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Questionnaire: EqualityNC

Submitted: March 30th, 2026

  1. If elected, what role will you play in passing nondiscrimination ordinances in your area? If an NDO has already passed in your area, how will you work to bring ordinances forwarded across the state?

In my role on Asheville City Council: I’ve organized with orgs and electeds across NC around NDO’s; I shared leadership in the process of passing Asheville’s NDO and worked regionally with fellow electeds including Buncombe County Commissioner Jasmine Beach Ferrara; and I am the liaison to Asheville’s Human Relations Commission that advises on our policies and NDO process. 

As an out-elected with ENC and Co-Chair of Local Progress NC, I am committed to skill sharing and coalition building across the state to advance current and expanded NDO’s, including building state-wide support for legislation changes such as protection against source of income discrimination for housing.

2. How will you work to establish community safety? What are your plans to reimagine community safety?

Everyone in Asheville deserves to be safe! True safety identifies community needs and utilizes the correct tools. A narrow definition of public safety limits results and creates new problems–and it’s really expensive.

I have the courage to say no when needed, and the consistent leadership to say yes to a public safety response and root cause solutions that work to keep everyone safe, which looks like:

  • Implementing an Office of Community Safety and HEART Program as outlined in my Op-Ed and website here, deploying unarmed first responders with the right tools and training to calls for service around the opioid/overdose crisis, homelessness response, intimate partner violence, and mental health; and prioritizing living wages and safe working conditions for first responders;
  • Acting on recommendations in the National Alliance to End Homelessness report to reduce homelessness by 50%;
  • Advancing Complete Streets Policy so all commuters get to their destination safely;
  • Reinstating the Strategic Partnership Funds for youth advocacy groups focused on data-driven solutions to reducing gun violence–because our kids matter to us and we’re invested in a hopeful future; and
  • Engaging the Community Health Workers organizing to prevent gun violence and intimate partner violence, facilitating healing for residents, families and their communities.

Do you support allowing local sheriffs to determine their departments’ cooperation with ICE and other immigration enforcement? I support allowing local sheriffs to determine that they will not work for ICE, DHS, and other federal agencies, and I appreciate that our Sheriff Quentin Miller is one who has refused to cooperate with ICE beyond what is legally required. I support ending 287G agreements, regardless of whether or not a sheriff makes the right call in protecting human and civil rights.

3. What measures would you take to support your immigrant communities in your municipality?

For more than 15 years, I have worked in solidarity with immigrant communities–centering those with lived experience in decision making. 

In November, when our fascist, federal government was deploying deadly, armed federal agents to disappear people, separate families, and terrorize cities in NC as they had already done across the US, I worked with orgs representing vulnerable community members, local faith leaders, educators, racial justice orgs, and union organizers to bring forward a resolution outlining community-led solutions including fourth amendment workplace training for City and County staff. Members of our Latine community drafted the resolution with me, and we moved it forward with consent of local orgs representing the immigrant community. On the day the resolution was scheduled for City Council and County Commission, immigrant community groups asked us to press pause–that was hard to explain to the coalition pressuring Council to take action, but I believe it was the right thing for us to continue to center the most vulnerable people in our community.

Local groups organizing immigrant communities have hosted a community survey and presented a report to Council in late February. I have elevated their requests to Council and the City Manager, and staff are now making progress in 4th amendment workplace training for all City staff. Following the lead from Carrboro and Durham, 4th amendment workplace training ensures municipal staff know their rights and are aware of what to do if they are the victims or witnesses of violation of the rights to due process. The next step for Asheville City Council will include formal adoption of 4th amendment workplace policy and accountability for training staff. 

As the Mayor of Evanston has suggested for cities in NC, additional ways to protect communities against federal government overreach and violation of our rights includes not collecting data on their behalf. I shared advice from the ACLU with the full Council, but was the only vote against contracts with surveillance companies. I have repeatedly requested that Council cancel or at least pause our contracts with Axon, Flock, and other surveillance systems because they can be used against undocumented neighbors, residents protesting against oppression, and those seeking access to full-spectrum, reproductive healthcare. 

Would you support housing incarcerated transgender individuals with the population they deem to be the safest option? Yes

How would you support banning discrimination in public accommodations (restaurants, hotels, retail businesses, and more) including bathrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms?

The ability for a person to safely use the restroom is a basic necessity and a human right. I shared in leadership at the local level for our Non-Discrimination Ordinance (NDO) and continue to support our Human Relations Commission in bolstering processes and spreading the word so the public knows how it works to protect against discrimination in public accommodations.

