The Firestrorm is just Beginning
It seems unrelated, but it’s funny how life can come together in a perfect storm. Who would have thought that the Sofa Super Store fire could ripple to the top, and perhaps destroy a power structure that’s been in place for more than three decades for the sake of a man whose sense of self-importance is a testament to a father’s pride.
The world that Joe Sr. envisioned is beyond his wildest dreams. The name on the label, however, is that of Joe Jr. People didn’t realize when they cast the vote for Little Joe, a decades-long power struggle between the Protestants and the Catholics at city hall was decided. They didn’t realize what they had wrought.
The Protestants had an agenda just as the Catholics. People on Broad Street knew which way the real estate patterns were trending and made a lot of money for the time. After 50 years, the center of power was in the back bar of Hibernain Hall not the Yacht Club.
For thirty years, Joe has been unopposed by City Council. Things could change.
Before I go further, I’d like to quote again from Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg (I’m in the middle, and my jaw is dropping.): “The only culpable mistake that liberals make is failing to “fight hard enough” for their principles. Liberals are never responsible for historic misdeeds, because they have no compulsion to defend the inherent goodness of America.”(Or Charleston for that matter.)
I bring this up because on the front page of Saturday, May 17th issue of the Post and Courier are two articles that convey that perhaps responsibility for historic misdeeds may soon be brought into light of day despite the slavish devotion of the local media. WIS-TV or The State gets a whiff of this and the walls could crumbling down.
The first story was by Ron Menchaca and Glen Smith. The headline read: “Riley blames store owner. Mayor says illegal additions led to firefighters’ deaths.” http://www.charleston.net/news/2008/may/17/riley_blames_store_owner41293/
In the story, they report, “Charleston Mayor Joe Riley blames Sofa Super Store owner Herb Goldstein for the deaths of nine firefighters and insists that the city and its Fire Department did everything possible to prevent the tragedy on June 18.
“Riley said in an interview Friday that illegally built additions compromised the massive building’s fire protection and allowed a small outdoor trash fire to quickly race inside a showroom stuffed with flammable furniture.
“In a news conference at City Hall on Wednesday, Charleston Mayor Joe Riley speaks about the retirement of Fire Chief Rusty Thomas.
“Asked if he holds Goldstein responsible for the deaths of the firefighters, Riley said, “I do, and I told him that. I told him with our lawyers that ‘I just want you to know that we believe that the additions to your building that weren’t permitted is the reason that this fire went from a trash fire to this tragic fire,’ ” he said. “It’s his responsibility to get a permit for additions. He is at fault.”
To repeat Goldberg, “Liberals are never responsible for historic misdeeds…”
The second article involved Timmy Mallard. In the interest of disclosure I have known Timmy for at least a score of years. Although I voted for Jane Barr against Mary Francis Bleeker, It was Timmy Mallard who took Bleeker’s place. My thought at the time was, “Meet the new boss – same as the old boss”
My thoughts were that he would follow the Riley line. I read part of the ongoing heart-wrenching report on Thursday, and I think Rusty Thomas got thrown under the bus. It’s a shame. He was one of the decent ones. We have witnessed the horror for a week.
The second article that appeared had a headline that read: City Council members say they’ve been left out of loop on fire developments. Written by David Slade, there is a picture of an outraged Timmy Mallard on the front cover. Read the full article, here: http://www.charleston.net/news/2008/may/17/city_council_members_say_theyve_been_lef41304/
The piece reported, “It’s been embarrassing, really,” said Councilman Tim Mallard, whose district includes the sofa store site. “We’ve been kept in the dark for 11 months.”
“Charleston City Councilman Tim Mallard accused Mayor Joe Riley of repeatedly interrupting while several council members questioned the city’s fire review panel Friday afternoon. Mallard is among council members who said they feel left out of efforts to review and improve the fire department.
“Mallard blew up at Riley on Friday afternoon at a meeting that was arranged for council to question members of the fire review team, after the mayor repeatedly offered his take on the Fire Department and the fire.
“’I thought we were going to be able to talk to them without you here,’” said Mallard, who asked the mayor to leave. When Riley declined, Mallard left.
“Riley already had heard about council members’ concerns.”
So how did that go for you, Joe?
Later on in the article, Slade quotes various council members:
When Rusty Thomas retired Wednesday, “I didn’t hear anything from the mayor’s office,” said Councilwoman Deb Morinelli. “One of my constituents told me.”
Councilman Louis Waring learned of the chief’s retirement from a reporter Wednesday.
“When the city selected a firm to look for the new (fire) chief, I heard about it on television,” said Councilman Robert Mitchell.
The list goes on. Riley blames somebody else for being asleep at the switch while it was he and his minions on council who ignored the infrastructure, the procedures, didn’t provide the money and training or building code enforcement.
Oh no, Mayor Riley. It’s not Herb Goldstein’s fault, completely. It’s yours as well. The fact that both stories made the front page of the paper means that you are no longer bullet-proof – there are chinks appearing in the armor.
Will this bring Joe down? By no means. However, what it does mean is that council is fed up with being treated as “useful idiots.” Will the outrage carry though?
One can only hope so.
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May 18, 2008 at 12:16 am
Congrats, David, you are finally getting back to corralling specific issues. That’s MY David Farrow!
