Baddourah plans to become a middle-roader on city spending habits

The new shoe leather District 3 representative on Columbia City Council plans to be a moderate on the city’s spending practices, or, as he puts it, “just a good balance.”

Restaurateur Moe Baddourah said he sees himself as being fiscally somewhere between departing Councilman Daniel Rickenmann and former Councilwoman Anne Sinclair. Rickenmann is viewed as having been more hawkish on spending cuts while Sinclair, who stepped down in 2008, more pragmatic.

“I’m more in the middle … more of a moderate fiscal conservative,” Baddourah, who stressed his business experience during the campaign, said Friday. “I’m not going to tell you I’m conservative and am going to vote to cut services to save money.”

One absolute on which Baddourah said he is unwilling to budge is voting to use revenue from the city’s water and sewer system for anything other than improving its crumbling pipes and pumps.

Answering with the one word, “no,” he was adamant that he would not vote to divert money from upkeep and replacement into other city functions such as police and firefighters, as council has for years.

In a runoff last week, Baddourah trounced Daniel Coble, son of former longtime mayor Bob Coble, by 14 percentage points, or 440 votes. Baddourah seized 14 of 22 precincts, doing especially well in the more conservative ones that were newly redrawn by council into District 3 from Columbia’s eastern edge.

Baddourah said he was surprised by the size of his victory. “I really fought hard for this race; a lot of hours; three pairs of shoes,” he said of the estimated 6,000 doors he said he knocked on along every street in the district that stretches from the USC area and Shandon and dips south and east into portions of what until this year was District 4. Some doors he returned to two or even three times, bring the total to 8,000, by his count.

Baddourah acknowledged that he largely will be an observer his first months in office, seeking to understand the intricacies of municipal finance as council prepares to adopt the budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 – the date he and new at-large Councilman Cameron Runyan, who’s replacing Rickenmann, take office.

“I really want to learn,” Baddourah said. Starting in January when the city begins grappling with the 2013-2014 budget, “I’m really going to get my hands dirty.” In the interim, he said he will not be a no-way, no-how councilman on increases in city spending.

“Ask me in a year and I’ll tell you if I’m Daniel Rickenmann or Anne Sinclair,” he said, chuckling.

Rickenmann, twice elected citywide, could not be reached Friday.

Former District 3 representative Sinclair said Rickenmann’s “hardline” approach to fiscal conservatism has “mellowed” in his time on council.

“If you take how Daniel is now and compare him to me, I think there would be a lot of similarities,” Sinclair said.

Learning and understanding how the city spends money and handles its finances is a slow process because of the complexities. The political reality of working with six other council members also tends to temper campaign rhetoric that offers simple solutions, she said.

“The new representatives are going to have to do a lot of listening to their fellow council members as well as to the staff,” Sinclair said, citing her experience during five terms on council.

Critics such as former Councilman Kirkman Finlay III say council is tilting back toward spending habits that once saw spending grow to the point that Columbia had two years of operating in the red before it corrected its course. Last year, council authorized a 2 percentage point increase in a franchise fee that all utility customers pay as a way of buoying the struggling bus system. Now, council is considering the size of its next increase in water and sewer rates.

Finlay, who supported Baddourah’s race and gave the candidate’s staff political advice, said the nation’s sluggish recovery also helped Baddourah. “I think the times are his ally.”

“I think his win is massively impressive,” Finlay said. “The fact that he overcame the ‘Legacy Bob Coble Machine’ is amazing.” Finlay, who lost a 2010 race for mayor and now is a candidate for the S.C. House 75 seat, said he did not realize how much the change in the district’s boundaries would help Baddourah. “I completely underestimated that.”