1) Would you like your candidacy to be endorsed by the Sierra Club and why?

 Of course! As an environmental advocate striving for a zero-waste campaign, I would be grateful to be endorsed by the local chapter of Sierra Club,  As a community, we are woven together, and need to organize together for a just transition through the emergencies of climate change, systemic racism, economic instability, and the COVID-19 pandemic.  As friends and neighbors, I look forward to staying busy in the work for climate justice with you.

2) Given the current devastating impact of unemployment and other economic stresses on local residents that COVID has created and the need to foster racial equity in every decision making process, what actions could you take as a council member to support sustaining individuals, families and small businesses?

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed and amplified race and class inequity in our country and our community, and a just transition will require all hands on deck. Locally, I will continue to support partnership with mutual aid organizers like BeLoved Asheville and the WNC Worker Center, I will keep demanding transparency and an equity audit of our emergency funds, and I will work to remove barriers for local and cooperatively owned businesses and entrepreneurs. As a Councilmember, I will work to bring the Office of Equity & Inclusion to report directly to Council so that all of our budget, plans, and policies are accountable to equity, and I will champion our families, students, and educators working to close the achievement gap in our public schools as a key strategy in attracting living wage jobs. As a leader in WNC and across the state, we need our elected officials to build coalition for legislation that makes a Green New Deal with a race and class analysis possible, which must include living wages, mandatory inclusionary zoning as a tool for deeply-affordable housing, decriminalizing marijuana, and plans to put people to work on in quality, union jobs building green infrastructure. 

Addressing food insecurity, food desserts, and food apartheid must be part of our resiliency work, especially with increasing cost of living and in the face of climate change. Delivering food during emergencies is important, but we also need leaders to address root causes of why our neighbors don’t have what they need. Our successes will be shared, because we are woven together and need each other to be diligent in this work. This means I will be seeking community-led solutions as we bolster our community centers, increase access through expanded transit hours, support the local community garden network, and focus on strengthening our regional food and water systems. The City needs to partner for use of city-owned land for community gardens, and work with the County on meaningful emergency preparedness planning. 

3) Do you consider urban sprawl to be an issue in Asheville, and if so, what would you do to minimize it? Would you support the continuation of the current “density bonus” for new development in the city? What other ideas do you have to increase density in Asheville?

Yes, and as residents of Buncombe County, we need to coordinate to plan for smart growth. I support the concept of density bonuses, but we’re making too many exceptions and not getting what we need. In the next couple years, our Council will undertake a significant process to update our Unified Development Ordinance. It is my intent to center equity and to empower community voices in an engagement process that looks at our budget, plans, and policies as a whole so we can be proactive instead of reactive in our decision making. This includes careful assessment to address infill where we want it–on major corridors with solid infrastructure while protecting our natural environment and resources. Enforcing steep slope restrictions will be part of a careful review to protect our ecosystem for our community and for future generations.

4) How would you protect open space in Asheville? 

• An overlay district may be established for future development to allow Asheville to better regulate hotels and to address their impact on the environment and other concerns. 

Land use and planning are some of the most important responsibilities in the scope of Council’s work. Allowing hotels that rely on low-wages perpetuates many societal issues in our community, and giving hotel developers permission to spread out across the City without need for approval is not going to get us where we need to be as a place where people live and work sustainably. The draft overlay for hotel use by right development is still not appropriate given the concerns of lodging use saturation in a time when we need to prioritize dense housing development on major corridors. Due to delays and complications around the COVID-19 pandemic that have absorbed staff time and civic capacity, the hotel moratorium needs to be extended further than the 2 months suggested so a coordinated effort for community engagement can be successful, leveraging the allocation and use of our available hotel occupancy taxes and the Tourism Development Authority structure as well.

• Should the City require open spaces? 

Yes, alongside meaningful action to repair and protect our tree canopy. By advancing multimodal infrastructure and reliable public transit, we can significantly reduce the need for moving and parking cars, which can make housing development more cost effective while making it easier to protect our natural resources.

