Let’s question the candidates by David Forbes February 27, 2020

The Blade asks about cutting the police department, funding transit, reining in hotels and more as we take aim at the candidates running in the Asheville City Council primary

Above: City Hall under renovation. Photo by Bill Rhodes

Yes, Asheville, we are once again asked to vote for three candidates for three Asheville City Council seats. This year isn’t a typical one, so you’ll have to pardon a somewhat longer introduction than usual. If you’re just here for the candidate questionnaires, feel free to scroll down to the end. You’ll find a convenient list.

It took a while to get here. After the 2017 elections saw long-simmering anger over gentrification and segregation put the usual gentry “progressives” under pressure at the ballot box, centrist Democrats and the far-right legislature teamed up to try to gerrymander the city’s elections, especially to break Black voting power. In the process, they delayed local elections by a year. Normally, three Council members would have been up for election in 2019. But Council (who’d all just received another year in office), dragged their feet in responding until public outrage forced their hand and much of the gerrymander was reversed.

It’s thanks to that outrage — in defiance of the conventional wisdom — that this year’s local election isn’t a gerrymandered sham. All candidates have to run citywide, and everyone living within city limits can vote for them.

Due to the year-long delay, the primary’s happening in March instead of the Fall. The results on March 3 will narrow the field to six candidates, who will fight each other until three prevail in November. Council elections are nonpartisan.

The ballots this year are long, with every primary from president to senate (U.S. and N.C.) to superintendent to (at the very end) Council.

There’s been confusion on other fronts as well, so it’s worth clearing some of that up. No, thanks to a federal court ruling you do not need a photo ID to vote (you only need to bring proof of address if you’re registering to vote). Tomorrow and Saturday you can vote early at any early voting site in the county and you can register if you’re not already or if you need to change your address. More information on early voting is here. If you vote on primary day — Tuesday, March 3 — you’ll have to do so at your polling place. You can find that here.

To make my own perspective clear: I don’t believe there’s such a thing as a legitimate government, in City Hall or anywhere else. Elections are, at best, about reducing harm and picking enemies.

The three people sworn in as Asheville’s next council members will sit atop the city government of one of the fastest-gentrifying cities in the country, with a bureaucracy notorious for its contempt for the public, a bigoted police department and a $190 million budget that’s far more tied to the will of consultants, a cadre of elite staff and the wealthy than the people of this city.

That means that no matter who takes office you will, in short, have to fight them.

None of this is me telling you not to vote — some enemies are vastly preferable to others — just to remember that it’s important to face facts.

We’re in this situation — where things keep getting worse despite a raft of progressive platitudes — partly because this town’s political culture is mired in vague promises, calls to “do better” (but not much more), plans for fairness that never quite seem to materialize.

You’ll certainly find some of that in the responses that follow: these are politicians running for office, after all. But much as we can the Blade aims to cut through the crud and get candidates to actually answer the questions, to support or oppose definite proposals, to reveal what they might do with the power City Hall has. There’s some telling realities in here, like the fact that all the candidates — so far — balked at major cuts to the police department.

So whether you’re looking over candidates because you believe voting’s a path to reform or — like a lot of the rest of us — sizing up who your community will be able to most effectively battle in the years to come, I hope that proves useful.

In the three years since locals have last gone to the ballot box in a Council race, we’ve seen some real victories against City Hall. The gerrymander was reversed, a particularly noxious police chief ousted, community spaces saved, all new hotels banned for a year and Airbnb faced with more severe restrictions. In every case these didn’t come from the dais. Locals, angry about what’s happening to our town, organized themselves outside of the official channels and against the conventional wisdom and fought until City Hall buckled. There’s a lesson in that.

One of the most damaging things about campaign season — especially in a presidential election year — is that too many people spend time debating which candidate really loves them and not enough considering what they can do right now. So, please, put some of that energy into unionizing your workplace, building networks of support with your neighbors, directly confronting bigots and much, much more.

Rather than vesting loyalty in anyone running for office, do so in your friends and communities. Strengthen those bonds, consider what you can do together — without waiting for City Hall — and then go out and do it.

That’s something greater than any election. We need it now more than ever.

David Forbes

Editor

Candidates are listed in the order they appear on the ballot:

Larry Ray Baker

Tim Collins

Kristen Goldsmith

Sandra Kilgore

Rich Lee

Shane McCarthy

Kim Roney

Nicole Townsend

Sage Turner

Keith Young (incumbent)

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