Preston College Seminar
with
Honorable Bob Coble
Mayor of Columbia, South Carolina
October 29, 2003
Columbia, South Carolina
On October 29, 2003, Columbia Mayor, the Honorable Bob Coble, joined the Preston College Seminar of the John C. West Forum on Politics and Policy for a discussion of his career in public service, suggestions for becoming involved in public life, and the problems faced by the mayor of a city like Columbia. West Forum Director Dr. C. Blease Graham, moderated the event which was held in the meeting room of Preston College on the University of South Carolina campus.
Graham Introduction
Graham: This is an activity under an initiative with the Department of Political Science called the West Forum, named after former Governor John West who was a faculty member in the department for over two decades. Governor West has talked with us about some of the divisive partisanship in contemporary American life and some of the deterioration of the ideals of citizenship. So, what we’re trying to promote is an awareness among students of the importance of civic life. And part of that is to look at important decision makers – actors in public life – and just have an informal discussion with such a person about how they see the public service, how they got into public service, what advice they might have for today’s student who is thinking about a life not necessarily public service but also as a citizen. So, that’s what we’re all about. I’ve got a few brochures. If I’m not breaking the solicitation rule, I’ll leave them right here. You can look at them a little bit. Nicole Modeen will introduce our guest tonight.
Modeen and Scott Introduction of Mayor Coble
Modeen: Actually, I’ll let Zach do it.
Scott: Hi. Everybody knows me. I’m Zachary, this is Nicole. We both are the coordinators for Preston’s version of the West Forum this year. I’m a third-year resident; she is a first-year resident. So we are teaming up together. Our speaker today actually is the four-time mayor of Columbia. He served in city council before this, but during his tenure as Columbia’s mayor he has faced many obstacles, both social and intellectual. So, please join me in welcoming your mayor of Columbia, Mayor Bob Coble. [Return to topics]
Mayor Coble’s Tribute to Governor West
Coble: Thank you very much, it’s a pleasure to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this. Governor West… When I was your age – I’m fifty years old now, what’s left of me, as some people would say. I have six kids. Four of them are in college or law school. But back when West was governor – 1970 to ’74 – in ’70 I was a junior at Dreher High School. In ’74, when he left office, I was a junior here at Carolina. And Governor West was always a hero to me. His campaign slogan was – it was in the paper a while back – elect a good man governor. And I think he really was a good person, and of course still is. He had to face many obstacles then. Integration was at the forefront in South Carolina at the time. And ’71 was the first year of going from what was the freedom of choice to integration that really brought public schools to a real effort at integration. He presided over that, a very controversial time. He handled it very, very well. And I wish he had gone on to higher service in some capacity, but he’s a great person. I think this forum is a great testament to really what he sees as harsh politics, partisan politics, and rather what he would see as more of a civic approach…civic mindedness, in the common good. And that I think is what he stood for. So, this forum I think is a great testament. [Return to topics]
Mayor Coble’s Political Career
And in talking about public service, running for office today is very challenging. I just ended a campaign to run for the United States Senate that I dropped out of. I was elected first to Richland County Council back in 1984, and the most memorable experience I’ve had in politics was losing the first race I that I ran, which was 1984. I was running as a Democrat for the County Council, and that was the year Ronald Reagan was reelected and the Democrats were really swept everywhere , including here in Richland County. And at that point I didn’t have any other position or anything else. I was really down on politics for a while. But that was the greatest challenge politically that I had to overcome. [Return to topics]
Mayor Coble’s Introduction to Politics and Reasons to Run for Office
But looking at politics, for me it started in college with Young Democrats. A lot of you I know are in student government. My roommate in law school had run for student body president, Leigh Leventis, and so I think that kind of training and experience was very good. I think you always need to start and learn about politics, running for office. And if that’s something you’re interested in, I think I would certainly encourage it. The first thing if you’re going to pursue that that you’re going to need is a job or inherited money, because you’re going to have to be able to financially support yourself and your family. So, whatever that career may be . A legal career is a traditional path. But I think it could be any type of career that allows you the freedom of time, the flexibility of time , to run for office. So, that’s the first thing you’ll have to do.
But I think if … There are two things I would tell someone if you’re looking to run for office, if you do. I think the first thing is why are you running for office, why do you want to run? And I think generally speaking there are two different answers to that for most folks who are running. The first answer is “I want to be somebody,” and that sort of an ambition is the driving force there. It’s not in a negative sense, but you want to be somebody; you want to run for something, you want to get recognition that you’ve gotten elected to something. [Return to topics]
The Importance of Pursuing an Objective
I think the other kind of reason for running is you want to do something. I run into folks who have never had an interest in politics, something happens in their lives – perhaps, something the government does, particularly local government – and they want to run to accomplish something; they want to run to change something; they want to run to do something when they get there.
