SPEAKING FREELY ABOUT PRESTON SMELT, COUNTY COUNCIL CANDIDATE

The challenges faced by Dorchester County stem largely from one eye-popping statistic: since 2022, the population of the county has increased by 28 percent, a much faster rate than county planners had imagined would be the case.

As a result, county roads are clogged with traffic, the schools in District 2 are over-crowded, and response times for emergency services are lengthy. Given all the new housing currently under construction, worse is yet to come. Despite this, developers circle open land like vultures, looking for more building opportunities.

These problems have led Preston Smelt to enter the race to fill what will be the vacant seat representing County Council District 7. (Incumbent Republican Jay Byars is leaving the seat to run for Congress.)

Smelt, 49, has never run for office before, but he has the qualities to be an effective candidate. He likes to meet strangers. He can ask for campaign donations. He has a strong voice. In his business career he addressed large gatherings. He is a vigorous advocate for his positions and he exudes self-confidence.

He brings to the race significant experience from the business world. He worked in Atlanta in the hotel industry, analyzing data to manage the inventory of hotel rooms and to price it to maximize revenue.

He also took the leap to start his own business: a small craft brewery in downtown Atlanta. The Covid pandemic, however, eliminated the foot traffic he needed to survive and he was forced to close it. (He still has a barrel of rye whiskey fermenting in his living room.)

Smelt moved from Atlanta to Summers Corner in Dorchester County in 2024. His wife is a native of Goose Creek.

His own experience with the area began in 1995 when he enrolled at Charleston Southern University, which offered him a scholarship as a percussionist. He eventually switched to economics and the application of data to business decisions. He furthered this expertise with a graduate degree from Florida State.

The explosive, largely untamed growth he found in Dorchester County in 2024 convinced him to enter local politics. He studied the county's master plan for handling growth and found it to be sensible. However, the County Council was not following its own advice as laid out in the plan.

"We have seen explosive growth in housing," Smelt says, "while our roads, schools, public safety resources, and community services have been treated as an afterthought. The practice of green-lighting new phases of development before infrastructure work is completed must end. I am running to ensure that as we grow, we do so in way that is safe, sustainable, and fair for every resident."

The policies Smelt offers voters are all meant to address the very practical problems of daily living in Dorchester County.

He would pause development of new housing projects until the current infrastructure is improved and a system is worked out whereby developers bear many of the costs of new projects in advance.

He wants to improve response times for fire, police and emergency medical responders.

He will push the County and State Department of Transportation officials to work faster to install traffic lights at increasingly dangerous intersections where traffic growth has been most perilous. To address a related problem, he will work to force developers, the county and the State DOT to provide second entrances/exits for developments that have only one. It shouldn't take an emergency, such as a gas leak at Summers Corner, to get a second exit built.

He is not in favor of merging the two school districts in the county. He doesn't want to tear up communities by redistricting school boundaries. But by working with the State he will seek a way to ease the over-crowding in District 2.

He shares the concerns of others over the massive data centers poised to invade our region. He said he would require the builders of these centers to bear all the costs. That means construction, electricity, water, and more. "These centers must be fully self-funded with no money coming from the county," he says. He would locate them, if at all, in parts of the county far from where other business and residential growth is planned.

The 2026 election could begin a major political transformation of the County Council. Peter Smith, Jr., a Democrat, already represents District 1. The District 6 seat is vacant. Rita May Ranck in District 3 is beatable, given the district's voter profile. And Smelt has a shot at the vacant District 7 seat.

Four seats on the seven-seat Council? It could happen. But we need more candidates like Smelt to take the plunge.

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Preston Smelt's campaign website is available at https://progresswithpreston.com/