Questions and answers with the candidates for Mayor of the Town of Port Royal
By Delayna Earley
The Island News
With Election Day set for Tuesday, Nov. 7, The Island News interviewed the two candidates on the ballot for Mayor of the Town of Port Royal – incumbent Joe DeVito and Town Councilman Kevin Phillips.
Each candidate was asked the same set of questions and allowed to complete their answers without any specific time limitation.
For simplicity’s sake, Joe DeVito’s answers will appear first based on alphabetical order of the candidate’s last names.
About the candidates
Joe DeVito was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. and raised in Long Island, N.Y. He is high school educated and has a mechanical education in Aviation and Power Plants. He has taken many college courses and continuing education courses over the years related specifically to his jobs.
Phillips, 62, works as the senior manager of utility solutions for Badger Meter Inc., and has been the Mayor of Port Royal for four years. He moved to the area in 1986 because he was visiting family in Beaufort and decided it was a better place to raise a family than New York.
Kevin Phillips is originally from Snellville, Ga., northeast of Atlanta. He has a degree in Communications from the College of Charleston and studied law at Charleston School of Law. He is 41 years old, works as a local personal injury attorney, and has been on the Port Royal Town Council for four years. Phillips and his wife, Jenny (Sanborn), met in the 2018 Leadership Beaufort Program, and their first child is due in January
Phillips moved to the area in 2017. He lived Charleston for about eight years and had a “Pat Conroy moment while visiting Beaufort and “loved everything about this area.” He moved here because it was “calling his spirit,” residing in Beaufort for a year before moving to Port Royal.
Why do you want to be mayor of Port Royal and why do you think you’re the best person for the job? Why should people vote for you?
Joe DeVito: I want to be mayor of Port Royal for a second term, because when I ran for the first term – after spending 30 years in the utility industry and working with the different municipalities around Beaufort County and Jasper County – I wanted to give back to the community in my town of Port Royal. I decided to run for mayor.
I was asked a number of times in the past to run for council, but with my job with Beaufort-Jasper Water and Sewer Authority, I felt that that probably was a conflict of interest so I waited until I retired and decided to run so that I could give back to my community and share the wealth of knowledge that I’ve learned over the past 30 years.
I am now running for a second term because I have always committed to giving the town two full terms. I also feel like my first term got shorted a little bit, what with what happened with COVID-19. There was definitely an 18-month period where we weren’t able to get a lot of the things done that we needed to get done. So, I’m running for a second term to keep those changes that we made and the direction that we’re heading moving forward and to make some more substantive changes to the way the town is operating into the future.
Kevin Phillips: I grew up in a household with parents who were very involved in their communities, nothing political, but they were always coaching little league, or they were on their school PTA board. My mom has Women’s Bible Study at her house every Tuesday night, so I was always involved in the community and giving back. I was raised with that being very important. I believe that’s important.
A lot of people get involved, and they think politics is, you know, at the National Level – Fox News and CNN – but the most important stuff is what’s happening here at the local levels that affects your day-to-day life. I absolutely love Port Royal. It’s a town that has given so much to me. It’s where I met my wife, it’s where I got married – we actually got married on 12th Street in downtown Port Royal under a big live oak tree – [we] are having our first kid there, we’ve got business there.
It’s more a calling to [run for mayor], but the reason is, four years ago when I ran for town council, my slogan then was “Active Engaged Leadership.” I wanted to be more involved in the community. I wanted people to have access to their local representative and to know them and see them, be comfortable with them. So, the past four years I’ve never missed a single town council meeting, public hearing, town workshop, executive session, joint council meeting with the City of Beaufort. I’m at every meeting, I’m also in the community and visiting all different parts of Port Royal. I’ve also got family that live in different areas of Port Royal, and I just listen to the people talk about their concerns and their frustrations.
I feel like I’m a very good representative of that because I have literally spent every day for the past four years with the people of Port Royal, listening to them, engaging with them and I want to be their voice. I feel that one of the biggest things I hear is that – at all levels of government – people just feel like they are not really heard, they’re not really represented. They always say, what’s the point, we always talk about things, but nothing ever really ever happens. I believe in our representative form of government, and I want to be that representative for the people.
You two have voted the same on all votes except for one. What do you think the biggest differences are between you and your opponent?
