Affordable housing advocate Lindsey Simerly announces bid for Asheville City Council

Simerly (left) with fiancee Melissa Wilson and their daughter.

Lindsey Simerly, of Haw Creek, announced this morning that she is running for Asheville City Council. No stranger to civic life and activism, Simerly last ran in 2007 at which time she positioned herself as an advocate for sustainable development and environmental protection.  Since then she has been heavily involved with social justice and affordable housing issues.

From Simerley’s campaign:

Asheville — Affordable Housing Advisory Committee Chair Lindsey Simerly will file as a candidate for City Council and run on a platform of affordability and opportunity.

“I’ve been fighting to give working people a chance while experiencing firsthand what it means to work full-time and yet still struggle to make rent. I’ve been fighting for full LGBT equality while knowing firsthand what discrimination feels like. These experiences set me apart—and that’s a voice we need now on City Council,” said Simerly.

Simerly has served as the city’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee Chair since 2012. She has introduced policies including revising land use ordinances to increase housing density, annual increases in funding for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund until it reaches the goal of 1 cent per $100 of assessed value of all property in the City, and setting an annual target number of newly created affordable housing units.

“I understand why housing issues matter so desperately to families and working people in Asheville,” said Simerly. “I have 12 years of experience in policy making, organizing, collaborating, and engaging the community right here in Asheville. Beyond this, I know what it means to struggle to get by in a city that’s becoming less affordable every day.”

Simerly first moved to Asheville at age 18, finding work as a cook at Waffle House, a construction worker, and a maintenance technician at the French Broad Food Co-op. Now, at age 30, Simerly is a civil rights worker with experience in social justice and environmental advocacy, and electoral politics.

For the past four years, Simerly has rallied for marriage equality as the Campaign Manager for the Campaign for Southern Equality (CSE). Headquartered in Asheville, CSE was instrumental in the lawsuit that legalized same-sex marriage in North Carolina.

Simerly is past Campaign Director for the Dogwood Alliance, which protects Southeastern forests; the past Field Director for Congressman Heath Shuler’s successful re-election in 2010; and has worked on the campaigns of County Commissioners Holly Jones and Brownie Newman and City Councilman Gordon Smith.

Simerly said Councilman Chris Pelly’s decision to forgo a re-election campaign “creates a gap in advocacy for affordable housing and representation for East Asheville, a gap that I can fill.”

Simerly is a homeowner in Haw Creek, which is also Pelly’s neighborhood. Simerly said she will also draw on her experiences of having lived in most parts of the city, most recently in West Asheville.

Simerly and her fiance Melissa Wilson, a licensed clinical social worker serving middle school students, have a two-year old daughter.

End of press release.

The race

The field of candidates has reached critical mass for a primary before the general election. The other current announced candidates are: Rich Lee, Julie Mayfield, Corey Atkins, Keith Young, Grant Millin, Marc Hunt (incumbent), and Jonathan Wainscott. The two other incumbents up for reelection, Chris Pelly and Jan Davis have both announced they will not seek another term. Another possible candidate who has filed organizational forms is Lavonda Nicole Payne. Filing period for official candidacy is July 6 through 17.

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About Able Allen
Able studied political science and history at Warren Wilson College. He enjoys travel, dance, games, theater, blacksmithing and the great outdoors. Follow me @AbleLAllen

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7 thoughts on “Affordable housing advocate Lindsey Simerly announces bid for Asheville City Council

  1. Grant Millin

    Why in the world is Mountain Xpress only covering Simerly?

    They haven’t interviewed me and none of the other city council candidates who announced early seem to have been covered by this paper.

    • InB4Storm

      Now before everyone jumps on this, I’m sure Grant Millin has a registered account, and I am sure this is just a troll post, so don’t feed the troll.

