Steve Bailey
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Articles by Steve Bailey
Bailey: Emory and Harlow deserve independent investigation into deaths
"The police are on my side with all of this and they are aware if any of you try to come here I will call them for a trespass notice," Justine May wrote on her Facebook page. Replied her mom: "You can be as hateful as you want. I will never give up." "Good," May wrote back. "Try with the police. They think you’re insane." This life and death horror story on Pinewood Drive in Ladson was playing out in real time on Justine May’s Facebook page.
Bailey: Why I'm voting yes on Charleston County transportation, schools sales taxes
Would you pay a buck a day for better schools and better roads? Charleston County voters will have a choice to make in November when they are asked to reauthorize sales tax surcharges for the schools and transportation projects. I plan to vote yes on both; I hope you will, too. We live in an uncomfortably hyper-partisan era, and the coming election, about a month away, is a critical moment in our country’s history.
Bailey: DNR boss has good story to tell — and the press releases to prove it
Tom Mullikin has a good story to tell: Born with deformed feet, his parents were told he would never walk. Instead, he’s gone on to climb some of the world’s highest mountains and scuba dive in all the oceans. He’s been a soldier, a lawyer, a college professor and today heads the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. And he’s made sure his story is told. And told. And told. Edward Bernays, the father of public relations, gave birth to generations of spin masters to come.
Bailey: As Charleston revises tourism management, start with the money
Back in the day, Choppy Simmons used to pump the gas for you on his corner in Mount Pleasant, just like every other station everywhere. "George," Choppy was saying as my Dad stood by our car smoking yet another Pall Mall. "You know the difference between a Yankee and a damn Yankee?" "No, Choppy, what’s the difference?" "A Yankee spends his money and goes home.
Bailey: How Darline Graham’s agency botched big Fort Jackson deal
Besides being the sister of the late senator, Darline Graham’s primary credential in her run to replace her beloved brother in the U.S. Senate is her tenure as head of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind. Fair enough, then, to ask how her agency botched awarding a large, lucrative contract to allow blind vendors to supply food services to Fort Jackson, which trains more soldiers than any Army base in America. Call the process corrupt or just incompetent.
Bailey: If Mayor Cogswell is the star, his supporting cast is ever changing
You need a scorecard to keep track of the players these days at Charleston City Hall. And you best keep score in pencil, because the players are ever changing. Start at the top: Six months after taking office Mayor William Cogswell rolled out what he billed as the first reorganization of city government in half a century, an effort to make his administration more efficient and nimbler. Two years later three of the four people he put in charge are gone. None has been replaced.
East Hampshire MP joins cross-party effort to support the future of post offices
A Hampshire MP has joined a group that aims to help post offices Damian Hinds, Conservative MP for East Hampshire, has joined the newly reformed All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Post Offices, bringing the voices of local postmasters and communities into Parliament.
Scratching Shed Publishing
PUBLISHED JULY 31 – ORDER NOW by Steve Bailey Hellooo! My name is Baileydog. I’m not just a dog... I am a Weimaraner – which means I am almost hooman!! This book is my true life story. It captures the humour, joy and poignancy of sharing your life with such a sentient animal like myself, a journey that is both hilarious and deeply moving. It’s about the bond that builds without you even noticing, until one day it means absolutely everything.
Ten Questions and Answers About the Games Industry in 2024
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Bailey: Charleston’s developer-in-chief gets lesson in building public housing
The Charleston Housing Authority spent years working to remake its decaying, crime-ridden projects, but the mayor said he had a better way. He asked the authority to start over, saying its plans didn’t align with his ambitious vision to build thousands of affordable units on the peninsula. Mayor William Cogswell’s Jan. 12 letter to the housing authority landed like a bomb.
Bailey: Donald Trump is the most important name not on SC ballot
Can Donald Trump and his unpopular war of choice do the impossible: Breathe life into the moribund South Carolina Democratic Party? Watch the prices at your neighborhood gas station. A blue wave is coming. The question is how deep will it roll into Red America. Can it reach as far as the South Carolina governor’s race? The 1st Congressional District? Or the 2nd? Or the 6th? The Charleston County probate court? This is how it works in a democracy that’s on life support.
