Billy Keyserling

Billy Keyserling (born June 29, 1948) is a Beaufort native, elected mayor of Beaufort in the November, 2009 general election. He previously served in the South Carolina General Assembly from 1992 through 1996 and was on the Beaufort City Council from 2001 through 2004. He is the son of longtime S.C. representative Harriet Keyserling and Dr. Herbert Keyserling, a longtime Beaufort physician renowned for working philanthropically and for whom the Keyserling Cancer Center in Port Royal is named. He is the brother of Paul Keyserling.

Herbert Keyserling came to Beaufort Memorial Hospital in 1946, after serving as a Navy combat surgeon during the invasion of Guadalcanal, where he was awarded the Silver Star for his valor and heroism. He retired in 1996, but remained on Beaufort Memorial's emeritus staff until he died June 19, 2000.

Harriet Keyserling served in the South Carolina House of Representatives, 1977 to 1993, where she represented Beaufort County and took strong stands on matters of education, the environment and nuclear waste. She was once described by Gov. Richard Riley as "more given to quiet research, serious conversation, and careful organization—and less to the smoke-filled-room politics of much big talk and little listening."

Career summary

Keyserling grew up in Beaufort and attended Beaufort High School for a while, until dyslexia made his studies difficult. He enrolled in the Cambridge School Of Weston, graduating in 1967. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in American Studies (Magna Cum Laude) from Brandeis University and a graduate degree in Public Communications from Boston University. He overcame his dyslexia in college by creating an independent study program en route to his undergraduate degree, he told The Beaufort Gazette shortly after his selection as Beaufort's mayor in 2008. A Beaufort native, Keyserling lived in Washington, D.C., for 16 years during the 1970s and 1980s. He worked as an assistant to South Carolina Rep. John Jenrette Jr. and to Sen. Fritz Hollings and eventually ran Hollings' failed presidential campaign in 1984.

After putting "so much of my life and soul" into Hollings' presidential bid, Keyserling said, his career broke off in a new direction, one he proudly refers to as "my human rights days." For five years, Keyserling headed the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that raised awareness of Jewish people's plight in the former Soviet Union, where they were unable to practice their religion openly and couldn't leave the country. In 1989, as Soviet relations with the West were warming and human rights in the country were improving, Keyserling left the conference, feeling he had accomplished all he could.

He stayed in Washington for two years and helped start a lobbying firm, but said, "I didn't have it in me." Having always planned to come home eventually, Keyserling returned to Beaufort in 1989 and ran a campaign that raised $5 million for Penn Center, then worked as a grass-roots lobbyist with the Municipal Association of South Carolina. By the time he founded Keyserling Real Estate in 1994, he was serving the first of two terms in the General Assembly, having succeeded his mother, Harriet Keyserling, who served District 124 from 1977 through 1993. Keyserling said most people think his mother got him into politics, but it was really the other way around. "I got her involved," he said. "I convinced her to run for (the Beaufort County Council in 1974) ... She had a lot of passion about the right things." While in the General Assembly, he led the fight against storing nuclear waste in South Carolina and worked to eliminate special interest tax exemptions and remove the sales tax on food. He also served as Vice Chairman of the Joint House and Senate Legislative Committee on Energy, according to his Web site.

Keyserling was elected to his first term as a Democrat but ran as an independent in his second term. "It's not that I'm leaving the Democratic Party. I'm leaving partisan politics," he told The Beaufort Gazette upon announcing he would run as an independent in June, 1994. After winning reelection, Keyserling voted for Republican David Wilkins to be House Speaker over Democrat Robert Sheheen. The house at that time included 60 Democrats, 61 Republicans and three independents. Wilkins won the speakership.

Aside from serving in the General Assembly, Billy Keyserling has been a Beaufort City councilman, president of the Arts Council of Beaufort County and a board member of the Beaufort Marine Institute, Main Street Beaufort, USA, and, as of this month, the S.C. Affordable Housing Coalition. He started the Beaufort Three-Century Project to coincide with the 300th anniversary of the city's incorporation; the idea was to catalogue the city's history, not so much purely for celebration, but to help set its future.

Gov. Jim Hodges appointed Billy Keyserling to lead a task force seeking ways to enhance the film industry in South Carolina in 2002.

Political rivalry with Mayor Bill Rauch

Keyserling had a longstanding political rivalry with former Beaufort mayor Bill Rauch and lost mayoral races against the former advisor to New York Mayor Ed Koch in both 1999 and 2004.

Keyserling, then on the City Council, attempted to unseat Rauch in the 2004 election. Also in that three-way race for mayor was Peter White, owner of Southurn Rose Buggy Tours.

Citing several issues, including the impending round of military Base Realignment and Closure, the planned construction of new law and municipal government complexes and the new redevelopment commission and medical technology task force, Keyserling said Beaufort needed a mayor who will work with its people, not dictate what the City Council thinks is best. Incumbent Mayor Bill Rauch filed his nonpartisan petition to run for another 4-year term a month earlier.

In concil meetings leading up to the general election, Rauch and Keyserling clashed over budget and tax issues, including an appropriate tax millage rate for the city. After weeks of bickering, off-agenda motions and petitioning for an extension to the city's tax deadline, the council voted to finalize a tax rate in October of that year, but with Keyserling and Rauch sitting on opposite sides of the issue. White attended the council meetings and laments that because of Rauch's and Keyserling's council status, "Bill and Billy have the advantage that any controversy between them becomes a debate and gets in the paper."