  2. Grant Millin

    I don’t reply to people who use anonymity but this really is Grant Millin, one of the other Asheville city council candidates, asking where at least the links to the Citizen-Times stories on the other candidates are on the MX site. Other candidates announced months ago. I’m talking about parity in terms of sharing the details as to what other candidates are offering, not the following footnote in the above piece:

    The race

    The field of candidates has reached critical mass for a primary before the general election. The other current announced candidates are: Rich Lee, Julie Mayfield, Corey Atkins, Keith Young, Grant Millin, Marc Hunt (incumbent), and Jonathan Wainscott. The two other incumbents up for reelection, Chris Pelly and Jan Davis have both announced they will not seek another term. Another possible candidate who has filed organizational forms is Lavonda Nicole Payne. Filing period for official candidacy is July 6th through 17th.

  3. Able Allen

    Mr. Millin, it is certainly fair to pose the question. You are wondering why coverage has been offered the way it has. The policy of the Mountain Xpress is to provide relevant campaign and election information to our community in a timely manner. We strive for both consistency and fairness. We have not interviewed any of the candidates yet. At this stage in the election we will simply post candidate announcement press releases that are provided to us in time frame that is newsworthy. We will add some context statements as you see above and do some fact checking. Later in the season we will seek out interviews with each candidate and provide more in depth election material to the best of our resources.

    • Grant Millin

      That’s the MX statement. Okay. Thanks, Able.

      The media can endorse whoever they want. The fact is that three of us announced earlier this year. February. That was a long time ago and as you’ve listed there’s a multitude of visions as to what can be done at city hall for Asheville voters who read Mountain Xpress to start mulling over right now.

      If MX was looking for press releases, then surely MX staff was aware when the early candidates announced and we would be contacted by MX staff with the offer to submit press releases. Also, while my campaign hasn’t generated a press release yet it’s not my fault if I haven’t done a press release. Citizen-Times has done candidate stories on each of us. MX constantly pulls quotes and uses links to other media outlets.

      MX does what it does and the rest of us simply observe these things. MX chose to focus on the Simerly campaign first in terms of actual coverage as to her platform and bio.

      While I will submit a press release to MX in time, I wanted to be sure MX decided to note the Simerly campaign first and no one else’s with a parity principle at hand. Parity meaning there’s some text of approximately equal length on the MX site and in print about each candidate as we announce. I wasn’t the first to announce so I don’t necessarily gain that much for bringing any of this up. I just want our local journalists to perform for the sake of public trust.

      I don’t know MX rules of the road until you folks tell us. News media is what news media is around here. I certainly don’t expect perfection but these things rate identification when you all make these decisions, or make inadvertent omissions. Obviously MX staff have been aware of the other campaigns so this isn’t about inadvertent omissions but I guess about MX passivity in terms of waiting for campaign press releases.

      When institutions get the policy out in the open, the rest of the community then has some of idea of what we need to do next. My current reflections on MX delivering the news about city council candidates are simply about what MX, a powerful community institution, has done so far this campaign cycle. It’s not about Simerly per say.

      I’m not angry I just want to see more focus on city council elections and more turnout. As the community-centric paper we’re counting on Mountain Xpress to support these critical democratic processes.

  4. Jonathan Wainscott

    I have also file a complaint with the NC Highway Patrol naming Marc Hunt, Gwen Wisler, Gordon Smith, Gary Jackson, Jan Davis, Julie Mayfield and others for participating in a prearranged competition of speed on NC roads and highways. This is a class 1 misdemeanor. Gordon Smith used a city-owned bus in the race.

  5. Alan Ditmore

    Of course the council candidate I think we can best agree on, and who I already supported in the Citizen-Times, is Lindsey Simerly. https://mountainx.com/blogwire/affordable-housing-advocate-lindsey-simerly-announces-bid-for-city-council/ Although this says she is a homeowner, which is a big liability as that gives her a personal investment in NIMBYism and thus a conflict of interest. I don’t normally support homeowners for political office. But anyway, I already did. http://www.citizen-times.com/story/opinion/readers/2015/06/01/letter-leap-ahead-election/28307645/

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