Sparkle City Headlines: Mike Fowler Joins Mayoral Race

It’s officially a race: Local businessguy Mike Fowler has committed to run for the soon-to-be-open post of Mayor of Spartanburg. Until today, the only announced candidate was Jennifer Evins, meaning the race was more of a time trial until someone else stepped up.

So, what do we know about Fowler? Thanks for the Spartanburg Herald-Journal‘s Jason Spencer, quite a lot, actually.

• He has a business “distributing health products” (which I hope means something more than door-to-door vitamin sales).
• He was “executive chef for Rascals Clubhouse, and was once the owner of Zax’s Downtown Deli on the first floor of the Montgomery building in the 1990s.
• He was director of Damascus House Ministries.
• He evidently has attended both Republican and Democratic political events.

So, for me, the picture that emerges here is of a guy who likes running businesses, has an interest in food, has some kind of deep religious interest and is politically noncommittal. In other words, he seems not terribly different than most local business people.

The real issue, of course, are Fowler’s concerns about the city. What are his priorities?

Fowler emphasized the need to form partnerships that will help combat the high school dropout rate, crime, homelessness and the childhood obesity rate in this city. He said the city needs to focus more on its local entrepreneurs to foster new businesses.

Crime is certainly an issue, as is homelessness. The high school dropout rate isn’t really something the City can control, except indirectly, but his concern about this seems to come from the statistical relationship between the crime rate and the dropout rate, which makes some sense.

Childhood obesity — while certainly a problem — isn’t exactly something I’m worried about our next mayor tackling. It’d be good if the next Mayor supported all health initiatives, or at least didn’t obstruct them, but I don’t see how this works as a part of a platform. We have bigger issues to talk about, I think. Poverty and racial disparity come to mind, for instance.

But I’m with him on business. Downtown specifically needs more of them, since part of the City’s existing plan is to make the area something of a tourism and entertainment hub. Let’s hear some more from Fowler …

“There are lots of entrepreneurs in our community. They need a chance, like someone gave me a chance years ago, to start a small business,” he said.

So far so good. And it’s certainly within the scope of the Mayor’s job to act as an advocate for business, both big and small. But Fowler doesn’t address how he’d like to do this.

After all, the best available step for promoting business downtown would be to adopt the stalled Downtown Master Plan, which has thus far not been a part of the discussion. And it should be. As far as the City is concerned, and as far as things the City Council and Mayor can actually act on, rather than indirectly influence, this is the thing that needs to be tackled for downtown to move forward. Yet both of the candidates who have stepped up thus far haven’t mentioned it.

Still, I find Fowler’s reluctance to pick a political side interesting. He’s described as a “fiscally conservative guy,” but that could mean anything. Does that mean he’d be opposed to arts or tourism initiatives because they’re not direct money makers? Are we left to infer that he’s also socially conservative?

Where does he stand on, say, implementing new rules which would allow for downtown beer and wine grocery sales so Spartanburg could directly compete with Greenville and towns on the N.C. border? Would he continue to support arts initiatives like HUB-BUB? Would he be willing to go to the mat over downtown development issues?

We don’t really know anything about Fowler yet, other than some vagaries about business issues. And I worry if that’s not intentional on his part.

Props again to Jason Spencer for getting the ball rolling on this.