• Should the city minimize storm water runoff by requiring more retention or detention basins, rain gardens, or other methods to reduce surface water runoff and flooding?

Given issues with our outdated storm water system and having to release wastewater during storms, this is critical. Infill on main corridors, as part of a Strong Towns model for smart development, can be used along with zoning to protect our natural resources. Repair and maintenance of our urban tree canopy is key to successful storm water mitigation. 

5) Asheville City Council has adopted a plan to expand public transportation, including routes, frequency, and hours of operation. Even before COVID, the city did not have the revenue to fund this expansion. Given the current economic situation, how would you propose funding this plan short term? Longer term?

• In the short term: As a community, we have choices to ensure our budget supports our community values. Transit is at the intersection of equitable access, economic mobility, and climate justice. We must immediately implement fiscal years one and two of the Transit Master Plan, extending evening hours to 10pm on all routes and increasing frequency of service from 60 to 30 minutes to South Asheville so more people can commute without a car. 
• In the long term: we need to pursue a local, cooperative management model with a vested interest to oversee operations of our transit system instead of national management companies who consistently fail us; we need to coordinate efforts with Buncombe County and the French Broad Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for regional connectivity to connect commuters while getting cars off the road; we need to remove fares as a barrier to entry (fare-free, zero fare); and we need to expedite a dedicated funding stream.

6) The city has a multi-modal commission to better address the mix of transportation modes in the city including bicycles and pedestrians.  Where do you think that commission should focus its efforts?

As a necessity bus rider, cyclist, and pedestrian who donated our car 12 years ago in an effort to reduce our household dependency on fossil fuels, I have first-hand experience with the inadequacies of our multimodal infrastructure. I have brought my experience in service for over 4 years on Asheville’s Multimodal Transportation Commission (MMTC), representing transit interests via service on the Transit Committee as well as the Downtown Commission Sub-Committee on Parking & Transportation. I advocate for equitable access, for multimodal infrastructure funding, and for policies and designs meant to ensure that all of us get to our destination safely. From my years of service, I see a few ways the MMTC could focus efforts in advising Council:The MMTC was structured in part to transition greenway advisement from the Parks & Recreation department to the Transportation department. This means the MMTC is the umbrella organization for the Greenway Committee, the Bike/Ped Task Force, and the demoted Transit Committee. In an effort to streamline efforts by volunteers and City staff, I suggest that the Transit Committee should be reinstated to full commission status, not it’s current sub-committee status under MMTC, in order to advise Council directly on transit as a core service. The Multimodal Transportation Commission should still have representatives from the Transit Commission for a holistic perspective of multimodal needs city-wide, but would have more specific focus on matters like the upcoming Greenway, Accessibility, and Pedestrian (GAP) plan. 

Next, the MMTC should continue to focus advisement on funding, long-range planning, and multimodal transportation as a matter of public safety:

• Funding: In the past 5 years, members of the MMTC have compiled and reviewed an updated white paper that suggests funding for long-range plans. Seeking new funding opportunities, along with advocating for maintenance of existing funding, are among the stated goals of the group.

• Long-range planning: As Council takes action on its stated climate emergency, we must also ensure an equity lens with a race and class analysis. The MMTC must continue to invite equitable representation and input as advisement moves to Council on our climate goals, updates to the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), and amendments to our budget, plans, and policies. Part of long-range planning means coordinating efforts in the region with Buncombe County and the French Broad Metropolitan Planning Organization (FBMPO) for our mutual success in decreasing carbon emissions while increasing accessibility.

• Public Safety: As Asheville seeks to reimagine public safety, we must consider how heavy reliance on enforcement instead of design has invited implicit bias and unequal enforcement of the law during traffic stops. Members of our community serving on the MMTC are in a position to advise Council on: Safe travel for all modes of traffic; ensuring NACTO standards for safer travel designs on roads; finding a different way to enforce Vision Zero design standards for everyone to get home safely; tactical design by and for the neighborhood; and extending constitutional protections via written consent to search for not just cars, but for all modes of travel, including cyclists and pedestrians.

