Bo Hess | Asheville City Council Candidate

This episode begins our six-part series of interviews with each candidate for Asheville City Council.

Most candidates for state and federal offices started in politics at a local level. Bo Hess took a different approach. In 2020, he says, he ran for a U.S. Congressional seat as a training ground for what he wants now—a seat on Asheville’s City Council. 

He talks about his varied background—as a social worker, addiction specialist, therapist, law enforcement trainer, community activist, part time teacher and clinical supervisor—and how he believes all of that can serve the city well should he win a seat on City Council. We talk about how he’d like to influence the council’s approach to public safety, affordable housing and other hot-button issues for Asheville and for voters.

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Transcript

Matt Peiken: Why in 2020 did you think of running for City Council and why is it now manifesting? 

Bo Hess: I think that we need good working people who have some lived experience, or at least lived experience in working with some of the types of things that the city needs to address.

However, politics is a long game. Politics is still very traditional in Western North Carolina. People want to know you, they want you to show up, they want to look you in the eye, they want to shake your hand. And what I decided to do was run for U. S. House. And Knew that we were going to run an excellent campaign focused on the issues at that time. We were very forward thinking.

We were focused on AI. We were focused on fentanyl. We were focused on Making sure that we had living wages and that we were building up the infrastructure for health care just in case we did Go to a universal health insurance. So we [00:01:00] were very forward thinking. We stuck to the campaign, but we were Of course, not delusional as well.

We knew we were the underdog and we were not going to win this. 

Matt Peiken: Even winning the primary, you mean. 

Bo Hess: Oh yeah. Even winning the primary and I went out there and ran. I met people. I made those connections. I built that trust. And then when I lost to Jasmine Beach Ferrara in the primary, I turned right around and started door knocking for her.

And canvassing and helping her win in any way that I could. You have to lose very publicly, I think, in a lot of ways. There's many times along the way that you're very humbled. Running for office is definitely a very humbling experience. But, we lost and I knew it was a loss.

It's still is disappointing, somewhat, but really my eye was on the city council race and making sure that. We had built that trust and that experience. Running the campaign is a lot of work. I had the best of the best. In fact, my last campaign manager is [00:02:00] working for Biden right now. His assistant is working for a U S House representative. And they use some of the work in that campaign to help them get those jobs. So I'm very proud of them and it was awesome. And my team now learned a lot from them and I'm proud to have a lot of the same team that I have.

Matt Peiken: You mentioned a little bit ago, you have to lose publicly for you to get to that next place.

In a way, that seems like a step backward to try to make a step or two forward. Expound on that a little more about losing publicly. How does that help burnish your reputation? How does that help you build to the next step to not losing on your next campaign? Why is losing publicly a benefit potentially?

Bo Hess: I'm not actually sure I was thinking at that time losing publicly would be a benefit, necessarily. I was thinking, building trust and rapport with the people of WNC and especially the people of Asheville. No surprise, I did best in that [00:03:00] election in the city of Asheville, right? I think it was later when people came up to me and were saying, Bo, we remember when you actually lost very publicly and then you turned right back around and you helped her win and that was badass and being a person like I am, you don't get everything you want necessarily. And what it's like to deal with disappointment and rejection and all of those things. A door in the face or, one lost election is nothing.

You just keep on going because it's not about you anyway. It's about the cause. It's about making sure that the Asheville, the people of Asheville are taken care of, especially well into the future. It's not about me. 

Matt Peiken: You ran for Congress to set yourself up for a city council run which I mentioned in our first interview I thought that was really interesting. It usually happens in reverse. How do you think that [00:04:00] run prepared you to serve as a city council person? You have such a diverse background professionally social worker, addiction specialist, therapist, law enforcement trainer, community activist, and more.

Bo Hess: Part time teacher, clinical supervisor over at ABCCM yeah, we just got done with a law enforcement training last week, I'll be with the Marion County PD, In september so very passionate about mental health very passionate about you know Making sure that we have someone with a mental health lens on council. 