By and large I would say the second category is where you want to be. As you go through – obviously you have to have the ambition to run for something. But if you are talking to regular folks, trying to convince them why they should vote for you, if they sense you’re only running for your own personal ambition, I think that’s a short term process. If they believe that you are truly interested in their concerns I think that’s when you want to be in office.
I think the first thing is determining why you want to run. And I think that would be for a student body position or anything else. And conveying the reason why you are running is very, very important.
I think the second thing is to do your homework. Running for office is very difficult, very challenging. If you’re on the city level that requires going door to door. It requires talking to people who have no idea what you’re running for or why. And that is very challenging. If you’re running on a higher level, or state level like the U.S. Senate, raising money is an extraordinary challenge. You have to do a lot of work on that. But I think it’s only worthwhile, it’s only enjoyable if you actually want to make a difference, of a change, or some way of making a contribution to making the society, city, the state, whatever it is a better place.
That sounds sort of Pollyannish, but I think it’s true. You’ve got to be able to…if you go through running for office, being an elected official, actually believe in and actually accomplish change so you can say that while I was there I did…the world’s a better place. [Return to topics]
Deciding the Bantu Refugee Issue
As mayor you run into a lot of different controversial issues. I’ll give you one good example that we’re facing now: the Somali Bantu refugees. That’s a good example of the type of issue that we face. If you’re familiar with that one … How many may have heard of that. They are 120 folks that were going to be in Cayce. A lot of opposition was raised there. And so as mayor you get faced with choices. And the first choice was if Cayce says, “No, they can’t come,” what does that say to the world about the greater Columbia area?
So, for me, I tried to make a quick decision to say that yes we would welcome them here was something that I thought was important, not only for the Somali Bantus but for our community, that we’d be a place that the world would view as an open, caring place. Now, I got a lot of criticism from folks on that. Really, some folks didn’t care for that. But I think that’s a good example of the kinds of things that a local government has to make a decision on. It’s something that comes out of the blue, you’re not planning on it, you don’t know it’s going to be there, but you have to make a decision. You’ve got to try to implement that.
But the Bantus are a good example. There are 120. They all speak English. They are probably … if you searched the world over, you probably could not find any group of folks who had been pushed further down in life than the Somali Bantus. And the Federal Government, the State Department, has decided that the United States would try to relocate 12,000. And 120…Family Services was asking for 120 to be located here.
Now, the downside of that is can we handle that? Should we handle that? And I think you could make the argument of we’ve got plenty to do here, our plate is full. On the other hand, you can say that surely a city the size of Columbia could handle 120 folks from anywhere and try to assist them by being part of the national policy to try to help folks.
So, that’s a good issue I think. You’ve got to make a quick decision. Some folks won’t like it, but I think clearly is one that is important and one that just had to be decided one way or the other. [Return to topics]
Working with USC
Other decisions as mayor, you have a lot of different things that come up in city government. We work very closely with the University of South Carolina, Dr. Sorensen. The relationship between USC and the city is very good. We’ve got a very controversial issue, the University’s inn. That’s where the University would…the National Advocacy Center wanted to build an inn to handle the folks at the National Advocacy Center, and if you followed that, it’s very controversial. I got a lot of calls from folks. “There’s not enough parking on campus, why don’t they build a garage?” In the end, we voted for it, because I think it will be a good thing. But I think that’s a good example of something that is controversial, but something that just had to be decided. We worked closely with the University on the Colonial Center to help that get in place. And I think that’s a great facility for Columbia and for the University of South Carolina.
Other issues, I think we’ve just hired our new city manager, Chief Austin, who will be the city manager for the city of Columbia. Columbia has the council-manager form of government where you have a city manager that implements policy and the Council makes most of the decisions. [Return to topics]
Managing the Economy
I think the challenges that we face going toward the future are really two-fold. And first is the economy. If you are out looking for a job, if you are trying to plan a career – as I know all of you are – I think our economy is in very difficult times. There are folks who had jobs, they don’t have jobs now, folks who are insecure in their jobs. Columbia has always been a town with a lot of government state employees, and every week more state employees were let go and the insecurity of that for a person and their family is very, very difficult.
If you are looking for manufacturing jobs – some are coming – but more and more they are going overseas, and we are losing those jobs. And I think we’re going to have to do a lot of things to try to improve the economy. And let me give you one example. The University of South Carolina is forming a research campus here. The groundbreaking for that was this week. The first building, which was in the old Carolina Plaza will be the Health Center, the Public Health Center. The Arnold Center. Norman Arnold, a prominent business person, donated a fair amount of money for it. But I think that a research campus is a great possibility for our jobs, for the future, for Columbia, and for our students, graduate students in particular.
