Chris O'Neal Touts Financial Expertise

Mount Pleasant heads to the polls Tuesday, November 8, to fill four seats on the town council. Three incumbents and six challengers are running for the at-large posts. This week, Mount Pleasant Patch will profile all the candidates.

If Chris O’Neal is elected to town council next week, he’ll be the youngest person on the council and about 18 years younger than the median age of the current nine-member panel.

But the 30-year-old O’Neal doesn’t see the age gap as a negative quality — far from it.

A certified public accountant, O'Neal has repeatedly said his experience outweighs the other candidates, even though most of them are old enough to be his parents.

“We find ourselves in the most challenging economic time in certainly my lifetime,” O’Neal said. “Looking at the situation our local government is in, many people encouraged me to run, because the last thing we need right now is an increase in taxes.”

Read profiles of all the candidates.

As the town faces a potential slowdown in real estate tax revenue, it also will face increasing costs. The town’s aging infrastructure and increasing health and retirement benefit costs, are unfunded obligations that will require skillful financial planning, he said.

“Many of my clients told me that I had helped them in challenging economic times, and that I could be of service to the town,” O’Neal said. “I think we need to take a good, long look at how we are running things.”

On the issue of retiree healthcare, O’Neal thinks the town would be “breaking promises” to change the plan for current employees.

“You have to make those changes for the new people that are coming on,” O’Neal said. “But this is an area where I can really dig in and use my financial knowledge.”

Now the fourth-largest municipality in the state, Mount Pleasant can’t operate like a bedroom community any longer, O’Neal said.

“The biggest challenge for Mount Pleasant is that it was funded for so long on growth,” O’Neal said. “We planned and built based on the assumption that the growth would continue.”

Shedding the bedroom community mentality involves diversifying the business community, O’Neal said. He’s the right guy to help, because he has such a close relationship with business owners.

“I look at their finances every day,” O’Neal said. “I know their impediments to growth and how government can make a community more attractive to businesses.”

Despite being a new dad and a business owner, O’Neal contends he’s a good fit for the council. Outside of the busy three-month tax season, he has a flexible schedule.

He might have ruffled a few feathers at a recent forum when he mentioned that his college degree isn’t 20 years old like some of the other candidates. O’Neal said his point is that his perspective will benefit the town.

“I bring financial credentials no one else has,” O’Neal said. “If I was going to sound like everyone else, I’m not sure why I would run. My message is different, and that’s because government needs to do something different.”

ABOUT O’NEAL
http://www.votechrisoneal.com/
Age: 30
Personal: Married, 1-year-old child
Education: Bachelor’s degree in economics and speech, Clemson University; Master’s of Accounting, College of Charleston
Professional: Partner in Moody CPAs and Advisors
Why he’s running: “I’m running for town council because I took a long look at the candidates and said there’s not anyone who has the financial experience that I do. This is a difficult economic time. This isn’t about where you got a degree from 20 years ago, this is about what you do every day. What I do every day is look at budgets, look at how people spend their money.”