Submitted: Friday, Jan. 9th, 2026

1.  As our community works to recover from climate disaster, what are specific ways we can build climate change mitigation into Helene recovery efforts?

Would you support a system to evaluate climate change mitigation in recovery projects and overall development moving forward?

First, thank you for asking what “we” can build–we’re in this together. I worked with Sunrise to support Asheville’s adoption of a stated climate emergency before I was on Council, and continue to encourage my students to join Sunrise. I believe collaboration is key to providing support and pressure to deliver a green new deal at the intersection of climate, racial, and economic justice, and I’m grateful to share the work locally with Sunrise Movement!

I value Sunrise Movement’s positions demanding  partnership and funding priorities for reliable, efficient transit and fast-tracking electrification. Sunrise’s assessment directed to members of the Planning, Economic Development, & Environment Committee—including myself—regarding the Municipal Climate Action Plan points to a serious issue the City faces: scale. 

To mitigate the climate emergency in a meaningful way as the policy body for our city and a regional leader in WNC, we need meaningful action and budget priorities that result in measured improvements.

Some solutions I’ve been bringing to City Hall as one of your Council representatives:

• Working with my youth advisors, I have requested renewable energy options during conditional zoning for every residential development during my time on Council. The precedent has resulted in developers considering options, removing barriers, constructing solar-powered common spaces, and installing a solar array at Maple Crest that I got to turn on with one of my students!
• In the 2022 Council retreat, I worked with Councilmember Sheneika Smith to get Neighborhood Resilience named in Council’s strategic priorities that influence the annual budget, including supporting the Climate Justice Initiative, Food Systems/Security, Resource Mapping, Stormwater Mitigation, the Urban Forestry Master Plan that’s under way right now, and Councilmember Smith’s inclusion of Resilience Hubs. At the time, adding “climate” explicitly didn’t have support, so we worked collaboratively to frame it around neighborhood infrastructure, including living infrastructure like our tree canopy. Though it was amended successfully in 2023 to be Climate & Neighborhood Resiliency, all the strategic priorities have been shifted to recovery themes post Helene: Housing, Infrastructure, Economy, and People & Environment. I’m happy to review with Sunrise the details of my work to imbed climate & neighborhood resiliency into each of those recovery themes.
• Advocating to add both sustainability and equity to measurables in every staff report alongside cost and feasibility measurables. This would require a majority of Council to direct the City Manager, funding the offices Sustainability and Human Relations, Anti-Discrimination, & Compliance to make a position to oversee data and implementation, and accountability from Council during decision points. I will revisit this request in the upcoming Council retreat.
• Advocating to align the Neighborhood Grants with the Climate Vulnerability Index, aimed at reducing vulnerabilities and implementing through Participatory Budgeting for shared accountability and shared successes with our community. Getting resilience hubs implemented with CDBG-DR funds through the People & Environment Recovery Board could be solutions for funding and capacity that we lacked pre-storm, and hopefully realize a system for future success. This would also require majority Council support and direction to staff.

If Asheville doesn’t lead by example, we risk vulnerability of public services, public health and well-being, economic stability, and partnerships in the public sector.

As Mayor, I commit to scheduling public presentations and conversations for Council and our community, and I’m committed to pushing for tools like these until we get enough Council support to get the job done. 

2.  The City of Asheville and Buncombe County have set the goal to reach 100% renewable energy for government operations by 2030 and for community-wide use by 2042.

We are not on track to meet these goals. What specific policies, programs, or spending would you champion to make real progress and overcome existing regulatory barriers and funding constraints?

