda-yadda), here’s this morning’s list of folks who dropped by my table:

Daniel Rickenmann, who seemed to be sort of working the room, eventually got to me. No substantial discussion. I asked him what he was hearing from constituents as he campaigned for April 1, he said he’d heard a lot (understandably) about the city’s problems keeping track of money, and suggested the creation of a citizens’ fiscal review panel. At least, I think that’s what he said. Does not being sure sound lax on my part? Well, I knew I would be sitting down formally with him next Tuesday for an endorsement interview, and that will be well documented, I promise.
A group of folks — one of them a surgeon I know from USC’s medical school, but I’m leaving his name out for now since he was not the instigator of the conversation (although he can remind me of the names of the other folks later) — approached me to say that the former Department of Mental Health property on Bull Street (you know, which was supposed to be redeveloped, but which hasn’t happened?) is still needed to provide mental health services, and to help train psychiatrists. I’ve heard this before, of course, but there seemed a new urgency in their concern. The doc mentioned the name of a good source, which I wrote on my copy of the WSJ.
Ed McMullen, late of the S.C. Policy Council, joined me as I headed for the elevator. We talked briefly about several things, ending with the Wireless Cloud, about which he promised to send me a line on a source. Don’t forget me on that, Ed.

Is this what it’s like writing a diary?

How should homeless grants be spent?

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Routinely, I get releases like this one from members of Congress, particularly our senators:

Graham Announces $3 Million to Assist Homeless and Disadvantaged in South Carolina
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today announced South Carolina will receive more than $3 million to assist homeless and disadvantaged persons throughout the state. The Emergency Food and Shelter program funds may be used to supplement and expand ongoing efforts to provide shelter, food and supportive services for the state’s hungry, homeless, and people in economic crisis….

In the list that followed, Lexington County got $137,496, and $236,484 will be going to Richland.

This got me to thinking: How will this money actually get spent? Will it go to more feckless, indecisive muddling on the part of our local elected governments? Will it go to an effort that is trying to help the homeless in a comprehensive way in spite of the failure of local governments, such as that led by Amos Disasa of Eastminster Presbyterian?

Maybe it’s dedicated to a specific program that asked for it; the release doesn’t say. But I was wondering what ideas you, the readers — specifically Doug Ross, who has a good deal of personal experience helping the homeless — as to how the money should be used.

Columbia City Council District 3 candidates

Arrrgghh! They’re coming!!!

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Just got this from Warren:

Brad, I’m going to start scheduling the folks running for (Columbia) city council. I believe there are seven. Would you share some dates you’re available next week and the week after so I can try to get firm commitments when I first talk with these folks? Thanks.

Warren

How unfair is this? We just got done with endorsements in the presidential primaries, what — five seconds ago? Now we’re starting on those seeking Columbia city council seats on April 1.

And here’s the killer — we have to start on state and county offices (the real biggie, in terms of volume) immediately after that, because those primaries are coming June 12 — just days after legislative adjournment. (Extra fun: This is the year that we do the Senate as well as House.) And as soon as those are over, we plunge into endorsement hyperspeed to make runoff selections within the fortnight, then we go through those weeks when we’re extremely shorthanded while we take turns taking some time off, then Labor Day starts us on our general election round of interviews.

Somewhere in all that, we’ll give some thought to choosing between McCain and (I hope) Obama — but given this schedule, not a whole lot of time.

Oh, yeah, I just realized that there’s an editorial point in all of the above. City elections should happen at the same time as the others, rather than having "stealth" elections in April, wedged between higher-profile races, when voters’ guard is likely to be down. April elections depress turnout.

Competing for Columbia’s gay vote

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When I got a release from city council at-large candidate Cameron Runyan today inviting me to look this Web page, thinkpink.org, I was puzzled — several times.

Before I even opened it, just looking at the headline, I thought "The Pink Pigs are back!"

Then, I was puzzled by the logo at the top of the page that said, "Feeling Blue in a Red State? Think Pink." For a moment, I thought it was a Democratic Party thing, and I was all set to get huffy on the blog about a blatant injection of party identity into an election that is supposed to be, and ought to be, completely free of all that partisan garbage.

Then, I thought, "think pink?" Maybe it’s talking about an UnPartylike rejection of "red" and "blue," suggesting an independent Third Way, or a blending of the two. But if so, wouldn’t it be "think purple?"