The University of South Carolina is the number one research center for hydrogen fuel cells, which will be the future energy source. It allows us not to be dependent on foreign oil, and it doesn’t have the environmental issues of the Greenhouse Effect like fossil fuels do. And the leading place in the entire United States for that to be studied is right here in Columbia. So, I think that’s a great opportunity and I think we have to have places where companies can come, they can relocate, and that’s what that research campus will do. So, that’s a great place for jobs.
The problem I think would be that if the city should develop the fuel cell – if you’re ready to put it into manufacturing, if you’re ready to go – if the plant that builds them is going to go overseas because it can be produced less expensively somewhere else, that’s a problem. That takes away the jobs that should be here. And a good example of a city where they were able to have innovation and then have the production of that innovation is Austin, Texas. The chip industry really started there in the early ‘80s. And that’s a good example. Raleigh, North Carolina, is another great example, they have the Research Triangle. And they also have Centennial Campus right there on the campus of the University North Carolina State. And I think that’s a great thing. Why don’t I stop and take any questions you might have. I’ve been mayor since 1990. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. I enjoyed being an undergraduate here at Carolina and going to law school here, and I always enjoy coming back. [Return to topics]
Factors that Shaped the Mayor’s View of Politics and Public Service
Audience: I have a quick question. What would you say in your life helped to shape how you view politics and public service?
Coble: You know I think the most…politically, when I lost the first race. When you drop out of a Senate race, you’re 50 years old, you’ve got a job, if you’re still mayor, and all of that. That’s one thing. But when you’re married, 32 years old, you’re a sole practitioner attorney, and you just knew you were going to win. And you don’t win, that’s a devastating blow. And you just have to get up. So, the notion of whatever is going to happen, you either have got to handle it well and keep going. That was seared in my memory during those times.
It think I’ve not faced any more tragedy or death in the families than anyone else. My father died when I was nine years old. My mother was a school teacher, so that story is probably the same with many folks. I would say that the one 
thing that had to shape my personal life is the fact that my wife and I have six children. If you’ve got six kids, that means that’s all you do. Somebody is fussy at any one time, or all the time. Somebody’s doing something. And that I think more than anything shaped my personal life.
So, I think if somebody comes up to me and says, “Well, somebody did this, should we give somebody a break?” I answer is, “Absolutely.” I am always trying to give any kid a break if they’ve gotten in trouble. If you notice down in Five Points every weekend somebody’s gotten in trouble. And I’m for trying to help in any way possible. Only because, I’ve been there, I’ve done that, I know what happens.
And with six kids, you’ve got… what I’ve also determined that from the day each was born, it was their potential of how smart they were or whatever was sort of determined at the very beginning. So, almost by birth if they were going to be a great student, you knew that. And with six kids I’ve had every conceivable meeting – good or bad – with a teacher you can possibly have. I’ve had a son get a Life Scholarship at Erskine. He lost it before I think he even got it. So, that I think has shaped my personal experience.
「 21.35 」But I think the other thing is, in the depths of defeat, when I ran for mayor in 1990 it was against an incumbent. He was a very good person, but somebody I felt that the city needed another direction. So, in running for that office, it was one where I had the belief that I was on a mission for something good. I think you have to believe that whether it actually is true or not. That’s got to be your motivator, that’s got to be why you’re doing it. When I ran for County Council, I was running to be somebody; and it was a great shock that not everybody thought I should be somebody. And when I was running for mayor, I was running to try to do something. Those are two individual or personal factors. [Return to topics]
The Effect of Partisan Politics
Audience: How would you say that partisan politics has sort of complicated your job as mayor, and how have you actually overcome that?
Coble: Well, when I was on County Council we ran as Democrats and Republicans – a partisan election. And there are eleven members of County Council. But you found immediately there … Because I had been on councils that are elected at large, I’ve been on councils that were elected in single member districts. And I found that partisanship is the difference. City Council is not partisan. When you’re elected in a partisan manner, that means whoever is the dumbest member of your party, whatever they do, you have to defend it and you have to be for it. So, you quickly get into where the bitterness and the partisanship overtakes every issue.
On the City Council you don’t have alliances with the party. And so alliances form along philosophical grounds. And they also are not permanent. So, somebody might be for something on this specific occasion, and you might be thinking of something else. So, I think that the city model of non-partisan elections is much better. A lot of folks defend parties. I think they’ve clearly got their role. But I think for most of the issues we face in the city, they are not partisan issues. They are garbage and sewer. They have no Democratic or Republican answers, and I think it’s a much better system.
