What arts activities have you attended, participated in, or supported in the last year? (check all that apply) Is there anything else you would like to share about your recent arts activities? (optional)

Music, Theatre, Visual Arts, Dance, Literary Arts 
I am an artist, and it’s important to me to participate and lift up our creative community.

This past year, I enjoyed performances by Womansong, the Gay Men’s Chorus, and Symphony in the Park, attended story-telling events including the Moth and Story Parlor, attended First Fridays at Noir Collective, supported artists and makers at Big Crafty and productions in our community garden network, reviewed and provided feedback for up and coming recording artists, amplified events by BIPOC artists, participated in the ally panel by DIY-abled, supported the mural in the RAD by Southern Equality Studios, volunteered with multiple cultural events and festivals, patroned the fine arts, facilitated and performed recitals with my students, played drums with Brass Your Heart, embroidered gifts for family and friends, and attended performances by local artists at venues across town.

I’m currently the Secretary of the board at Asheville Music School where I share oversight of the scholarship program, working to remove tuition as a barrier to participation in music education for students in our community.

Pre-pandemic, I worked events every week, ranging from open mic nights to concerts by national touring artists, from poetry readings to gallery openings, from Fringe Fest to the Symphony. Through the early days of the pandemic, I supported fellow artists and musicians directly and by advocating through my role on Council for relief funding.

BACKGROUND | The City currently supports the arts through facilities like Thomas Wolfe Auditorium (more about this below), programming through the Parks & Recreation Department, grants like the Event Support Grant (in partnership with ArtsAVL), and the Public Art Program. However, all of these services are failing to reach their full potential due to funding shortages for things like maintenance, operations, and staffing,

Asheville does have a 1% for the arts policy that provides some support for public art from qualifying Capital Improvement Projects (CIP)– this does not generate a lot of funding. However, it is also common for cities to have additional dedicated funding streams for arts and culture like a Food and Beverage Tax. For example, Wake County currently has a countywide 1% Prepared Food and Beverage tax which supports arts, culture, sports and convention facilities in Wake County. Similar local taxes are also in place in Dare, Cumberland, and Mecklenburg Counties, as well as in the Town of Hillsborough.

Would you support a local food and beverage tax to provide additional funding for the City’s arts and cultural services? Is there anything else you would like to share about City arts funding?

Agree
Yes, I support additional arts funding as a connection to our community health and well-being. We are members of a dynamic arts community, and I appreciate ArtsAVL’s work to study the economic impact of the arts. A sales tax could be a way to capture and invest tourist dollars into our arts and culture infrastructure. Thank you for partnering with the City to facilitate the Event Support Grant!

BACKGROUND | A report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness found that Asheville is more expensive than 98% of other North Carolina cities, and rents have risen 41.7% since 2020, making it the most expensive place to rent in the state. In fact, a recent Asheville Citizen Times article showed that fair market rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Asheville has risen 78% since 2019. Meanwhile, the hourly wage has not risen to meet the living wage, reported by Just Economics as $22.10/hour in Buncombe County. This is having a devastating impact on the local creative community, forcing more arts professionals to move their residences and businesses outside of Asheville and even Buncombe County.

Affordability was identified as a problem back when rents 40-80% cheaper. The 2018 Arts Market Study showed the majority of artists (86%) and arts organizations (78%) identifying a need for affordable artist housing and/or studio space– 424 responded that they considered leaving Asheville due to cost of living. The report also identified the City’s “Ice House” property on Riverside Drive in the River Arts District as an ideal location for multiple use live/work development for artists.

ArtsAVL is currently conducting a Creative Spaces study that builds on this previous report from 2018, with the final report expected out in May 2024. Learn more at artsavl.org/spaces.

Would you support an initiative to create affordable artist housing and/or studio space in the River Arts District? Is there anything else you would like to share about City support for affordable artist live/work spaces?

Strongly Agree
Yes, and I think we can learn from the County’s experience with sector-based housing for teachers.

I’m committed to affordability and to improving quality of life for the people who live and work here. The rent is too high, but so is the rising cost of transportation and utilities. Tackling affordability looks like: Incentivizing and investing in deeply-affordable housing; keeping neighbors from becoming unhoused through partnership for home repairs and eviction protection; following through on recommendations in the National Alliance to End Homelessness report to reduce homelessness; expanding transit, bikeability, walkability, and accessibility so having a car isn’t a prerequisite to accessing housing; securing our food and water systems, including fair water rates to keep our water on instead of steep discounts for the largest commercial accounts; demanding renewable energy options in new development to secure our energy grid and keep utilities down; and setting an example by regaining living wage certification for City staff so our employees can live in the communities they serve.

Serious concerns need to be addressed regarding disparate outcomes of the City’s affordable housing efforts. Council is currently pausing our Land Use Incentive Grant to look at disparities of race and class, and I’m eager to get this tool to align with our strategic goal of Equitable, Affordable Housing because it’s the closest thing we have to rent control. Another strategy could look like a community benefits table applied to conditional zoning processes for residential and mixed-use development on transit corridors.

