Howard Duvall at City Council meeting 2017

City Councilman Howard Duvall. Photo by John Carlos

Harden-Heyward street signs Shandon

The moneyed Shandon Neighborhood has long been one of Columbia’s most influential. It is part of the Coalition of Five Points Neighborhoods.

Photo by Chris Trainor

If you ever watched David Simon’s critically acclaimed HBO show The Wire, you’re probably familiar with the concept of “the ministers.”

See, in The Wire, a fictional show that cast a light on very real urban problems — drugs, crime, corruption, underfunded police departments, lackluster schools — in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, few were as powerful as “the ministers,” an influential group of African-American pastors that held sway in the city.

In the drama, everyone in city government — from the mayor’s office to the city council to the police commissioner’s office and beyond — bends over backward to accommodate “the ministers,” fearing the blowback that could come from upsetting such an influential, politically powerful assemblage. It’s about how a group of citizens who reside outside the governmental power structure can use a collective voice to wield clout.

In Columbia, city officials and politicos also are accustomed to such a voice from an outside group. Only here, it’s not “the ministers.” No, in the Capital City there is another kind of group that twists council members’ arms and makes zoning commissioners sweat and marches on City Hall to verbally rumble when there’s a policy they want to see changed.

They are, of course, “the neighborhoods.”

Ask any Columbia City Council member and, if they are being honest, they will concede that the various neighborhoods throughout the city — there are 119 different neighborhood associations or neighborhood coalitions registered with the Columbia Council of Neighborhoods — brandish significant influence.

From moneyed, mostly white enclaves like Shandon and Wales Garden to historic African-American communities like Waverly and Martin Luther King, when neighbors band together and come calling, the city typically listens.

City Councilman at-large Howard Duvall offers a knowing chuckle when Free Times asks about the power neighborhoods can wield.

“I have noticed in the political campaigns I have been involved with in recent years that every one of the candidates are running to support neighborhoods,” Duvall says. “I think that is a reflection that many of our neighborhoods … are organized and a lot of them have an agenda for their neighborhood, and are ready to voice opinions on topics that affect their neighborhoods.

“I think those of us who are running for office respect their power and think that the neighborhoods are what makes Columbia such a unique place.”

After a few years of diminished visibility, in recent months neighborhoods have come roaring back as a powerful force in Columbia, raising their voices on everything from proposed athletic fields at Dreher to bars in Five Points.

It’s worth looking at what makes Columbia’s neighborhood culture so unusual.

Why Neighborhoods Wield Influence in Columbia

It might sound obvious to say Columbia’s neighborhoods are powerful. After all, aren’t all cities made up of neighborhoods, and don’t residents influence their political leaders?

But “neighborhoods” aren’t synonymous with “residents.” Columbia’s neighborhoods have their own names, histories and identities, and their neighborhood associations are mostly made up of homeowners.  

Cameron Runyan is familiar with the machinations of neighborhoods and their leaders at City Hall. The Elmwood Park resident was an at-large Columbia City Councilman from 2012-15. His re-election bid in 2015 was unsuccessful, with that seat going to Duvall.

Runyan says, in his experience, neighborhoods were never shy about elevating their voices in issues they thought were important.

“Oh, they have significant influence,” Runyan says. “I think that cuts both ways. On one hand, there are people who are trying to protect what is unique and special about their areas. That’s very admirable, and we all do that. On the other hand, when you have a large city and a lot of neighborhoods, you can have this balkanization effect, as well, where you get this tug and pull for limited resources.

“It’s as much an art as it is a science, trying to balance where the city needs to go versus where certain pieces of the city, in this corner or that corner, may want to go. Finding that balance is very, very challenging, for sure.”

The former city councilman also notes Columbia’s culture of individual neighborhood strength could come from the fact the city has a less cohesive main identity than other large cities in the state.

Heathwood-Devereaux street signs

Some residents of the Heathwood neighborhood have been particularly vocal in a zoning issue surrounding Dreher High School. The school wants to build new athletic facilities, while many neighbors fear those facilities would bring increased noise, traffic and lights. Photo by Chris Trainor

“My perception is that Greenville and Charleston have an identity that sort of goes beyond the local neighborhoods, and is sort of unifying for those areas,” Runyan notes. “For Charleston it’s certainly tourism, and for Greenville it’s business, it’s commerce. That’s very much where the vision of those cities is focused, in an overarching way, in my estimation. I don’t know that Columbia has that kind of identity that those communities have, that rallies the community together past small differences toward a larger goal.”

