By Graham Trask
The upcoming Nov. 3, 2026 Beaufort city council election stands as a clear referendum on fixing our broken Beaufort. Fixing what’s broken starts by getting the right people in the right seats at the top. The top is our five-member City Council.
Our current city council is plagued by a lack of leadership and characterized by council members who make mediocre policy decisions with one exception: current council member, Josh Scallate. We need to change this!
Two City Council seats are up for grabs on Nov. 3, 2026. Four candidates are currently vying for those two seats with Josh Scallate running for re-election as one of those four candidates. We as Beaufortonians must re-elect Josh!
Josh believes our city government should focus on three basics: 1) ensuring strong public safety; 2) running city government as fiscally tight as possible, which includes taking a critical look at why the city spends what it does; and 3) maintaining our core city-owned infrastructure and a corollary, which is to sell non-core city assets.
Josh does his homework by reading council’s agenda packs and arriving prepared. Josh takes informed positions on difficult issues and articulates publicly why he believes as he does. Josh successfully achieved a $300,000 reduction in city spending in this past year’s budget as his first step in broader spending cuts. All cuts are designed to ensure our city government adds as much value as possible and saves taxpayers money all resulting in Beaufort becoming more affordable.
Josh has pushed to direct as much funding as possible from the city’s coffers to the refurbishment of the Waterfront Park. Josh has advocated the defunding of the city’s continued payments to the ineffective Beaufort County Economic Development Corporation.
We need another strong City Council candidate, however. Grady Woods fits the bill. Grady is running for an initial term, but Grady’s experience in municipal government is unrivaled among the four candidates.
Grady is a nephew of Richard V. Woods, for which Beaufort’s historic swing bridge is named and who was killed in the line of duty. Grady served on Ridgeland’s city council for 18 years before he and his wife moved to the city of Beaufort.
Most recently, Grady has served almost 3 years on the city of Beaufort’s Historic District Review Board (HDRB). Grady is an architect by profession and clearly understands the value of maintaining Beaufort’s character and livability in the face of growth and development pressures. Grady is a staunch fiscal conservative and committed to examining critically our city’s budget.
Electing Josh Scallate and Grady Woods for the two Beaufort city council seats is a key first step in fixing our city of Beaufort. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity!
Graham B. Trask grew up in Beaufort and continues to be a resident of Beaufort. He owns a home in Beaufort’s landmark historic district. He also owns several businesses as well as residential and commercial real estate located throughout the City of Beaufort and specifically in the historic district. He adds value to almost 50 different resident business owner tenants to help them grow their enterprises. He is also the president of Protect Beaufort Foundation, Inc., and Beautiful Beaufort Open Land Trust. Contact him at Graham@grahamtrask.com.