Bailey: Watercolor renderings are easy; the hard stuff comes later
"You need to keep beauty as your compass." Charleston Mayor William Cogswell was wrapping up a forum at the historic Dock Street Theatre, where he and his architects, including two noted Brits who had worked with the king, spent days painting a vision of what’s possible for a new generation of affordable housing in Charleston. Now the challenge, they said, was to go from these beautiful watercolor renderings to brick-and-mortar homes for people.
Bailey: In the fight over monuments, here’s one we can all agree on
Amid all the noise over statues and monuments — take them down, put them up — there’s one thing we should all be able to agree on even in an age when we can agree on almost nothing: Joe Riley was Charleston’s greatest mayor. There will never another Mayor Riley. His statue belongs in Riley Waterfront Park — where else?
Bailey: Move over Nancy Mace, there’s a new Nancy in town, and she’s an admiral
Nancy for the 1st District? No, not that Nancy. Unexpectedly, though, there is a new Nancy in the race for the 1st District, and she’s hands down the most interesting candidate in a field of thousands. Nancy Lacore is a 35-year Navy veteran, a helicopter pilot with 1,300 hours of flight time, tours of duty in Afghanistan and Africa, a vice admiral fired by Pete Hegseth, President Donald Trump’s Macho Man in the Pentagon. She is, by the way, a mother of six. Such a woman is not to be underestimated.
Bailey: Caving to Lost Causers at Marion Square only emboldens them
"For the most part, the monuments should stay," Joe Riley used to say. And Charleston’s greatest mayor will be remembered for putting up monuments, not taking them down, including the 9-foot bronze statue of a heroic George Washington in Washington Square and another of Denmark Vesey standing tall in Hampton Park. The unveilings of those handsome statues were two very good days for our city. Riley’s successor, John Tecklenburg, will be remembered for removing the hulking, iconic statue of John C.
Family who lost dad to suicide to row Atlantic
Pictured from left - Henry, Charlotte, Camilla and James Ash will row 3,000 miles across the Atlantic [Ash Family] A family who lost their father to suicide plan to row across the Atlantic in his memory. Robert Ash, from Harrogate, died in September 2023, leaving his wife Charlotte and their three grown-up children Camilla, James and Henry.
Bailey: Tecklenburg reconsidered. How will history view defeated mayor?
History will record that John Tecklenburg served eight years as the 34th mayor of Charleston — not including "intendants" — and was defeated by William Cogswell in a bid for a third term. History should also record that Tecklenburg was one of our city’s most consequential mayors. It’s a good time to be thinking of this as Cogswell approaches the midpoint of his first term. Tecklenburg was no Joe Riley, hands down Charleston’s greatest mayor.
Chris Rea 'never forgot his Teesside roots'
Singer and guitarist Chris Rea never forgot his Teesside routes, according to those who knew and met him. The 74-year-old, who died on Monday, was born in Middlesbrough in 1951 to an Italian father and Irish mother, with his family known for selling ice creams around the town. While he found fame with hits like Driving Home for Christmas, which was inspired by a journey back to the North East from London, he also wrote much-loved songs about his hometown, such as Steel River.
Bailey: Philip Simmons was beloved; his house needs our love too
"If you want your prayers answered," Philip Simmons liked to say, "get up off your knees and hustle." It is, indeed, time for a little hustle. Well past time. Philip Simmons is a national treasure, remembered for the more than 500 pieces of ironwork he left behind at homes, churches and public buildings around Charleston, but even more for the man he was.
Bailey: It’s time for SC Democrats to face reality, vote Republican
I’m voting Republican in 2026. If you’re a South Carolina Democrat, I hope you will, too. Readers of this column over the past decade know I’m no MAGA Republican. Just the opposite. But at the same time, we must acknowledge the world (or more precisely the state) we live in: South Carolina for all intents and purposes is a one-party state. When it comes to statewide elections, the Republican Party is the only game in town. We need to get in the game.
