Grant Millin, Asheville resident since 1980 and management consultant, registers for city council run.

Grant Millin announced in February that he would run for Asheville city council. Today, he followed through and filed the paperwork to make it official. Millin is a veteran of the Navy and currently runs a consulting firm. He has previously run for chairman of the county Democratic party in 2011.

Often seen on comment boards and internet forums discussing local governance and other issues, Millin has been known to share his opinions through letters to the media as well. See also.

Press release from Grant Millin campaign:

Long-time Asheville resident Grant Millin registered as an Asheville city council candidate today. Grant’s parents bought the historic T.S. Morrison & Co. hardware store in 1980 which is now the site of Lexington Avenue Brewery. Grant understands cities like Asheville are ready for the Next New Deal and that means new leadership.

“A lot has changed in Asheville since we landed in the middle of plans to destroy Downtown Asheville for the sake of another mall. We sacrificed and I remember well the hard work it took to move from 1980 Asheville to where we are today, with all the risks and opportunities behind 2015 Asheville.” Grant’s most recent contribution on behalf of the citizens of Asheville is Smart Grid DEEP, an initiative that adds more business value and current sustainability strategy to the important Asheville Community Energy Plan task force work he participated in. “I get business needs and I get sustainability needs,” said Grant.

In Grant’s first 100 days in office he will submit proposals for:

– A WNC Public Advocate Office based on ombud (‘ombudsman’) service programs operating across the US and in other developed nations.

– Sustain Asheville / Sustain WNC, a genuine open innovation program expanding on GroWNC (also see the East of the Riverway community program) and replacing AdvantageWest. Fellow candidates Marc Hunt and Julie Mayfield are members of the HUB Community Economic Development Alliance (Asheville HUB). The Asheville HUB has produced some results over the years, but lacks a genuine innovation management practice accessible to any community member with solutions, or capabilities that can be developed for the innovator’s solution, or attached to a solution developed by others. Sustain Asheville replaces or reforms the Asheville HUB for a bigger, deeper, and resilience enhancing innovation and opportunity ecosystem.

– Smart Grid DEEP, an initiative connecting the Asheville Community Energy Plan to the emerging North Carolina Clean Power Plan.

Grant attends St. Mark’s Lutheran Church and served honorably on US Navy active duty and in the reserves. “Asheville city council and the citizens of Asheville, especially those living at the bottom the economy, need at least one council member with my capabilities, sense of duty, and background of sacrifice for this city, county, state, and nation. Clearly for those hovering just above or under the hopelessly outdated Federal poverty income lines find all market housing options in Asheville unaffordable. There are also more housing quality risks like buildings needing rehabilitation and remodel for those in the bottom 50-25 percent of incomes here,” said Grant.

There a constant flow of demands on members of city council today each having a variety of risk and opportunity levels attached. Being one of the most educated and experienced candidates, Grant offers innovative approaches to managing these risks and opportunities beyond what city staff. Civic engagement and measuring and monitoring tangible value delivered to the citizens is central to ways Grant will seek to secure the viability of Asheville and grow benefits for those currently living at the base of the economy.

Grant sees the conventional wisdom that states Asheville is on its own and adjusting property taxes up to compensate for anemic ‘intergovernmental’ (state and Federal) tax revenues is one of many clear paths to insatiability we are on. Grant cites Federal Reserve and Credit Suisse data showing US household wealth alone hit $80 trillion in 2014. “The contest of wills you see in Raleigh and in congress affects Asheville. That’s unavoidable. When it comes to money, the USA has money. That’s not what’s lacking today,” said Grant.

‘New direction’ means new platforms enhancing our democratic principles

There is very little in the way of entrepreneurship, ‘low-hanging’ fruit local government policy, and philanthropic strategy left that can fully avoid emerging risks without greater state and Federal collaboration delivering increased tangibles for relatively isolated, mid-size economies like Asheville’s. “Effectively coping with our risks and mobilizing around our opportunities is beyond the capacities of many old school leaders at this point. My knowledge of modern strategy and innovation practices must surely be needed,” said Grant.

While Grant is developing a nonprofit to house the Sustain Asheville / Sustain WNC program and temporality launch the WNC Public Advocate Office, he has no conflicts of interest that would prevent him from voting on each council issue. While Grant has a great deal to offer in helping to settle Asheville’s risks and opportunities in terms of the near and long-term, there will be a constant flow of issues coming before city council from a range of directions. “Expect that I will judiciously educate myself on each matter and be open to a range of community voices,” said Grant.

Grant will also be able to add value especially in the following city hall arenas:

– Use of evidence-based policy within Asheville, creating a wave of government policy reform that ideally feedbacks to results in Raleigh and congress.

