The Candidates’ Forum at the Bluffton Town Hall

On October 27,  Candidates for Mayor and Bluffton Town Council participated in a forum at Bluffton’s

Town Hall to answer written questions from the public.  The forum was sponsored by the League of Women’s Voters of the Bluffton Area, the Hilton Head Island Chamber of Commerce and Bluffton Today.   The forum was moderated by Joan Kinne-Shulman, President of the Leagure of Women Voters of Hilton Head Island.  Ms. Kinne-Shulman said: “The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan political organization.  It encourages informed and active participation in government; works to increase understanding of major public policy issues and influences public policy decisions through education and advocacy.  Any person of voting age, male or female, may become a League Member.  We do not support or oppose any cadidate for any polical office or any political party.”

The two candidates running to be Mayor of Bluffton are Lisa Sulka and Charlie Wetmore.  Both are current Members of the Bluffton Town Council.  Four candidates are running for two Bluffton Town Council seats:  Jeff Fulgham, Fred Hamilton, Jr, Allyne Mitchell and Normand ‘Gus’ Thomas.  Fred Hamilton, Jr. currently serves on the Town Council and seeks re-election.

Opening Statements of the Candidates

The order of the opening statements of the candidates was chosen by drawing cards.  The statements were limited to two minutes.

Norman ‘Gus’ Thomas:  “My name is Normand E. Thomas.  I am running for Council.   Most people know me by Gus however on the ballot I will only appear as Normand E. Thomas.  I am a Candidate for Town Council because I believe that we should get involved in our local governments.  Why should you vote for me?  I’m hoping later on this evening that the points will come up - I don’t have a lot of time here - so I’m going to move on.  I am married to my wife Mary who is in the audience for 48 years and we live in Hampton Hall.  We have been here for five years.  In that time I have been involved with the Chamber of Commerce, the American Red Cross, the Bluffton Men’s Club, the Bluffton Historical Society and I have run for office before since I’ve been here.  So, I’ve been involved in the community, hope to stay involved in the community and hope to be more involved as a Town Councillor.”

Allyne Mitchell:  “My name is Allyne Mitchell and I am hoping that you will elect me as your next Town Councilperson.  I am a native of Bluffton, South Carolina and I was born and raised in Bluffton.  I am excited about representing you because I have volunteered a lot of time here in the town, being on the Planning Commission and other Boards and I know that in order for us to take Bluffton into the next century that we need people who are not going to be biased but to look out for everyone’s best needs.  I am single.  My Mother is Florence Scott and my Grandmother, Mary Smith is 96 years young and I hoped that that they could be here tonight but because of illness, they could not be here.  But, I know that I have a lot of support out there and as we go along, you will get to learn a lot more about me.”

Jeff Fulgham:  “I’ll go quickly over my objectives if elected and I’ll go over my qualifications.  I have lived in Bluffton my entire life and obviously I love my home town.  I served eleven years in the Military.  Most of that time has been active duty.  I am currently a Staff Sargeant in the Army National Guard.  I serve part-time.  I am also a former small business owner.  My military education includes graduation from Naval Financial Disbursing School in Meridian Mississippi.  and went on and worked in Navy finance for three years.  I then graduated from the Army’s Primary Professional Development Course.  I later went on to school at the American Military University and I have completed two years there.  I’ve studied government related studies.  I’ve got a 3.37 GPA and recently I went back to school to finish up my BA online at American Military University.  First and foremost, I’m a conservative and if elected, I would like to trim the budget, cut spending and lower the municipal millige rate on taxes and I would like to cut the budget even more so than recommended by the Town Manager recently.   My second goal is to wisely manage our growth in Bluffton by utilizing what is called the sustainability strategy which is a balancing act, basically between on the one hand, economic development and on the other hand, protecting your environmental resources and your cultural resources.  I want to continue to protect our environment, including the Maye River, the headwaters of the Colleton and Okatie, since we have now annexed them in, and also the wetlands in between.  And, I’d like to bring up the discussion of public safety.  It’s the highest priority of local government service offered and we need to discuss it more to help out.”  