Reba Campbell is the deputy executive director of the Municipal Association of South Carolina, the organization that interfaces with towns and cities across the Palmetto State on any number of issues. While she notes that Columbia has a strong neighborhood culture — in fact, she’s the vice chairwoman of the Heathwood West Neighborhood Association — she says the political might of neighborhoods differs from city to city.

“I think you’ll find it all over the board throughout the state,” Campbell says. “You’ll find some cities that have very active, engaged neighborhood associations and others that do not. That likely depends on the receptiveness of the [city or town] councils to want to engage. … I don’t think I’ve heard of any council that has discouraged any sort of interaction with their neighborhood associations. They can provide such a unique perspective on issues.”

Some in the city believe that Columbia’s culture of politically influential neighborhoods really began to take shape under late former Mayor Kirk Finlay, who served on Columbia City Council from 1974-78, then was mayor from 1978-86. That idea likely has some merit, as 1978 was when the nonprofit Columbia Council of Neighborhoods, an umbrella organization that coordinates community activities, was founded.

Tige Watts, a Columbia political consultant and current president of the Council of Neighborhoods, says he thinks the clout of individual local communities began to accelerate in the 1990s.

“Neighborhoods came to power, really, and showed their muscles when Bob Coble came into power as mayor, during the ‘90s,” says Watts, a resident of the Brandon Acres-Cedar Terrace neighborhood. “And we’ve only been building upon that.”

And yet, to hear former Richland County Councilwoman Kit Smith tell it, neighborhoods had their grip on City Hall loosened in recent years. The Wales Garden resident — who also is the president of the Coalition of Five Points Neighborhoods — says she has heard that some top city officials don’t fear the neighborhoods the way they once did.

“Staff at the city is reputed to have said that the neighborhoods don’t have as much sway as they used to,” Smith says.

That may have something to do with Mayor Steve Benjamin, who’s a different kind of leader than Coble.

Benjamin speaking at city council meeting 2017

Mayor Steve Benjamin. 

While he’s quick to praise neighborhoods across the city, and note their importance in defining Columbia, Benjamin also points out that, in recent years, Council has worked harder to look at how its policies impact the whole city, rather than scrambling to accommodate the whims and demands of individual pockets of the city.

“We have to continue to pursue an agenda that speaks to the needs of every neighborhood, while at the same time thinking about the needs of the entire city,” the mayor told Free Times. “In years past, that’s been a bit of a challenge, as Council many years ago would often think about ‘my district’ and ‘what I want in my district.’ We’ve tried to push a much more comprehensive agenda.”

Recently, though, cracks in that whole-city approach are beginning to show.

Flexing Some Muscle

In recent months, the neighborhoods have been enjoying an ascendant moment and are applying considerable leverage in a number of headline-grabbing city issues.

Neighborhoods and residents have been key drivers in the passionate, often rancorous debate about whether or not the city should require bars to stop serving alcohol at 2 a.m. Currently bars in the city limits can apply for a permit that allows them serve beer and wine all night, and City Council — on the strength of a recommendation from Duvall — is considering whether or not to put an end to those permits.

The debate — which has largely centered on Five Points, since bars there hold the vast majority extended hours permits the city has issued — has pitted bars and their patrons against neighborhoods, with residents from Wales Garden (most prominently Smith and firebrand attorney Dick Harpootlian), MLK, University Hill and Shandon imploring Council to shut Five Points bars down at 2 a.m. in hopes that it will curb what they see as bad behavior in the popular nightlife district.

Council’s public safety committee has heard hours of testimony from residents on both sides of the bar issue, and will likely make a recommendation to the full Council this month.