1. Lead by example. When we put new roofs on facilities like the Civic Center, they need to be solar-ready. We are using the CDBG-DR recovery funds to invest in solar systems with battery storage on city-owned land, including public safety facilities and buildings that could double as resilience hubs. 
2. Incentivize public solutions. I’ve advocated for a community benefits table for residential and commercial development as a tool to incentivize voluntary investments like renewable energy, food system infrastructure, and multimodal transportation infrastructure during new development, inviting partnership while building resilient neighborhoods that advance our climate goals city-wide. We almost had a path forward for residential development on transit corridors, but action to leverage it failed 3-4 during the Council meeting in March 2025. 
3. Advocate for changes at the state level. For example, Duke lobbyists have been successful in rate increases without accountability, and in limiting solar production in the private sector. Joining in statewide coalition for accountability of Duke as an energy monopoly is key to shared success.
4. Continuing answers from my 2022 mayoral questionnaire to Sunrise: To achieve our 4% carbon reduction goals, we have picked a lot of the low-hanging fruit such as increased recycling and changing light bulbs, so we’ll need to intentionally strategize to get to the hard-to-reach work done. Acknowledging the wisdom in calls for an organizational equity audit, at least a majority of Council could instruct top-level staff to operationalize equity and sustainability in everything we do by adding those impact analyses to our staff reports alongside financial impact. Policies suggestions include:
   1. Strengthening our policy regarding low/no-carbon fleet acquisition. Lack of or weak response to existing policy is seen with the purchase of the Mobile Crisis Response Unit and transit buses that rely solely on fossil fuels instead of modernizing for at least a hybrid fleet while technology improves for electric vehicles that work in our mountain topography. Shifting towards electric transportation options will require investment in supportive infrastructure, which means vehicle charging stations for civic and public use, including rapid charging infrastructure for the city fleet.
   2. Partnering for community/cooperative renewables. While building coalition across the state for legislation that allows community/cooperatively-owned energy sources and removes solar production caps, we will need to partner with the County for renewables and stand up with people across North Carolina to demand an end to the Duke energy monopoly. In addition to CDBG-DR recovery funds, our next major bond programs for the City and County should be packaged for affordability along with housing and transit, and we should work to engage residents for education and support of a ballot initiative towards those ends. Such a program will require a significant property tax impact mitigation program designed to ensure protection of our neighbors most vulnerable to gentrification and displacement, including renters.

I’ll add that an example of effective partnership in the nonprofit sector looks like supporting Energy Savers Network, which is working with volunteers to make low-income households more energy efficient, saving folks money on their bills at the same time as skill-sharing to reduce the demand side of energy use. 

3. Resilience Hubs. Each neighborhood has a school, community center, library, or faith community either in or proximal to its boundaries. As part of our Facilities Assessment, resource-mapping should include community engagement to ensure those spaces are prepared for emergency response at the neighborhood level without reliance on fossil fuels. This is an opportunity to engage community partners and the County, as well as the Asheville and Buncombe Boards of Education, to transition these spaces from fossil-fuel energy drains to renewable energy generators.

3.  Respond to the following:

What are your budget priorities?

Which departments or programs would you seek to fund more, and which do you think could be subject to cuts?

If your jurisdiction comes into more revenue due to the recent property tax reassessments or other means, what would you do with that additional funding?

1. My Commitments & Priorities: Affordability, Public Safety, and Transparency
2. Using Existing Budget: I have discussed reviewing existing vacancies as a solution with our new City Manager, DK Wesley. Because the city is facing a multi-million dollar budget gap with increased costs–faced with major tax increases or service cuts–it will be even more critical that our bond and recovery funding be used to multi-solve our housing, infrastructure, and climate goals.
3. Presented with Additional Revenue: living wages including fire fighters and sanitation; an Office of Community Safety with dedicated mental health crisis response; returning Strategic Partnership Funding focused on violence prevention for our youth; and increasing Neighborhood Grants targeting reduction in Climate Vulnerability Index scores. We also need to ensure oversight for grant position retention so we’re not missing out on new/continued revenue, as well as accountability for timeliness so we don’t lose federal and state dollars because implementation is taking too long. For example, County transit dollars being hoarded for future use instead of implementing existing transit needs of today, and multi-modal bike and pedestrian projects taking so long that we risk City projects and funding percentages getting de-prioritized. 
4. Advocating for Sustainable Tourism & Accountability: There are millions of existing hotel occupancy tax dollars being spent on advertising. I will continue to push for changes to state legislation through Council’s legislative agenda to ensure a greater percentage of those funds go towards infrastructure as well as allowance for operations that currently aren’t permitted. To start, this could fund high-frequency transit to the airport that’s currently only served every 90 minutes as well as a fully-electric Downtown circulator like Knoxville’s that would honor Asheville’s history of the trolley while reducing parking demand and traffic pollution by connecting residents, workers, and visitors to local businesses, culture, and resources.

4.  Transportation is one of the largest modifiable contributors to greenhouse gas pollution.

Would you fight for more funding for public transit to cut emissions and alleviate traffic congestion?