Bailey: Is the Battery extension the next 526? County Council must decide.
Start here: Charleston County absolutely, positively must get a half-cent sales tax passed next year. I hate taxes, too, but we need the dough to deal with the increasing gridlock on our roads. The county cannot screw this up a second time. So the question is whether County Council is willing to risk it all — next year’s expected $4.25 billion half-cent transportation tax referendum — by allowing Charleston Mayor William Cogswell to put a seawall on the ballot.
Bailey: C of C dorm is an opportunity to serve the living and the dead
The College of Charleston should build its controversial new dorm — respectfully, but build it. The living need the housing. The college’s plan to develop a dorm for 1,000 students on the site of a two-century-old public cemetery has set off a growing storm of protest. But the YWCA, long a champion of social justice, built its home on the same Coming Street site 60 years ago. Generations of Charlestonians called it home before the Y.
Bailey: Cogswell says there’s no conflict in $2.6 million MUSC contract
The Medical University of South Carolina, in the midst of a historic remaking of its campus for its next 200 years, just signed a lease for 725 parking spots in North Charleston. Now the hospital is seeking another 1,100 spaces. It’s a good bet that Charleston Mayor William Cogswell’s family real estate investment firm and its majority partners, having won a $2.6 million contract, will be in the hunt for the second.
Bailey: The Beach Co wants to build dock into Ashley River. Just say no.
The Beach Co., the Charleston developer accustomed to getting what it wants, now wants to build a 240-foot-long private dock out into the Ashley River to be used by "two to four families" at its luxury apartments, the Jasper and the new Charles, just across Lockwood Drive. Why stop there? Imagine a small but elegant aqueduct spanning Colonial Lake where (select) families could stroll in the evening and enjoy the gardens below and the sunset above.
Bailey: After a life of helping, grandmother finds herself facing eviction
At 78, Linda Dennis should be in line for a medal for her 25 years of working with kids. Instead, the Charleston Housing Authority is giving her the boot from her apartment. This shouldn’t be happening. I met Dennis years ago when she asked me to speak to her fifth and sixth graders at St. Julian Devine, the East Side community center.
Bailey: Ignore those selling fear, embrace the future of Charleston housing
It was Boston’s first public housing development, built 90 years ago, a tough-as-Southie neighborhood of squat walk-up brick buildings, three dozen of them, sprawling across an area the size of 23 football fields. It’s a massive housing project, one that launched Whitey Bulger on his storied career of crime. To be fair, Whitey’s brother Billy also grew up in the Old Harbor projects, and he went on to become the president of the Massachusetts Senate.
Bailey: E-bikes? Just say no to your kids. It’s good for you and them.
One of the worst days of my life was the day my mom decided I was going to learn to ride a bike. All these decades later, the terror lives on. I was maybe 7, and we were living on Powhatan Avenue in Mount Pleasant in a little cinder block starter home — a “Tom Hardman Special,” we called them after the developer who was punching them out like doughnuts in our Huck Finn of a town (pop. 5,000) in the 1950s.
Bailey: ‘We always fear if something happened, we might be the first victim’
Let’s be clear: Donald Trump’s mean-spirited war on immigrants will not make America great, not now, not ever. Shahid Husain and his wife, Farahdiba Jafri, and their three children will. We’re lucky to have them. They make us great. Trump’s actions to close the southern border are welcome and overdue. But he hasn’t stopped there and instead has launched a cruel assault on a broad spectrum of immigrants, those here illegally and legally, those with criminal records and those without. Due process?
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Bailey: Mayor Cogswell goes full beard. Is it a hair too far for Charleston?
First it was Donald Trump Jr. and brother Eric. Then Vice President JD Vance. And now William Cogswell, Charleston’s own mayor. What is it about these Republican men of a certain age and their need to grow beards? Beards had already become ubiquitous — everywhere except in politics. That is, until recently. We haven’t had a president with facial hair since the early 20th century when William Taft, whose impressive mustache matched his impressive girth, was in the White House.