Then I clicked on the video (see above), and saw Nancy Pelosi and thought again, "Dang, this IS a bunch of lousy partisan encroachment!," and my dudgeon rose precipitously.

But a moment later, I said, "Wait a minute… is this…?"

Yes, it was. This was about mustering gay and lesbian support for some of the city council candidates.

This being an entirely new sort of ball game for me — on the local political front, anyway — I called Mr. Runyan to make sure I was reading it right. I was. He wasn’t hosting the event himself, but "I went to them and asked them to do this party."

He seemed surprised that I was surprised. After all, he said, his opponent was just as openly pursuing the same part of the electorate, although perhaps in a lower-key way. He forwarded me an e-mail that named named a dozen or so folks and said they:

Invite you and the LGBT Community to a
         Meet & Chat
            with
City Councilman Daniel Rickenmann

      Wednesday, February 27, 2008
      5 until 6:30 p.m. at Mo Mo’s Bistro

2930 Devine Street, Columbia, SC 29205

Please join us for food, fun and festivities at Mo Mo’s!

Please Forward & Invite Your Friends!

So I forwarded it to Daniel and asked if it was legit and he said sure it was, and where had I been?

I don’t know where I was. But this was all new to me.

‘The Pulse’ is probably white

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As a highly experienced professional observer of all kinds of stuff I’d just as soon not have seen, I’m going to go out on a limb here and help Mayor Bob narrow down the options a bit on the identity of "The Pulse:"

I’m pretty sure they’re white.

This is based on anecdotal inference, mind you, but I offer my intelligence estimate with a high degree of confidence.

You may or may not have noticed a brief, bottom-of-the-page editorial we ran a week or two ago (the kind we call a "backup," if you’ll forgive the jargon), along these lines:

E.W. Cromartie

IT’S DISAPPOINTING that filing closed for Columbia City Council
elections without anyone stepping up to challenge long-term Councilman
E.W. Cromartie.

While
Mr. Cromartie has done much to help his district, he also has done
plenty to damage the public’s trust and give citizens reason to worry.

On
one hand, Councilman Cromartie is responsible for helping revive areas
such as Read Street and the old Saxon Homes public housing community
property. He also pushed a jobs program to train residents in the
empowerment zone. But Mr. Cromartie has also set a terrible example of
common citizenship. Over the years, he’s failed to pay taxes on time,
been delinquent on water bill payments, overspent his council expense
account and parked in handicapped spaces.

Elected officials, like
many of us, encounter difficulties sometimes. But when someone
willingly offers himself for public office, he should be held to a
higher standard of trustworthiness. Mr. Cromartie has not measured up…

And so forth. This editorial was no big deal to us. It didn’t say anything about Mr. Cromartie that we hadn’t said before. It’s just that one of us noticed that he had skated without opposition, we agreed that that was a shame given his record in office, and we did the edit. It ran on a Saturday. By Monday, I had forgotten about it.

Others had not. All day Monday, people came up to me whenever I was out in public (at breakfast, at Rotary). That’s always nice, but there’s praise and there’s praise. This editorial had not been a big deal, and really wasn’t worth that much comment — at the expense of other things we had made a bigger deal about, which were NOT getting mentioned so enthusiastically.

And after all these years, you develop the ability to read between the lines of praise as well as criticism. This praise fit into a certain pattern.

Next day, I mentioned all this mentioning to Warren. Warren said HE had been hearing from folks all the previous day, too. Then I mentioned that all the people who had praised the editorial to me had been white. Why did I mention that? Because of the pattern I had seen in the praise. These folks were saying, in their words and facial expressions and gestures, what I had heard and seen white Columbians say about Mr. Cromartie for years (I can’t swear it’s ONLY been white folks, but that’s been the overwhelming tendency — his black critics tend to be quieter). No, I’m not saying there was anything racist in any of this. I’m just saying that this is something I get a lot from white readers — a particular sort of long-suffering frustration with a black officeholder who gets returned to office time and again by the voters in his single-member-district, no matter what he does.

As I read back over that paragraph, I know I haven’t explained what I mean in a way that will be understood by everyone. But I’m trying to describe something for which we have no common vocabulary. People who have dealt with it a lot and seen the things I’ve seen may understand me. Others will not.