Kesyerling erected a plethora of distinctive green yard signs, supplementing the green "Billy K" stickers. The "Billy K" stickers sparked a controversy as Keyserling charged Rauch with telling a Beaufort resident that the "K" in "Billy K" stands for the $1,000 Keyserling will cost a taxpayer should he win the election. Rauch denies telling anyone that, and said it was the other way around; that a resident told him that. Beyond bumper stickers, Keyserling has distributed letters to certain Beaufort residents that state his intention to keep new roads out of the neighborhoods between Mossy Oaks and North Street, while claiming Rauch favors such a road along the rail line that runs through those neighborhoods. Rauch dismissed the letters as "disingenuous and despicable" and responded through a paid advertisement in The Beaufort Gazette, denying the claims in Keyserling's letters.

In a letter by Rauch's wife, Sarah Rauch, mailed to residents in the campaign's final days, she said many of the Keyserling campaign signs in front of homes and businesses are there because of Keyserling's intimidating business influence, and not because of genuine political support for him. Keyserling was a Realtor and owned a mortgage finance company in Beaufort at the time. The letter claims that people in a variety of businesses could not risk offending Keyserling because of their business with him, and therefore could not afford to put up a Rauch campaign sign. Keyserling, who is frustrated with the last-minute campaign move and what he considers incessant pandering by the Rauch campaign, said Monday, "I'm saying she's (Sarah Rauch) lying ... What right does she have to speak for those people?"

Keyserling lost the election — and as a result, his seat on the council, since his spot in the at-large, nonpartisan body was up that year, too. He continued to joust with Rauch, however. He lost despite out-spending Rauch and White, by about $20,000 and $29,700, respectively, in the weeks and months leading up to Tuesday's vote. Keyserling's $30,000 outpaced the $10,000 spent by Rauch and $300 spent by White in the race for the city's top post.

The end of the election did not end Keyserling's rivalry with Rauch.

In 2007, Keyserling told the State Ethics Commission that Rauch had offered to accept a bribe from Keyserling, but Keyserling turned him down. Rauch wanted Keyserling to praise Rauch's work in letters to The Beaufort Gazette and serve as treasurer of Rauch's re-election campaign instead of running for mayor this year, Keyserling said. In exchange, Rauch offered to vote for annexation of the 1,005-acre McLeod Farm, which was being sold through Keyserling's real estate firm and includes 38 acres that Keyserling owns with three partners, Keyserling said. An Ethics Commission investigation turned up probable cause, but the case was dismissed in April because o bribe actually took place. Rauch said the alleged bribery scheme was simply a misunderstanding of comments he made "in jest" to Keyserling's attorney David Tedder at a wedding.

Rauch did resign in 2008 after he was ensnared in another scandal. He paid $44,000 to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday to settle an insider trading charge. Council members George O'Kelley, Gary Fordham and Donnie Beer had called for Rauch's resignation. Having already sold his home in the historic Old Point district, he moved to Washington, D.C.

Decision to run for mayor ... again

When the ethics probe into Rauch's alleged bribe became public, Keyserling said he did not intend to run for mayor in 2008. After Rauch resigned, however, Keyserling changed his mind. He ran against sitting council members Donnie Beer and Mike Sutton (whose seats were not up for reelection) and political newcomer Mike Brant.

Keyserling ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility, questioning the cost of the new municipal center and the tax hike necessary to pay for it. (Keyserling had voted to approve the complex's construction while still on the City Council but was no longer in office when more decisions about the building were made by the city.) He also said Sutton and Beer were too deferential to the city's staff and that they lacked a vision of Beaufort's future. "As wonderful as this little town is...the leadership has gone astray," Keyserling said at one candidate forum. "The leadership has gotten us in trouble with taxes, in trouble with our vision and in trouble with participatory government."

Keyserling's role as a developer

Keyserling started his own real estate company in 1994 and has acted as developer in several ventures under several names. Keyserling's involvement in the Village at Port Royal, which was selected in 1996 as one of the top 10 traditional neighborhood designs in the country by the nonprofit Congress for New Urbanism. Keyserling's other residential development projects have included Ribaut Island, which he said took four years to complete; the Waters of Beaufort, which took two years; and the condominiums planned for the former Bay Street location of BB&T, which he joked will be "a 500-year project." Coastal Living magazine in 2001 recognized 710 Boundary St. with its annual Design Award. The building was also featured in the January-February 2002 issue of Coastal Living's section "2002 Best of the Coast." 710 Boundary St., a mixed-use commercial/residential building owned by Keyserling and designed by Allison Ramsey Architects, was recognized with Coastal Living's 2002 Design Award.

He also was one of the developers of Stuart Point, a 37-acre tract on McLeod Farm that is zoned to allow about 100 homes. The 1,005-acre McLeod Farm has been a recent source of concern for many area residents who think the pristine land should not be developed, but Keyserling said Seabrook is an ideal place for growth in northern Beaufort County. It also was at the center of much of debate with Rauch in the period between his stint as councilman and mayor. "I used to be opposed to annexation and growth, but now I'm reconciled that it's coming," he said. "And every (family) that comes (to Seabrook) instead of Lady's Island is two fewer cars in traffic and ... evacuation routes."

Keyserling sold his real estate business in July 2007 but committed to work full-time for the company — Coldwell Banker Platinum Partners — through 2008.