Bailey: Jerome Heyward charged more than $40K — and got 7 times that from county
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Bailey: ‘Strictly confidential’ report shows the hard math of new housing
Nobody said it’s going to be easy. And the Charleston Housing Authority’s announcement last week that it’s pulling the plug on plans to level one of its FDR-era housing projects on Meeting Street and replace it with hundreds of mixed-income apartments couldn’t be a more on-point example of how hard it’s going to be to build affordable housing in this town. Having the land — or the "dirt" in industry jargon — helps.
Bailey: Make Charleston’s unloved 'Toilet Paper Tower' something special
Charleston’s “Toilet Paper Tower” is so misunderstood. It’s not ugly, it’s just unfinished. Start with this: It’s not boring. People can’t stop talking about it. In the two years since the cell tower went up at King and Line streets, it’s practically become an accidental landmark in need of protection from those who want it gone. It’s been ridiculed on social media, and all the very serious people in town, the arbiters of good taste, can’t hate it more.
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With Roper move, MUSC shifts focus for ‘Innovation District’
Before he was mayor, William Cogswell was a highly successful developer whose credits included landmark buildings such as the Cigar Factory in Charleston and the former GARCO mill in North Charleston. Make no mistake: While Cogswell goes to work every day to City Hall rather than the Cigar Factory, he has taken his passion for real estate and his considerable skills with him.
Bailey: Kobrovsky knows where he came from. He’s not backing down.
Today, I move to declare it Larry Kobrovsky Day in Charleston. Don’t expect any of Kobrovsky’s fellow members of Charleston County Council to second my motion, though. After all, Krobrovsky couldn’t get a single council member to second his motion to honor George Washington as the father of our country two years ago. Our first president was a slave owner, Councilman Kylon Middleton noted, and suddenly everyone was looking down at their shoes.
Bailey: Secrecy is essential to keep South Carolina’s killing machine killing
South Carolina has cranked up the killing machine again. Next up: Marion Bowman Jr., the third man — the third black man — the state wants to kill since restarting executions in September after a 13-year hiatus. Everyone, everywhere is for transparency. But when it comes to the death penalty, secrecy is an absolute essential to keep the line moving. Our pro-life state graciously offers the condemned three ways to die: lethal injection, the electric chair or the firing squad.
Bailey: Mayor Cogswell is shaking things up — and the meter is running
Charleston voters opted for a new mayor with a new way of doing business. That’s how our democracy works. Now, almost a year into Mayor William Cogswell’s first term at City Hall, I have been following the money. You should, too. Start with Union Pier, that forever-promising, forever-frustrating jewel on the Cooper. Charleston businessman Ben Navarro has negotiated a preliminary deal to buy those 65 barren, polluted acres from the S.C. State Ports Authority.
OPINION: New Mexico sets an example with effective oil and gas royalty reform
At a time of such polarization and national focus on politics, New Mexico has done something that the entire country should take notice of. It demonstrated that sometimes, a state government can tackle a problem and solve it creatively, entirely outside of partisanship. I know this firsthand. kAmpD 2 DA64:2=:DE :? @:= 2?5 82D C@J2=E:6D[ x H@C< H:E9 DE2E6D 24C@DD E96 4@F?ECJ 2?5 E96 7656C2= 8@G6C?>6?E] x? C646?E J62CD[ 2 AC@3=6> :?
Bailey: Like it or not, we live in an ugly world today. Believe it.
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Bailey: How a citizen army won the battle of 526, and what it does next
The conventional wisdom was wrong. Now we have a chance to get it right. The polling had long shown the majority of Charleston County residents supported the extension of Interstate 526, and it was only hippies who hate highways and their lawyers — ah, those lawyers! — who had stalled it all these years. Most politicians, Republicans and Democrats, were on board, not wanting to get sideways with cranky commuters or a County Council they needed. Not Denise Reynolds.
