Second time around, Alan Perry is elected mayor of Hilton Head Island in runoff election
Four years after an unsuccessful run in the 2018 mayoral race, Alan Perry has been elected mayor of Hilton Head Island.
According to unofficial early results released around 9:45 p.m. from the Board of Voter Registration and Elections of Beaufort County, Perry received 4,825 votes, or 56.04%, with 100% of precincts reporting. His opponent, JoAnn Orischak, earned 3,785, or 43.96% of the vote.
In the Nov. 8 general election, Orischak jumped to an early lead and maintained it throughout the night. However, the gap shrunk to just 440 votes by the time results were certified, according to scvotes.gov. Orischak finished with 44.18% of the vote to Perry’s 41.39%.
Perry pulled away in the final runoff tally, winning the mayoral seat by more than 1,000 votes. A total of 8,610 votes were cast in the race, which included 3,102 early votes.
After results were posted Tuesday evening, Perry said he was “blessed and humbled” by the support island voters showed at the polls.
“I think (the victory) is about the call to action from the community and that they see value in having me as mayor,” Perry said. “I appreciate the other side and their standpoints, and it’s obviously something we’re going to address going forward. ... The people spoke today, I appreciate their direction, and look forward to serving them and everyone in my best capacity.”
One of the primary factors in Perry’s success compared to 2018 was the smaller field of candidates preventing votes from being spread thin, he said, with this year’s race featuring three active candidates versus six in the 2018 general election.
Orischak said she intends to call Perry and congratulate him Wednesday.
“I wish him well. He’s going to have his work cut out for him,” Orischak said, “but we should all get behind him and support him as our new mayor.”
The runoff election, coming two weeks after the Nov. 8 general election, was required because neither candidate at the time received 50% of the vote, as required by South Carolina law.
Perry is a long-time island resident who first moved to Hilton Head in 1972. He is a senior loan officer for Mortgage Network and currently serves on the town Planning Commission as vice chair.
In the 2018 mayoral general election, Perry received around 22% of votes cast.
Focus on affordable housing, transparency
During this year’s run, Perry pledged to continue the town’s renewed focus on affordable housing and expand government transparency by creating a Town Council voting dashboard. The dashboard would allow residents to see how the Town Council representatives have voted on different issues.
He also promised to continue supporting the island’s arts and cultural assets.
Throughout the campaign and at a recent forum, Orischak promised to leave her job with Lowcountry Inside Track, a group that helps individuals and businesses monitor government activity that could affect their interests, to become a “full-time mayor.” This has been one of the primary differences between the candidates, with Perry saying he would remain in his career and focus on quality versus quantity of hours.
“Is it full-time or is it quality time, effective time,” Perry said on Nov. 15. “I know how to lead and I know how to utilize the time effectively.”
Shortly after the Nov. 8 election, Perry said he was especially focused on Hilton Head Plantation as a pivotal voting bloc in the runoff, since the plantation is the largest private community on the island at around 10,000 residents. Orischak claimed five of the neighborhood’s eight precincts in the general election, but the race was tight — and Perry considered the Nov. 14 mayoral forum held at Hilton Head Plantation a potential gamechanger for the runoff.
In early November, Orischak sued Hilton Head Plantation general manager Peter Kristian and the plantation’s property owners’ association. Neighborhood residents had alerted Kristian to unmarked campaign mailers in their mailboxes, and Kristian sent an email alerting residents the mailers could have been distributed in violation of federal law. The email did not mention Orischak by name.
Orischak provided proof the mailers had been paid for, and they lacked necessary markings to show they’d been paid for due to an oversight at the Post Office. Kristian later sent another email clarifying the mailers were legally distributed, but the lawsuit claims the original email had already done “reputational damage” to Orischak and her campaign.
The lawsuit is pending.
Both candidates and voters agreed while the lead up to the general election was fairly civil, the tenor of the election soured during the runoff period.
Resident Christopher Ames said he was surprised the race took a more nasty tone, especially on social media.
“It did surprise me because it happened here,” Ames said. “I thought maybe we would be a bit more civilized with everything else going on, but, technically, I guess I wasn’t too surprised ... I guess we’re all human.”
Given the close race, resident Brett Herold said he wasn’t shocked the election was contentious down the stretch.
“Politics is a dirty, dirty game,” Herold said.
The mayoral election results will be certified at 3 p.m. Wednesday, according to the Beaufort County election board website.
This story was originally published November 22, 2022 at 7:47 PM.
