Who's Running for Irmo Town Council?: Hardy King

Irmo-Seven Oaks Patch is asking candidates several questions to help you make an informed decision about the candidate you want to vote for. Each candidate has the opportunity to answer the same questions.

Here is the lineup of candidates, with the letter "I" noting the incumbents.

For mayor:

• I-Kathy Condom (term ends Nov. 30)

• Suzanne C. Gooch

• I-Hardison “Hardy” King (term ends 2013)

• I-Barry A. Walker Sr. (term ends 2013)

For council seats:

• I-Harvey Hoots (term ends Nov. 30)

• Sarah Watson

• Paul E. Younginer

is not seeking another term and will retire at the end of November.

Today's candidate profile is on Hardy King.

Name: Hardison “Hardy” King

Age: 55

Occupation: Owner of Kings' Furniture Revival in Irmo

Years on Board: Elected to council in 2005

Prior Experience (any governing board): Irmo Zoning Board of Appeals

Family: Wife, Eileen; two children, Adam and Kristiana

Education: Graduate of the Municipal Association of South Carolina's Institute for Elected Officials

Web site: http://www.hardyking.com/

Patch: What’s your vision for Irmo? Why are you running or why should people vote for you?

King: “I’m a very conservative individual. My platform, my vision, everything that I’ll be running for will be from a conservative perspective. Spend less money, eliminate as many rules and regulations as possible. Not add any more new code enforcements that we’re not going to enforce. We have a lot of rules right now that we don’t enforce. To me, if we’re going to have a rule (then) enforce it. If were not going to enforce it, get rid of the rule. I’ve always opposed the smoking ban, the texting ban. Neither one of those is enforceable, so to me they are a waste of time. That’s why I didn’t vote for it.”

"One of my visions as I kind of stated is for the neighborhoods in Irmo to be the #1 choice for people moving in on this side of town in School District 5.  My mission as Irmo's Mayor would be to make that happen."

Patch: What issues do you see Irmo facing in the next 5 years?

King: "There’s really no way of knowing. It’s not so much what issues come up, it’s how do we deal with them when they do come up."

Patch: What’s your stance on the Okra Strut Festival?

King: "I am not running to stop the Okra Strut, I’m not running to save the Okra Strut. It’s a very minor priority in mind. Our budget, police department, code enforcement, quality of services for our citizens, those are priorities."

"One candidate said we need to buy land for the Okra Strut. We spend $250,000 minimal buying land, how much are we going to spend making it into a park. What kind of benefit do we get out of it? It's somebody else's money that we're spending. We need to be able to answer those questions. That's one of the reasons why I'm running, is to fight against that frivolous spending."

"The town is financially responsible for all financial losses incurred by the Okra Strut Festival. I don't believe we should be, and I don't believe we should knowingly allow it to continue."

Patch: What are your thoughts about having chickens in your backyard?

King: “We got to make a decision or ignore it. We had been ignoring it. I think we need to put it on the agenda and vote it up or down, so people know where we stand. The problem is can we allow something that gives the people who own the property the freedom to do something on their property, but not infringe on somebody else’s freedom, too, or quality of life. One side of the issue is that chickens don’t cause anymore of a smell than dogs and we don’t limit dogs. And I agree with that. The other side of that is ya’ll can’t enforce stinky dogs, how are you going to enforce stinky chickens? The people that want the chickens have an honest request. If we’re going to take our time to discuss something that no one asked us to do, then why can’t we take our time to discuss something that citizens and voters asked us to do?”

“Even if we pass one right now, a lot of the neighborhoods have ordinances (Home Owner’s Association) which don’t allow it and some of them are cloudy.”

Patch: What are your thoughts on Irmo growth (zoning, annexation, etc.) ?

King: “When I got elected in 2005, one of the comments I made was Irmo needs to do a better job at annexation or the City of Columbia is going to surround us.  People have said that for years. When I got elected in 2005, I didn’t say that, I did that. I went out and talked to every business on Broad River Road from the red light at Kinley and Kennerly (roads) all the way down to the interstate, down Western Lane and from Broad River (Road) up to the Walmart. Talked to them personally and said here’s why you want to annex into the town. Once I turned into it, then we all vote on it as a council. Most of those passed 4 to 1. My reasoning was if we don’t got out there on the interstate and talk to people on the interstate, then Columbia is going to annex down the interstate. Because of all the annexation along the interstate, we have pretty much blocked the city of Columbia from growing any further. So, a lot of the annexation has probably slowed down. There are few pockets here and there.” More on Irmo expansion

Patch: What’s your stance on financial spending? Conservative or liberal?

King: “I’m very conservative when it comes to the budget (and) keeping expenses down.  Tax dollars belong to somebody and that’s other people’s money. We should be careful of how we spend other people’s money. There seems to be a thought process, sometimes, that if you’re elected and there’s a kitty of money that’s your money to spend and it really isn’t. It belongs to the taxpayer. We shouldn’t be spending it on stuff that we wouldn’t spend our own money on. I fight against that. We’ve had issues come up in the past, one of the candidates brought up (the idea of) buying a snowplow. We get snow once a year. What are we going to do with it for 364 days out of the year except for let it rust? It doesn’t cost a lot money, but its not just the $6,000 for a snowplow, it’s the $15,000 to $20,000 for a truck to hook it to. It’s somebody has to drive it and where do you start? There’s no plan for doing something like that. To me, if we’re going to do something, we need a plan.”

"The town paid cash for the police department years ago because it conserved money, saved money and didn’t spend money. Why not save (the money) now and have it available (in case of an emergency.) You got to have a reserve account. We live off tax receipts and revenue from business licenses and sales taxes. The last two years we had to pull money out of our reserve to balance the budget. If you don’t have that, then that means you got to take that zero property tax and bring it back up to 5 mil property tax or 10 mil property tax. Because we had that savings, over and above what we needed for living expenses, we didn’t have to do that. It’s important to save that money and not spend that money just because it’s there. If it’s a good idea and the town benefits and it brings back more benefits than what it costs, then I’d say take the money out of the reserve and spend it, too. But if it’s something we can do without like a snowplow or truck, then I’d say no.”

"Since 1990, Irmo has worked to lower our property millage tax until it got to zero. We need to maintain that."

Patch: Anything else you want to add?

King: “It’s easy to say you’re the best candidate and I’m sure all of us believe that to a certain extent. I’m a more true, strong person that’s going to stand up and fight for the citizens of Irmo.”

Sunday's profile will be on council member Harvey Hoots. The order of the profiles are being published in the order that the interviews were conducted.