Kim Roney | Asheville City Council Candidate

Pick an issue, and voters are likely to view it as yes/no, black-and-white question. They want to know whether their elected officials are for or against something. But Kim Roney has served on the Asheville City Council long enough to learn that behind every yes or no vote, there’s subtext and context.

My series of episodes spotlighting every candidate for City Council continues here with current sitting councilperson Kim Roney. We talk about the nuances and complexities of policy decisions and weave our way through tourism, climate justice, infrastructure maintenance, reparations, even water rate parity. We also delve into one of Roney’s everpresent issues—transparency in government—and the return of structured but off-the-record mini council sessions.

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Transcript

Matt Peiken: Do you feel city council currently is or isn't prioritizing "core services" enough? I hear a lot from challengers for this position that current city leaders aren't. 

Kim Roney: When I joined city council, we were in the middle of a conversation about our hotel occupancy tax. So the state legislature allows us to accept and distribute our hotel occupancy tax.

And at the time we had 75 percent of our hotel occupancy [00:04:00] taxes required by state law to go to advertising for more tourism, heads and beds, right? And so as I joined council, the conversation is we should split it instead of three fourths going to advertising, how about two thirds? And I was like, what about 50 50?

If we can't make this a great place to live and work, it won't be a great place to visit. We, Need sidewalk infrastructure. We need the water to work and stay on and be reliable. That benefits our economy. It benefits our tourism industry. It also is critical for the people who live and work here. 

Matt Peiken: I also want to be clear about this, that now it is two thirds. It was three quarters. 

Kim Roney: So in that conversation, I joined council and asked as a member of policy and finance, which at the time was called governance, can we ask for what we need, which is 50 50. And it took some negotiation to get it to that. Of course it eventually got there with public pressure, but it was too late.

So now I just have to ask for that to be on our [00:05:00] legislative agenda every single year. And now it's let's reach out to our hotel industry neighbors, because they live here and this is our community too and make the case for, can we all be asking for more resources that already exist that are not property taxes that are coming from outside of our community to benefit our community?

Matt Peiken: There are two elements of this and you can respond to this. One is the state legislature dictates what we can do with that money, right? So even The 33 percent that the city now has as it's quote discretionary. It's not really discretionary. It just doesn't have to be spent on overt marketing, but it still has to be tourism related.

Every dollar that comes in through occupancy taxes has to somehow be connected to an approved expense related to tourism. 

Kim Roney: And I don't see all of our neighbors, especially people who maybe have the most levers in Raleigh, asking that that be expanded to housing. Sector based housing for workers in the tourism industry is [00:06:00] good for the tourism industry and it's good for all of us.

Yeah, I made that argument. But I don't see that push, right? I don't see that collective energy moving in that direction. I see it from the folks who need housing. 

Matt Peiken: Yeah I mentioned that to Vic Eisley, the head of the TDA, why, Doesn't it directly go or why can't it directly go to affordable housing or even better pay for service workers, and I got a blank look like that's never been done before as well. Why can't it be done? And what are we asking from your vantage, so you are asking that question. 

Kim Roney: So that's the thing, right. All the time said we're told, we can't do that. Are we doing what we can? Are we asking? Are we using the power and privilege of our roles in our community as community leaders to collectively lean on Raleigh for this need for our community that's obvious to all of us who live and work here. 

Matt Peiken: Yeah. I asked you the last time you were sitting in this chair or the last time we talked about your position on council as influencing your peers and others in leadership.

Do you feel that you're having this [00:07:00] impact on this issue specifically, because this is near and dear to your heart. Is this something that you feel others in leadership, whether it's city council people, whether it's house state reps, state senators, Julie Mayfield, Lindsey Prather, Caleb Rudow, others are others coming to sing in the chorus along with you to make this happen?

Kim Roney: Yes, and I think Parker Sloan is an example on the Buncombe County Commission who's joined in leadership in this narrative. But also our neighbors who are on the TDA. I've really benefited from having conversations with my neighbors who serve on the TDA, our Tourism Development Authority, about this.

But it gets back to what are some of the other things that we can do? So that's just one example. Another example that maybe our neighbors aren't as familiar with or didn't see it go down was the last city budget vote. So we had multiple presentations from the city finance team on what a balanced budget could look like.

So instead of just voting no, What I asked my [00:08:00] colleagues is could we present a balanced budget using the city finance department numbers To make sure that our firefighters are paid what they're asking ,which is not the $22.10 an hour living wage But $18 an hour, a compromise. Get our police officers over 50, 000 a year. Make sure everybody in City Hall gets a raise.

But we knew it would have some compression issues that we need to deal with in a two year strategy Using our existing resources ,not have to have a property tax increase this year.

As a transit rider, I work with transit advocates to ask for a delay in the transit study. So I even put something that is like fundamental to what I believe is good for the health and well being of our community on the table to provide a balanced budget. What we did is I worked with council members Shaneika Smith and Antoinette Mosley to fill out the form to request something on the agenda, and any three council members can do this.

