Know Your Candidates

This is the sixth and final installment of a several-week series of profiles of the six candidates to succeed Joe Riley as mayor of Charleston. The candidates are Ginny Deerin, W. Dudley Gregorie, Toby Smith, Leon Stavrinakis, John Tecklenburg, and Maurice Washington.
William Dudley Gregorie is a Charleston native, and a single, retired federal administrator who has served on City Council representing parts of downtown and James Island since 2009.
For more than three decades, Gregorie worked for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, his career finishing as the state director for South Carolina.
A trustee at “Mother” Emmanuel AME Church downtown, site of this year’s grisly attack, Gregorie has taken the lead on working to restore the church to its former glory.
This is Gregorie’s third mayoral campaign, which he thinks will be more successful without Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. running.
Gregorie is calling for a Charleston that “works for everyone.” His top issues are managing the city’s growth, improving drainage and schools and public safety, as well as attacking what he terms the “affordability gap.”
Mayor pro tem Gregorie touts his level of knowledge of municipal departments and his relationship with other members of Council as what sets him apart from the rest of the field. “I’ll be a mayor who is ready day-one to lead this city,” he says.
Gregorie says his understanding of not only municipal government, but of the federal system will be key in the city moving forward as it bounces back from Hurricane Joaquin and all the issues its record rainfall exposed in the city.
Gregorie rejects the idea that Charleston will experience a post-Riley paradigm shift where Council gets stronger and the mayor’s office weaker. “Not on my watch,” he said.