Name: Keith Young
Profession: Deputy Clerk of Superior Court
In up to three words, describe your political affiliation: Progressive, Democrat, Pragmatic
In one brief sentence, describe yourself and why you’re running: I’m a black man in America that knows what it is like to face all kinds of adversity and discrimination; I’m running to help provide clear, intentional, equity driven opportunity for every person in the city of Asheville, especially the least among us.
General questions
These questions are about problems, challenges or topics facing city government and how you will try to deal with them if elected.
1) Despite pressure from the transit workers union, riders and council repeatedly designating the bus system as a major priority, senior staff have consistently failed to provide it the funds even the city’s own plans say are necessary. How do you plan to deal with this situation?
A property tax increase of .03 would net a total of 4.5 million dollars. I have proposed that 2.2 million be dedicated to transit on a yearly basis to fund expanded evening service hours to 10:30 or later and implement year two of the transit master plan. Also, through working with Chairman Newman and the rest of county commissioners ask them to restore funding to paratransit and fund the implementation of fare free transit.
2) Despite an incredibly poor environmental record, especially on the storage of dangerous coal ash, Duke Energy has kept gaining power in the city’s sustainability decision-making process. How will you respond to this?
Through a local green new deal I have proposed, I am recommending that the city of Asheville build NC’s largest community solar farm project and run it as a city owned utility. This will help build our climate resilience. This is legal and authorizing legislation already exists for us to take on such matters.
3) The city of Asheville’s land and facilities are dotted with blatantly racist monuments and memorials, from the confederate regime monuments in Pack Square to paintings like “the white man’s family council” in council chambers. What’s your plan to remove these?
We need to remove what we legally can. That is tough to do with public monuments since the legislature is protecting these monuments. However, we have the power to change what is in council chambers. We also have the ability to encourage, fund, and build relevant monuments to honoring those who have made great strides in the way of civil rights and social justice.
4) Senior staff have repeatedly ignored council on issues ranging from transit and development to refusing and delaying implementing rules reining in the police department. If elected, what will you do when senior staff outright ignore or defy elected officials?
We can always use our bully pulpit to speak out which I’ve done. However, there will always need to be a majority of council that share the same ideals for real change to occur. If you do not have four nods or votes then nothing will progress in a speedy manner excluding any public outcry.
5) Mayor Esther Manheimer, with the complicity of much of the current council, has repeatedly tried to silence dissent by enforcing a made-up rule against applause or demanding that locals have to give their addresses (they don’t). What will you do to ensure locals can criticize local government without fear of intimidation or retaliation?
Traditionally, it has been asked of speakers that they tell what town they live in, or what part of Asheville they live in to give some perspective on their perspective. Many people who are not voters in Asheville speak frequently. While everyone is welcome to speak, I think that it is always informative to know some basic demographics when we hear comments. That being said, I agree that there is no need to ask people for their home address. The relevance it adds does not outweigh the message they bring to us on council.
Yes/No questions
These questions are about specific proposals Asheville City Council has or may consider, and how you would vote on them. The first word of each answer must be Yes or No. An explanation of one’s position — or an alternative proposal — may follow. Answers in this section that do not begin with “Yes” or “No” will not be published.
6. During the year-long hotel moratorium, council is reviewing the city’s rules on hotels. Will you reject final power over hotel approval being given to an un-elected board like planning and zoning?
Yes. Yes with caveats. Council is awaiting more information on the process that is forthcoming since we just had a work session to drill down a more acute process and community input, and how a process will be formulated after the moratorium. Community benefits may be included in a process and this may streamline approval based on certain conditions such as affordable housing, living wage jobs, and acceptance of housing choice vouchers and other measures yet to be determined. On the surface I’d say yes I reject final power given away. However, there is that which we do not yet know which is what the final proposed process looks like. Also, all of the hypotheticals scenarios that could come up What if we had a hotel that was providing 100 deeply affordable units and all housing choice vouchers? I’m not sure I would just dismiss that if a mechanism was in place where it did not come to council.
7. The APD is the largest police force per-capita of any major city in the state, has some of the worst racial disparities in enforcement and a long history of targeting the homeless and impoverished. Will you support cutting the APD’s budget by at least $7 million?
No. I wouldn’t commit myself to any number without full context behind it. For what it’s worth though, since I have been in office, more ranking police officers have been held accountable than in the history of Asheville and that trend shall continue. All the outcomes of accountability are not to my complete satisfaction, but accountability must remain a focus to being a pillar of trust in all communities especially African-American ones.
8. Asheville is one of the most unaffordable cities in the country. Instead of giving city-owned land to private developers, will you support the city building housing and turning it over to independent tenant co-ops to own and run directly?
Yes It’s doable.The local green new deal has a component of the city of Asheville becoming and affordable housing developer. I ran on the city building housing last campaign. I have been researching the legalities of this for some time now and I am glad to say that this is something that we can actually do legally and hope that we push forward. If there is community support for co-op management and working models exist I will strongly consider those.
9. Will you publicly call on the Buncombe County commissioners to abolish the Tourism Development Authority by repealing the hotel tax it relies on for revenue?
Yes. However, there is a strong push to structure a fair deal for Asheville. If the state still refuses, I will give the county my full support to abolish it. However, there is some misinformation going around about the certainty of Asheville receiving more funds from the TDA. City Council can only voice support for the county commissioners to be willing to take a hard stance. And at the end of the day, our county commission can only abolish the TDA, not make major structural changes to it. While, the threat of abolishing the TDA, with support from city council does give the county a bargaining chip, the republican controlled general assembly may very well, out of spite, refuse any changes whatsoever.
Given, the NCGAs history of punishing Asheville at every opportunity, we must accept that simply abolishing the TDA may be the only option in the end but that would be the kamikaze effect for us so to speak. Taxes would be collected but where would it then go? The NCGA would make the decision. Therefore, I am making no campaign promises that there will be new funding from the TDA for expanding city services. I would be naive to make a promise I have little to no control over in the grand scheme of things. I would caution other candidates for city council on promising voters that standing up to the TDA is going to result in a cash cow in the end. However, we must pursue any option that puts us on better footing as it pertains to the allocation formula at play here, and our ability to significantly change the allocation formula or limits.
10. City workers face a major wage gap, with some senior staff raking in $150,000 (or far more) a year while firefighters, water system workers and many others remain desperately underpaid. Will you support a minimum salary of $40,000 (tied to inflation) and a maximum salary cap of $100,000 for city workers and staff?
No. I wouldn’t implement a cap. However, I support what I have been fighting for which is $15 hr minimum wage for city workers or $31,200 minimum salary for all city workers which I believe we will receive this budget cycle.