Hello, Xpress readers, nine candidates are vying for three seats on Asheville City Council this year, and we’re developing our annual election guide questionnaire. What questions do you want the candidates to answer?
Keep the questions succinct and polite, please, and don’t direct them at any single candidate. If you don’t want a question public, send it to either dforbes@mountainx.com or news@mountainx.com.
Thanks for your input, Asheville, we look forward to some good, tough questions for your future representatives.
— David Forbes, senior news reporter
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i am interested to know what any candidate plans to do about the 2 most troubling problems we face;#1 the economic situation we are in,without raising taxes again.#2 what are your plans to stop illegal residents from working for “money under the table”jobs? and forcing them to either become legal taxpaying citizens or leave?
What’s your stance towards Tim Moffitt’s attempt to seize Asheville’s water utility, have you educated yourself about the water privatization agenda of the American Legislative Exchange Council (of which Moffitt and 33 other NC legislators are members), and what will you do to prevent the seizure of our water utility?
http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/alec_likes_tillis#storylink=misearch
Here is the ALEC privatization bill created for state legislators to model their own bills seizing public utilities and turning them over to private for-profit entities:
http://alecexposed.org/w/images/4/49/1M25-The_Water_Wastewater_Utility_Public-Private_Partnership_Act_Exposed.pdf
From a story that ran in Mountain Xpress in March 2010:
“Mountain Housing Opportunities plans to build The Larchmont on the former Navy Reserve site, which the nonprofit is buying from Buncombe County. The property’s institutional zoning would allow a maximum of 37 units. The nonprofit’s representatives, however, said 60 units are essential for the project to be economically viable — and after a lengthy public hearing, City Council wound up agreeing with them.”
Do you think zoning laws should be ignored whenever they’re inconvenient? What other laws do you think should be ignored whenever they’re inconvenient?
Zoning laws weren’t ignored, ironhead. The property was re-zoned from ‘institutional’ to ‘urban residential’ by a unanimous vote of City Council. Like it or not, this is a change that they are legally empowered to make.
Do you support tax abatement incentives for businesses which express interest in relocating to Asheville?
What is your position on the Asheville City School Districts?
Do you think that all legal and tax-paying members who reside in the City of Asheville should have access to the Asheville City Schools?
Are you aware of the fact that the school districting in Western North Carolina was determined 95 years ago (in Raleigh) and has never been revisited?
There are many residents in Asheville’s long-ago annexed areas who are not included in the current school system. Oakley, the neighborhood I live in, would be a good example of this. It seems unfair to tax these city residents without giving them (me) equal access to city services.
What is you’re plan to compensate the City of Asheville workers, that have been on a three year plus pay freeze? Life is not getting cheaper in WNC, including the nice benefits cost hike the city threw at them this year.
Thanks
What is your philosophy on the concept of limited versus government? To be more specific, what activities is Asheville City Government currently ionvolved in that they should not be doing and you will advocate to stop? Convesely, what activities should city gov’t be involed in that they are not?
Will you make a promise to resign if you ever vote against your campaign pledges?
Will you fight to widen Meadow Road and Swannanoa
River Road from Amboy Rd around to WalMart? It desparately needs to be 4 laned, yet we never hear a word about it! WHY NOT?
Will you fight to CLEAN UP our street curbs and gutters CITYWIDE? That is, removing all the overgrowth and debris that clogs drainage all over town.
Will you fight to have MORE ACCOUNTABILITY from the Asheville Housing Authority, and HOW will you achieve that?
Will you fight to demand stiffer penalties for
area graffitti vandals?
Will you fight to consolidate the City Schools with Buncombe County to SAVE TAXPAYER MONEY???
How would you have voted on the Equality Resolution that City Council passed in February?
The resolution included:
1) a domestic-partnership registry
2) revisions to the City’s employment non-discrimination policy to include sexual orientation and gender identity/expression among the other (already) protected categories
3) an anti-bullying ordinance
4) an endorsement of “the rights of same-sex couples to share fully and equally in the familial rights and responsibilities of civil marriage.”
On a related note, how would you have voted on city council’s decision to offer benefits to same-sex partners of city employees?
Since fewer dependent benefits make gays superior employees, and tenants, how would they benefit from a nondisrimination ordinance?