7) Given that global climate change is with us, Asheville City council has adopted a 100% Renewable Energy Goal by 2030 for all city government operations including adoption of LEED Gold Standard for green buildings and installing solar panels on some city owned buildings and property.

• Do you support the continuation of these programs?  Are you willing to continue to reinvest the savings from these programs into the Green CIP, the nation’s first municipal energy savings capital improvement fund, to continue to increase energy efficiency and renewable energy?

Yes. Thank you for your leadership in getting us to where we are today. There is much more urgent work ahead as we set an example for the private sector!

• Would you support putting more Solar Panels on city buildings and/or putting solar farms on city owned or leased property? 

Yes. Considering climate change as a matter of public safety, I will continue to support renewable energy infrastructure for Asheville. Community-led infrastructure solutions is one of the reasons I am running on participatory budgeting, a key tool for ensuring public engagement is met with meaningful action. This will mean supporting neighborhood plans like Burton Street, and hearing concerns about community center maintenance in Shiloh. When I see what our fellow North Carolinians in Durham and Greensboro are doing with their participatory budgeting program, it looks a lot like what I’m hearing we need in Asheville too. 

• Would you support replacing fossil fuel powered city vehicles and buses with electric powered vehicles as they need to be replaced?

Yes. On the Multimodal Transportation Commission and Transit Committee, I supported the staff efforts to present an electric fleet replacement schedule for transit that wasn’t advanced to Council due to costs and concern that the technology is not yet advanced enough to handle our terrain. More advanced technology is and will become available, and this needs to be part of our climate justice efforts for our school transit as well. The life of electric fleet vehicles is typically longer than fossil fuel vehicles, so the narrative of costs should be–can we afford not to shift our investment? 

• Many large banks financially support pipelines and other fossil fuel investments. If a smaller bank could provide adequate services to the city, would you support divesting from the larger banks that support fossil fuel investments?

Yes. Following the conversation closely over the past 5 years, it seems there a few barriers that could be addressed by coordinating efforts with major employers so a local bank could offer the services that are preventing the City from making the switch. In June of 2019, UNCA made an historic move to divest from fossil fuels after coordinated, intergenerational leadership applied continued pressure to find a way. This gives me hope that the City of Asheville can find a way as well.

• What other measures would you propose to reduce our carbon footprint?

Expanding and overseeing resources for infrastructure is part of the work I’m signing up for. I am committed to seeking innovative and collaborative funding opportunities, and will continue the work to ensure transparency in our existing resource allocation, including our occupancy taxes and bond programming.

We have many partners to continue working with to focus on efficiency measures like offering help for low income families looking to implement weatherization measures on their homes or upgrade to heat pumps. Making the Blue Horizons Project a true community effort will advance our goals and of course, advancing multimodal infrastructure and public transit to many more neighbors will reduce reliance on single-occupancy vehicles. 

8) Sierra Club members and City residents are gravely concerned about climate change.  While we are waiting for Washington to act to curb carbon pollution, communities all over the country are working with their electric utilities to transition off of their dependence on coal and natural gas– a primary contributor to climate disruption.  As a member of council, will you use you leadership position to call on Duke Energy to invest more heavily in clean energy, battery storage and energy efficiency?

I will absolutely continue in the work to tackle climate change with the urgency required, and am committed to a Green New Deal for climate justice with a race and class analysis. This includes acknowledging the science and supporting the work of thought leaders like William Barber III, who presented at the September WENOCA event. I have written an op-ed titled Climate Change Is The Biggest Public Safety Issue Of Our Time, have joined you in going on record opposing the Duke Energy Rate Hike, and will continue to press with you for courageous policy around renewable energy, resiliency, protection of our natural resources, and accountability for Duke Energy as we move towards cooperative and community solutions. 