Lisa Sulka:  “I’m Lisa Sulka.  I’m running for the office of Mayor.  And, a little bit about myself:  I’m married to John Sulka.  We’ve been married for 26 years.  We have three children.  One is a freshman in college  We have two children in Bluffton High School.  I’ve been on Town Council for four years.  I was honored to be elected by my Council Members to be Mayor Pro Tem which was for the past two years.  I want to be your Mayor.  I feel like I have the experience from sitting on Council and from my years of living in this town to help the needs of the people, the people who have lived here all of their lives and the new people who have recently joined our Town.  I live in the old town but my livlihood comes from the new Town.  So, if you want to separate it, I think that I have the ability to help everyone, no matter where they live.  I want to thank the Bluffton Today.  I guess I should have done that first - right off.  I want to thank the League of Women Voters and also the Chamber for doing this.  I like seeing young faces.  I see four from USC Beaufort that are here.  It will be nice that when they graduate that they will want to come back to this town.  So we need to work on economic development, to make sure that these kids can come back to the town.  I think that we need to work on our budget.  Our Council, presently working with our Town Manager is starting to tackle that and I think that that’s a job that we need to keep looking into.   We need to work on roadway improvements and drainage in areas that will connect our whole town.  Those are some of the things that I’ll bring up tonight.  Thank you again for being here.  I would ask you for your vote.”

Fred Hamilton, Jr:  “Good evening.  I’m Fred Hamilton, seeking to be re-elected for the office that I presently serve on Town Council.  I would like to thank you for the three years that I have served.  I hope that I have served you proudly.  I have tried to be an advocate for the community, the citizens and to be a bridge between us and developers.  I feel like there is a lot that I have accomplished in just three years but of course, being on the Town Council is a learning experience.  Any first-time person can understand that we can’t do anything unless we have good team leadership.  And, I think that I bring some leadership and balance to the present Council so that we can get things accomplished.  I’m a strong believer that no man can be a mountain by himself.  You can’t think that you can serve and do all of these things without having some kind of relationship with the people that you serve with - and I’ve done a good job of that.  I’ve lived in Bluffton all of my life and I have a vested interest in and I love this town and I would certainly appreciate your vote so that I can continue to represent all of you.  Thank you.”

Charlie Wetmore:  “My name is Charlie Wetmore and I am also running for Mayor.  I was born and raised in Rochester, New York.  I graduated with a degree in Business Administration from Rochester Institute of Technology.  I first visited this area about twenty years ago and I fell in love with the place and we moved here as soon as we could.   My wife and I had one child at that time.  We now have five children.  We live in the Buckwalter area.   Previously, we lived in the old town area.  Our five children go to the public schools on Buckwalter and they have the pleasure of walking back and forth there every day.  We have become an integral part of this town and absolutely love it.  I’m also a small business owner in this town.  As of about a year ago, I started my own small business: a screen printing company.  I am able to see some of the unique challenges and desires and needs that small business owners have in working with local government.  I feel that I bring that to the interpretation of how we should govern this town.  One of the things that I’ve done also on Council is I’ve taken advantage of training opportunities that have been presented to me.  I have sought to learn more about our waterways and how we need to keep our natural resources protected; Sought to learn more about our economic development bringing companies to this area.   I have four main points in my campaign:  Number one: I pledge to keep for you an efffective, an affordable and an accountable Town government.   Number two: I pledge to keep our natural resources that are so unique - I insist on having strong grass management practices for those natural resources.   Number three: I pledge to work hard to diversity and strengthen the economic base for all of our citizens.  And number four: I pledge to work hard, as I have for a unified Bluffton for all of our citizens because together, we can make Bluffton great.”

Jeff Fulgham	Fred Hamilton, Jr.	Allyne Mitchell	Normand Thomas

Questions and Answers

Written questions from the audience were submitted by Moderator Kinne-Shulman.   The candidates’ answers wwere limited to 25 seconds.  The questions addressed Issues about the Town budget, residential development and annexation, Bluffton’s natural environment, illegal immigration, jobs, the size of the Town Council, the candidates’ qualifications, their motives and goals.  The candidates’ answers showed substnatial agreement on the issues with the strong exception of Okatie Village annexation issue. 

The Okatie Village Annexation

Question:  “Please explain the annexation proposal for Okatie Village recently that Councilmen Hamilton and Sulka voted for that seemed to make no sense?”   