Some residents of those neighborhoods near Five Points also howled when a Zaxby’s fast-food chicken restaurant was proposed for the former Harper’s location on Harden Street. When the city’s zoning board gave permission for Zaxby’s to operate a drive-thru there — a contentious point among neighbors fearing increased traffic — Harpootlian and Five Points businessman Richard Burts filed a lawsuit, and Zaxby’s quickly backed away from the deal. The Harper’s building remains vacant, as it has been since April 2017.

And then there’s the long, bitter battle over proposed new athletic facilities at Dreher High School on Millwood Avenue. Richland District One and the school’s booster club have sought a key rezoning so that a new practice/junior varsity football field and several lighted competition tennis courts can be constructed at the school. However, residents from tony nearby neighborhoods like Heathwood and Melrose Heights have put up fierce opposition to Dreher’s plans, packing City Hall on several occasions to express their fear of the increased traffic, noise and lights they think would come with the would-be athletic facilities.

The city’s planning commission has subsequently recommended denial for Dreher’s plans three times. City Council reportedly will consider the matter — after delaying a vote last year following a calamitous public hearing between Heathwood/Melrose Heights residents and Dreher supporters — later this month.

There are other recent examples of neighborhoods flexing their muscles. The Vista Neighborhood and Arsenal Hill, for example, have been pushing back against the construction of a 650-bed student housing complex on Huger Street between Washington and Hampton Streets. Meanwhile, out in unincorporated Richland County, more than a dozen neighborhood groups are raising hell in an attempt to get Richland County Council to tighten up its ordinance on overgrown grass and junk cars sitting in yards. Their cries have led County Councilwoman Yvonne McBride to commit to introducing a motion to address their concerns.

The neighborhoods in Columbia, it seems, are finding their voice once again.

Neighborhood Harpootlian

Dick Harpootlian has done a number of things in his long career in Columbia.

The outspoken lawyer was once a Richland County councilman. He was later elected solicitor of the Fifth Judicial Circuit, and he also spent time as the chairman of the state Democratic Party.

But way back when, before all of that, he was a neighborhood association president. He led the Shandon Neighborhood Council back in 1979 and continued having a heavy hand in neighborhood business into the 1980s.

Harpootlian seemed almost wistful when talking about those neighborhood association days during a recent phone call with Free Times.

“We fought very hard-fought battles with City Council,” Harpootlian says. “There were only five city council members back then. They were elected at-large. So, we had no [district] representative. But we fought hard. And we got design limitations, we got zoning limitations, all kinds of things. … Then I ran for County Council in ’86 and got elected to County Council. So, pretty much since the late ‘80s I’ve not been involved [in direct neighborhood business] until recently.”

The key part of that phrase was “until recently.” Because, in 2018, Neighborhood Harpootlian is back on the scene.

The Wales Garden resident was a key figure in beating back the Zaxby’s deal in Five Points, with his lawsuit seeming to be the final move that chased the chicken chain away. He also argued against bar and grill Macado’s setting up shop along Blossom Street in Five Points, and the city’s planning commission voted to recommend denial for the project.

And, of course, there’s the issue of the late-night permits for bars in the city, one in which Harpootlian has been particularly vocal. He doesn’t think bars in Five Points should be serving alcohol past 2 a.m., and he sort of set the tone for the entire late-night bar debate when, during a Feb. 6 public safety committee hearing, he said Five Points is “like Bourbon Street on steroids.”

Free Times wondered why Harpootlian has gotten so active in neighborhood issues lately. He says he feels he has to.

“The reason I’m involved now is that we are seeing an assault on the quality-of-life issues in the neighborhoods,” he says “As the University [of South Carolina] has increased in size, where we used to have three or four bars in Five Points, we now have 20. The scale of that is immense. … [In the past, Five Points] was a neighborhood community. Now it has turned into a bar area, and the reason it has turned into a bar area is because governmental officials have not done their jobs, in my opinion.”

He went on to say that city government has “totally failed” in monitoring Five Points. He cited as an example an ordinance that states that a bar in the city — they are referred to as “drinking places” in city code — cannot be within 400 feet of another bar, a code he argues has not been upheld in the college nightlife district.

“I think [neighborhoods] are going to have to take the bull by the horns issue by issue,” Harpootlian says. “And then next year there are elections, and they need to take the bull by the horns and get people on City Council that will make sure City Council does its job. They are not doing the job and they are blasé about it. … Next year, when the city elections happen, I’m going to be very vocal, and our neighborhood’s going to be very vocal.”

