Mayoral Candidate Forum: A Transcript

Posted: October 24, 2023

On Monday, October 23, 2023, Historic Charleston Foundation hosted a Mayoral Candidate Forum with all six candidates in the Mayoral race for the City of Charleston. Moderated by Christian Senger, Editor and Founder of Holy City Sinner, the intent of the forum was to bring community members together to hear each of the mayoral candidates discuss their vision for our city’s opportunities and challenges through the lens of preservation, livability, and climate resilience.

Topics covered included: flooding and sea level rise, development, land use planning, tourism management, and affordable housing. 

To read the full transcript from the Mayoral Candidate Forum, click the link below to download a PDF.

Mayoral Candidate Forum TRANSCRIPT

Audio was transcribed from the audio file below, using Adobe software. Please note, transcription errors are possible so please listen to the audio if you have any questions about the transcribed file. Special thanks to Christian Senger with Holy City Sinner for moderating this panel. Visit HolyCitySinner.com to read more from Christian.

2 responses to “Mayoral Candidate Forum: A Transcript”

1. Jackie Morfesis says:

   October 27, 2023 at 10:52 am

   This was a very informative and enjoyable event. Much appreciation! However, of the six questions asked to all the candidates, not one question focused on the statues, monuments and historical markers, that have been a part of the fabric and history of Charleston for decades if not centuries. Many question were posed that touched upon the architecture of Charleston, affordable housing, and equity concerns. But not one question focused on the dismantling, removal, and also subsequent vandalism of statues and monuments in the past few years.
   This would have been a very thoughtful and appropriate question, given your mission statement of “preservation” and “advocacy.” Having spent years overseas, visiting and living, in countries layered in thousands of years of civilization, whose architecture and statues and monuments speak to a different era and time, education is key and vital to our communities.
   Why did you not include one question focusing on this topic when you included several that circled back to the architecture and housing in Charleston? With all due respect, your organization missed an opportunity. You not only missed an opportunity, you, for me, failed in your mission statement.

   Reply
   • Liza Holian says:

     October 31, 2023 at 10:58 am

     Thank you for attending the forum and for taking the time to provide your feedback. With 6 candidates and a hour and a half of program time, we were limited in the number of questions we were able to ask of the candidates. We worked very hard to develop a list of questions that focused on some of the most acute issues Charleston faces, that are timely with current issues being considered by City Council, and also reflected the input that we received from the community for topics in which there was the most interest. Ultimately we only had the time to choose six questions. The issue of monuments was not one that came up in any of the community feedback. Like you, we wish that there had been more time and ability to cover a myriad of other topics, and we are grateful for the feedback.

     Reply