Staff Writer

Everett Leigh says the performance by candidates at Thursday's forum was so unimpressive it persuaded him to run for mayor.

Five of the nine declared candidates participated in the forum. Leigh, who was among the roughly 100 people attending, said he went there hoping to hear something that would convince him to vote for one of the candidates. He said that neither the five candidates participating in the forum nor the other four running for mayor have convinced him that they could provide the leadership he feels Union needs over the next four years.

“Union needs civic-minded leadership,” he said. “I looked at the field of candidates and I did not find another candidate I could personally vote for so I decided to run. As my mom used to say, if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem.”

A Charleston native who has lived in Union since 1982, Leigh said Union needs leadership that will restore confidence and a spirit of cooperation that will enable the city to move forward and again play a constructive role in Union County. He said his involvement with a variety of civic and business organizations has given him the experience and knowledge to do that.

“Over the past 25 years I've tried to give something back to the community to make it better,” he said. “Because of my involvement with the hospital board and the area agency on aging, the Chamber of Commerce or the PTA, I know that we have to develop a plan for the future. I've been honored to be named small businessman of the year and volunteer of the year by the Chamber; that shows my ability to bring people together to achieve goals.”

One of those goals would be linking the water and sewer systems along the U.S. 176 Corridor, something he said should have been done 15 years ago. Given the extent of its utility system, Union has the ability to create an extremely positive business environment that would benefit the whole county, Leigh said. He pointed out that whenever there is a major project requiring utilities, Union County and its communities often seek assistance from the city.

Leigh said he wants to move past divisions like the ones which prevented linking the water and sewer systems. He wants Union to use its assets and build a positive business climate in cooperation with other agencies to promote economic development that will bring needed jobs to the city and the county.

Regardless of who becomes Union's next mayor, Leigh said, he believes the city's system of government will be changed to reduce the power of the mayor. Union is under the strong mayor system, but he said there is already an effort underway to change it back to the council system. He said the change should also include hiring an administrator, though not at the current salary of nearly $100,000 a year.

“Because of the size of the city budget (and) the utility budget, the city requires a professional administrator but with more of a leash on him than when the administrator was more powerful than council,” he said. “Council tried to correct that when they changed the form of government but the pendulum swung too far.

“The mayor needs to go back to doing what he's supposed to, being the at-large representative; that's the mayor's job, representing everybody,” he said. “It's human nature that the councilman in District 1 will favor his district while the councilman in District 6 will favor his. The mayor represents everybody and makes sure that one district is not favored too much over the other.”

Leigh obtained a bachelor's degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of South Carolina in 1988 through USC-Union's independent study program. Self-employed since 1977, he is the semi-retired owner of Marketing Development Association Inc., a consulting firm specializing in systems analysis.

Like the other candidates, Leigh's name will not be on the Nov. 4 ballot. Mayor Bruce Morgan was unopposed for re-election when he resigned on July 17, hours before it was announced that he and building and zoning director Jeff Lawson had been indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiring to accept kickbacks. The ballot will be left blank because state law does not allow the filing period to be reopened.