[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 29 (Monday, March 10, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S2091]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                            MAYOR JOE RILEY

 Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the esteemed journalist David 
Broder profiled Mayor Joe Riley of Charleston, SC, in Sunday's 
Washington Post. Joe Riley has done more for Charleston and the State 
of South Carolina than anyone could have dreamed. He is truly one of 
the brightest lights in the American political scene. I strongly 
encourage everyone to read Mr. Broder's article and I respectfully 
request that it be printed in the Record.
  The article follows:

                     The Right Way to Renew a City

       Charleston, SC--``Sometimes, if you paint on a smaller 
     canvas, you can make a more beautiful picture.''
       That's what Mayor Joseph Riley told me in his office here, 
     just hours after he had announced that he would not be the 
     Democratic candidate for governor of South Carolina next 
     year. He had lost the Democratic nomination for governor by a 
     hair in 1994 to a candidate who in turn was narrowly defeated 
     in the general election. Riley was the Democrat's leading 
     hope to challenge Republican Governor David Beasley in 1998, 
     but the ``painful decision,'' as he said in his formal 
     statement, was dictated by his family's reluctance to face 
     life in the fishbowl of a statewide campaign and, possibly, 
     the governor's office.
       Riley, 54, has been mayor of Charleston since 1975, and 
     what has been achieved here under his leadership is 
     extraordinary. The city has endured much--Hurricane Hugo's $2 
     billion devastation, the closing of the Navy base that was 
     its biggest employer. But Charleston has double the 
     population and six times the area it did when Riley became 
     mayor, it boasts the internationally renowned Spoleto music 
     festival, its downtown stores are thriving and it is one of 
     the nation's favorite tourist attractions.
       But it is mainly the way that Charleston treats the social 
     problems that all old cities share that has made Riley's long 
     reign so remarkable.
       When Britain's Prince Charles visited the city, he went 
     past the elegant homes on the harbor to the homeless shelter 
     run by Crisis Ministries, a nonprofit, interfaith group. It 
     is a spotlessly clean facility, which provides what former 
     HUD secretary Henry Cisneros urged all cities to offer, ``a 
     full spectrum'' of services to the men, women and children 
     who, as the staff is trained to say, are ``guests'' in the 
     building.
       My guide, Debbie Waid, explained that the food is donated, 
     the cooking is done by community volunteers and the residents 
     keep it swept and scrubbed. But the mayor has arranged for 
     all the support services--from the policeman on duty every 
     night to the counselors who help the homeless get back on 
     their feet. The soup kitchen and the daily clinic serve 
     everyone in the city who needs help.
       The other part of Cisneros's dream that has been realized 
     in Charleston is scatter-site public housing. In previously 
     run-down neighborhoods bordering the historic district with 
     its magnificent antebellum homes, the city housing authority 
     has been winning prestigious design awards of its own.
       Don Cameron, who has been running the authority almost as 
     long as Riley has been mayor, showed me single lots, or two 
     or three adjoining lots, where town houses or duplexes or 
     small apartment buildings have been built so handsomely that 
     private developers have snapped up adjoining property and 
     whole blocks have been revived.
       Driving with Cameron through the decrepit East Side, where 
     freed slaves congregated after the Civil War, you could see 
     where one freshly painted building, erected by the city or 
     one of the many nonprofits that have sprung up in response to 
     Riley's leadership, is being cloned up and down the street 
     with private capital, encouraged by federal low-income 
     housing tax credits.
       These buildings don't resemble public housing. The porches, 
     the materials, the roof lines all have been chosen to look 
     like other Charleston homes. Riley's dictum is that ``there 
     is no reason for government ever to build something that is 
     not beautiful.'' Even his downtown parking garages have won 
     architectural awards.
       Because the subsidized housing is handsome, the NIMBY 
     problem--Not in My Back Yard--has been minimized. Unlike the 
     old public housing projects, with weed-choked front lawns 
     littered with whiskey bottles, and beat-up cars at the curb, 
     the scatter-site homes are scrupulously maintained. The cars 
     are parked off-street, out of site. The fences are posted 
     against trespassing, and the police see to it that vagrants 
     do not loiter.
       Riley has been at it for a long time and, with last week's 
     decision against running for governor, may be here a lot 
     longer. His work has had its rewards.
       When I asked him how he had done in his last reelection 
     race in 1995, he said, ``I got 75 percent,'' then added with 
     a laugh, ``It would have been more, but we had a tornado 
     warning in midafternoon, and some of my people never got to 
     vote.'' But a more important commendation came recently at a 
     fancy reception at The Citadel commandant's home, where a 
     woman serving drinks whispered to the mayor, ``I'm moving 
     into public housing next week --and it is so beautiful.:
       Next week, the 19th International Conference on Making 
     Cities Livable will be held here. They are coming to the 
     right place.

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