4. What does racial equity mean to you?

Racial equity means dismantling structural racism rooted in white supremacy so that every human has full access to their rights including life, liberty, and justice. Our liberation from oppression is tied together. Starting with acknowledging and identifying patterns of oppression and inequity designed to control and harm, we then have choices for transformative change that make a hopeful, equitable future possible. 

5. So what does the work towards racial equity look like in Asheville today?

  • In City Hall, I work alongside colleagues and in solidarity with our neighbors to achieve racial and economic justice by advancing racial equity in decisions around our budgets, plans, and policies. 
  • The City has access to GARE tools, and Asheville has taken on a Reparations process with neighbors to address the outcomes of Urban Renewal and redlining in the economic development, education, health care, housing, and the criminal legal system. The Reparations process included a Cease the Harm audit with recommendations to improve data collection in order to measure outcomes in the focus areas. 
  • The City is engaged with historic Black and Latine neighborhoods organized as the Legacy Neighborhood Coalition (LNC) on tools for anti-displacement and ways to mitigate harm while we work towards truth, repair, and justice in land use. 
  • As a transit-dependent commuter, I organize with Just Economics and Better Buses Together advocating for living wages, affordable housing, and public transit. 
  • As a fellow with New Disabled South Rising, I advocate with neighbors for accessibility as part of intersectional work towards equity in housing, transportation, and public safety.

To be honest, working from within the system is a struggle, and it’s worth it. I remain hopeful that a people-powered movement for racial and economic justice is growing. People are sick and tired of suffering through the way things have been and we have an opportunity to organize for real change. With state-wide coalitions including Equality NC, I believe we are positioned to defend our democracy, elect leaders that truly represent the people, and transform our cities, neighborhoods, rural communities, and state into safe, affordable places for all of us to live, work, and visit.

6. If elected, how will you support LGBTQ+ folks in your jurisdiction? (e.i. what legislation would you support, what policies would you pursue, what issues would you to try to address)

  • In addition to continuing my commitments to our community that I’ve made and kept on Council, let’s look at the role of the mayor’s office in Asheville:
    •  Setting the Agenda: This means scheduling the hard conversations our community needs to have and inviting subject matter experts to partner with staff. I’ll continue the Monday Minute; hold regular press conferences; advance open meetings policy; and increase accessibility of public documents and engagement opportunities.
    • Overseeing Council Meetings & Decorum: I’ll end the regularly-scheduled, behind-the-scenes Council check-in meetings; and shift to a public pre-meeting process.
    • Appointing the Housing Authority Board, which the Mayor is solely responsible for. The HACA board oversees neighborhoods with 1,700+ deeply-affordable housing units: I’ll maintain communications with Housing Authority residents, resident councils, and staff, partnering in violence prevention and improving quality of life.
    •  Serving on the Economic Development Coalition: I’ll bring integrity and transparency to the Mayor’s seat at the Economic Development Coalition, leveraging living wages, union-supportive jobs, infrastructure investments, and climate resilience including partnerships in carbon reduction. For example: I voted against the anticipated Amazon distribution warehouse that Council approved in closed session, but it failed at the bank, so now I’m advocating for a Costco at that location instead, which would improve infrastructure and bring living wage jobs to our community.
    • Appointing Council Sub-Committees and Liaisons: These appointments, including regional boards like the Metropolitan Planning Organization that oversees state-maintained roads; the ABC Board; and the Regional Housing Consortium.
    • Leading by Example: During Helene, I worked shoulder to shoulder in emergency response–getting the Incident Management Team here from NYC to relieve our firefighters, organizing daily communication distribution into neighborhoods, flushing toilets for disabled and elderly residents, and convening intergovernmental teams to support staff and community response. I’m committed to violence prevention, including a Mayor’s Youth Council focused on reducing gun violence, and I support bringing advisory boards back instead of dissolving them.

7. What specific strategies do you propose or support to ensure the availability of affordable housing for low and moderate-income residents, especially queer and trans folks?