Allen
May 18, 2008 at 3:28 am
David, from personal observation of what the codes enforcement “officers” have done to homeowners, even to the point of forcing one neighbor, under order from the “environmental court” to stop building a garden shed for his bride in the back yard, until he had all of the four or five construction permits for a 10 x 10 structure or hounding selected residents for allegedly inoperable vehicles in their driveways, though turning a blind eye to others, the culpability of the City of Charleston is highly suspect, perhaps adequately so that Mr. Mallard and a few others ought to call for SLED to dig through Imperial Charleston’s entrails and engage in a cleansing haruspexion. As the Post Courier’s items note, though not quoted by you, that the report did question why the codes enforcement gauliters missed the issues for which an obdurate Little Joe blames Herb Goldstein. The “board of architectural purity” has less intrest, it would seem, in any notions of building safety than it does in extending arbitrary control of facades and community appearances outside the “Historical” areas of the imperial peninsula.
PS that was Anne Francis Bleeker that our friend Miss Barr opposed and Mr. Mallard defeated. Anne Francis of “Bleekerville” the self proclaimed bastion of leftism that appears to have had little problem ovelooking one adult oriented business operating in violation of every code that was cited for the closure of the C&C Video News; yet that is another blog entry, guessing that you have to have the peeps with glory holes, not just the less than ten percent adult oriented material as your store’s stock, to really be in violation of Charleston’s selectively enforced codes.
May 18, 2008 at 4:09 am
David,
You are definitely onto something. For 30 years the local media has been sleeping in deep slumber while they printed what city hall wanted (and the county school system). We got an acquarium at great expense that we did not need with great cost over runs— cost over runs that have never been revealed in full nor has the local media dug into what it really cost. At the same time we have gotten affordable housing, lavish sums spent on the arts, consultants, one project or another, business groups, etc. One was a city market organization that the mayor gave some $80k/year to for several years that did nothing. All of these were lavishly funded while the fire department was short changed and nickle and dimed to death.
No, Riley has been a great mayor overall but like all government officials he needs to have an alert media watching him — not a lap dog. Like Dan Rather he has been around a long time and it would be a shame for this to ruin his legacy. However I do not think that the local media has the balls to call him to task on it. As one prominent Republican said tonight, Riley may have a problem but there is no candidate in the wings capable of taking him on. At the same time I would hate to see the public letting the likes of Tim Mallard gaining sway over city government.
Then Don’s comments above about the city’s building inspection division and its selective enforcement of the building codes says volumes about a virtual police state that enforces what it wants to on a selective basis and then melts away at the first sign of anyone with clout demanding lax or no code enforcement. The poor homeowner here has to bear a huge burden to get any work done on his home while politically connected people almost run amouk doing what they want. All one has to look at is the BAR (Board of Architectural Review) which has become almost irrelevant in the last 15 years.
May 20, 2008 at 3:54 pm
What is with all the Catholic v. Protestant sentiment. Is this Charleston or Belfast?
May 20, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Comment:
What is with all the Catholic v. Protestant sentiment. Is this Charleston or
Belfast?
Dear Russ,
Although this generation doesn’t pay attention to religion the way past scions have, many Catholics thought that Stoney stole the election from Grace. (See the blog after the firestorm). Although the Irish were here for genreations and were of the more genteel sort — everybody winked and nodded — the mayor of Georgetown, William Doyle Morgan (A second-generation Catholic from the Bronx who arrived there in 1859), enticed many Catholic workers from New York and the a’uld sod to man the Atlantic Lumber Company in Georgetown. The port of entry was Charleston with the phospate industry. Although many did make it to Georgetown, the lure of work here compelled many others to stay.
As it is, today with the influx of people moving to Charleston, this addition totally changed the make-up of the population. The Catholics (who had prospered until 1863) that were here before caught a whiff of political power. With the combined population Grace was elected and the power of the Protestants was over. Grace lost the first re-election and won the next. Once again Irish Catholics rulled. They were progressives. Although every mayor since 1890 was a Democrat, the Protestants would be conservatives and Catholics Progressive in the early 20th Century way.
Grace lost the second election.
It was more because he was a progressive, not a Catholic, but that’s not how it was seen.
It was seen as a direct attack on the well-to-do Broad Street Catholics who put up a candidate against every last Protestant and lost.
Finally with his boyish charm Pug Ravenel left WallStreet to come save us from ourselves from being the backward undeducated renecks we were to He was denied the pleasure because of the state constitution.
Joe Riley Sr. was the king of the Catholics on Broad.The Protestants became fat, lazy and stupid. Watergate had just happened the year before. For the first time in over 100 years, the seat was open Joe had the same boyish charm as Pug nd talked about power to the people, how he had a vision for the city,
There were bagmen throughout this enirte story. Do you honestly think it stopped in 1975? When I was editor of the Charleston Mercury in 2003, I got a call from a vice president of the Daniel Island Company. He wouldn’t go on record or his company would have all his permits pulled if he did not do as instructed. I didn’t even know the man. but I could tell you he ws shaken. He was shaken to the core. Of course he wouldn’t go on the record, although I confirmed the story through another vice president who wouldn’t go on the record.
I am above all, a writer, but I’m a trained journalst, too. I am also columnist. I try to be fair. I posted your response, and will probably post this as an explanation.
I am not against Joe Riley because he is a Catholic nor do a rip that he is Irish. My concern is that he has engaged in Liberal Facism since the day he entered office, promising a Utopian Charleston while creating a dystopia it might take years from under we will need to be taxed.: The aquarium, etc.
So no, it’s not Belfast it’s Berlin.
May 20, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Has Joe Riley done anything positive for the Holy City or have we remained under is thumb for 7 terms?
May 21, 2008 at 3:16 am
With apologies for the digression, PC is that Coker as in Cokercraft of the model ship building vendor?