Duke has recently announced their next Integrated Resources Plan (IRP). Unfortunately it relies too heavily on fracked gas to transition away from coal use, and the price tag will not meet the least cost requirement in state law. We need to see another scenario from Duke that considers pathways for non-Duke owned resources like community solar and creative financing enabled by an allowance of third party sales to rapidly deploy renewable energy. As the Cadmus report suggested, commissioned  by the City and County to determine the best pathways for meeting the 100% renewable energy goals reported, without an affordable renewable energy alternative offered by Duke, the City is very limited in being able to meet the community wide goal.

As a Councilmember, I would encourage city’s sustainability staff to work with cities around the state to continue to advocate in the Governors EO process and at the NCUC [North Carolina Utilities Commission] for greater oversight and policy reform that would enable cities to meet their own policy objectives, and make real the ambitious renewable energy transition plans that would meet the deadlines suggested by the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] to curb the worst impacts of climate change. I think the City of Asheville should be submitting formal comments in Duke’s IRP process, and work with our legislative delegation in the general assembly to enable the financing and ownership mechanisms needed to best take advantage of renewable energy, storage, and energy efficiency technologies that are currently available.

Duke should also be considering the cost to ratepayers of inaction. Storm recovery and grid modernization are only more costly if we continue to pump more carbon into the atmosphere. We need to think about resilience and distributed renewable energy resources and storage should be a greater part of their IRP.

As a Councilmember, I will also shepherd Asheville’s next bond program, which needs to address climate change as a matter of public safety, and must include a massive, public engagement strategy using Government Alliance on Race & Equity (GARE) tools to educate and inform the public. With healing as our focus, equity as our demand, and resiliency as our goal, we can do more than resource conservation for those with means, we can reduce harm as we heal the people and our planet!

9) Would you be willing to lobby the Tourism Development Authority to help fund Greenways and Parks in Asheville?

I support changing the structure of our TDA to include equitable representation in membership as well as changing the available percentage and use of our hotel occupancy taxes so all proceeds are allocated to racial equity and deferred infrastructure needs. This may require us to abolish the TDA as we know it today, coupled with a replacement plan, if it fails to meet community demands for reform.

10) The city is facing an affordable housing shortage and gentrification. What would you do if elected to address this critical issue?

So many of our friends and neighbors are being priced out of Asheville, and when I look at the prices people are paying for rent, I know that we could not make it in Asheville as a renter today. Market-rate housing is not accessible to many in our community, and our affordable housing is based on area median income (AMI) that doesn’t reflect the working and poor people who make Asheville special, so we’re going to have to choose to set standards for deeply-affordable, equity-building housing or further subsidize vehicular transportation infrastructure for commuters. That is why I’m fighting for deeply-affordable housing through cooperative & creative solutions including: supporting the Asheville-Buncombe Community Land Trust, city-funded housing being built and turned-over to independent tenant cooperatives, and zoning updates to remove barriers to solutions like the BeLoved Tiny Home Village. 

These issues are not unique to Asheville. Our City Council needs to build a coalition for state-wide legislation so we can adopt mandatory inclusionary zoning policy that’s not currently available for all municipalities in North Carolina.

11) The city recently passed a Resolution Supporting “Community Reparations for Black Asheville.”  If elected, will you support this? 

Absolutely. I continue to stand with the Black AVL Demands and the resolution advanced through the work of the Racial Justice Coalition which acknowledges this as the time for healing and repair: “While what is owed is far greater than what can ever be repaid, there is no excuse for the City of Asheville to allow this debt to continue to grow without addressing it through reparations.” 

Among considerations should be addressing the opportunity gap in our schools and a moratorium on development or sale of City-owned land acquired through urban renewal of actual location and/or land of equal or greater value.

