Mount Pleasant Magazine Jan/Feb2016

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Mount Pleasant’s borrowing costs.
“There’s no way they can improve on what we’ve done,”
said Glasson. “Show us an area where we can improve.
They’ll undo a lot of what we did. In time, they’ll realize
the things we did helped the town.”
O’Neal, who served on the Council for four years and
earned a spot in the runoff before finishing third to Owens
and Haney, said he was disappointed but not upset about
his loss.
“I don’t know anything I could have done,” he
remarked. “Elections are interesting things, and this one
had interesting results. I don’t think anyone can say I didn’t
do a good job.”
Though the construction of an office building/parking
garage at Mill
Street and Coleman
Boulevard provided
the impetus for the
creation of Save
Shem Creek, for all
practical purposes,
the election was
framed as a battle
about growth: a
fight among those
who wanted to use
the gas pedal and
those who favored
the brakes. That, at
least, was the word
Mount Pleasant’s voters seemed to hear, though neither
side would admit to intentionally sending that message.
“The board members of Save Shem Creek are not
against growth,” Bagwell insisted. “It’s a myth that we are
opposed to growth. We want sensible growth.”
“We needed to go forward with a sense of responsible
growth, not urgent growth,” said Owens, a founding
member of Save Shem Creek. He resigned from the board
of the organization before taking the Council oath of office.
“The issue was growth and all that accompanies
growth,” Haney pointed out. “But we’ll go with what is
prudent. We’re not talking about drastic measures.”
Neither Glasson, O’Neal nor Nickels ruled out the
possibility of returning to the political arena sometime in
the future.
“I enjoy it. People have asked me why I run for office.
What keeps me going is that the little guy needs help,”
Glasson said.
“The race has to be right and the time has to be right,”
O’Neal said. “I don’t see the results of this election as an
indictment of the job I did.”
Nickels also was optimistic about his political future.
“I feel like I have
something to offer,” he
said. “I feel like there
will be opportunities
in the future, and,
if an opportunity
presents itself, I’ll take
a long, hard look at it.
For now, I am going
to support my new
Council. I’m going
to pay attention to
what they’re doing. I’ll
be a cheerleader for
the town of Mount
Pleasant.”
And, taking one more stab at explaining why Mount
Pleasant’s voters sent three incumbents packing, he
commented: “When you look back on this election, you’ll
see that 6,000 people were really motivated by believing,
legitimately or not, that their town government was
allowing unfettered growth. The Save Shem Creek political
movement did a great job of collecting information and
putting together a slate of candidates.”
“I enjoy it. People have asked me why I
run for office. What keeps me going is
that the little guy needs help.”
- Former Councilman Ken Glasson
“I don’t know anything I could have done.
Elections are interesting things, and this
one had interesting results.”
- Former Councilman Chris O’Neal
Chris Nickels Chris O’Neal