On the Record: Asheville City Council candidate Tod Leaven on Billie Holiday, the local theater scene and more

Asheville City Council candidate Tod Leaven talks a lot with his hands — clapping for emphasis or snapping his fingers when he’s trying to recall a specific detail. He’s also prone to dropping an impassioned f-bomb from time to time.

I met Leaven, who placed fifth in the March primary, at his home in Montford. He is the first of the six candidates to partake in Xpress‘ new limited feature “On the Record.”

The premise is simple: I meet with each candidate at their preferred location, and we listen to an album or artist of their choice as we discuss the local arts scene and how, if at all, the creative sector factors into their platform.

For the inaugural session, Leaven, a founding partner at Leaven Law Firm, selected Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit/Fine and Mellow.

“I picked this one because it is the album that Columbia [Records] would not let her do,” he says, as he fixes himself a gin-based cocktail at his home bar. (He had offered to make me one as well, though I declined, accepting a Virgin Midnight mocktail instead.)  “It was 1939, and they did not want to piss off their base. … They did not want to do any anti-lynching songs.”

Ultimately, Columbia granted Holiday a one-session release to record with the label Commodore, which produced the album.

The singer’s open defiance and courage are what inspired Leaven to choose Strange Fruit/Fine and Mellow for our discussion. But in no way, he notes, does he draw parallels between his campaign and Holiday’s struggles.

“I am a cis, straight, white, middle-aged, affluent male attorney in America,” Leaven points out. “I don’t think there are any similarities between me trying to branch into politics and Billie Holiday, a Black female in the 1930s, confronting American lynchings. … She fought the system from the outside, whereas I am trying to change it from the inside.”

Leaven, who worked as a bartender at The Omni Grove Park Inn while an undergrad at UNC Asheville, adds some garnishes to his cocktail and walks toward the dining table where I sit. Maybe it’s the room’s floral wallpaper and navy blue trim, or perhaps it’s the fact that Holiday’s vocals continue to float out of the home’s sound system — but for a moment it feels as if I’ve traveled back in time. But the moment passes. Leaven joins me at the table. We toast, and the conversation turns to the local arts scene.

Lights, camera, action

To my surprise, Leaven is no stranger to the stage.

Early in the conversation, he mentions that he’ll be heading to Asheville Community Theatre (ACT) shortly after our talk. He previously auditioned for the role of Capt. von Trapp for the company’s fall production of The Sound of Music, which runs Friday, Sept. 20-Sunday, Oct. 13. He’s been called back for another round of auditions.

“Later tonight, I’m going to dance, and I’m going to sing, and I’m going to fight Nazis,” Leaven says. “That is a really cool thing for locals to do.”

The candidate’s introduction to the acting world arrived by happenstance. Several years ago, his then-10-year-old daughter, Eleanor, landed a role as a Munchkin in ACT’s 2019 production of The Wizard of Oz. “I got the same seat for all 16 shows,” Leaven says. “So as soon as she was out on the stage, she could look and see — there’s daddy.”

Despite the show’s success, Eleanor announced her plans to retire from acting shortly thereafter. “Her 10-year-old logic was: ‘If I quit now, I know I made it. But if I audition for anything else and I don’t get a part, then I’ll know I was only lucky to get this part and that I’m not that good,’” Leaven recalls. “Kind of tragic.”

Leaven, a veteran of the U.S. Army, ultimately made a deal with his daughter: If she continued to audition, he’d also try out for roles in each production. “My wife was like, ‘What the hell, Tod? You can’t act,’” he recalls.

Since that time, the father-daughter duo has performed side by side in a number of plays produced by Montford Park Players, where Leaven serves as the chair of the board of directors. The two have also acted with Shakespeare & Friends in Tryon and ACT. More recently, Leaven’s also taken the stage alongside his other two daughters, Abigail and Hannah.

‘Pro-development guy’

Despite Leaven’s affinity for local theater, he is quick to note that “the fundamental job of the city is not the arts.” Instead, he stresses, it is basic services. “The reason why there is a city government is for your sidewalks and your public safety,” he says. “It’s making sure your water supply won’t freeze up again. … It’s fiscal responsibility and due diligence before you build a toilet.”

Leaven is also an unapologetic advocate for development. “You’ve got to build,” he reiterates throughout our conversation. “And not just suburban sprawl. That’s terrible for the environment and the tree canopy; it overtaxes our public transit. You have to build downtown, and you’ve got to build up.”

Multifamily housing, he continues, is essential. He looks out his window and points down the street, stating that one of the adjacent properties is an apartment building with five families living inside. And next door to that are apartments with 12 families. “And two doors down is an apartment [complex] for,like, 20,” he stresses. “It’s neighborly. It’s walkable. It works.”

And it ties in with the arts, he adds. If there isn’t affordable housing for those in the creative sector, artists will leave town. 

“If I could get onto City Council and walk away after four years and say, ‘Wow, I put 11,000 units on the market, and now Asheville has affordable housing’ — I would feel like Superman,” Leaven says.

In assessing his chances of winning and serving, Leaven is clear-eyed. “I wouldn’t be popular,” he says. “If I got elected, I probably would get elected once. I’d be the pro-development guy. But I could do some good.”

Setting an example

Similar to his entry into acting, Leaven points to family as his reason for running for City Council. His twin sister, Tami, who struggled for years with issues related to addiction and homelessness, died in Asheville in 2010.

This experience, he says, has shaped his views on the role local government should play in supporting community members. Leaven believes housing alone is not the solution. He also opposes the criminalization of the unhoused. “I’m not anti-housing the unhoused,” he clarifies. “But if you’re going to house them, you have to give them the wraparound services.”

His sister’s memory is a constant presence. “Every time I see someone on the streets, I think — they may not have kids themselves, they may not have a brother or a sister, but they have parents. And they have parents that f*cking love them,” he says, pausing to apologize for his profanity. “They absolutely love them.”

After his sister’s death, Leaven and his wife adopted their niece, Hannah, who is now 25. His three daughters, continues Leaven, are motivation for his campaign. “It’s great to show my kids, ‘Hey, if you think there’s something off, you need to sacrifice time — even if it doesn’t help you, even if it costs you,'” he says. “This is what a citizen does to make his community better.”

Callback

A few days after we met inside his Montford home listening to Billie Holiday and discussing his connection to the local arts scene, Leaven sent me a follow-up email.

“I made it through multiple auditions for the role of Capt. von Trapp, singing, dancing and fighting Nazis, but was not ultimately cast in the role,” he wrote.

Come Tuesday, Nov. 5, Asheville voters will decide if he moves forward in his ongoing audition for City Council.