By Delayna Earley
The Island News
City of Beaufort Mayoral candidates Phil Cromer and Mike Sutton took to the stage on Monday, Dec. 4, at the University of South Carolina Beaufort’s Performing Arts Center and answered pressing questions about how they would handle hot button topics if they were elected as Beaufort’s next mayor.
The event was hosted by the Beaufort Regional Chamber of Commerce and was organized by interim CEO and President Megan Morris.
The two candidates are running to fill the vacant mayoral seat in the city after Stephen Murray resigned from the position on Sept 15, 2023, with a little more than a year left in his term.
Cromer and Sutton have each served for two terms on the City of Beaufort’s council and Sutton previously ran against Murray for the mayoral seat and lost.
Sutton is a retired member of the U.S. Coast Guard and is currently the owner of Sutton Construction which focuses on restoring historic properties in the Beaufort area, according to Sutton.
He also currently serves on the Historic District Review Board and Building Board of Appeals.
Cromer is currently retired, but previously he has worked as a town manager in Ridgeland and Port Royal and as a risk management consultant for the Municipal Association of South Carolina.
More than 100 concerned citizens came to watch the candidate forum to help get answers to questions that they have before Tuesday’s election.
Early voting for the election has already begun.
During the forum, the candidates answered 15 questions about topics that are important to Beaufort citizens such as parking, preservation versus development and crime.
PROGRESS
Does there need to be a third bridge built from Beaufort to Lady’s Island?
Sutton believes that the growth of the island has surpassed the ability of the two bridges currently connecting Lady’s Island to Port Royal and downtown Beaufort, but he also believes that it is necessary to do more research to decide if a third bridge will fix the problem.
Cromer believes that a third bridge may be necessary in the future if growth continues on Lady’s Island, but he also wants to maintain the Woods bridge and have it listed on the historic register of places.
Both candidates addressed the lawsuits that the City of Beaufort has been battling in court.
Sutton and Cromer agree they are a problem and are eating up tax dollars.
“Lawsuits only make money for certain people, and they take money out of your pockets,” said Sutton.
He believes that the best course of action isn’t to settle matters in the courtroom, but instead to get everyone in a room and talk things through.
Cromer on the other hand, believes that these issues should be addressed and resolved before they escalate to the courtroom.
PRESERVATION
Projects that are currently underway in downtown Beaufort were a topic of discussion for both candidates on Tuesday.
As the population of the city and number of tourists continue to grow every year, the issue of additional parking in the downtown area was very important yesterday.
Currently, construction of a parking garage is underway in downtown Beaufort, and while both candidates agreed that parking is an issue downtown, they disagreed on how to address it.
Cromer feels that the better approach is to have trolleys bring people in from additional parking in surrounding areas such as Lady’s Island and Port Royal.
Sutton disagreed and said that they need a parking structure and the best place to build one is in a parking lot.
The uninhabitable homes in the Northwest Quadrant neighborhood of the historic district were also discussed.
There are vacant, historic homes that cannot be lived in due to disrepair.
Sutton says that the city has done very little to help families improve these homes, and Cromer said that neighborhood development corporations might be the answer.
PEOPLE
Affordable housing and helping the homeless were two big issues discussed by the candidates.
Both candidates agreed that there is a problem with both.
They also agreed that there isn’t very much they can do as mayor of a small city to help with housing.
Sutton thinks that the issue needs to be addressed regionally, not just locally, as Beaufort is a tiny city and is simply running out of land.
He also doesn’t think that tax dollars should be used to help citizens get homes.
They both agreed that this is an issue that the city cannot handle alone.
Crime was another issue that they both spoke about on Monday night.
Sutton said that the city needs constant policing to dissuade would-be wrongdoers from breaking the law.
Cromer agreed that there need to be more cops in the downtown area and on the streets.
He would also like to see more cameras and lights in high crime areas.
Early voting has already begun for the special election and polls open on Tuesday, Dec. 12, for registered voters in the City of Beaufort to cast their votes for their candidate.
Delayna Earley formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She joined The Island News in 2022. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