Bailey: After ‘light’ was unplugged, we need a way all can celebrate Colonial Lake
The Charleston Parks Conservancy has canceled “Light the Lake,” its hugely popular, free and family-friendly Christmas party at Colonial Lake. Instead, it will compete in the Christmas tree decorating contest at Charleston Place. This isn’t a bad joke. It’s an absolutely awful idea, though. In the eight years since Colonial Lake was revived at a cost of $5.9 million, the conservancy has built “Light the Lake” into one of the premier events of Charleston’s Christmas season.
Bailey: 8 million come to rent our city every year. They can help save it.
SUSA, Italy — Sitting in the ancient Roman amphitheater of this sleepy little 2,000-year-old Italian town just over the French border this summer, I had an epiphany about my faraway hometown. Debby was just then beginning her soggy assault on Charleston back home. We had come to Susa not to rent a hotel room — though ours in an old stone convent was charming — but to rent the town.
I Hid My Secret for Years and Did Conversion Therapy. The Truth Set Me Free
I grew up in a strictly religious family in Oklahoma, in the middle of Muscogee-Creek-Nation. From very early on, I felt different from others around me. I was more interested in boys and had crushes on boys. But as the only son among four kids, I felt pressure to behave and present myself in the ways that the conservative families around me expected boys to. The only time I remember feeling free from those limits in my childhood was on Halloween when I said I was going as my sister.
Bailey: The problem isn’t bicyclists, but speeding cars. Slow them down.
Eight years ago, West Ashley drivers set their hair on fire when the city considered closing one of four lanes across the T. Allen Legare Bridge to allow pedestrians and bicyclists to safely cross the Ashley River. No matter that a county study found the new lane would cost drivers a minute or less during peak rush hour. Unacceptable. Charleston Mayor William Cogswell remembers well. And he can count: There are a lot more voters in cars in West Ashley than on bikes.
Bailey: South Carolina, sadly, becomes a national leader in death penalty
Good to get that first execution under your belt, South Carolina. Now we can get on with working down a 13-year inventory of dead men walking. Shame on us. Freddie Owens, a killer twice over, was himself killed by the state of South Carolina by lethal injection on Friday, the conclusion of a long campaign to end the moratorium on the death penalty and the beginning of a gruesome seven months ahead.
Bailey: I hate tipping. Just tell me the price, and I’ll pay it. Or not.
Charleston is a food town, one of the best in America. And come January, all those servers from Slightly North of Broad on East Bay to the Waffle House at the foot of the Ashley River bridges are going to have a new best friend: the president of the United States. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris agree on almost nothing, but suddenly both have embraced the same bad idea: eliminating taxes on tipped income.
Bailey: Calling all Ottos — your neighborhood needs you more than ever
It’s 8:30 in the morning when I head out for work. But, honestly, it could slide until 10 or even later because the boss is very understanding. Hey, I’m the boss. You can’t beat the commute, either. I grab my blue Lowe’s bucket and my trusty litter stick, and I am off. Seven days a week I make my rounds, picking up four blocks of litter around my house and then Hampstead Mall three blocks away. No. 1 on the litter list: Empty beer cans in brown paper bags.
Charleston voters must kill 526, fund CARTA, other projects
When the 526 crowd recently rolled out one of its top guns, it was most telling not for what he said but what he didn’t say. Buckle up, folks: You can expect a lot more Hide the Highway baloney as they try to hustle your vote in November. Keith Summey knows how to ask people for their votes. It got him elected seven times as North Charleston’s mayor, and he made the most of it, building his city into a powerhouse and himself into maybe the most powerful kingmaker in the region.
Bailey: 76 years later, the Durst family is still taking care of Sullivan's Island families
“I think he would be proud of me. I know he would.” George Durst is 84, and he’s been practicing family medicine for 54 years on this same corner on Sullivan’s Island, one of the world’s most blessed places. How long is that? Even longer than his dad, George Durst Sr., who came to the island after World War II and became a legend over 42 years as a doctor and early builder of East Cooper.
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