Warren knew what I meant. He shared with me the fact that all those who had contacted him had been black. And they had not been going out of their way to praise the editorial. Some had been critical; others had just mentioned it in a neutral way.

This is the kind of thing that perpetuates itself. Officeholders like Mr. Cromartie tend to stay in office because most public criticism of them tends to come from whites, which enables him to come across as a victim with a lot of black voters.

For Warren and me, the problems we have with Mr. Cromartie’s performance in office aren’t about race. For too many other people, they are. That’s one of the things that makes a candidacy like Obama’s so exciting — it really isn’t about race, whereas far too many elections still are.

Anyway, you may or may not have seen this post at ‘The Pulse,’ based on our backup editorial. There’s nothing wrong with what The Pulse is saying about Mr. Cromartie. I agree with it. Good point. And yes, it is indeed frustrating that "because E.W. has been so long entrenched in his seat, he can get away with things like this."

But certain undefinable things about that post caused me to leap to a conclusion: ‘The Pulse’ is white. Or at least the writer of that post is. Let’s get a second opinion… based on our previous conversation, I pointed the post out to Warren. Yep, he said. He’s "pretty sure" they’re white.

If we’re wrong, I’ll be glad to apologize for being so presumptuous. I’ll be glad to do so, because it’s actually a relief to be proved wrong about such things. But I’m pretty sure we’re not.

Strike Four on police testing scandal

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Just got this e-mail internally from a colleague:

Just got off the phone with an anonymous caller angered by newspaper’s coverage of police testing scandal. This man is apparently in local law enforcement….

In short: He says the newspaper has greatly overestimated the importance of the testing scandal. More of "a prank," he says. He says the test only existed to ensure that people had watched the 4-hour video online. If they went to watch the video in person, no test was required. He says that the online training was a mess, and this should have been mentioned in the report.

He says that such help to one another is natural among police, and basically goes back to the academy days as a part of police culture. Many of the recruits aren’t great test-takers, but good at solving problems.

He says that naming the officers went overboard and damaged the integrity of the whole force.

To which my response is: And if the test were a joke and unimportant, that would be yet ANOTHER thing that the city administration should have communicated clearly to the public…

Mayor Bob trying to find a ‘Pulse’

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Keep meaning to write something about this, but haven’t had time to digest it. I’ll just go ahead and post this dialogue between Mayor Bob and our shy, mysterious brethren over at "The Pulse of Columbia."

Actually, it starts out as a dialogue, but the last few messages are from Mayor Bob alone:

THE PULSE: We heard from a mutual friend just this week that you read The Pulse often. We appreciate that Mayor Bob!
      We would really love to get your take on some of these issues.
      Would you be willing to answer some questions… with your unedited responses posted on our blog?
      Your Friends at The Pulse

MAYOR BOB: I would be delighted answer any questions from The Pulse. Please use this email address.
Would you be willing to answer one question?
Who are you?

THE PULSE: Mayor Bob,
Thanks for your willingness to answer our questions… and questions that have come from our readers.
Here are five topics that have come up in various conversations we’ve had with friends across the City. As we said, we will gladly post your unedited responses to these questions on The Pulse so that our readers can know first-hand what our City’s leadership says. Don’t feel you need to answer all five at once, we’ve told our readers that when you respond to a question, we’ll post the response.

1. The City is facing litigation from its failed attempt to build an estimated $69.9 million publicly-funded, city-owned convention center hotel where the Hilton currently stands. A number of companies, including Stevens & Wilkinson, Gary Realty, Garfield Traub Development, and others have sued the City for several million dollars for work that they did in the hotel’s development prior to the city-owned hotel deal falling apart. The City has also given $6 million in subsidies for the hotel since 2002. In a December memo to Council, City Manager Charles Austin listed the City’s contingent liability for this litigation at $10-14 million. How much has the City actually spent to date for the development, subsidies and other expenses for the hotel? What is the status of the lawsuit? Who is representing the City? And how is all of this being funded?

2. It took 18 months to close the City’s 2005-2006 financial books. Thus far, the City has yet to completely close and audit the financials for 2006-2007. When will that be completed and what is holding up that process?