What ideas do you have for alternative funding sources?

As a transit-dependent pedestrian and cyclist since 2009, my lived experience informs my position that transit is at the intersection of equitable access, economic mobility, and environmental stewardship. But you don’t have to ride the bus to know that public transit is a necessary investment in a core public service that also supports wise land use and maintenance of above and below-ground infrastructure. Transit-oriented development benefits everyone!

For effective, reliable transit, Asheville should:

1. Partner with the County to return to a transit authority with dedicated revenue. By putting dedicated transit funding on the ballot, voters could signal support for transit while electeds could exempt groceries, medication, and gas from the tax. And by utilizing a transit authority, we would save costs of a large, outside management company fueled by profit. This would help strengthen the core of a Buncombe-Asheville Transit System (BATS) as a first step to expanding into a regional transit system. Additionally, state legislation allows this kind of funding to be used for transit, sidewalk and greenway infrastructure that connects with transit, and infrastructure like bus tops and crosswalks.
2. Utilize existing transit funding currently being held by Buncombe County. For starters, this could be used to implement additional frequency to the South Asheville S3 and S6 as identified by ART-C Coalition and the Transit Riders Assembly, increase frequency along the 170 to Helene-scarred Swannanoa that is currently only served every 2 hours; and/or piloting Enka/Candler circulator that would serve a number of living-wage manufacturing jobs, grocery options including a potential, new Costco, and the new 600+ unit housing development of Ferry Road.
3. Maximize grant funding. By ensuring a fully-staff Transportation department including grant writers, we reduce missed opportunities and expedite project timelines, including bond funds.
4. Continue to advocate at the state level, especially for the city to be able to put dedicated transit funding on our ballot if the County continues to decline.

5.  Sunrise Movement is committed to a Green New Deal that eliminates the greenhouse gas pollution causing climate chaos and builds an economy that lifts up working people.

What policies would you implement to move us closer to this goal?

1. Economic Development: A specific role of the Mayor includes a seat at the table for the Economic Development Coalition, a regional partner that maintains the 5×5 plan and pursues new and expanded employment opportunities in our region. There’s room for leadership at this table around community values, diversifying our economy beyond tourism, and workplace development focused on hiring local workers and supporting unions.
2. Living Wages: Since 2015, I have advocated for the city to be a certified living wage employer as a member of Just Economics Policy Advocacy Committee. This would not only ensure that the City is an employer of choice that recruits and retains people dedicated to providing quality, equitable services to the public, but also would strengthen our role as a leader in Western North Carolina. Every year we lag behind, the cost of housing climbs further out of reach for our own staff.
3. The Role of the Mayor: I am committed to listening to and acting on community engagement, supporting advisory board members bringing their lived and professional experience to assist in the work, and maintaining support for the Climate Justice Initiative and Reparations, while advocating for  Participatory Budgeting, both within my role as Mayor alongside Council and using the influence of the Mayor’s office. Within the specific role of Mayor, my work will include setting the agenda, chairing the Policy, Finance, and Infrastructure Committee to guide policy making, working with impacted community members to remove barriers to civic participation, and through appointment processes that fall within the purview of the Mayor’s office.

6.  In 2024, the town of Carrboro sued Duke Energy for its role in causing climate change and investing in decades of deception to discount the role of fossil fuels in causing climate change.

Would you support a similar lawsuit following the worst climate disaster in NC history?

Yes. I am on the record advocating for this on Council, as well as joining efforts to hold fossil fuel companies accountable as a recent climate catastrophe survivor city. 

As Co-Chair of Local Progress NC, I have supported cities across NC in learning how to join the suit with Carrboro and Durham. By building statewide coalitions like we did for the non-discrimination ordinances, we share the cost burden of legal and general staff support, reduce risk of being singled out by hostile state and federal government action, and build stronger legal cases with united messaging and coordinated data sharing.

There is a real fear of retaliation for Asheville to lose our federal relief funding access if we stand up to corporate billionaires and their lobbyists. That’s why I appreciate the free legal support provided if that were to happen, and have shared information about this with my colleagues on Council as well as City legal staff.

Additionally, I voted against the dirty deal taking one-time funds from Duke instead of leveraging to hold Duke accountable for renewable energy commitments.

