Mitch Mitchell and Neil Lipsitz leading in race for two City Council seats
Beaufort residents returned incumbents Mitch Mitchell and Neil Lipsitz to the Beaufort City Council for another four years in Tuesday’s election in a four-candidate battle for two seats.
The unofficial results include 100% of the precincts but absentee ballots still had not been counted as of early Wednesday morning.
Mitchell, 74, won the most votes with 2,622, or 28.8%. Lipsitz, 65, was second with 2,371 votes or 26%.
With 2,111 votes or 23.2%, Julie Crenshaw, 63, finished in 3rd place, 260 votes behind Lipsitz. Josh Gibson, 54, had 1,931 votes or 21.2%.
Beaufort City Council candidates are elected at-large, meaning all voters cast ballots for open positions. Two seats were up for election Tuesday with the two candidates with the most votes citywide winning the two seats.
The race pitted the incumbents against the challengers in a feisty campaign that had the opposing sides sparring over tax and spend issues.
During the campaign, opponents of Lipsitz and Mitchell accused them of raising taxes. But both Lipsitz and Mitchell stood their ground and said the charge was not true. In fact, they said, the City Council did not raise the tax rate. Rather, Beaufort County reassessed the value of property throughout the city, which did increase property taxes for many residents in the city but not as a result of city-imposed tax increase.
“I’m overjoyed and deeply appreciative for the confidence my fellow Beaufortonians have placed in me by their vote to re-elect me their councilman for another four years,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell pledged to redouble his efforts to represent all residents to address immediate challenges and work with fellow council members to strategically plan for the future.
Lipsitz also was pleased voters showed confidence in him to continue his work on the council.
“I feel like I’ve done a good job and people have seen that,” Lipsitz said. “I ran on my integrity to do the right thing for the city and will continue to do that.”
The good job, he said, referred in part to lobbying for state funding for improving the nursing program at Beaufort Memorial Hospital and city funds that are financing major improvements at Southside Park.
The winners are part of a five-person City Council that has pressing issues to address. One is a deteriorating seawall infrastructure at Waterfront Park that will take millions to fix. Another is an unfavorable lease with a private company that manages the marina, also located at Waterfront Park. Rapid growth that’s resulted in clear-cutting of trees in some areas is a concern in the city. And improving communication with residents about infrastructure projects — a problem highlighted when the city ran into neighborhood opposition when it planned a stormwater project in the Kings Street area — also has emerged as an issue.
Mitchell and Lipsitz won a seats on the council in 2020 and were running for reelection.
Mitchell, a retired major general in the U.S. Air Force and former U.S. Marine Corps officer and airline pilot, campaigned on goals of environmentally safe economic development, developing affordable workforce housing and reducing traffic.
Lipsitz, who is retired from Lipsitz Department Store and Lipsitz Shoes, said the city needed more affordable housing and decent paying jobs, adding he wanted Technical College of the Lowcountry and the University of South Carolina Beaufort (USCB) to thrive, especially the marine science program at USCB.
Crenshaw, 63, who worked in real estate and high-end art sales before retiring, said she wanted to bring fresh ideas and new energy to the council. She campaigned on responsible growth management, infrastructure integrity and reducing waste of taxpayer money.
Gibson, 54, a photographer and small business owner, said the exploding cost of living in Beaufort was one of the issues driving his campaign.
This story was originally published November 6, 2024 at 12:23 AM.