Matt Peiken: Yeah, talk more about that because it seemed to be that was something that was very Acute for you and wanting to see more of. Obviously this community is dealing with this, like a lot of cities are, but here it's a huge issue. What do you see happening or not happening from a city government level, city leadership level that you want to help affect change as from a city council seat. 

Bo Hess: I don't know if it's about what's not happening. I think [00:05:00] typically county is more responsible for human services. However, the issue is so dire now when we understand that in the next 10 years, mental health is going to be the number one cause of mortality and already suicide among young people has skyrocketed. So I don't think it's about what they're not doing, but I think it's about what we can build capacity on, especially to help with the county. And I think that is the kind of crux there. And then working with our state representatives and then of course lobbying the federal government to help in any way it can.

But we know that the federal government isn't going to do much and so it does really rely on us locally and these are things that we can do. When I look back at my platform, whether it's crime and addressing that in a holistic manner, whether it's addressing our addiction and mental health issue, addressing affordability and homelessness, increasing our community spaces and green spaces and building our, every single one of those [00:06:00] things ties back to mental health and public health. Every single one of those things has a direct impact on the lives of Asheville. And we can build the community that we want when we have the right political will and leaders in office.

Matt Peiken: You mentioned public safety, addiction, homelessness, and you're mentioning the connection between what can happen within city but working with county. Let's go to a specific issue here that touches on all of this, the downtown business improvement district. Now, It hasn't started yet.

There aren't ambassadors yet out on the street. From your vantage point, not being on the council at the time when this has come up for a vote and finally got approved, were you in favor of that? What do you what would you have wanted to see happen? Or what did happen that you either aligned with or didn't align with specifically around the Business Improvement District and the new ambassador program that is designed ostensibly to help people?

Bo Hess: A couple things. One, this is [00:07:00] what I do every day. I work on a psychiatric unit. I've worked there for 10 years. I work with people who are dealing with severe mental illness who are suicidal, homicidal, psychotic, dealing with severe addiction. About any given time, about 37% according to the last point in time estimate that was done in January, 37 percent of my patients are without a home.

So that's the first thing. Second thing is I don't take any issue lightly. And that's one of the things that I learned. You said, what has set you up for this experience. It's going to the experts. Whether it's meeting with the cyber security experts over at Montreat, meeting with the firefighters and understanding what their concerns are, meeting with the Metropolitan Water and Sewer District guys and taking a tour and understanding how our basic infrastructure works, whether it's meeting with these CSIS and understanding what we can do to build up capacity as far as defense locally. Whether it's meeting with RAND and [00:08:00] understanding the fentanyl crisis. I know how to go to the experts. And so I went to Minneapolis, I went to Cincinnati, and I shadowed their BIDs. I talked with their officials there.

I wanted to understand, I talked with people on the streets, I talked with people who were houseless on the streets because I'm a person who's taking this seriously. If I get into office, I want to be ready on day one and that's exactly what I will be. And yes, I went and I investigated and I saw with my own eyes some of these ambassadors actually getting meals for people and bringing them the meal.

I saw another ambassador in Cincinnati picking up trash that some guys had just carelessly, I don't know if they were meaning to, but they carelessly missed the trash can, and they were, it was on the sidewalk. I spoke with the residents there and overwhelmingly it was a positive reception.

And so I think now what the issue is for the next council is making sure that the business improvement district [00:09:00] sticks with the values that we all hold as Asheville people, making sure that our most vulnerable are included, making sure that nobody is being forced out or kicked out and making sure that we're not criminalizing any type of eccentricities or oddities, because that is what makes Asheville, Asheville.

We want to keep that character. And I will say that if the business improvement district or the ambassadors don't stick with the values that Asheville has, I will be the first to vote to zero out the millage rate every year. And to that level, I'm a crisis intervention trainer. I've trained law enforcement officers.