Joe DeVito: The question is what are our biggest differences, and I think that question would have been answered differently 45 days ago than the answer now. Forty-five days ago I would have said that we were aligned on the direction Port Royal is heading because I have never sensed any differences between the direction and what we were doing. We were aligned in our overall mission and goal.
The one time we did vote differently on something, I fully understood his reasoning; he felt that a mobile home park offered some value to some low- to moderate-income housing and did not want to see that go away by an annexation in the zoning. My belief a that time was that whether that project got annexed into the town or stayed in the county the same occurrence was going to occur and I felt their redevelopment would have been better inside the town of Port Royal rather than out.
Since then, it appears that we have differences on a number of things. Again, that was never communicated to me in the past, so it was not something we could work through together, which I understand. There is a lot of discussion about slowing down development, and I’m not sure if that’s specific to what’s happening at the port or what’s happening around the entire municipal boundaries. There’s been discussion on moratoriums on construction, I think that is a very slippery slope. You have to be very cautious of what you do with any type of a moratorium, specifically with all large-scale construction, including residential, commercial and apartments.
There have been a number of apartments built in Port Royal over the last four years since we have both been on Council and all of this current Council has been committed to not rezoning any property that was zoned highway commercial and down zoning it to a level that apartments can be built, because some former Councils did that and it opened up some land for apartment complexes. That little way of getting apartments built has stopped. This current council is absolutely committed to not doing that anymore. The former Council gave up some valuable commercial land to apartments and the current council believes it needed to stop. We have not done one of those in the four years I’ve been on council. I’m also concerned about what a moratorium will do to housing prices. In some areas where a moratorium was put in place housing prices went up because there were no longer apartments for people who wanted to live in apartments. People are more willing to relocate for jobs and such and don’t commit as much to buying a home.
Kevin Phillips: This is actually the reason why I’m running. The way that the government is set up, you have five people on the council, every vote is [weighed] the exact same, it’s not like the mayor’s vote is like 30%, [and] everybody’s got a 20% vote. But one of the privileges of being mayor is that the mayor sets the agenda, so there’s been issues that I’ve wanted to bring up before and I have been told now is not the time, or we’re not going to talk about that yet.
The biggest one is the difference between us about over-development, the rapid over-development and growth that we’re seeing in this area that I really worry has the potential to destroy some of the things that make this place so special and make this such a great place to live. Knowing that, in my opinion, now is the time we’ve got to start talking about these things. We need to start having tough conversations. Maybe we have to upset some developers, that’s fine, like I said we’ve got to represent the people.
I’ve written that article with [The Island News] calling for a one-year moratorium on large scale development. During our forum, Joe [DeVito] said that’s something he would never support. We just put in a tree ordinance, Joe has come out and publicly said that he thinks it is too much and he wants to get back into it. So, these are things that I think we really differentiate on. When it comes to preserving nature and preserving the environment, I’m a little stronger on that than he is.
And then also, when it comes to development, slowing it down, we definitely differ on those opinions, because that one vote that we talk about was, the one vote when I voted against him that showed where he’s at versus where I’m at, it was about an apartment complex, where they wanted to come in on Parris Island Gateway. There’s a mobile home park there, there’s about 40 homes there, and they kicked all of those people out and wanted to build a big, hundreds-of-units apartment complex there. I think we have enough apartment complexes and storage units along Ribault and Parris Island Gateway.
What is the biggest issue facing the citizens of Port Royal?
Joe DeVito: There’s an emotional issue and a real issue, but as for the biggest issue right now, and one of the things I ran on for my first term, is fiscal responsibility, long term asset management and planning the town so that we can offer the citizens what it is that they need. But I understand that may need to take a step back so we can deal with Safe Harbor and what is happening there, but I do believe that both of those paths can progress forward at the same time.
Kevin Phillips: I’ll stick with the development as a whole, and that obviously encompasses the port development, but the overall development and growth of the town, how we are growing and what kind of town we are building – what kind of town we are losing.
Reimagine Ribaut – Do you agree with the direction it’s going? Yes or no, and why?
Joe DeVito: You’re asking a definitive yes or no, and that’s a tough answer because I do not believe all the facts are on the table to give an answer. I believe that we are in … I wouldn’t call it in the infancy … but I would call it in the formative years of a project that needs more time and energy to understand before I could say yes or no. The direction it’s going, I would split my answer in half, because there is what is the lower section which is Port Royal and the upper section which is the City of Beaufort.