In addition to the stated apologies in the resolution, I have asked the Council to join me in owning an apology for perpetuating state-sanctioned violence and trauma through systemic and institutional racism. As a taxpayer and voter, we need our representatives to state this apology explicitly on behalf of the City so we can start the conversation of what repair looks like in our community and so we can move towards our collective liberation. 

Additionally, I’ve suggested that item 7 of the resolution, which names support of our Office of Equity & Inclusion, needs to be addressed with real authority that matches the responsibility. As we have known from the inception of that office, the Equity & Inclusion staff need to be able to address equity in our planning, policies, and funding. That is not possible until the offices of City Manager, City Attorney, and City Clerk are held accountable for equity, and employees cannot be expected to hold their bosses accountable without fear of retaliation. For this reason, I have reminded the Council of the request that the Office of Equity & Inclusion report directly to Council, and that the office be funded appropriately for such a task.

Lastly, instead of creating yet another group for volunteers to contribute more countless hours, as will surely be the case in item 8 of the resolution, we need to honor the work that is being and has already been done, including the demands organized by intergenerational Black leaders in Asheville calling for “long-term safety strategies.” This could look like structuring an RFP to hire local experts to do an equity audit of the City Budget so we can start moving our resources in every department from harm toward repair.

12) What are the major challenges facing the city of Asheville and what are your top priorities if elected? What do you anticipate will be the most important environmental and environmental justice issues you will face if elected? What actions do you plan to take to address these issues?

As an understudy of Council for more than 5 years, I have attended Council meetings as well as over a dozen City, County, and regional meetings every month, reporting back to the community through AshevilleFM, JMpro, and AVL Community Report Back. As a working-class person, I understand so many of us are struggling to make ends meet on stagnant wages and fixed incomes as the cost of living rises, while the tourism industry strains our natural resources and infrastructure. The work we must do to ensure a resilient community prepared for climate change includes urgent action to take better care of the planet and each other, including many who will migrate to the mountains of WNC. We need:

• DEEPLY AFFORDABLE HOUSING through cooperative & creative solutions!
• A fare-free, REGIONAL TRANSIT NETWORK, because transit is at the intersection of equitable access, economic mobility, and environmental sustainability.
• A PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY & BUDGETING process that removes barriers to participation while ensuring equity in decision-making around our budget, planning, and policies.

Another key issue for climate justice is adoption of the Tree Canopy Protection Amendment to the UDO that will require developers to preserve percentages of existing trees and replace trees to offset tree removals. From my public comment during Council’s hearing on the ordinance amendment:

    1) “I want to express gratitude that the intention is to incentivize preservation over replanting. That will of course require ongoing analysis and review.

    2) “Please ensure that a fee-in-lieu is of scale to replace and maintain the impact of canopy loss. A one-to-one square foot replacement is not acceptable acknowledging our canopy loss and that we are in need of canopy repair. [Learning from] sidewalk fee-in-lieu, the fee was neither high enough to incentivize construction nor enough to build a comparable length of sidewalk from our list of identified, highest-rank needs.

    3) “What I don’t see here is an opportunity to address our stated climate emergency with a race & class analysis, which is sorely needed. On page 30 of the presentation attached to the agenda, a concern from Planning & Zoning names “Access to shade and canopy is needed for residents at all housing cost levels.” While true, this does not address the loss of trees in historic Black neighborhoods and it does not account for trees removed for surveillance purposes in our Housing Authority neighborhoods.

    4) “Lastly, one might hope to see a greater balance of the conversation around barriers to construction with acknowledgement of the benefit to our ecosystem and our people. This looks like setting high standards for developers, new neighbors, and businesses joining our community as they join in understanding how seriously we take the impact of development on our natural and lived environment.”

In closing, it’s up to us as a community to be woven together as we shift the narrative. If you are with me in dreaming of a more inclusive, resilient community, weary of the way things are, eager for a social attitude adjustment, and ready to work on healing ourselves, our community, and our planet, please join me in the call to “be ’bout it being better.” Thank you for your consideration for endorsement.