Mr. Hamilton:  “We did not vote “yes” for annexation.  We voted so that it could go to the development agreement committee.  So that they could massage it and see if it would work for Bluffton or not.   That was not a “yes” vote.  It was a vote that said to look at it and make sure that it fits the needs of Bluffton.  Don’t misunderstand what you sometimes read in the papers or in the blogs.” 

Ms. Sulka:  “I agree.  When that issue came up, it was a petition request from that entity to come into the town.  We did not ask for the annexation.  They come to the town.  By law we have to look at it and decide if we want staff to go into further inquiry about it.   It was purely to take the next step.  Most of that land is in our future annexation map.  To me, it was worth getting them to the table, to see if there was an ability to move forward.  What they wanted was not what we were going to give but we needed to get them to the table to see if we could benefit from their annexing it.  It was absolutely not to annex it into the town.  It was to take the next step.  Sadly, we will never know unless two other Council Members want to pursue it and have a change of heart.” 

Mr. Wetmore asked if he might comment on the question.  ”Since I voted on the other side of that issue, I’d like to respond to it as well.   I voted “no” to the annexation issue because it was so far off from what we have expressed in our comprehensive plan, our guidelines.  We were talking about taking a development that our County has approved for approximately 30-40 homes in the County and putting over 700 homes in it.  We were talking about a development that is two thirds on one side of the Okatie and the other third on the other side of the Okatie.  We were talking about a development that had six land owners and ten pieces of property that was very fractured.  Sometimes it’s not worth sending something, and wasting six months of our staff’s time and so that’s why I voted that way.” 

Residential Development and Safe Pathways

Question: ”What will you do to hold the School District and the Developers for putting in safe pathways, not only on their properties, but making them extend the pathways out into the communities that their new developments affect?”

Mr.  Fulgham:  “I would do exactly what Mayor Hank Johnson did and disapprove their plans until they would build them.   You can hire experts and engineers to plan, but you have to have the community to plan.  This is one of those examples.  We need to make sure that at the district level that that’s in thieir planning process before it gets to our point.  They need to build the pathway because if they don’t, we have to bus those students that are within 1.5 miles and do not have a safe route to school which is saving $1,900 per year because they have pathways now.  So, we need the people involved in the plannning process.” 

Mr. Hamilton:  “My suggestion is that the development agreement needs to be rewritten to make sure that the developers are at the table so that the people do not have to bear the burdon of the pathways alone.  When taxpayers give their committment to schools they are not agreeing to fund pathways and the developers should be held accountable to make sure that everybody has a piece of the pie”.  

Ms. Mitchell:  “The community should have been involved from the start.   The developer should meet with the community to get their imput.  Then they should go to the commission and say to the planning commission and say: This is what we need to do to make sure that our kids and our people are safe.  We have to be accountable to the community.”

(Editor’s note:  The rest of this article is from my hand written notes.)

Mr.Thomas:   “We need to negotiate with the School District as well as developers to get money for sidewalks.” 

The Most Important Issue Facing Bluffton

Question: ”What is the most important issue that the Town is facing and how would you fix it?

Mr. Wetmore: ”The economic downturn and how it has effected the Town’s budget; Our way of governing and our small businesses that are the backbone of the community.  In the last year and a half, over 250 businesses have not renewed their business licenses in Bluffton.  We need to find out why.  That affects Bluffton’s income.  It effects us.  It effects small business.  We need to find out why, trim the budget and look for savings in any way that we can.  This is the most important thing facing the Town today.”

Mr. Thomas: “There are quite a few issues facing the Town of Bluffton.  The most important thing facing the Town is to protect the Rivers: The Maye, the Okatie, the Colleton.  It’s going to protect the trees.  It’s going to protect what is unique about Bluffton.  I think that the most important thing in Bluffton is to make sure that everybody in Bluffton is represented.   And I don’t think that that is currently the case all of the time with the Town Council that we already have.  If people are not all represented then you are not going to have the input of all of the town as it progresses into the future.” 

Ms. Hamilton: “Our budget.  We have a 1.6 million deficit in the budget and we must prioritize our capital improvements.   We do not want to raise taxes now.”

Mr. Fulgham:  “Our budget has a 12.5% budget shortfall.  I was the first to suggest a pay raise cap.  I would also like to see a property tax cut with a millage reduction from 40 to 38.   I believe that we must protect the Maye River, the marshlands and the headwaters in between.”