But I find that partisan politics in South Carolina is, I think, a real detriment to good government. That’s just the nature of it. And I think if you go back and look at history, I’m sure that other aspects of partisan politics supplanted other poor practices in good government. But I find it to be very frustrating.
Audience: It’s interesting to hear you say that because I think there are a lot of students that don’t identify with your party, but they want to get involved somehow. What would be your advice to them? [Return to topics]
Run for Office With a Purpose
Coble: I think first I would determine what do you want to do. I think I wouldn’t run for anything until and unless you had an idea of what you wanted to accomplish. If that’s a city role, I think that’s fine. If you’re serving in the Legislature I think I would identify what you wanted to accomplish. I would not run for anything unless you had a clear view in your own mind of, “I want to improve this,” or whatever it may be. I think that would be the number one advice.
If you decided to run, I think I would work very hard; not to focus in on anybody rejecting you or anything, but focus in on just doing the hard work, going door-to-door, raising the money, and doing the things required to be successful. I think having a good sense of humor is also important because things are not going to go well every time, every day. It’s best not to take it personally.
Audience: What are some other obstacles that you’ve faced running as mayor in your tenure?
Coble: Well, if you don’t have enough money, if you’re not a wealthy person, you’ve got to figure out, “How do I earn a living to pay for everything with a family and go out and run for office.” So, that is challenging. And I think you’ve got to have a very clear plan and a very clear budget, and be able to ask people for help. And that’s an obstacle, I think.
I think the fear of losing is also an obstacle. If you can live with losing, then you can be relaxed enough and comfortable enough to run and to enjoy it so that you also convey to folks that this is something that you enjoy. And I think that comes across in a good way to the people you’re trying to convince vote for you.
In the 1990 mayor’s race, the city of Columbia is small enough that the retail politicking, the door-to-door is very important. So, you would knock on a lot of doors and talk to folks that had been identified by a phone bank as undecided. And that’s where I tried to concentrate on. And it’s really interesting. When you go talk to regular folks who are not involved in politics, you get a whole different perspective about what it is that they’re concerned about. And generally speaking, it’s nothing that you thought they’d be concerned about. Everyday issues are what is important. There are senior citizens out there who are buying prescription drugs; a child not doing well in school. That’s what folks are concerned about, and I trying to relate genuinely to those folks is a hurdle or a challenge you have to meet. [Return to topics]
Importance of Education
Audience: What are you doing to try to improve South Carolina’s education system?
Coble: Well, in Columbia as in most cities … When I was on County Council we actually set up a budget for our School Districts, One and Two. And so we had a greater role to play in that. I think the city doesn’t pay a direct role in funding of education. But I think that the city does pay a role in bond issues and other things that have a… Where did you go to high school?
Respondent: Chapin High School, District 5.
Coble: And Chapin, Lexington County Districts Five and Six … they are both outside the city. But under-funding of education I think is the greatest challenge that we face. That’s one thing that you can do. Think of all of the cut-backs and just here at the University of South Carolina.
Graham: $61 million in recurring money.
Coble: Unbelievable. And look at where the priorities are. Tax breaks that we can’t afford to pay for. Actually, the tax breaks that the Legislature gave to local taxpayers, the property tax. Counties are actually having to raise taxes higher to actually pay for them, if you can believe it. That’s a real tragedy. We are getting further and further behind in all levels of education. And I think the buck stops in the Legislature, and I think putting pressure on the Governor, and every time you see a legislator, that we have to fund appropriately. And fund it very universally. I mean, look at the tuition. You get the Life Scholarship but tuition is going up higher. So by the end of it what can the University do? They’ve got to make the cutbacks from somewhere. So, I think the answer is it’s the Legislature. I think we’ve got to lobby them and make sure they understand the consequences of not funding education both at the secondary level and at the higher level. [Return to topics]
Passing on Taxes
Audience: I was going to ask that Columbia is a capital city. Is there a big government conflict in state government?
Coble: All the time. The very complicated matters, the current Legislature wants to give tax breaks, they want to get property tax breaks. They want to take away the franchise fee that the cities receive from the telephone bills that you may have. A great example of that: a new technology, cell phones. Everybody’s got a cell phone. Under the old technology, Bell South paid a five percent franchise fee for the rights to string lines up in the public right of way. Cell phones come in, they don’t use any of that. So the Legislature is giving them a way of getting, without having to pay the franchise fee.