3. In 2009, SCANA’s subsidies for the CMRTA will run out. Currently the system operates on an estimated budget of $11 million per year, with $2.47 million of that coming from SCE&G. Research and projections from the CMRTA put the real need for funding at $25 million per year to provide the resources needed for the CMRTA to best serve the region’s public transportation needs. What is the exact financial figure that the City will have to bear to keep CMRTA operational? Where do you expect that money to come from a budgetary planning standpoint? Will there have to be cuts in CMRTA’s services or more increases in bus fares once the City takes on the greater financial role?

4. The number one issue repeatedly mentioned in surveys of City residents is that our people want to feel safe in our communities. Since 1998, the public safety budget has only seen a 29% increase, while general government expenses have increase 221% in the same time period. With the changes in leadership over the last year, controversies within the force regarding certification testing, and the net number of police and fire officers dropping since 1998 is the City fulfilling its obligation to the residents and businesses of Columbia when it comes to crime, public safety and eradicating gangs? What are the benchmarks that you, Council and the City Manager consider to be key to keeping our City safe?

5. City Manager Charles Austin has called for 5-10% across-the-board budget cuts for the 2007-2008 budget year. If public safety and basic services need to remain at their current levels (if not increase), where does the City plan on tightening its belt financially to cover the cost? Is there a formal budget process? Who is involved in this budget process? What is the timeframe for the budget process? How are you and City Council a part of this process?

Oh… and by the way… to answer your question… The Pulse of Columbia is every taxpayer, business person, mom and dad in this City that has not had or used their voice in City government before. We just ask the questions we have and that we’ve heard. We believe that City government can’t run without the taxpayer’s money, and we just want you to know what everyone is thinking.

As always,
Your Friends at The Pulse

MAYOR BOB: Be glad to answer, but who is The Pulse? Why the mystery? Why not tell who you are?

MAYOR BOB (seeming to do a double-take): "Oh… and by the way… to answer your question… The Pulse of Columbia is every taxpayer, business person, mom and dad in this City that has not had or used their voice in City government before. We just ask the questions we have and that we’ve heard. We believe that City government can’t run without the taxpayer’s money, and we just want you to know what everyone is thinking.

As always,
Your Friends at The Pulse"

Come on guys!! You can do better than that! Who is/are The Pulse? Why be anonymous and secret? What are you hiding? Why throw the rock and hide your hand? I will commit to answer any question anytime if you will tell us who you are.

MAYOR BOB: Let me answer number five first (we just finished a City Council meeting on the budget for police and fire).

      The question:
"5. City Manager Charles Austin has called for 5-10% across-the-board budget cuts for the 2007-2008 budget year. If public safety and basic services need to remain at their current levels (if not increase), where does the City plan on tightening its belt financially to cover the cost? Is there a formal budget process? Who is involved in this budget process? What is the timeframe for the budget process? How are you and City Council a part of this process?"

Answer:
The 5-10% cuts have not come to City Council. Each of the last few years the City Manager has asked staff to prepare similar cuts on a contingency basis in case they are needed. To date we have never had across-the-board cuts. The City Council voted unanimously today to accept the City Manager’s recommendation for the police and fire retention plan to be phased in over three years (we will try to do it in two years). The total cost will be in the range of $2.5 million (from memory this morning) that will go for higher salaries for our police and fire officers. Additionally, the City Council voted unanimously to establish 375 officers as our goal for the Police Department. That will require adding an additional 19 officers to the Police Department. The budget will be before the City Council in April with a final vote in June.

I will keep answering the other questions as quickly as possible. Now come on Pulse, jump in the "full disclosure" pool with the rest of us.

MAYOR BOB: Dear Pulse, Here is another answer.

Question: "3.    In 2009, SCANA’s subsidies for the CMRTA will run out. Currently the system operates on an estimated budget of $11 million per year, with $2.47 million of that coming from SCE&G. Research and projections from the CMRTA put the real need for funding at $25 million per year to provide the resources needed for the CMRTA to best serve the region’s public transportation needs. What is the exact financial figure that the City will have to bear to keep CMRTA operational? Where do you expect that money to come from a budgetary planning standpoint? Will there have to be cuts in CMRTA’s services or more increases in bus fares once the City takes on the greater financial role?"

