Sumter Board of Realtors only endorses 1 incumbent in school board races

The Sumter area real estate association has endorsed nine candidates for Sumter School District Board of Trustees' races in the upcoming election set for Tuesday, and only one is an incumbent.

Dennis Kern, a member of the Sumter Board of Realtors and chairman of its political action committee it formed this election cycle to recommend candidates to its locally licensed members in the tri-county, spoke recently on its selection process and a related news release.

A local real estate agent with Uptown Realty, Kern said almost every action at any government level in some way affects the real estate business or property rights, and Realtors want to learn about candidates' stances and share that information with the public.

"From a Realtor's standpoint, we have a dog in pretty much every fight," he said. "Therefore, we want to inform ourselves, we want to inform the public, and when someone takes positions that we think we can agree with, then we want to be heard."

According to the news release and Kern, a panel of about 10 association members interviewed Sumter school board candidates who wanted to be interviewed and chose from them nine candidates the panel thought "were best qualified for the position."

The local association obviously wants the Sumter community to thrive and grow and - according to the release - the panel recommended candidates to its 432 licensed members who "would best represent the Realtors' position in promoting Sumter as a great place to live, work, attend school and play."

Kern added there definitely is a connection between the local school board and the real estate business.

"It would not seem like there is a direct connection between the school board and the real estate business, but there is because any time a family is making a moving decision, one of the things they look at is the schools," he said. "And the schools are an offshoot, at least to some extent in public perception, of your school board."

Sumter's nine-member school board has often been involved in controversial moves during the last four years and internal divisions, specifically in the last two years.

The only incumbent trustee the local Board of Realtors endorsed is Shawn Ragin for the new District (or Area) 5 in the southwestern portion of Sumter County to include Wedgefield and Pinewood. He has one challenger for that seat in Mary Singleton, but she did not participate in the Realtors' interview process. Singleton also did not attend Sumter School District's candidate forum for the seat in mid-October put on by its leading teacher group.

Seven incumbents were not endorsed by the area Realtors and include Brian Alston (District 1), Frank Baker (District 2), Johnny Hilton (District 3), Daryl McGhaney (District 4), Matthew "Mac" McLeod (District 6), Gloria Lee (District 7) and Sherril Ray (District 8).

Of note, four of those incumbents (Baker, McGhaney, McLeod and Lee) did not attend or participate in the Realtors' vetting process. Three of the four informed The Item of schedule conflicts, preventing their participation. Baker did not reply to the newspaper.

A total of 17 of the 25 school board candidates participated in the Realtors' interviews, Kern added. The association also asked all candidates to complete a questionnaire in its process.

He said the association made every effort it could to accommodate candidates' schedules.

When asked specifically why it only endorsed one incumbent trustee, Kern said the panel did not follow any general guidance and just went area by area in endorsing who it felt was most appropriate based on the information it had.

"We didn't set out to change everybody," he said. "We didn't set out to return a bunch of people and maintain the status quo. We went district by district and compared the people we had and what we knew about them."

In other local races, the association endorsed incumbent state Rep. Will Wheeler for the House District 50 race. The group also endorsed incumbent state Reps. David Weeks and Murrell Smith, both of whom are running unopposed.

Kern added the association did not endorse candidates for state-level offices or congressional offices.