Jonathan Wainscott says he’s running for mayor of Asheville

Jonathan Wainscott, a West Asheville resident who ran for Asheville City Council in 2013 and announced his intention to run again for City Council last year before legal troubles derailed his campaign, has announced the he plans to run for mayor next year.

Wainscott is a woodworker and community activist who has been vocal in criticizing the scale and impact of New Belgium Brewing’s new brewery on Craven Street. He’s engaged in some pretty memorable verbal sparring with Councilman Cecil Bothwell, and he’s posted at least one provocative YouTube video. We’ll watch for watch next from Wainscott.

Mayor Esther Manheimer will be up for re-election, if she so chooses to run. No word on other possible candidates.

Here’s Wainscott’s statement

I, Jonathan Wainscott will be seeking the Mayor’s seat of the fine ads City of Asheville.

I believe that as a largely figurehead position, I better represent the unique spirit of unique uniqueness here, in Asheville. I like Esther Mannheimer for her dry wit and excellent haircuts, but her expertise as a lawyer is, well, unnecessary. There are plenty of lawyers in government already. The entire third branch of North Carolina government, the judiciary minus magistrates and clerks, are ALL licenced lawyers. They are over represented. I think an artist as Mayor is a better choice for the largely figurehead position of Mayor.

Besides replacing a development attorney with an artist, I will be offering practical, tangible solutions or at leadt contributing efforts to the problems of:

Affordable housing

AirBnB advocacy and some hopelessness stuff

Pushing to make voter registration a part of the booking process at the Buncombe County Detention Facility for all detainees held there and are found eligible to vote

Got some ideas for traffic control in neighborhoods that will coincide with efforts to make fire hydrants more visible to both the AFD, but also as slow-down reminder thinggies. More on that later.

Enterprise revenue redux with a revisit to that little bottled water (hair-brained) idea. Hey where does the term “hair-brained” come from? Dude, what was I gonna Google?

Jobs training for disenfranchised racial groups working with private/public partnery whatchamacallits,

And,

Revoking the room tax occupancy tax and turning down the heat on the tourism blast furnace that is gonna melt down

Adopting “Stairway To Heaven” as the official song of Asheville

And firing Gary Jackson and others in city staff

And getting out of the Art Museum racket.

Other stuff may be but my thumb is tired.

Ciao!