Benjamin bristled at the idea that neighborhoods are having to get active in regard to Five Points because the city has “failed” or is not doing its job.

“Anyone who says they have to do it because we are not doing it, that’s BS,” the mayor says. “I am a big boy. I don’t mind listening to hot rhetoric. But I’ve been around long enough to cut through the hot rhetoric and harsh words and actually get something done. If someone says we’re not doing anything, the reality is we’ve led this city through a significant revitalization that we are seeing the benefits of all across the city.”

Benjamin notes that, before city council passed an ordinance in 2011, there were no time limits as to how late bars could serve beer and wine in the city. After the passage of that ordinance, bars had to pay to get permits to sell after 2 a.m.

As for Council’s current debate on the 2 a.m. bar matter, the mayor says he expects the city could be making some adjustments soon, though he didn’t divulge details.

“We’re going through a process right now in which I expect the rules will be changed significantly and people will adjust,” Benjamin says. “Those who can’t adjust to the new rules will have to go and do something else.”

Smith, the former county councilwoman who continues to enjoy a prominent role as a sort of behind-the-scenes power player in local government, shares some of Harpootlian’s sentiments. She says residents in the Coalition of Five Points Neighborhoods — which includes members of Wheeler Hill, Wales Garden, University Hill, Historic Waverly, Lyon Street, MLK, Shandon and Hollywood-Rose Hill, with participation from Old Shandon and Melrose Heights — feel like they have to get organized and get loud to get the city’s attention on the late-night problems they see coming out of Five Points.

In public hearings in connection with the late-night bar debate, residents from neighborhoods surrounding Five Points have complained to Council members about public urination, vandalism, larceny, waking up to find naked college students sleeping on their property and even having penises drawn in the dust on their car windows.

Smith says the neighbors have simply had enough.

“I think that maybe neighborhoods are flexing their muscles a little more than they have been in the recent past,” Smith told Free Times. “But when everything is going along fine and everybody is sort of taking care of everything, you don’t need to do anything. But when people have been speaking out and there’s not a whole lot of improvement, then [neighborhoods] start getting organized again.”

Finding Balance

Of course, not all neighborhood leaders are high-flying lawyers or former county councilwomen who are wired directly into the Capital City’s political class.

Take Ellen Cooper, for example. A retired Richland District One schoolteacher and administrator, she has lived in Cottontown for more than 20 years, and has been on the neighborhood association board for about 15 of those years, she says.

Since 2010, she has been a part of the Coalition of Downtown Neighborhoods; she’s currently the president of that coalition, which brings together representatives of city center neighborhoods including Arsenal Hill, the Vista, Robert Mills, Downtown, Elmwood Park, Earlewood and Cottontown. The Coalition of Five Points Neighborhoods, which came into existence just more than two years ago, was modeled after the downtown coalition.

Cooper holds monthly coalition meetings in the living room at her house on Grace Street. She says she has long believed in the influence neighborhoods can have within the city, and says she thinks it is only amplified when groups of communities come together to speak with one voice.

“Some of us thought that we would have more speaking power if we banded together as seven neighborhoods, instead of just one neighborhood,” Cooper told Free Times. “We thought that, if we could go to Council and say that all of these neighborhoods were working on [a given issue] and were concerned, then they would be more apt to at least listen to us.”

Benjamin, the third-term mayor whose national profile seems to be on the rise as he’s set to assume the presidency of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, says he recognizes that “a great city is a collection of great neighborhoods.”

But he also insists that it’s important for Council, when faced with issues that are critical to neighborhoods, to make sure it considers how addressing those neighborhoods’ concerns will impact the whole town.

“It’s recognizing that, if you want to talk about 2 a.m. bar closings in Five Points, that you have to look at it through a citywide lens, or that some of the zoning issues that we may discuss around Dreher ought to be looked at through the lens of how every school in the urban core can grow and prosper, as well,” the mayor says.

“But I think neighborhoods have always been strong and, prayerfully, will continue to be.”

Let us know what you think: Email editor@free-times.com.

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