COLUMBIA (WACH) - As voters gear up to elect a new mayor in a run-off election Tuesday, they will have to decide between two candidates who are faced with allegations of back taxes and bribing students.
Either attorney Steve Benjamin or businessman Kirkman Finlay will replace longtime Mayor Bob Coble, who decided not to run again after 20-years in office.
But- in recent days, the election has taken a turn for the worse as both candidates face allegations.
On Friday, documents were released alleging Finlay owed back taxes to Richland County.
On the same day, a suspicious video shot by a Columbia resident was released on Youtube.com, showing a party bus at Benedict College.
The video features a Benedict student who claimed a Benjamin staffer was buying soft drinks and food for the students, if they registered to vote.
"The young man he's on the campaign for Steve Benjamin and he has incentives to get the students out there to vote, you know we have the party bus and he's giving people food and drinks and everything to come out and vote," said the Benedict student in the video.
The Benjamin campaign has yet to issue a response on the footage.
On Monday Finlay held a press conference on the steps of Columbia’s City Hall to address what he calls negative campaigning by Benjamin.
"My opponent is attempting to discredit me and worse, mislead our city's voters by focusing on unrelated issues during the final weekend of campaigning," said Finlay.
Meanwhile campaign officials with Benjamin told WACH FOX News that he would not comment on the video or about Finlay's claims of negative campaigning.
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