Press release from Jasmine for Buncombe:
Jasmine Beach-Ferrara announced today that she will seek re-election for Buncombe County Commission in 2020. First elected in 2016, she represents District 1 and was selected as Vice Chair in 2018.
Beach-Ferrara helped lead the creation of the county’s Early Childhood Education and Development Fund, which passed by 6-1 vote and which commits $3.6 million annually in county funding to expand access to early childhood education. She currently chairs the County’s Early Childhood Education and Development Committee, which includes 3 Commissioners and 12 community members. She also advocates for expanding affordable housing across the County and serves on the Justice Resource Advisory Council. Beach-Ferrara recently introduced a resolution to endorse the use of Medication Assisted Therapy in responding to the opioid crisis. The resolution passed by a 7-0 vote and an op-ed on the topic is available at this link.
Her announcement statement, available in full here, reads:
“My decision to run again is about wanting to keep representing your voice in Buncombe County and to keep working with you to create policies that help everyone in our community thrive. This means significantly expanding access to quality early childhood education and to safe affordable housing; ensuring we are nimble, compassionate and effective in our responses to the opioid epidemic; creating a 21st Century criminal justice system that ends practices of mass incarceration; and taking action to respond to the threats of climate change.
Our community deserves the very best of what local government can be and for the full resources of county government to be focused resolutely on solving problems and serving people. I’ve been and will continue to be a voice for reform, transparency and accountability in our county government.
The court-ordered process of redrawing NC General Assembly districts also means that Buncombe County Commission districts will be redrawn. We expect finalized new maps in the coming weeks.
Regardless of what the districts look like, I have more work to do and this December, I will file in whatever district I live in.”
Beach-Ferrara is a minister in the United Church of Christ and the founding Executive Director of the Campaign for Southern Equality (CSE), an Asheville-based non-profit that launched in 2011 to promote full equality for LGBTQ people across the South. Raised in Chapel Hill, NC, she attended public schools through high school and received her undergraduate degree from Brown University. She holds a Master of Fine Arts and completed her Master of Divinity degree at Harvard Divinity School. She and her wife, attorney Meghann Burke, live in Asheville with their three children. More information about her campaign is available at www.jasmineforbuncombe.org.
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