I trained them in sociopathy, psychopathy, personality disorders, how to deal with people interviewing techniques, how to talk with people in psychosis or may want to kill themselves. And these are the things that we can also help at least give our ambassadors a basic understanding of so that when they do come across our most vulnerable, they have a [00:10:00] knowledge base without them, if not directly employing actual experts and clinicians, in some of those things.

Again, I think that's what's going to come out in the BID for the BID, but again, electing the right people who will protect Asheville's values and won't be afraid to say this isn't working. Let's change course if needed is going to be essential and I'll be that person.

Matt Peiken: An overlapping issue is affordable housing and our housing crisis here. What are you seeing that aligns with your personal politic on this and what isn't happening that you think we can be more either creative about or emphasizing more that just isn't happening.

Bo Hess: When I think of housing, I think of housing across the spectrum, and what's happening is we have a lot of red tape and bureaucracy that's happening in the city government that's really stalling housing from happening, and just last year we had close to 2, 000 [00:11:00] units where developers either developed below the threshold so they wouldn't have to bring anything to city council, Or actually just turned away and said, you know what? I'm not going to build at all. 

Delayed housing is denied housing, first and foremost. And so when I'm thinking about a neighborhood, I'm thinking density, diversity, and connection. Again, I'm Looking at everything through a mental health lens. So what does affordable housing look like? Affordable housing looks like reducing red tape and burden and trusting our city workers to enact the vision of city council.

And then, making sure that things that don't need to be politicized are not politicized. And the things that need to come before council, come before council. 

Matt Peiken: When you're talking about cutting through red tape, You hear that a lot. It's a vague term for maybe limiting some regulations. The flip side of that would be these regulations are designed to help people and keep neighborhoods with a certain, you don't want to have Manufacturing next to a residential development, and it goes on like [00:12:00] that.

So what kinds of red tape specifically are you looking to affect change about? 

Bo Hess: I am not saying we need to eliminate zoning or anything like that. We can increase the threshold that developers need before something comes before the city council. 

Matt Peiken: You mean increase the threshold in terms of how many units are a project?

Bo Hess: Okay. We can go ahead and allow for other than single family homes to be built in the appropriate areas. Not huge apartment complexes. The city's already moving towards this like, backyard dwellings and things like that. So we can allow for more of those. We can make sure that we're looking at our parking spaces and reducing the amount of just arbitrary requirements that we are giving people before they develop. Again, things that people either have to haggle with the city about or compromise on.

I really think that if we build density right in our [00:13:00] neighborhoods. That builds up attack space that gives us walkability. We need to build diversity and recreational activities in the types of housing. So going back to how do we address affordable housing, going from homeless shelters all the way to high end housing, including transitional housing. This isn't something that We need to wait on.

At the same time, our leaders and this is one thing about being a social worker We know how to advocate, we're going to advocate for our and lobby our state representatives and again get the federal government involved, they have a whole system for providing housing. They should be involved.

They are the experts in this. However again, this is why elections are so important. We need to make sure that we're voting the right people in there to align with our values. Once we get the right people in there, I think we can get Some more help from the federal government. But then let's go one step even further.

Let's make sure underrepresented populations are buying homes and building equity and building wealth. So [00:14:00] working with local credit unions, which I've had the honor of actually sitting down and talking with them about some of these ideas and listening to their ideas, and they are ready to help.

The Realtors Association, believe it or not, even the Hotels Association, they are ready to help with some of these innovative ideas. Let's make sure that we're looking at more than credit when buying a home. Let's make sure that we're helping people repair their homes that they're in a substantial way to build equity in those homes so that if they ever want to sell. And let's make sure that we're building homes that people can buy so that they can live in Asheville. 

Matt Peiken: How can you do that from a city council position? It seems like a lot of this is market driven, isn't it? Whether there's incentives for builders and developers to do something that leans more toward affordable housing or more higher density complexes.