Answer: I serve as Vice Chair of the RTA and Chair of the RTA’s Service and Standards Committee. I will try to answer the question in three ways. First, Richland County is currently providing funding to the RTA through the vehicle registration fee. The County has established a Transportation Task Force chaired by Columbia College President Caroline Whitson to study long term funding options for all transportation needs including the RTA. We are working with Richland County to insure that current funding (vehicle registration fee) continues until a permanent source is found.

Secondly, the Service and Standards Committee has and will continue to make cuts and additions to the transit system. There is a detailed criteria for evaluating every bus route. The $25 million budget represents the optimal bus system. I doubt we will ever get to that level.

Thirdly, if the current funding provided by Richland County ends and no replacement or permanent funding replaces the vehicle registration fee, then the bus system would be reduced to just what the SCE&G subsidy ($1 million of the SCE&G is permanent every year), state and federal funding. The Service and Standards Committee has this reduced plan ready if needed. The reduced plan would be a drastic reduction. Under current State law, Columbia could not raise millage to cover the loss of RTA revenue, so a reduced system is the only option.

MAYOR BOB: Dear Pulse, I wanted to answer your follow up question.

Question: "Also… our readers are continuously asking us how to get more involved in the budget and financial planning process for the City. Mayor Bob… how can they do that? You had such a nice evening the other night for the State of the City, could you sponsor an evening where we can all sit down and talk through the City’s budget plans for next year?"

Answer: The City normally has a number of budget work sessions and an evening budget public hearing during the budget process. If your readers think another approach is needed we would certainly be open any suggestion.

MAYOR BOB: Dear Pulse, I wanted to answer another follow up question.

Question: "The reduction Mayor Bob is mentioning here would cut the bus service by nearly 85%. For some people in the City, public transportation is their only option. The big question then would be what areas of town would see the biggest hits from the “reduced plan” the Mayor mentioned?"

Answer: A 85% cut would be devastating to all parts of town. These cuts would shrink the bus system dramatically. Both Charleston and Greenville had to cut their bus systems in a similar way. The public quickly saw the need for the system. In Charleston’s case a referendum was passed after those cuts. Hopefully the current vehicle registration fee funding will continue unless and until another funding source replaces it.

The folks at The Pulse — of whom I would think a great deal more if they didn’t hide their identities — must have studied interrogation under George Smiley. His favored method was to ask a question and then shut up, holding his pen poised over his notepad for as long as it took the subject to start talking just to fill the silence.

I feel bad for Mayor Bob. He really does try to accommodate citizens as much as he can. He deserves to know who’s asking.

New ‘Take Down The Flag’ blog

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Michael Rodgers, a regular correspondent here and probably my most ardent regular blog ally on the cause of getting the Confederate flag off the State House lawn, has started a new blog dedicated to the cause, as he informed me over the weekend:

Dear Brad,
Hi, how are you?
What’s new on the Confederate flag? It’s still flying from the Statehouse grounds. I’ve started protesting at the Statehouse when I can, and I now have a blog about the issue (Would you please add me to your blogroll?):

Take Down The Flag

My state Representative Bill Cotty said that we have a "leadership in the House and Senate that will prevent the issue from seeing the light of day before we adjourn in June." My state Senator Joel Lourie agreed with your sense from the business community that they have no "appetite" for doing anything on this issue. I find that strange since Jim Micali of Michelin is the Chairman of the SC Chamber of Commerce. Surely he would want something done, but he’s retiring soon, so who knows?
Take care and keep in touch. Thank you.

Regards,

Michael Rodgers

Nothing new, I had to tell him. As y’all may have noticed, I’ve been working pretty much around the clock on presidential politics, and am just about to start paying attention again to S.C. issues (I had other folks doing that up to now), now that we’ve chased all those candidates out of the state.

Now I’m having to meet with all those folks I’ve been putting off for the past couple of months, on a wide variety of issues. The meeting with Vincent Sheheen was one of those long-delayed ones. I also have outstanding meeting requests from local hospitals, the state Department of Juvenile Justice, and … well, all sorts of issues.

The flag will certainly return in this space. Until it does, thank you, Michael, for keeping the conversation going.

