Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023
Good morning! In this week’s Soundings, we examine the Savannah mayoral race, looking first at the incumbent Van Johnson, then at the candidates’ views on a crucial campaign issue: public security. We continue with a update on the controversy over the recent rezoning of Sapelo Island and end with the two candidates for an at-large seat on the Savannah City Council wielding Bible verses at last week’s Savannah Convention Center forum.
Taking too much for granted?
With seven weeks until Savannah’s municipal elections, worry is setting in among some of Mayor Van Johnson’s friends and donors that he’s taking too much for granted in his bid for re-election.
He’s the incumbent. He has friends in high places. And thanks to the support of Savannah’s white business establishment, he enjoys a huge advantage in fundraising over his opponents on the ballot, Alderwoman Kesha Gibson-Carter (Post 1, At-Large) and Tyrisha Davis.
But those advantages also can be liabilities in Coastal Georgia’s largest city, where another metric holds even more influence. Here, elections are family and neighborhood affairs — “who’s got your back and who doesn’t,” as one longtime state political operative and Johnson supporter says.
It’s this area of traditional, retail politics where Johnson appears weakest — a vulnerability that his chief rival, Gibson-Carter, is exploiting, The Current’s Craig Nelson reports.
Savannah mayoral candidates talk public security
Gun violence. Police shortages. Crime and the perception of crime: The Current’s public safety reporter, Jake Shore, asked Savannah’s three mayoral candidates — Kesha Gibson-Carter, Van Johnson, Tyrisha Davis — for their views on these and other public security issues.
Davis has yet to reply to Shore’s questions, but the race’s frontrunners — the incumbent Johnson and Post 1, At-Large Alderwoman Gibson-Carter had plenty to say.
A taste: Johnson says public safety in Savannah has improved during this tenure, thanks to what he calls “a whole community approach,” which includes addressing the problems of mental and behavioral health, as well as substance abuse and homelessness.
Gibson-Carter has a far starker view: “The only change between this administration and the last administration is that we have more poverty, more crime, more forced displacement, and more homelessness.”
For Shore’s important Q&A with Johnson and Gibson-Carter, click here.
‘Brutal’ attack
During deliberations by McIntosh County officials this month that led to controversial zoning changes on Sapelo Island, Sheriff Stephen Jessup banned cell phones and recording devices from citizens and reporters attending the hearings at the county courthouse, in apparent violation of state laws on public meetings.
The Current protested to Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, and county attorney Ad Poppell responded by saying that the McIntosh County sheriff was within his rights to act in this manner. His reason: a “brutal” attack on one the chairman of the board of commissioners back in March 2022.
Yet, it’s unclear what that attack Poppell referred to in a reply to the attorney general has to do with limiting public access to decisions made about the historic Black Sapelo community.
That incident occurred not at an official county meeting or at the courthouse — whose security the sheriff oversees — but at a bar. The combatants? County Commission Chairman David Stephens and the husband of a woman who ran and lost against Stephens, The Current’s Margaret Coker writes.
The commission is now searching for a new site to hold public meetings, a move made in response to the formal complaint by The Current.
Meanwhile, residents of Hogg Hummock, descendants of slaves emancipated from Sapelo Island’s plantations, are mustering to try to reverse the new zoning regulations. They see the regulations as the outcome of a backdoor deal aimed at gentrifying the tight-knit community nestled amid the state-protected nature preserve of the island.
Peacemakers or table-tossers?
It isn’t everyday that political candidates cite scripture, but that’s what happened last week when the two candidates in the most closely watched of Savannah City Council races — incumbent Alicia Miller Blakely and challenger Patrick Rossiter — took the stage at the Savannah Convention Center.
First, the background: Blakely (Post 2, At-Large) is a member of a minority bloc on the council that has fought bitterly in the past several years with the council’s majority, led by Mayor Van Johnson. Blakely and other members of the minority bloc, Kesha Gibson-Carter (Post 1, At-Large) and Bernetta Lanier (District 1), contend that the council’s majority have blocked them from getting their issues on the council’s agenda.
At the forum on Thursday, Rossiter, who boasts the support of Johnson, Savannah-Chatham County School Board president Roger Moss, and former Savannah mayors Edna Jackson, Otis Johnson and Eddie DeLoach, again made clear his main reason for running against Blakely for her at-large council seat: He’s fed up with the council’s current conduct and the melodrama and political theatrics that have seen it become in the eyes of many a laughingstock and a civic embarrassment.
It’s then that the Bible quoting began.
Citing Matthew 21: 12-17, Blakely spoke of Jesus entering the temple and overturning the tables of the moneychangers because of their corruption, then drew this analogy: “That’s no more than what we’re doing downtown — letting individuals know what’s going on with their tax dollars and what’s happening under that gold dome.”
Not to be outdone, Rossiter turned to Matthew 5 and the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the peacemakers for this is the Kingdom of Heaven.” He went on: “I believe there is a lot more to be said about making peace than . . . the other stuff.”
The forum’s moderator, WSAV’s Tina Tyus-Shaw gave Blakely the last word: “When you have barriers put up against you, where you can’t even get items on the agenda, then you have to say things, you have to rattle the applecart. You have to speak up and speak loud. We’re here in America.”
Candidates for the Post 1, At-Large council seat — Carol Bell, Jason Leslie Combs, Roshida Edwards, Curtis Singleton, Marc Anthony Smith, Tony Thomas, Clinton Young — also shared their views at the forum, which was sponsored by the Tourism Leadership Council, the Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce, the Savannah Downtown Business Association and WSAV-TV.
For videos of both debates, click here.
Is Van Johnson’s re-election a slam dunk?
With seven weeks until Savannah’s municipal elections, worry is setting in among some of Mayor Van Johnson’s friends and donors that he’s taking too much for granted in his bid for re-election. He’s the incumbent. He has friends in high places. And thanks to the support of Savannah’s white business establishment, he enjoys a huge advantage in fundraising over his opponents on the ballot, Alderwoman Kesha […]
McIntosh officials respond to complaints of open meetings violations, cite safety concerns
Over the last two weeks, the county has worked to tamp down perceptions that they have violated Georgia law about public meetings amid community outrage and the potential of further lawsuits.
Savannah’s would-be leaders take stands on public safety
Savannah mayoral candidates Mayor Van Johnson and Alderwoman Kesha Gibson-Carter express their views and plans for public safety and policing should they win November’s heated city election.
Is public education dead or just redefined? Author Cara Fitzpatrick on the history of school choice.
Author discusses the early history of school vouchers that started with resistance to desegregation; the more progressive arguments for school choice; choice advocates’ recent focus on culture war issues; and how the title of her book could be true when most students still attend a public school.
Georgia Supreme Court declares revenue from COAM leases exempt from taxes
State argued the Georgia law exempting coin-operated machines from taxes only applies to income generated from the customers who play the games. Both the Fulton County Superior Court and, subsequently, the Georgia Court of Appeals, ruled against the state, declaring lease income from COAMs also is tax-exempt.
Manufacturers defend Georgia tax incentives
Opponents say lower tax taxes may be better incentives than credits, hwile others say exemption is necessary for large projects.
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