Elections
Democrat plans run in Council District 6
A Pawleys Island Democrat said he will file this week to run for Georgetown County Council in District 6.
Vincent Davis, a chef in Murrells Inlet and the president of the Pawleys Island Civic Club, said that growth and development in the community is a driving issue, but added that it’s important to set an example of leadership for young people as well.
District 6 is now represented by Stella Mercado, a first-term Republican who is seeking a second term. Mercado has drawn criticism from the citizens group Keep It Green for her votes on land use issues, which it says will lead to increased development on Waccamaw Neck.
That included an email this week, a week before the filing period closes for party primaries, warning that “two myths are being circulated by those with special interests and political agendas” about future development. It goes on to say Mercado and Council Chairman Clint Elliott, who represents District 1 and is also up for re-election, “turned their backs on the people who elected them” in approving an update to the county’s future land use plan that Keep It Green opposed.
Davis, as president of the civic club, has sided with Keep It Green in opposing development projects and zoning changes in the Parkersville community. However he has opposed an effort to form a new town in the Pawleys Island-Litchfield area that Keep It Green leaders support.
“The reason why I decided to get my hat into the race is because we need to start listening to our community,” Davis said this week at the county Democratic Party convention. “You all know about all the development that’s going on in Pawleys Island and the Waccamaw Neck. A lot of it does not benefit the people that live there.”
Davis, who is a chef at Drunken Jack’s restaurant, ran for the District 6 seat on the Georgetown County School Board in 2020. He finished second to Lynne Ford in the nonpartisan election.
He is also chairman of the board for the nonprofit Pawleys Island Child Development Center. He told his fellow Democrats that he still has an eye out for the children.
“It is so important that we show not just leadership to the people who we represent, but the kids,” he said. “The kids who look up to us and say ‘what are you going to do about what’s going on in our community?’”
Davis will be the first Democrat to run for a council seat on the Waccamaw Neck since Jimmy Chandler in 2006. Chandler lost to Republican Glen O’Connell.
Davis said he hopes that his stand on development will overcome party labels in a district that is solidly Republican.
Marilyn Hemingway, who chairs the county Democratic Party, said she would like to find a candidate to challenge Elliott in District 1. She asked the convention delegates to help.
“Now is the year to run. We have momentum because the city flipped,” she said, referring to last year’s municipal election in Georgetown where Democrats unseated three incumbent Republican council members. “We’re organized, people are excited, they can see you put the work in and the money.”
If a Democratic candidate can be found for District 1 before filing closes at noon on Monday it will mean the party has filled its entire slate of federal, state and local offices for the November election.
“It may not be winnable,” Hemingway said of the District 1 seat. “Sometimes you run not to win but to lift the ticket and also to get numbers. We need to know where the Democrats are in District 1. That’s where you start.”