The net result of that is that local government has less money. And so the tax cut that the state thinks it’s giving is really a tax shift down to the local taxpayers because here you can’t print the money. You’ve got to have so many police, so many firefighters, all of that. So, it’s a tax shift. So, local property taxes are going up. The local Richland County property tax bills will go out this coming Friday, and they’re going to have a property tax increase that is the direct result of tax cuts at the State level that just got passed along, and that’s a real problem.
Audience: Since you’re no longer in the U.S. Senate race, do you have your eyes set on another office?
Coble: I think I would look at keeping options open for looking at the Governor’s race. But if I had to decide now I would run for reelection as Mayor. And that’s a couple of years down the road. I think Sanford seems to be a nice person but I think the consequences of getting further and further behind in education are going to be catastrophic. I think we’re just never going to be able to catch up, we’re never going to be able to get to the next level.
And we looked at places that have gotten to the next level. And we looked at Austin, Texas; we looked at Raleigh, North Carolina; and in the 1950’s, early 1960’s, those three cities were very much at the same level. And not to revisit an old wound or bring up something that is controversial, but in the early 1960’s – and I don’t say this to make anybody mad or anything – but in the early 1960’s, North Carolina’s Legislature decided to have the Research Triangle and our Legislature decided they would have the Confederate Flag on the top of the State House. And 40 years later, you live with the consequences of those decisions.
And not to revisit the Confederate Flag, but the consequences of decisions have a long-term effect. Now, cutting back to high education… The other thing is in South Carolina, with Clemson Medical University and the University of South Carolina, we have the ability to build an economy similar to Austin’s and similar to Raleigh’s, where the median income has gone up substantially. And it provides jobs for everyone, wherever they are at the education level. And we’ve got to take advantage of that. And I think our missed opportunities in South Carolina have held back our progress. And I think that’s a tragedy. And there’s no place where we can more progress more quickly than by investing in higher education, and I think that’s absolutely essential. [Return to topics]
Mayor Coble's Own Objectives
Audience: What do you wish most to get accomplished?
Coble: Let me tell you the number one thing I’d like to do. In South Carolina, Columbia and Charleston, were the last two cities to get out of a bus system where the power company ran the bus system and they didn’t really want to run it. So, last year in a complicated deal we took over the bus system. Now the best user for our bus system should be the University of South Carolina, where you have a system where with your student fee and your ID card you can ride a bus anywhere. It would allow for off-satellite parking. You could get anywhere you needed to go on a clean, efficient bus. Tallahassee and the University of Florida have that. Clemson has it, but Clemson is a very small town, and it really is just a Clemson system. But here you would have a much larger metropolitan area so that you could ride the bus, students could ride the bus. It would be great with the bus system. I think it would be great for students, particularly if you live off campus and wanted to come in, or you wanted to go anywhere. So that is a very practical thing I’d like to see accomplished. We’re trying to complete our convention center so that you have the Convention Center, a new hotel, and the Colonial Center. So, I think that is something. Right there with the Greek fraternities and sororities and all of that stuff on Gervais street. Those are the two things I’d like to see that we accomplish in the near future.
Graham: Maybe one more general question? Yes sir?
Audience: I’m a Libertarian and I believe in privatization of city services, I’m sure you know that. I wouldn’t expect you to agree with the privatization of water, sewers, garbage, etc. But can you just tell me a little bit about why you think those might not work?
Coble: We’ve actually privatized some of them. And I’ve got a great theory on this. We privatized our sewer plant. And we were going to save money, and all of this was going to be good, it was going to be fabulous. Until the contractor didn’t know what they were doing. They were cutting back, we had raw sewage going all over the place. So, what I determined is that privatization works if there are two factors involved. One is that it’s not an essential service, that absolutely is a…you can’t privatize the police department and the fire department. So that if it is a service that is roads or something of that nature – and water could be one of those – where it’s essential but not absolutely life-threatening, that’s good.
The second factor I think that has to be present is that the private sector has to have enough businesses or companies in the business that there truly is a competitive market so that if Company A doesn’t know what they’re doing you can get somebody else in. I think if those two factors are present then it makes a lot of sense. And I think the best way of doing it is that you don’t just decide to privatize, you see if a governmental entity can…if the public works department can put in a bid and see if you’re having private companies with it. Now, a practical way of making it work … because what will happen is that the employees will feel like they’re gonna lose all of their … that they’re gonna be on the street…. You’ve have to have part of it that the employees that are competent and are working well, have the ability to work in the new situation, so that you take away the fear factor from the employees. I think if you do all of that, privatization can work and can work well. And I think that’s a legitimate point.
Graham: Thank you very much. [Return to topics]
