Dee Williams files for Asheville City Council election

Press release:

Dee Williams, Asheville Native and First Candidate Supported by WNC Green Party, Files for 2017 Asheville City Council Race

Dee Williams, a native of Asheville, filed today for the 2017 Asheville City Council race. The first candidate ever supported by the WNC Green Party, she has been a vocal critic of Asheville’s gentrification boom and a champion of sustainable people-centered development. Dee has decades of organizational experience in small-business development and in fighting for the interests of working people and people of color, whether against racial disparities and cronyism in city contracting or racial disparities in policing. Her platform has four basic components: living-wage jobs, permanent affordable housing, freezing city fees and property taxes for those on fixed or small incomes, and promotion of green jobs and environmental sustainability.

With degrees in political science/economics, accounting, and business administration, she brings practical skills and experience to the job. She is the current chair of the Asheville-Buncombe NAACP Criminal Justice Reform Committee and the Economic Justice Workgroup, which is working to create permanently affordable housing in place of the currently “sunsetted” affordable housing, which reverts to market-priced housing after several years. Dee is also the WNC coordinator of the “Ban the Box” movement, which seeks to end the practice of forcing former inmates to push the employment self-destruct button by disclosing their incarceration history on job applications.

Campaign volunteers were present to listen to Dee speak and cheer her on before and after she filed the papers at the Board of Elections at 11 a.m. on July 18. “We need to diversify our economy, invest in local jobs, and ensure that we retain our quality of life in Asheville,” said Dee Williams in her speech.