Hilton Head Town Council member announces run for mayor

John McCann, a member of Hilton Head Town Council, announced his run for Hilton Head mayor Friday evening.

He is the first to announce his candidacy for the 2018 mayoral election.

“Yes, the election is more than a year away, but I am anxious to get started now so we can get to know each other,” he wrote in his newsletter.

McCann represents Ward 6, which covers Port Royal Plantation, Palmetto Hall and parts of Hilton Head Plantation and the Folly Field area.

He cited securing fiscal sustainability, maintaining quality beaches, improving infrastructure and championing transparency among his accomplishments as a member of Town Council, a position he’s served in since 2013.

On tasks he’d like to tackle, McCann wrote in his newsletter of the “need for an additional bridge or an expanded version of the existing structure,” attention to the storm water system and alleviation of service worker shortages.

“The list goes on,” he wrote.

McCann, who became a full-time Hilton Head Island resident in 2002 after working on Wall Street, has also served three years as president of Port Royal Plantation, six years on the Town Council’s parks and recreation committee and several years on the board of the Technical College of the Lowcountry Foundation.

Mayor David Bennett has not yet announced if he will re-run. Of Bennett’s eight predecessors, only Tom Peeples served more than one term in office — from 1995 to 2010, when he chose not to run for re-election. Four others ran for re-election and lost, including Drew Laughlin, whom Bennett defeated in a run-off election in 2014.

This story was originally published August 25, 2017 at 5:57 PM with the headline "Hilton Head Town Council member announces run for mayor."