I was honored to participate in the excellent Bilingual Candidate Forum hosted by Asheville-Buncombe Food Policy Council, Asheville Buncombe Community Land Trust, Bountiful Cities, CIMA, Just Economics, Poder Emma, and the Racial Justice Coalition. These groups are leading the way in vital community-building; city government should be supporting and empowering them, and all our residents.
According to the presenter of this TED talk—Vishaan Chakrabarti—we currently have the technology we need to build carbon-negative housing reasonably affordably and at scale.
The keys is building 3-story multi-family dwellings with their own renewable, sustainable systems as well as walkable neighborhoods with resources and amenities, linked by robust public transportation.
I believe Asheville can do this.
Amazing campaign day today!
Started at 8AM with breakfast with the Democratic Men’s Club.
Then at 11AM I was at “Sparking the Good Fire” at the Burton St. Community Center, an artistic and inspiring gathering to empower community members to take on the challenges of climate change.
By 1PM I was at Pride—fantastic crowd, amazing vibe, great connections.
From 2:30 to about 5PM I was fortunate to be invited to a house party in North Asheville for substantive conversations about the most challenging issues facing Asheville. (Thank you so much to the generous hosts and guests!)
Then it was back to Pride for a couple more hours. I was so immersed in meeting and talking with people that I did a miserable job of documenting any of it. So here’s a crap picture of me at Pride at the end of a long, full, deeply rewarding day.
This comment to City Council was made because Council is imposing a policy of all in-person meetings for Boards & Commissions, unless a super-majority votes to meet remotely. There is no provision for hybrid meetings at all, yet. (The irony is that I’d just come from a very successful hybrid meeting of a B&C Realignment Working Group subcommittee, supported technologically by Patrick Conant of Code for Asheville. There really is no excuse for not doing this routinely.)
In contrast, Council is now allowing itself to meet all in-person, all virtual, or a hybrid mix of the two. “Rules for thee, but not for me.”
The Future is Hybrid. Hybrid meetings are more accessible and environmentally more sustainable.
Images from today’s Protect Pisgah Party and Rally at the National Park Service Headquarters on Zillicoa St. It was a great turnout for a great cause.
The health of the Pisgah-Nantahala Forest directly affects the health of our community.
[click an image to see full size and page through]