– Developing and monitoring progress around the City’s Comprehensive Plan. The Comprehensive Plan will be developed during the first years of Grant’s first term on city council, 2016-2017. More importantly, solutions like Sustain Asheville ensure democratic strategic doing occurs to actually activate the notion that COA plans aren’t just more reams of paper collecting dust.

Sustainability innovation will set up Asheville as a responsible economic development leader

Two key areas of strategic innovation are where Grant sees significant value for the people of Asheville: poverty innovation and climate change innovation. “While not the only issues facing city council, supporting a strong state and national anti-poverty and human-caused climate change strategy from Asheville alleviates the deprivation the thousands of Asheville citizens living in poverty suffer, add more consumers with greater disposable income to the market, while targeting how to grow the economy while designing a more sustainable system.

How to get there includes better leadership in Raleigh and in congress than we see today. Cities like Asheville working much more collaboratively with one another can help set the bar higher. If we don’t at least allow some greater experimentation we’re sure to see even larger risk impacts than today.

I think it’s an assumption only to believe collaboration and strategy are at their heights within Asheville city limits. There’s more to be done, to learn, and probably a lot of leadership replacing to be had here. I’m only on my way to our city council, but I’m also a common citizen and am more than happy to speak out on the range of matters we face together… together meaning greater teamwork soon.

In the meantime a new innovation and opportunity ecosystem (for our needs Asheville will be in the center) that means enhancing and opening collaboration through organizations like Buncombe County Government; Land of Sky Regional Council; the North Carolina League of Municipalities; the U.S. Conference of Mayors; National League of Cities; National Association of Development Organizations; and the business, nonprofit, healthcare, and education communities. Of course new strategy is dependent on the buy-in of Mayor Manheimer and other council members… and of course who is elected this year.

We still have some resources and we’ll need to start leverage every once of it to get back on track. I’m doing what I can now, but I am built to be on Asheville city council and that’s where I can offer the greatest value for the largest number of citizens,” said Grant. Grant sees a new Sustain Asheville / Sustain WNC organization taking over where AdvantageWest and GroWNC concluded as being a catalyst for organized innovation and risk management. Grant would like to reform the HUB Community Economic Development Alliance as a more public open innovation platform to facilitate these strategic innovations at the City of Asheville (COA) and citywide levels.

We are not seeing a recession rebound like those in the 1980’s and 1990’s where a majority of Americans began to our system as providing needed results according to the US Consumer Sentiment Index. The 2015 World Happiness Report places the US in the same high bracket as Switzerland, but Mexico, Canada, and all the Scandinavian nations are operating at higher levels of happiness.

We need new capabilities to develop and manage opportunity and at least understand all of our risks better. Active citizens need to be asked to participate with new strategy tools. The level of complexity around our opportunities and risks is growing daily and Asheville can set the government innovation bar high. We must,” said Grant.

More about Grant

Grant has a Master of Project Management and Master of Entrepreneurship degree including studies for an MBA with Western Carolina University. He has a BA Interdisciplinary Studies, Independent Degree in Sustainability and Security Studies from UNC Asheville. He is a GroWNC consortium member, COA Asheville Community Energy Plan member, as well as a Leadership Asheville and COA Citizens’ Academy graduate. He was the North Carolina project manager for the historic Hydrogen Road Tour and also produced and was panelist on the Forum on Smart Grid and Hydrogen Economies at Duke University.

In Grant’s project management studies he covered major infrastructure programs like the Charlotte Area Transit System and ITER (hydrogen fusion) as well as community innovations like the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Livable Centers Initiative.

Grant’s campaign website GrantMillin.com has a range of policy changes, goals, and innovations he will work to see through on city council. Look for articles like Innovating the 2015 and future Asheville city council debates; Passenger Rail to Asheville? Add more value with sustainability innovation; Viable options to Sen. Apodaca’s inappropriate grid solutions exist; Asheville’s affordable housing challenge won’t get solved with magical thinking; Buncombe tourism advertising needs to be an industry expense versus public expense; Teamwork and an open source approach to our challenges can replace AdvantageWest; and What will Asheville City Center look like in ten years?

Grant is referenced over 100 times in the Asheville Citizen-Times archives. He has appeared on WLOS multiple times and in other media, or driven news stories. He won a 2014 Global Innovation Summit scholarship.

Grant’s detailed biographical sketch is available.

The race

The deadline to file for city council is this Friday the 17th of July. The other candidates who have formally filed for this fall’s primary ballot are: Rich Lee, Julie Mayfield, Corey Atkins, Marc Hunt (incumbent), Joe Grady, Brian Haynes, Carl Mumpower, Lindsey Simerly, and Lavonda Nicole Payne.   Others who have announce intentions to file are Keith Young, and Jonathan Wainscott although Wainscott has encountered legal trouble.