BACKGROUND | On July 5, Thomas Wolfe Auditorium closed its doors due to a massive failure of the HVAC system. In the short-term, that failure immediately resulted in scheduled shows being shifted to the ExploreAsheville.com Arena or other locations. In the longer-term, this current closure of Thomas Wolfe, even if it reopens in a limited capacity, is estimated to result in a loss of over $20 million for Asheville businesses.

At a work session on September 26th, Asheville City Council directed staff to explore two potential paths forward—both major redesigns of the historic space. Staff is expected to come back to Council with more fleshed out recommendations for renovation in early 2024.

You can find more information about the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium issue here.

Based on your knowledge of this issue and the information that is available, do you believe it is time for the City to finally address this issue by fully renovating or replacing Thomas Wolfe Auditorium? Is there anything else you would like to share about the renovation or replacement of Thomas Wolfe Auditorium?

Agree
Yes, and I know that partnerships will be critical to our success. As I noted on the record in the Council work session, my experience in the music industry along with community engagement leads to my position that we should prioritize the Acoustic-Driven or Raked Floor options instead of the Flat Floor one. We have multiple flat-floor venues in the local and regional market, and I don’t think we should duplicate that offering if we can partner to expand our venue resources while securing a home for the Asheville Symphony.

BACKGROUND | A Business Improvement District (BID) is a specially designated area within a city or town where local property and business owners collaborate to enhance the economic and physical environment. BIDs are typically funded through a self-imposed tax or assessment on property owners within the district. The primary goal of a BID is to improve and promote the area, often through initiatives such as beautification, cleanliness, enhanced security, marketing, and events.

These districts are typically managed by a nonprofit organization or association (like the Asheville Downtown Association) that works closely with local government authorities and stakeholders. BIDs serve as engines for economic growth, helping local businesses thrive and contributing to the overall vitality and inclusivity of the neighborhood or downtown area they serve.

Downtown Asheville is the major arts and cultural hub for our region. Many arts organizations located in and/or presenting in downtown continue to be negatively impacted by safety and security issues facing our downtown. It is our hope that a BID could help address these challenges.

Based on your current understanding or prior knowledge of Business Improvement Districts, do you believe Downtown Asheville would benefit from the establishment of a BID? Is there anything else you would like to share about establishing a BID in Downtown Asheville?

Undecided
I am currently in a position of listening and learning, both to new voices in the conversation and to those who participated in previous engagements around a BID. When engaging business owners and residents during the Chamber’s recent stakeholder meetings, some of the concerns I heard included: accountability for an unelected board overseeing tax dollars, realistic service boundaries and expectations, impact of the potential for multiple property tax raises at the same time, and insufficient base-level services currently provided by the City and County in Downtown.

As a dedicated advocate for true public safety, I believe that everyone in Asheville deserves to be safe, but a narrow definition of public safety limits successes and creates new problems. True public safety identifies needs and utilizes the correct tools. A BID is required to serve above and beyond base-level services, but the City and County are not yet providing the base-level services our community deserves during crises of behavioral health and opioid overdose. While our community considers a new property tax to fund a BID Downtown, in large part to fund staffing, I hope my neighbors will also consider advocating for improved base-level services now in addition to the suggestions outlined in my recent opinion piece in the Citizen Times. Otherwise, even with a BID we will still be sending the wrong person with the wrong tools during times of crisis, but with a new problem as our community will have less resources to support the services everyone deserves.

BACKGROUND | A cultural plan is a place-based planning process that generates a vision and action plan for strengthening and growing arts and culture assets. It provides an inventory of current assets, identifies maintenance and support needs, and highlights gaps and future opportunities for growth.

There has never been a cultural plan for Asheville or Buncombe County– even though we are widely known as a arts and cultural destination and our arts scene drives many people to want to live, work, and play in our community. As we hope you are seeing for the previous questions, our cultural community is being impacted by Asheville’s continued growth. It is important that we consider conducting some sort of cultural planning process to provide a roadmap to support this growth over time for the social and economic benefit of our community.

Would you support the creation of Asheville- Buncombe County’s first Cultural Plan to support the preservation of our cultural assets, and the equitable and sustainable growth of the creative sector? Is there anything else you would like to share about a Asheville-Buncombe cultural plan?

Agree
Yes, and as unchecked tourism continues to extract our resources, burden our infrastructure, and displace our vulnerable neighbors, I think it is appropriate that we advocate together for changes to our hotel occupancy tax so this kind of plan and other services and infrastructure needs in this questionnaire could be implemented through our hotel taxes.

I’m grateful for the partnership ArtsAVL is taking on with the City for supporting local festivals through the Event Support Grant, and I continue to appreciate the intentionality of the ArtsAVL to evaluate funding processes to ensure more equitable outcomes, building relationships and amplifying the work of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists in our community. Many artist households like mine are concerned that Asheville is marketed to tourists for our art and beer culture, but the attention and resources mostly benefit a few while the extractive impact of tourism is deeply felt by those most vulnerable to displacement from places to live and work. I invite neighbors and organizations to join, continue, and deepen the shared work to make our community better, identifying barriers and shifting behaviors to achieve equitable outcomes just as I remain committed to pushing for systems change and operationalized equity in City Hall.