 Why Should You Be Elected?

Mr. Hamilton: ”So that the Town can benefit from the experience I have gained during my last three years on Council.”

Ms. Mitchell:  “My background is in banking.  I know how important good communication and customer service can be.  I will do due diligence for the community.”

Ms. Sulka:  “My daughter just left for Clemson University and I want jobs for her shen she comes back.  I feel strongly about crime issues and our Police force.  My house was broken into during recent months and I learned first hand about our outstanding police force.  Another issue that I feel strongly about is controling storm water.”

Mr. Thomas:  “My education, work experience and training.  Nobody loves Bluffton more than me.”

Mr. Wetmore:  “I have the time to do the job because I am a small business owner.  I believe that I am the only person who has taken training to protect our environment that has been offered.”

Mr. Fulgham:  “My experience in Iraq.  I have studied government .  I’m well rounded and I understand the issues.”

Affordable Housing 

Ms. Mitchell:  “It’s important to define the price for affordability.”

Mr. Wetmore:  “I played a role in limiting building density in the Willow Run tract.”

Mr. Fulgham:  “Give developers a break to encourage affordability.”

Illegal Aliens and the Job Market

Mr. Fulgham:  “Immigration may be a national issue but public safety is a local responsibility.   Regarding jobs, I advocate an 8% cap on pay raises for public employees.” 

Mr. Hamilton:  “All contracts with the Town should be with companies that have legal employees.”

How to Combat the Financial Slump

Question: “Can you make the hard decisions that must be made to combat the financial slump? ” 

Mr. Thomas:  “I have worked with multimillion dollar budgets.”

Mr. Wetmore:  “I have the strength to cut budgets.”

Mr. Fulgham:  “I was the first to advocate pay freezes and caps on pay raises.  There is always waste in government.  I’m a conservative and a small business owner”.

Ms. Mitchell:  ”We should see how we can consolidate jobs and cut employees’ work hours.  We have to be serious about cutting spending”.

The Candidate’s Best Personal Quality for Service

Question: What is the single most important characteristic for public service?

Mr. Thomas: “Honesty.”

Mr. Wetmore: “Integrity.  Say what you do and do what you say.” 

Mr. Fulgham: ”Core values.  Duty, service and integrity in handling people’s money.”

Ms. Micthell:  “I will wear the brand: We the people.  Integrity, honesty and communication for everybody.” 

Ms. Sulka: “Core values: honesty, integrity, respect and trust that we are looking out for others.”

The Candidates’ Closing Statements

Mr. Wetmore:  “I will work hard and smart on the promises that I made in my opening remarks:  One: I’ll keep our town governement effective, affordable and accountable.  Two: I’ll protect the natural resources that make us unique by insisting on strong Best Management Practices.  Three: I’ll work hard to strengthen and diversify our economic base for all of our citizens.  And four: I’ will work for a unified Bluffton to make Bluffton great.”

Mr. Hamilton:  “I have never missed a single Town Council meeting in the three years that I have served.  I will work for the people.  Bluffton has been my home for 49 years and my family grew up here.  I have a vested interest in Bluffton.”

Ms. Sulka: “I love the Town - new residents and old.  I have lived here for sixteen years and I grew up in the State.  I have been on Town Council for four years and have strong connections with other leaders in the area.”

Mr. Fulgham: “American government is the most complicated system on earth.  I am the most qualified candidate to make sure that our government is efficient and proper.” 

Ms. Mitchell: “I have always been involved in this community.  I believe in communication.  I believe in good customer service and this comes from my banking background.  I will serve to the best of my ability with the new Town Council and the new Mayor. “

Mr. Thomas: “I am best qualified because of my training, education and experience.  I am retired and I have the time to do the job  - and my wife wants me out of the house!”

The Election Update on November 5, 2008

For the Results of this election, see Election Day on Hilton Head Island and in Bluffton, 2008.

Richard Kadesch, Owner and Broker-in-Charge The Gated Community Specialist ® Go Gated Realty ® Hilton Head Island, South Carolina Rich@gogated.com www.GoGated.com 1-800-333-5025 Read Some of My Clients’ Success Stories

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