Charleston Currents – Andy Brack

Andy Brack

#JohnNotLeon — a special election commentary

By Andy Brack | updated 11.7.15

After all of Leon Stavrinakis’s whining about negative campaigning in the race to replace Charleston Mayor Joe Riley, you might have been surprised that the first thing out of his mouth after the polls closed was an attack.

Stavrinakis, who has been a frontrunner for so long that he was obviously stunned that he came in a close second to commercial real estate agent John Tecklenburg on November 3, criticized the lead vote-getter as a “developer” in comments to the press.

by Andy Brack · 11/04/2015 · Comments are Disabled · 2015 Mayor, Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: If you want a friend, get a dog

By Andy Brack | Life got darker last week when a shining light of my family’s lives went out.

Our 14-year-old dog passed on Thursday, leaving our daughters without an elegant presence that’s been with them ever since they were born.

There were lots of tears for our Simon, a Labrador-Dalmatian mix whose long legs suggested a speck of greyhound thrown in for good measure. Rescued from a local agency, he joined us a year after my wife and I married.

by Andy Brack · 11/02/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: Today’s deadlines not as tough as those 150 years ago

By Andy Brack | The Civil War is alive every day for reporters and editors — and they may not even know it.

A couple of weeks back in a commentary taking the General Assembly to task for caterwauling about a court-imposed time limit on school funding, I observed how reporters face “deadlines” all of the time, just as courts impose deadlines frequently.

by Andy Brack · 10/26/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: Why I’m voting for John Tecklenburg

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | John Tecklenburg has the best line in the campaign to be Charleston’s next mayor:

“Charleston is not a theme park,” he tells people during meetings and in ads.

In just six words, he succinctly captures what’s different about his candidacy and lets us in on his secret: he’s running to serve the people of Charleston. He wants to work collaboratively with people to foster a community vision that focuses on what Charleston’s residents want their future to be.

by Andy Brack · 10/19/2015 · Comments are Disabled · 2015 Mayor, Andy Brack, Views

Photo courtesy of Nelson Aerial Productions.

BRACK: Stop shortchanging South Carolina

By Andy Brack | South Carolinians have to get over the cheapskate model of democracy. To do otherwise is to continue to fail our future.

Billions of dollars of underinvestment in roads, bridges and health care over recent years leaves the state at the mercy of disasters of one sort or another.

Just witness the 11 trillion gallons of rain over the last week that flooded rivers, burst dams, destroyed homes, upended lives and killed at least 17 people.

by Andy Brack · 10/12/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

Hollings speaks to media in this 2008 photo.

BRACK: In renaming courthouse, Hollings still teaching us

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | At age 93, Fritz Hollings is still teaching us.

On Friday as a weekend deluge of rain started, dignitaries from all over gathered at St. Michael’s Church at the Four Corners of Law to rename the federal courthouse annex across the street that was named in 1988 for Hollings.

The senator, who got money put in the federal budget to construct the judicial center, never really wanted it named for him. U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, who had all sorts of things named for him by that time, apparently thought Hollings needed something named for him too.

by Andy Brack · 10/05/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: State’s tax structure needs work, not praise

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The sad thing about a new study of state tax systems is that people are going to believe it when, in fact, it is pretty misleading and relatively pointless.

by Andy Brack · 09/28/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: Mr. Fixit strikes in Charleston

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Years back when my father was a boy, he knew his father could fix just about anything. He marveled at his father’s skills, not understanding how he would ever be able to build shelves, craft furniture, fix electrical outlets or repair motors.

by Andy Brack · 09/21/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: More energy options are a good deal for consumers

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | An energy revolution is underway in South Carolina and you may not even realize it. Just look at recent news headlines:

Wind energy. Federal regulators have identified almost 1,200 nautical square miles of the South Carolina coast that have the potential to produce wind energy. Within a decade, depending on the regulatory process, sea-based turbines could be generating power much like offshore wind fields in the North Sea.

by Andy Brack · 09/14/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: South Carolina can learn from Cuba

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | For as long as Americans not old enough to be in the AARP have been alive, Cuba has been a pariah, a non-democratic experiment whose embarrassing Soviet connections caused a geo-political chess game.

But as Soviet regimes crumbled in the early 1990s, Cuba was left hanging, still isolated and cut off from its rich neighbor to the north. Cubans literally lost weight, as food became harder to get. But its economic crisis forced institutional changes. The Cuba of today isn’t the Cuba of the Cold War.

by Andy Brack · 09/07/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views