As the upcoming and very important City Council elections approach, I encourage my fellow Asheville residents to vote for Jan Davis. Mr. Davis has served our city very well for the past eight years as a cohesive and coalition-building voice on City Council. Davis is a life-long resident, a successful downtown small-business owner and former vice mayor; his votes on issues before Council have continually demonstrated his understanding of the needs for timely actions to improve the lives of residents and business operators in a nonpartisan fashion.
Just a few of the recent significant issues benefiting Asheville include: Jan’s role in helping improve employee retention (and thereby increasing resident safety) in the city’s Fire and Police departments; assisting with the actions to obtain the three-year contract for Asheville to host the Southern Conference basketball tournaments; helping establish and maintain efforts toward the planning and construction of the Asheville Performing Arts Center; finalizing the Master Plan for downtown; enhancing the city’s working relationship with UNC Asheville; assisting with obtaining the necessary financing for the major renovations now under way at the Civic Center; and furthering development of the River Arts District and the Wilma Dykeman RiverWay Plan through the creation of the Asheville River Front Re-development Commission.
Davis’ concerns and actions reach across traditional political, demographic, and socio-economic boundaries within our community. He recognizes that for Asheville to continue its recent successes, our city, county and state leaders must cooperate and work together.
Jan Davis is a proven leader who can perpetuate that cooperation. Please vote for Jan Davis in the Oct.11 primary and again in the Nov. 8 general election.
— Mike Burke
Civic Center Commission
Asheville
I agree with the sentiment of returning Jan Davis to the City Council, and will be voting for him in both primary and general as well. Thank you, Mr. Burke, for providing details on Jan’s leadership in our community.
Jan Davis spoke against appointing Joe Minicozzi to the Planning & Zoning Commission, ostensibly because Joe is the Executive Director of the Downtown Association (which puts on Downtown After 5, and other downtown-promoting activities.) His reasoning was that Joe’s position constituted a potential ‘conflict of interest’, even though the DTA doesn’t develop buildings or put forward proposals that would ever come before P&Z.
On the other hand, Jan had no problem voting for Jeremy Goldstein, the owner of one of Asheville’s largest realty companies, even though he is walking conflict of interest. Mr. Goldstein couldn’t even answer certain questions during the City Council interview because he has clients in every single recently-built highrise in the downtown. Despite the certainty that he will have recuse himself on a regular basis from P&Z decisions, Jan Davis thought he was a better choice than Joe M., a nationally-known and respected urban planner.
Jan’s a nice guy, but his priorities are not for the average person in Asheville, but the special interests.
uhm, Barry…other than the Indigo hotel can you please list all the other ‘recently built high rises in the downtown’ …huh? just for accuracy here, you know.
As long as he continues to work at destroying our homegrown local beer community, I will vote against him and urge others to do the same.