By Delayna Earley
The Island News
It has been one week since the City of Beaufort voted to decide the next mayor and two council seats, and their decision was that nothing should change.
After a heated and contentious race, incumbent Mayor Phil Cromer won the election over City Councilman Josh Scallate, and incumbents Neil Lipsitz and Mitch Mitchell won their seats back on City Council over Josh Gibson and Julie Crenshaw.
Mayor Cromer said that he is grateful to the voters for their support in the recent election.
“My hopes and plans over the next four years with Council support are to hopefully complete the Waterfront Park repair and replacement, the marina lease, current stormwater projects, development code updates, Duke Street streetscape and drainage, Pigeon Point boat landing, drainage study and playground equipment replacement,” Cromer said. “Other projects will likely be added from the upcoming Council retreat in January.”
While his opponent did not win the election, he still maintains his seat on City Council and had a very positive outlook on the rest of his term in that position.
“Post election I feel good,” Scallate said. “As a representative that wants to serve in a greater capacity, I feel my job is to offer myself as an option and be prepared to explain why I feel I am the most appropriate choice. I feel accomplished in that regard. The results of the election belong to the people, and I would consider it foolish to be discouraged by the decision. Moving forward it will be important to set aside ego and work to be an asset to not only Mayor Cromer but to Council as we strive to be a civil representation to a community much larger than ourselves.”
Lipsitz agreed with Cromer about the importance of fixing Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park.
“The Waterfront Park is the number one priority,” said Lipsitz. “We need to identify exactly what is going on, get the solutions and implement them.”
He said he was glad to be able to continue doing with the projects and direction that City Council has been going.
Gibson, who was not elected to City Council, said that he believes that he ran a good campaign and was obviously disappointed with the outcome, but even more than that he was surprised by how well the incumbents did across the ballot.
He said that what he heard from many members of the community was that they wanted change because they were not happy with how the incumbents were running the government, but the results on Election Day told a different story.
Gibson said that he hopes that the mayor and city council members are receptive to listening to what the community has to say.
“I hope that they will be receptive to listening, like truly listening, not just the minimum amount that you have to do to have a properly held public meeting, but really listening to some of the people who are trying to point out things that they think are important and integrate those into their solutions to the challenges that are facing the city right now,” Gibson said.
City Councilman Mitch Mitchell was not able to be interviewed before press time, and City Council candidate Julie Crenshaw did not respond to a request for comment.
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