You can count on me. Even if we don’t have enough Council support to join the suit, I will continue to support accountability efforts at the local, state, and federal level at every opportunity. I testified in court against the Duke rate hikes, have advocated with Save the Woods and for species protections including the Hellbender, was organizing alongside you before I was elected, and will be alongside my students and their peers advocating for climate justice after my time in office. 

7.  About 40% of solid waste produced locally is either divertable or compostable organics, yet neither Asheville nor Buncombe County offer a commercial composting service.

If (re)elected, what steps would you take to provide municipal composting services to local businesses to reduce landfill usage and methane emissions?

Composting is part of healthy, resilient food systems because it’s not only part of reducing waste, it’s also building the soil we need to grow fresh, healthy food. Soil building is even more important as part of our recovery efforts. 

I understand there are opportunities to partner for expansion of existing services, and I look to the partners including the Community Garden Network, Tractor, Asheville Sustainable Agriculture Project, and the Asheville-Buncombe Food Policy Council from which we can expect advocacy efforts in 2026. I anticipate local advocacy will include CDBG-DR recovery fund requests related to food security, which will be multi-solving towards goals for waste reduction and reduced methane emissions.

For more information, reach out to the Asheville-Buncombe Food Policy Council.

8.  If you are elected:

Do you pledge to use your office to raise and maintain the starting salaries of all public employees to a living wage? 

Do you pledge to advance and support a resolution establishing a living wage ordinance for all public employees in local government? [For reference, living wage is a defined salary level at which a full-time employee spends no more than 30% of their gross annual income on their housing costs. Housing prices are determined by averaging the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s four most recently published years’ one-bedroom Fair Market Rents for the relevant metro area.]

• Yes. I have advocated at the city, county, and board of education level for over a decade and maintained that advocacy this week in City Hall during our first staffed budget meeting of the year.
• I don’t just talk about living wages, I take action and build coalition with community support. In 2024, I collaborated with Councilmembers Sheneika Smith and Antanette Mosely for an alternative budget based on staff presentations that would have secured higher wages for our firefighters. Though the narrative in City Hall is that firefighters may occasionally sleep during their long shifts, it is not an on-call shift at home with their families, it’s in a bunk in the firehouse in close proximity to fumes and chemicals that are known to increase health risks–and they’re scheduled 56-hour weeks while salaries are compared to other 40-hour week staff. The three of us used the formal process to add the item to Council the agenda before the budget vote, but the Mayor skipped the item, and the other Council members moved quickly to motion for the original budget. So our city left our firefighters behind in wages just 3 months before they led emergency response efforts and saved lives during Hurricane Helene. 

If you wish to watch the 2024 budget conversation, it starts at about 46 minutes into the archive here.

9.  Many young people are scared for our future both environmentally and economically and don’t think our political system is working for us.

What message do you have for young people, and what would you do to help guarantee a sustainable and livable future for all of us?

As Miriame Kaba writes about her hope discipline: Changing everything can seem daunting. The good news is, there are lots of places to start and infinite ways to collaborate. 

As an educator and community organizer, my hope discipline is practiced in community. I’m motivated to run by my students, their peers and families, my fellow transit riders, former colleagues in the hotel and service industries, my community of artist and musician households, and a love for my neighbors. We showed up through Helene, and we’ll carry each other through. A better world is possible, and we’ll build it together.

Sometimes the work is a serious struggle, and the grief of climate catastrophe is heavy. So many of us are struggling to make ends meet on stagnant wages as the cost of living rises and while unchecked tourism strains our natural resources, burdens our infrastructure, and displaces our vulnerable neighbors. We deserve an equitable transition through the overlapping crises of economic uncertainty, systemic oppression, and the ripple effects of climate change, including a just recovery from Hurricane Helene. 

I’m running for Mayor because the work we must do to achieve our aspirational goals and ensure a resilient community includes urgent action to take better care of each other and the planet, which means addressing:

• Affordability
• Public Safety
• Climate & Neighborhood Resiliency

As a community, we’re connected and we need each other. Delivering results will require transparency, open meetings policy, and integrity that we deserve in the mayor’s office, alongside collaborative governance that brings together the experience, talent, and skills of our caring community. 

I believe we can win the change we deserve because we’re in this together, #MountainStrong!