A lot of that is market driven. What can happen at a city council level to help encourage that? 

Bo Hess: a lot. Again, making sure that [00:15:00] we are reducing red tape and it's easy to do business here in Asheville. There are people who actually specialize in building affordable housing who want to come and do business in Asheville, but they're instead going to Greenville, South Carolina.

But again, I have patients who literally want to kill themselves for any number of reasons, or just think that life is endless. So I'm looking at the barriers and we need leaders who are actually going to stand up and say, when the Raleigh legislator says no, guess what? There's probably three other cities who are doing what we want to do. So why aren't we taking this further? Why aren't we taking this to the Supreme Court? Because these other Conservative leaning cities don't want to lose their ability to do X, Y, and Z. So why don't we, let's say, take You know, 0. 5 percent of the STR tax that the TDA uses, literally 0. 5 of the millions of dollars that they get from that room tax. [00:16:00] And let's go ahead and let's fund some affordable housing. Or let's have a brew tax, right? There's other cities that have taxes on things that directly are tied to their economy.

And. So they don't want to lose that. 

Matt Peiken: Yeah. That's something that I have found a little a vexing, and I don't fully understand it, I often hear from guests who are sitting in that same chair, whether it's the mayor, city council people, others that we are a quote, mother may I state, that Raleigh dictates what we can and can't do specifically around taxing.

Dillon's rule. Dillon's rule. And, but you're talking about trying to fight that in a way when you're talking about turning The percentage of funding that comes into the TDA and earmarking that for affordable housing. Right now, we can't do that, or we accept that we can't do that.

Are you talking about trying to wage a fight maybe at the state Supreme Court to challenge the Constitution? 

Bo Hess: The Republicans do this all the time. Why [00:17:00] are we not advocating to the full extent of our ability for the people who live in Asheville? Everybody is being priced out of Asheville. We can all see Asheville is changing. The question is, who is it changing for? Is it changing for you and I, the people who live and work and love this place, who work in our restaurants, who are coming and building and working on the utilities in our homes?

Or doing our landscaping. Or working downtown. Working as an attorney or as a social worker or as a teacher? No it's changing for the ultra wealthy. And we've got to get smart about this. They're smarter about this. Look at how they turned Roe versus Roe v. Wade. 

Those cities don't want to lose that ability. And if we take it far enough, guess what? And they rule either they're going to roll for us, right? So that everyone, and we can join with those cities and in many things, to get Raleigh's attention, that's what we're going to have to do.

Whether it's LGBTQ rights, or [00:18:00] housing, or transportation and working on our our roads, we may have to bind with other cities to get their attention, but let's do it in a smart way. 

Matt Peiken: Tell me if I'm reading into what you're telling me incorrectly, that I hear a criticism from you Toward current city council. You're shaking your head. No, but let me finish my sentence, that They're not fighting For what they should be fighting for you're saying no. If they're if they are then what do you want? So explain further what you mean then what you're saying, why not fight like Republicans fight to preserve these rights?

Which I'm reading in the 

Bo Hess: conversation you and I are having, but not a criticism. I think the current city council is doing a fine job. We're going to have no matter what a new person in there.

Matt Peiken: At least one.

Bo Hess: At least one person, right? And that's what I am. I mean, I already in my mind, Sage and Kim have won their seats.

This is a four [00:19:00] way race between myself, Kevin, Tod, and CJ. And we've got to get smart about the person who we put in there. Someone who actually is on the ground, boots on the ground, putting their actions where their values are every single day, who understands the needs, the gaps in services that our community has, and is not afraid to stand up and be a voice for the unheard and fight and move the city forward. 

Those are the types of leaders we need. And I have a great working relationship with not only all the other candidates, but also all the city council candidates. And I believe that we can build a coalition, whether it be on firefighter pay, lobbying the state government to do a brew tax, whether it is making sure that we have affordable housing and that we're building in a way that is sustainable, that takes care of the most vulnerable. I think that we can build a coalition, but we [00:20:00] have to look at who our candidates are and make sure we get the right person in there.

