The Most Important Vote You Will Cast This Year

Only residents of West Ashley will get to vote on the most important local race on the Nov. 8th ballot — and even then, not every resident of West Ashley.
Democrat Ruth Jordan and Republican Brantley Moody’s campaigns to take over Colleen Condon’s former Dist. 7 spot on County Council could shape local government for years to come.
And the election could decide how long Elliot Summey can hold onto his chairmanship of Council, which could be in charge of a $2 billion infusion for infrastructure projects, like completing Interstate 526, if a half-cent sales tax referendum passes.
Summey’s top spot has become threatened after a year-old recording was recently made public of him harshly criticizing his political colleagues and taking a seemingly opposite position on finishing I-526.
If the winner is Moody, whose late brother served with Jordan on the School Board and whose dad sits on City Council, it will become Republican-dominated for the first time since it went to single-member districts.
First, a geography reminder — Dist. 7 runs to the north from where Highway 17 makes landfall in West Ashley, and along the river to just past the historic Old St. Andrew’s Parish Episcopal Church has sat since 1706.
It picks up at the Folly Road drawbridge over the Wappoo Cut and roughly follows the waterways along the backside of “inner” West Ashley back up to the Ashley River.
Gibbs Knotts, chair of the Political Science department at the College of Charleston, said last week that he doesn’t think the expected tight race between Jordan and Moody to be an indicator of Charleston becoming a more of a Republican stronghold.
Under the 40-year tenure of longtime mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr., Charleston remained a distinct “blue” donut hole in a state that was becoming increasingly crimson red. “I think that if it was going to happen, it would have already happened,” Knotts said.
Charleston County, Knotts noted, has set itself politically apart from other areas of the Republican’s “solid South,” by nurturing a more dynamic political landscape which forces Democrats and Republicans to work together. “It’s refreshing,” Knotts said.
Knotts downplayed the partisanship of Council, pointing out that while Democrats hold a 5-4 numerical advantage, its members still elected Summey, a Republican for the past four years, as its chairman.
As such, Knotts echoed comments from other observers and combatants that power is found in coalitions on County Council by the issue, versus by the party line.
Knotts added that the election further cements West Ashley’s political clout. “It makes sense that the pendulum has swung back here, and for West Ashley to benefit from all the growth the suburban areas around Charleston has enjoyed.”
Both Jordan and Moody want that pendulum to stay swinging in West Ashley’s favor.
Jordan lists trust, traffic, and constituent services as her top three planks in her campaign. Summey’s latest gaffe, she said, does not engender trust among council-members, much less in the public.
Jordan is a supporter of both the completion of the I-526 extension and the creation of a bike and pedestrian lane over the Ashley River bridges. But first, both city and county councils need to be on the same page, which she said goes back to trust.
And while Jordan praised the creation of satellite county offices delivering services throughout the county, she said more needs to be done to augment the county’s online presence and its recycling efforts.
Looking in from the “outside,” Jordan, presumably well versed in political backbiting from her time on the School Board, said she is displeased with Summey’s recent actions and language, saying he’s not been operating as an effective chair.
Like Jordan, Moody is a supporter of completing I-526, but unlike her, declined to comment on a possible compromise that would run the inner-belt onto a terminus on Johns Island.
But, unlike Jordan, he’s opposed to the bike/pedestrian lane, saying it is “hogwash” that it doesn’t make sense to slow traffic for 30,000 cars a day for the sake of a handful of bikers.
Next for Moody is focusing on the beautification and upfit of the Sam Rittenberg commercial corridor, stretching from Citadel Mall down to the Northbridge Park.
Moody was cagier than Jordan on the issue of Summey’s reign, only saying that he thought businessman and Councilman Herb Sass would make a fine chairman.