I believe the lower section is heading in a positive direction. The need to re-imagine Ribaut Road as a pedestrian friendly, business friendly, thoroughfare through Port Royal was addressed in the plans that I’ve seen so far. I think those plans still fall short – there is no recommendation on speed limit; I cannot support any project that is not recommending a 35-mph speed limit through Port Royal. That has to be part of that.
I think the section at the McTeer Bridge still needs work. That is a major intersection in the Town of Port Royal, but it also is a major intersection for pedestrians with the walking path that was paid for with a referendum of Beaufort County to add to that bridge and the current plan does not offer the safety and the easy access for pedestrians to reach that pedestrian path from Port Royal. That needs to be addressed. I think there is a simple solution of a path underneath the McTeer Bridge that can link one side of the road to the other side and allow people the ability to cross at a traffic light and then go under the bridge and get on the path, and I think that has to be part of the project, not something that you say you’re going to add later on.
And then the upper section, within the City of Beaufort. I have traffic concerns and I voiced them at one of the meetings. When I was there we discussed whether traffic models have been done, and what narrowing of Ribaut Road in that section would do now and in the future for cars. Will that force more cars to travel through Port Royal? There are some good traffic models to be used for that. Until I receive that information, though, I can’t even give you a solid opinion about the upper section of the road.
I’m concerned about traffic reaching the hospital, but I know a lot of people are concerned with that, but I believe the traffic models will give us the answers of how that can be dealt with. There is no simple [answer] one [way] or the other. What I do know is Ribaut Road needs to be addressed, and we are on a direction to address that and that is a positive. But we have not yet put anything down solid to say this is what is going to be done.
Kevin Phillips: No, not at all. It’s another one of those examples of the governing bodies not listening to the people. They had three meetings for the Reimagine Ribaut Road – two were to get public input and the third was to unveil the plan. I went to every single one of those, so I was at the two meetings where they were getting public input, and at the end of it, when they released the plan, it was clear to me that they did not listen to a single thing that anyone said to them and it seems that they kind of had their mind made up and those public hearings were just more for show. What’s the point of public comment if you don’t entertain any of it.
The sticker price right now, they are saying $60 million and the whole point that was pitched was to address congestion and traffic issues on Ribaut Road, but it really does nothing to address the biggest traffic issue that we have on Ribaut Road, which is the bottom of the McTeer or Lady’s Island Bridge. The majority of that $60 million is being spent to turn northern Ribaut Road into two lanes and then add three traffic circles. I’ve spoken to a lot of people who either live on Ribaut Road or work there at the hospital or a business along there, and they are really concerned with safety issues with the traffic circles.
Again, no one has said this looks good, this is a great idea. So, I just don’t get what they are doing. It makes no sense if the stated goal is to address traffic, all the money that is being spent is going to cause more traffic because once you make Ribaut Road on the northern end two lanes and add traffic circles it’s just going to push more people down to try to access the Lady’s Island Bridge from coming in through Port Royal, so now they are going to be coming down Bell Bridge – we are trying to get the Spanish Moss Trail to cross over right there – so it has the potential to be a real mess. You’re forcing every truck, every large vehicle in northern Beaufort County that’s trying to get to Lady’s Island Bridge to come down Bell Bridge into Port Royal, and then we are going to have a stop right there for families and kids using Spanish Moss Trail – it really has the potential to be a mess if they don’t re-imagine the re-imagining.
There has been a lot of talk about smart development and the need for it in Port Royal. What does that look like, and what are some specific things that need to be addressed to make that happen in Port Royal?
Joe DeVito: Smart development of Port Royal started many years ago and has been moving forward and as part of what has built Port Royal the way it is now, and the reason why so many people want to move and join us in Port Royal, and spend time here. It’s the ability to incorporate different uses into the same environment without affecting the people who are around there. It is exactly what form based code is all about that I had the opportunity to participate in as one of many citizens that brought that into Port Royal. Smart development is the basis of what is bringing Port Royal a lot of the accolades it has been receiving lately and why so many people want to join us.
We are a very open, walking community, yet we have businesses in town that in some ways people would say are industrial and don’t belong in a downtown, but yet it does. It fits, because of the current zoning and development ordinances in place. It’s part of the DNA of Port Royal because it was implemented so many years ago and it’s slowly moving forward. It’s a good catch phrase for things and you just have to be steadfast in what you’re trying to do and what you’re trying to bring to Port Royal.