  • Building more housing, incentivizing deeply-affordable units, and securing supportive infrastructure including transit access, community gardens and edible landscaping, and renewable energy options to keep utilities affordable. 
  • Housing voucher strategies: We’ve learned in Asheville that voluntary inclusion of affordable housing only goes so far if the developer accepts vouchers. This means they will accept applications, but not necessarily allow tenants to sign the lease. Instead, I’ve supported Vice Mayor Antanette Mosley’s solution for voucher set-asides. This provides an opportunity to follow up for accountability on if the units we’re subsidizing are actually serving the people at low and moderate income. 
  • Leveraging city-owned land: I worked with the City Manager on a strategy to purchase the Talbert lot next to our Downtown transit center. We’re currently in a design study phase for transit-oriented development at that location, which will provide deeper affordability since residents will have more transportation options and access to jobs, groceries, and health care in the neighborhood. Because it will be a city-led project, we have a lot of opportunity to lead by example on what deeply-affordable housing for all looks like.
  • Source of Income Discrimination: The city’s housing trust fund has built-in protection against source of income discrimination, a win for housing advocates when the city is a funding partner. To build support for tenants and protections against Source of Income Discrimination across all housing in Asheville, I believe our neighbors will demand meaningful action if they know what to ask for, especially as non-profit partners have already signed on in support for local action. I hope we can talk more about these strategies to address housing discrimination and tenant protections in Asheville and across NC, especially as the General Assembly legislates against common sense policy.

8. Given the intense anti-trans rhetoric we have seen over the last few years, how will you be a voice in combating those attacks? In your view, how can your office play a role in this work?

  • I will continue to center our trans neighbors and collaborate with subject matter experts. Some examples:

9. LGBTQ+ Healthcare is being limited and cut back through legislation and policy, what is your approach to ensuring healthcare for all North Carolinians? How could you use your office to reach that goal?

I believe in and advocate for Medicare for all. Though that’s not a policy at the discretion of city council, I advocate at every opportunity with state and local electeds. 

Some examples of how I’ve leveraged my role on Council to advance health and wellbeing for LGBTQ+ residents: 

  • At the municipal level, the City of Asheville can set an example as a major employer in the region. For example, when city workers reached out to explain potential issues with implementation of drug testing policy, it became clear that testing for hormones could result in outing those medically transitioning, and informed my advocacy with the City Manager’s office, connecting City staff with resources and examples of best practices for safe, inclusive work places.
  • We’ve seen the impact of the sale of the formerly non-profit Mission Health to the for-profit HCA and the greed of profit margins being prioritized over health and well-being. I continue to stand in public solidarity with our local nurses’ union demanding quality of care and safe work practices, voted for the City of Asheville to join the lawsuit against HCA, and have advocated at the state level for oversight of the outcomes from the sale that have had tremendous ripple effects in rural areas of WNC.
  • Shrinking access to full-spectrum reproductive care in NC and across the country made it more complicated, delayed, and expensive to access reproductive healthcare. Our neighbors are weighing the costs of family planning–housing, transportation, and childcare–with the reality that they may need to travel to receive medically necessary care. People who can afford it are making difficult and costly decisions to take off work, arrange childcare and travel to other states to have their healthcare needs met while others must self-manage abortions. On Council, I advanced a resolution affirming full-spectrum reproductive health care access that passed unanimously. I continue to work in coalition to protect and advance reproductive freedoms in Asheville, WNC, and across the state.
  • With Local Progress, we’ve explored solutions to provide services through County Health & Human Services. 
  • Where governments fail or cause harm, community continues to keep each other safe. I have amplified mutual aid networks, advocated for rental assistance to get to our most vulnerable neighbors post-Helene, and stepped up with advocacy and resources when mutual aid efforts are threatened with criminalization.

10. Please share what recent LGBTQ+ focused events that you have attended and the LGBTQ+ organizations that you have supported, including ENC.

  • As an elected representative and community organizer, I show up regularly with and for community by using my time and resources with 2SLGBTQIA+ groups including: Youth OutRight; Campaign for Southern Equality; WNCAP; Blue Ridge Pride; LGBTQ+ Dems, and more. Examples have included: promoting and attending the monthly CSE resilience hub meetups; volunteering in support of PRIDE; supporting Youth OutRight organizing and volunteering for prom; and centering 2SLGBTQIA+ voices in civic engagement including the City’s work to reconfigure systems addressing homelessness.
  • As a music teacher and mentor, my work often means being a confidant and resource for students, their peers, and their families. Though I’ve not been able to attend many ENC events in WNC due to my teaching schedule, I do amplify outreach efforts on social media and do direct outreach to support work and build relationships  in the region.

11. How will you encourage LGBTQ+ focused events in your role?

  • The City of Asheville has grants to support local events, and I reach out to community orgs when applications are open. I’ve reached out to contacts in the business community to sponsor events, and host a weekly community calendar on socials to amplify community events and benefits. As a volunteer in Asheville City Schools, a group of 10th graders are working to schedule more events in their schools and neighborhoods, so I did a skill share session and provided follow up resources.