P.S. Just now, going through e-mail from a different account (my published one), I see this form e-mail that Michael sent out to all potentially interested parties. As further elaboration on what he’s trying to do, I include the text of that as well:

Dear Brad Warthen,
Hello, how are you? I’m writing to you because I see that you’ve posted on your blog in support of taking down the flag. I’ve written emails to people who are interested in joining your South Carolina Association for the Advancement of All People, or whatever it ends up being called.
I’ve started a blog to encourage action to take down the flag. I hope that we can get a group to organize and take action. I’m inviting you to participate. Please, let’s work together to take down the flag. http://takedowntheflag.wordpress.com/
I’m also writing to remind you of the bill (H-3588) to take down the flag. The bill is sponsored by Representatives Alexander, Hart, Rutherford, and Sellers, and it is currently stuck in the Judiciary Committee of the House.
Please write your State Representative and State Senator to ask them to get the bill to the floors and on to Governor Sanford for his signature. You can read the bill and find out who your legislators are here (choose “quick search” for bill 3588 and choose “find your legislator”): http://www.scstatehouse.net/
Please spread the word about H-3588. I look forward to hearing from you and working with you. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we are right and we will prevail.
Thank you.

With Kindest Regards,

Michael Rodgers

Did you go to the Obama rally? I couldn’t get in

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So I did just barely manage to stay up long enough to head over to the Obama rally, and I got one of my daughters — the USC student — to go with me. But the fire marshall wouldn’t let us in. The Koger Center was overflowing.

Did you go? How was it?

Above, you see the winding queue in which we stood when there was some hope of getting in. This was just past 10:45, the original starting time for the rally.

I spent a few minutes chatting with a Swedish journalist who was also trying to get in (she had missed the cutoff time for the media area; I tend to avoid media areas like the plague when I can). Then a young kid who works for Obama (the sort who looks like he could just as easily have been working for Bobby Kennedy in ’68 — sport coat, open-necked oxford button-down shirt, campaign button on the lapel, collegiate Beatle haircut) came and told us they were trying to work out something with the fire marshal, as the place was packed.

A few minutes later, the queue started to collapse, and we all drifted toward the door. Rumors rippled through the crowd — "it’s bad news; the line’s giving up" or "all right! they’re letting us in!" — and we paused at the doors while another kid told us (in a voice too soft for more than a few to hear, and a visage and accent that suggested the subcontinent) that it wasn’t their fault; it was the fire marshal.

Eventually, we all realized there was no point. But there was one woman, in a long white coat, who didn’t care, and moved through us leading the chant, "Fired up! Ready to go!" I turned to my daughter, and said "ready to go?," only realizing what I’d said after I’d said it. Ah, the power of suggestion…

My daughter and I began the cold walk back, two-and-a-half blocks, to my truck, parked along the median in the middle of Assembly. Ahead of us for the first block walked the woman in the white coat with a friend. She was completely undaunted, chanting all by herself for the world to hear: "Fired Up! Ready to go?" Below, you can hear her, and the kid making the announcement before joining her cry, on this poor-quality (on account of the light) video:

Video: Fred and Huck in SC tonight

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Earlier this evening I swung by campaign appearances by Fred Thompson (at Sticky Fingers in the Harbison area) and Mike Huckabee (at Hudson’s Smokehouse near Lexington).

I’m not going to go on and on about it, as I’ve overdue for some sack time. But here’s a VERY brief synopsis:

The Thompson event was well-attended and the crowd was supportive. Fred’s delivery was smoother, more confident than the last time I saw him in person — of course that was awhile back, at Doc’s Barbecue. I would have said it was a really successful event that showed him as a candidate with a significant following.
I would have said that, except that when I arrived at Hudson’s — long before the candidate showed up — it was plain that, in the last days before the primary, there’s a significant difference in energy levels between an event featuring a well-liked candidate, and a guy who actually has a chance of winning. Huckabee had a larger crowd, and it was really pumped up.
But Fred gets more points for punctuality. The Huckabee event was scheduled for 7:30, and he arrived after 9. Before he finally got there, I had thought about going on home to get my supper, but I had such a good spot right in front of the podium, so I hated to give it up. He was so late, he was able to congratulate Mitt Romney for his win in Michigan at the start of his appearance.

Here you have two rough clips from the events — Huckabee above, Thompson below — just to give you the flavor. If I get time any time in the next few days, I’ll see if I can come up with something more polished. I know, for instance, that there must have been some better footage of Thompson — but I used this because he talks about immigration, and he got a cheer for that. (Note that I didn’t have such a good spot for the Thompson event.)

bradwarthen.com

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