Smart growth is exactly what happened when ACE Hardware came to Port Royal. It brought the need of a business into a town so people don’t need to travel as far, or go over a bridge or leave their community to get things that are needed. It’s the same thing that occurred when Beaufort Memorial brought their Urgent Care to Port Royal. That’s smart growth for the citizens of Port Royal.
It’s what we’re looking at now with the possible redevelopment of the Naval Hospital property, to bring the kind of educational uses and businesses to the community to allow people to have options in the jobs that they are getting or the careers that they are choosing in the future. So, smart growth is here, it has been here and there is nothing about the current council that is thinking about changing or getting rid of smart growth.
Kevin Phillips: I think we have enough apartment complexes, car washes and storage units on Ribaut Road and Parris Island Gateway – that’s the what the majority of people are trying to build and keep building. Down in the town area, I think we need to look at some of the setbacks and how small and close we are cramming these houses on top of each other. If you get into Port Royal there are some situations where there are these little tiny homes that all look identical and are just crammed into little spaces and I don’t know if that’s sustainable for the infrastructure downtown with the traffic that’s going to create – so those need to be looked at.
Overall, and some of this is not up to me, some of this, like I said, I want to press pause on it and start having public meetings discussing these things with the planning department and the public. The City of Beaufort just did that and had public meetings where they sat down with their planning director and went through their planning codes, made changes and adjustments and got public input. Some of what exactly needs to be done, I’m not going to sit here and tell you I’m the smartest guy in the room and that I have all the answers, but I’m really good at bringing people together and trying to find solutions through collaboration. What exactly that looks like will come out of a process of collaborating and working through it.
I’ve heard many times that Port Royal often gets overlooked and lumped in with the City of Beaufort. How do you plan on helping Port Royal stand out among the other municipalities in Beaufort County?
Joe DeVito: Talk about a question that came back to a platform that I ran on four years ago. I ran on the platform that Port Royal will no longer be forgotten about. That is one of the things that I believe I have, and the current Council with help from the person who is running against me, have completely changed. It was great to have somebody who could be at different meetings and different locations, whether we could stay the whole time there or just stop in and say hi, it was good to have that.
I have been involved anytime I hear of any decision going on that’s going to affect the Town of Port Royal in any way, I have injected myself. I have made sure that one of Council or staff has been involved with that and make sure we have the opportunity to be part of that planning process. If something happens in Port Royal that we were not part of, then I find out how and why it occurred, and we point that out and those things are not happening anymore.
We are much more plugged in now that we ever have been in my 36 years of living in this area, so I believe that that one is on the way to fully completing and I will spend the next four years making sure it gets completed. Part of that is making sure that all of Council is involved in everything that is involved in regional areas. I spend time speaking with different council members, and the different mayors, and I got to mayors’ meetings and the mayors’ breakfasts, and I reach out to the other mayors and ask questions, “What’s happening? What do we need to join together on? How do we work together to make sure people understand what we all need?”
Kevin Phillips: By always being present and always being accountable. That really comes through relationships. That comes through going to other council meetings, going through Beaufort County meetings, to the City of Beaufort meetings, going to events in southern Beaufort County with the Lowcountry Council of Governments.
There are a lot of organizations that you just need to be present at – you’ve got to go and let them see you, let them know that you’re paying attention. I’ve spent the past four years building relationships and being able to get stuff done for Port Royal when it comes to those other agencies, so the key is being present, working hard and collaborating with people.
In closing, is there anything that you would like to add or talk about that I haven’t asked about?
Joe DeVito: Being a mayor, in my mind, for communities like Port Royal, is all about people who are going to get things done. People who are going to put aside any of their personal beliefs, feelings and aspirations and doing ultimately what is best for the community, the town and Port Royal.
It has to be a willingness to ask many questions and point in different directions and ultimately be able to bring it back to a single point that meets what it is that you’re trying to do or the community is asking for you to do. Being a mayor, for me, has nothing to do with “for me” and everything to do with for the town, the people and citizens.
Being able to work with staff and understand the staff’s needs and push staff to do things that maybe they weren’t really wanting to do, but we know is the proper thing to do. It’s a shame that being a mayor is a political process because I don’t think that being a mayor should have anything to do with politics. It should have to do with people getting things done for the right reason for their community.