Matt Peiken: Let me ask you, you obviously have a wealth of experience in certain areas that affect daily life here in Asheville. What are some areas that you feel like, oh, I don't have a lot of background in, but that does come up a lot at City Council, I really need to do some homework around these certain issues.

What are some things that you think you have a learning curve, even if you win your seat, that once you're there, that's going to take you a while to get up to speed on? 

Bo Hess: So I consult with the experts, even if it is something I'm an expert in. I go to the health and human services and understand, okay, what are our numbers?

Who is overdosing ? Who is utilizing X services? If it's planning and zoning, I go and talk to former city planners or former grant managers or people who might actually still be working for the city. You have to be kind of careful with that running for office as a candidate.

But I go to the experts and understand. And I think that's one thing about being a social worker is I don't make any [00:21:00] decision lightly. Every single day at the hospital, I'm making life or death decisions. Is this person safe to leave the hospital or is this person not? Before I got into the inpatient, I was a year in the emergency room doing those evaluations as well.

So you look at all factors and you get all stakeholders to the table and whether it's knocking on doors and, yesterday I was knocking on doors and somebody was saying the city isn't listening to me or whether it's the firefighters or whether it is the teachers or whether it is the hotel association.

Nobody feels like they're being heard by this city, and I think we need to change that culture. 

Matt Peiken: Are there subjects around your candidacy or things happening in this city that we haven't talked about or talked about enough that you want to close with?

Bo Hess: I am just so grateful to have this opportunity. I think everyone should consider running for office or work for someone running for office. And it really helps [00:22:00] depression because I think sometimes it feels like you can do nothing, but you can do something.

 I'm under no illusions. I know I don't look like your typical politician, but what I am is smart, hardworking and I have Asheville's best interests at heart. And we need young, we need forward thinking leaders who are ready to move Asheville into the 21st century that will be a representative for all of us. We have a great team on council now and we can make that even better and I'm asking for Asheville's vote.

And I will say I didn't get here by, having a cupcake in my mouth. vanilla frosting life. About two decades ago, I had an experience that really put me on this path. 

Matt Peiken: Can you talk about that?

Bo Hess: Yeah. So basically my friend had asked me, it was going to a festival. And again, I was young and naive and dumb and all of those things. And he said, can you get me [00:23:00] some psilocybin mushrooms? And I said, yes. And, I was working at a restaurant downtown. I worked at a restaurant downtown all through school. And I had actually just happened to hear one of the kitchen guys say that he had some psilocybin mushrooms.

 I didn't realize it was a sting, so on the way to give these to him, he was in jail, he was literally calling me, and it was weird, looking back, it was, he would call me from a no caller ID number, it was just, all the things were there, and even, those red flags and intuition there, anyway, regardless, it was like you would think I, it was crazy.

So they surround me, they get this stuff and that put me on a path of being in the system, of seeing the system from inside. I ended up going through adult drug treatment court, completing that successfully. And now, I'm friends with a lot of the probation officers and keep in contact on one of their success stories. But if it weren't for that experience, I wouldn't have really gotten into school because it was that experience that [00:24:00] made me understand that there were so many inequities and injustices from the inside and I was like, okay, I'm either going to be an attorney or I'm going to be a social worker.

Matt Peiken: Do you think if it weren't for that experience, you wouldn't be sitting in this chair now, running for council? 

Bo Hess: It brought me to social work. I went to school, ended up, getting an associate's and getting my bachelor's and getting a master's.

I went back to UNC Chapel Hill for a master's in public health and leadership and practice. And I do want to eventually get my doctorate in social work, but that's a later goal. Then I will be done with school. It was a mistake, but it's something also I'm proud that I overcame, and that I was able to come out of the other side, and those who are justice involved do have a place in my heart.

I was given a second chance And I just want to make sure that everyone else is also given that chance as well.