Folly election results stun residents
By now everyone knows the results of the Folly Beach elections: Tim Goodwin is our new Mayor and Paul Hume and Pennell Clamp won City Council seats; Laura Beck and Susan Breslin will compete on April 20 for the third open seat. (Italics)
Mayor’s race
Folly Beach elections are hotly contested and the vote is usually close. More often than not, there is a run-off election for Mayor. Most Folly voters were expecting another run-off this year with few folks willing to put money on which candidates would be battling it out for two more weeks.
But in a surprising result, when Folly voters went to the polls on April 6 the mayor’s race wasn’t even close. Tim Goodwin received a whopping 56% of the votes in a three-man race and will be sworn in as the new Mayor of Folly Beach on April 13.
Former Mayor Vernon Knox said he was “not surprised” that Goodwin won, but he was expecting a run-off between Goodwin and Councilman Eddie Ellis. “This is the first election for Mayor since 1983 in which there has not been a run-off,” Knox said. “I was talking to Tim at the polling place and we laughed and he said ‘See you in two weeks.’ Nobody expected anyone to win outright.”
Wallace Benson has been in three run-off elections for Mayor – twice against Bob Linville and once against Knox. Benson did not win any of these elections although he served five terms on City Council and was Director of Public Safety for five years.
“I’m shocked that Tim went straight in,” Benson said. “But I’m not surprised that Carl didn’t do well. He spent four years being arrogant and that doesn’t set well with Folly voters. He doesn’t have my sympathy.”
Knox said he felt incumbent Mayor Carl Beckmann “shot himself in the foot” by not attending a scheduled “Meet the Candidates” night held by the Folly Beach Civic Club. Beckmann was attending a National League of Cities meeting in Washington, D.C., but Knox said that when he had faced a run-off against Benson he passed up a free trip to Paris that had been scheduled for some time to stay home and campaign. “You cannot win unless you stand up there and face the voters,” he said.
But Beckmann’s problems began long before that. Personality conflicts between Beckmann and several Council members escalated to the point that it was necessary to hire a mediator to conduct Council meetings. He was openly accused at Council meetings on public record of withholding information from Council, staff, and residents. It seemed to many people that because he couldn’t get along with Council, he decided to disregard their input and govern as King rather than Mayor.
Beckmann believed to the end that he would be reelected. “It could be that some people didn’t agree with my management style,” Beckman said, “but I think I did a good job as Mayor.” Beckmann said being mayor is a much more complex and difficult job than most people realize. “Evidently people think Tim can do a better job than me, so let him go at it,” Beckmann said. “All I can say to him is ‘good luck.’ He’s going to need it.”
City Council race
Knox said run-off elections are less common for Council seats. He said seven candidates running for three seats is “about normal” and he remembered years when there were as few as four and as many as nine candidates for the three seats that come up for reelection every four years. Benson said he never faced a run-off in his five races for Council.
Bob Clair, chairman of the Folly Beach Election Commission described the complicated process used to determine if a candidate has won a Council seat outright. “Take the total number of votes cast and divide by three (the number of seats), divide that number by two (50%) and add one.”
Candidates Paul Hume and Pennell Clamp survived the math, with Susan Breslin missing the mark by less than a dozen votes and Laura Beck trailing Breslin by just nine votes. Breslin and Beck will square off on April 20 and the one who receives the most votes will fill the third vacant Council seat.
“Thank you Folly Beach,” Hume said. “I’ll do my very best for you.”
“I’m very happy,” Clamp said, “and I’m ready to serve all the people of Folly Beach. Am I surprised? Yes, but I ran a good, clean campaign. I tell it like it is.”
Beck and Breslin have two more weeks of campaigning ahead of them. Lavern James, former Mayor and chairman of the Folly Beach Election Commission for many years, said turnout for a run-off election is historically low, so the candidates will have to work hard to get out the vote.
Special election
A Special Election will determine who will fill the seat held by Goodwin at the time he was elected Mayor. It’s back to square one for this election, and Folly may see some new faces and some different names on the signs that line the causeway. According to Marilyn Bowers, executive director of the Charleston County Board of Election, filing for the Special Election will begin on April 30 and last for ten days, ending on May 10. The election will take place on the 13th Tuesday following the swearing in of the new Mayor and Council members on April 13 which, according to my calculations, is July 13. The winner of this race will serve out the remaining two years of Goodwin’s term.