Kevin Phillips: I would just reiterate to the readers that four years ago when I ran, I made a promise to everybody that I would provide active and engaged leadership. I’ve done everything I can to keep that promise, and as your next mayor I will continue to do that. One of the best things we can do as a mayor is actually being able to help people on a day-to-day basis, if there is a problem in the community, I can usually point someone in the right direction giving them that answer. Even if it’s the smallest thing, like about a trash can, at least you can help them out and make their day just a little bit better. If we do that [for] enough people, who knows what kind of world we could live in.
Being mayor isn’t technically a full-time job, but it is very time consuming. How will you balance your mayoral duties and your full-time job and family?
Joe Devito: Family is the easiest portion of this because I have grown children. They are in their 30s. I have a wife of 39 years who is supportive of what I’m dong and is retired and able to support me. To balance the time, what I did over the past four years was I gave up my personal time almost completely. Before I was mayor, you would have found me on a bicycle five to six days a week riding for many hours. Now I only ride once a week. If I have time because the rest of my free time is devoted to the Town of Port Royal.
As far as balancing with my full-time job, I do what needs to be done to balance both pieces of my life. My job is fully aware and very supportive of me running for this office and serving in this office. They think it’s a wonderful thing and a way to give back to the community and they do what is necessary. The team that I work with is also aware. They know my schedule and they are ready to step in at any point in time to cover for me if it’s needed.
I have never missed a Council meeting because of my job. The only Council meeting that I did ever miss was because of my mom’s funeral, and I actually tried to attend that meeting but the internet wasn’t strong enough for me to be able to do it remotely. I have done one or two remote workshops because I was out of town but I’ve never missed a Council meeting. So the bottom line is, in today’s world there are many ways to do the job.
The job is not about a single person, the job is about a five-member council. I do not want to be the only one who goes to meetings because the rest of Council needs to know what is happening around the community and what is going on. The Mayor Pro Tem seat is a very important seat and they need to be able to step in when necessary. I’ve had two great Mayor Pro Tems over the years, both have done exactly what’s asked of them. My job is a demanding job, which most people’s are, but it does not affect my ability to do my job as the Mayor of Port Royal.
Kevin Phillips: I’ve been doing it for four years; I don’t plan on changing much. Like I said, I’ve never missed a single meeting or a single event. I’m at everything. If there is something that the City of Beaufort’s council is talking about that affects Port Royal, I go to their council meetings. If something is on the agenda with the county, I go to their meetings. If you ask the people in those chambers who they see the most at their meetings, I’m sure my name would come up. I’m just going to continue doing what I’ve been doing.
Beaufort’s mayor resigned, in part, due to the harsh and constant criticism that he was receiving in his position as mayor and his concern about how it was affecting his job in the community and his family. How do you plan to navigate this aspect of being involved in local politics?
Joe DeVito: I have been a public servant now for 36 years, and criticism toward what you do has been part of my life since the first time I entered public service. It is something that is going to happen. It hurts every time it does happen. It hurts when your family is drawn into that, but you have to stop and take a step back and look at where it’s coming from and why.
I will always work with those people, try to understand what or where it is they think I, the Council or town have failed and try to relieve the tension as much as possible. I believe ultimately that it is conversation and discussion that bring civility, and civility is what is needed when you’re doing this type of job. You have to respect everybody’s opinion – mine, theirs and everybody’s. We can disagree without arguing and ultimately we all need to remember that we are looking for what is best for the Town of Port Royal.
Kevin Phillips: The thing is, in my job as an attorney, I’m in confrontational environments all the time. It doesn’t concern me. I really believe we can disagree without being disagreeable. I’ve got pretty thick skin. This will be my second campaign running against incumbents, so as you can imagine not everyone is super nice about it. Every day, I deal with adversarial relationships and people not happy with you, especially as an attorney. You’re constantly just dealing with chaos and negative things.
No one ever calls their lawyer with good news, it’s always bad stuff. That’s the world I’m comfortable in. Also, I know that I’m doing the right thing, voting my conscious, working hard – it doesn’t really matter what people say as long as you can look yourself in the mirror and know that you’re doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Delayna Earley lives in Beaufort with her husband, two children and Jack Russell. She 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.
