Murray wins Beaufort mayor’s race; 2 new faces on City Council
Beaufort voters have opted for new leadership, choosing two fresh faces for City Council — including the body’s first African American member in decades — and a familiar name for its next mayor.
Councilman Stephen Murray will replace outgoing Mayor Billy Keyserling, unofficial results show, beating out former council member Mike Sutton by about a 2-1 margin. Longtime Beaufortonian Neil Lipsitz handily earned the most votes in a field of six candidates for two City Council seats, and Mitch Mitchell edged incumbent Mike McFee for the second open seat, per unofficial voting totals.
Mitchell is the city’s first Black council representative in 27 years in a city that census data shows is more than a quarter Black or African American.
The city’s results will be certified during a meeting Friday morning. A special election will be held to fill Murray’s remaining council term, which ends in 2022.
“I guess it’s the things we’ve been working on — it’s the job diversity, it’s focusing on people,” Murray said late Tuesday, surmising what resonated with voters. “I think focusing on those of us who live here and making sure we remain an authentic, diverse, real place and that there’s an opportunity for everyone.”
Murray led Sutton with about 64% of the vote, earning 3,028 votes to 1,661 for Sutton, online results showed early Tuesday afternoon.
Mitchell, 70 and a Sheldon native, is set to become the first Black council member in the city since Fred Washington Jr. served from 1979 to 1993. His candidacy followed a summer of protests in the city after George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by police officers in Minnesota while on the ground and handcuffed.
Mitchell, a retired pilot and retired Air Force major general, led a march for racial justice through the city on Father’s Day and pointed to Floyd’s death as cementing his decision to run for elected office. He’s a current member of the Beaufort County planning commission.
He said city voters seem to have signaled a desire for new leadership, and that while he ran on a campaign in part on racial justice that he intends to represent the entire city.
“I’m glad I’m part of that new thing they’re willing to give a chance,” Mitchell said.
Lipsitz and Mitchell were part of a field that included educator Brantley Wilson, retired social worker Scott Gibbs, retired interior decorator Mary Harvey and McFee who was seeking a fourth term.
Lipsitz, 61, is a lifelong Beaufortonian who worked in his family’s department store downtown and ran a shoe store on Bay Street before retiring. He serves as a secretary on the state nursing board.
He’s said not raising taxes and guarding against unnecessary spending are top issues and has championed a playground for Southside Park, a 40-acre city property in the Mossy Oaks area that is largely vacant except for a walking trail and dog park.
Lipsitz said people know his family name and remember being treated fairly by their business. He said supporters told him his candidacy was strong but that he wasn’t always as confident.
“I’m just smiling from cheek to cheek,” he said. “This shocked me.”
Mitchell attended Robert Smalls High School, was a Marine Corps pilot and flew commercial airliners while serving in the U.S. Air Force as a reservist and retiring as a major general. He said he was moved to get involved after the death of Floyd in May.
Mitchell said during a candidates forum that he did not support single-member districts for City Council, a change from at-large voting that has been explored in the past to help ensure a Black representative is elected. Instead, he said he hoped the city would reach a place where a minority candidate could be chosen by the broader electorate.
The 39-year-old Murray is a businessman who was first elected to City Council in 2014 as Sutton was stepping aside. He has worked on a platform of economic development, helping facilitate the start of a technology incubator called the Beaufort Digital Corridor and serving as the founding chairman of the Beaufort County Economic Development Corporation that seeks to woo companies to bring investment and jobs to northern Beaufort County.
Keyserling declined to seek another term after 12 years as mayor. Nan Sutton, Mike Sutton’s wife, also declined to seek another term after she was elected to council in 2016.
Keyserling had endorsed and campaigned for Gibbs and also threw his weight behind McFee, who serves as mayor pro tem, and the upstart Murray. Keyserling and Murray haven’t always agreed, with Murray walking out of a meeting over a flap with the mayor last year, but have generally appeared allies.
McFee said Tuesday he has not thought about whether he will run for Murray’s vacated term on council but that he would like to remain involved in public service. He said he had spoken to Lipsitz and Mitchell by Tuesday afternoon and wished them well.
The Beaufort City Council is made up of four council members and a mayor who are all elected at-large to four-year terms and wield the same voting power during regular public meetings. The body sets city policy, passes an annual budget, guides planning priorities and directs a city manager to carry out directives and the day-to-day city operations.
The reshaped public body will step into a job that includes tackling millions of dollars in drainage work to fix flooding issues, a soon-to-be announced new police chief amid a national conversation about policing practices and ongoing concern over affordable housing options in the city.
This story was originally published November 4, 2020 at 12:03 AM with the headline "Murray wins Beaufort mayor’s race; 2 new faces on City Council."