We requested it in a formal process. When we get to the council meeting, the agenda item was skipped. I have never, in [00:09:00] almost 10 years of being in City Hall, seen that much lack of appreciation for process. And the chaotic political theater that ensued was just like really messy and so unnecessary. All we wanted to do was present an option that was legally sound that was fiscally sound and got us what we need, so that we could move forward for our whole community. And now we're going to be even farther behind living wages So that's a budget issue that I don't think enough people understand was on the table this year When we say are we doing what we can. 

Matt Peiken: Can you bring us a little deeper into the pool about why did it get skipped, from your vantage point? 

Kim Roney: I can only speak for myself. I followed the process. I trust the public process. That would be a question for other council members. The mayor runs the meeting. But I do know that it was unpopular that we asked for it. 

Matt Peiken: You've pointed out examples to me in the past where you were kicked off a committee, the environment and safety committee that you were dismissed [00:10:00] from. Do you feel that there is only so much space in the margins to be able to challenge conventional thinking within city government, to where if you push beyond those bounds, not you personally, although you have, but any other people who are maybe city staff, others in leadership that you can only go outside the margins to some degree before you're silenced in one way, shape, or form?

Kim Roney: I would say step number one, we're having hard conversations in city hall because our community faces real serious challenges and every single person that I have the privilege of serving with cares deeply about our community.

I have heard it said, and I agree, that in a lot of ways, we agree on where we're going, just not how to get there. Maybe I could imagine in a budget conversation, there's concern that if we don't take certain steps this year, then we'll be farther behind in other directions [00:11:00] next year. Like with the county tax reval coming up, there's the bigger picture perspective, and we're all going to have a different perspective on that.

Do I see national trends in folks that are pushing for racial and economic justice strategically maligned? Yes. And so I know that this isn't new. I'm just trying to bring a dish to the table of ideas that's not already on the table. You only once again get those yes/no votes, but also I feel like it's part of my job to participate in Helping the public understand where I landed on a decision and why, so that they can understand my neighbors can understand how they can plug in and participate in our democratic process and provide feedback to better inform the decision.

Matt Peiken: What are you telling people on front porches who Have never gone to a city council meeting, just have a general perception the city's having to do weird things, like this business improvement district and what's that about and the GO bond. We have to spend more [00:12:00] money. What's going on here? 

Kim Roney: I don't do this job because it's going great. I do it because I think we can do better. And yet it's sometimes because we're coming up on my tenth year of being in City Hall and advocating with and for working poor and compassionate people, is it's like a TV show that you're super invested in you keep watching even though it's like maybe not a great show. But it's about you, like don't you want to tune into the program that affects your everyday lives?

And I know for some of our neighbors, it's Oh, my gosh, you're watching a planning and zoning commission meeting. How is this about me? But as you start to tune in and understand, like, why the Urban Forestry Commission is advocating for our tree canopy, because it's our living infrastructure That makes us more safe from stormwater events and flooding and it improves quality of life, or why this land use decision that didn't seem to make sense in the bigger, broader picture can help make neighborhoods more affordable and resilient. 

It's easier to understand the decisions on the outcomes that you read in the headlines in the newspaper if you've been following the character in [00:13:00] the storyline, and not everybody has time to do that. That's why I do the Monday minute and I try every week to put out something in 90 seconds or less that folks can grab on to and help add to my understanding and provide me some feedback, have something to share with their friends, whether it's like a land use decision or a multimodal transportation safety or a budget or policy decision, just to be really honest and open about Oh, the check ins are back. We're going to move back behind the scenes and doing these check ins and not doing the people's work in public. And that's a real head scratcher because it erodes the public trust. Monday minute, say it in 90 seconds. If you can't say 90 seconds, should you be saying it? It's tough, but I think it's part of how we build a better future for all of us by shifting the conversation on the stage and also inviting more people to participate.

Matt Peiken: You touched on a couple of things, I want to pull the thread on, one of them being transparency. But you just brought up the tree canopy and one of the things that's part of your platform, which I think is interesting for a city council person, we don't think of [00:14:00] climate justice as something that has to be so granular that's on the attention span of a city council person. 

Kim Roney: Oh, yeah, but it's existential.

Matt Peiken: So talk about that. 

Kim Roney: So first of all, I have to mention my students, right? This is my 25th year of teaching music. And so I have students in this election who are voters for the first time that I've known since kindergarten.

That makes you feel old. So they call me up. It does. And it makes me feel so like, oh, that level of transparency is so deep and personal. Call me up and be like, Miss Kim, I want to talk about the public safety budget and outcomes we're getting. Oh, wow. Okay. This person has been paying attention and they're ready for me to be accountable.

All right. So one of the issues that came up a few years ago, this would have been like 2018, 19 is the real existential threat of climate change. What it means for our community when it comes to heat index, flooding and fires. So we see this summer, long periods of drought and that can set the stage for more extreme wildfires and then the rain comes all at once the clay in our [00:15:00] ground has really hardened so you have tons of flooding and storm water runoff.

This is going to happen more often. It's going to impact quality of life. Being able to grow food. I talked to strawberry farmers and they're like, if we don't get enough snow, the clay doesn't break down, the strawberries can't grow. This is about food production and food systems is about water systems and security.

This is going to affect our everyday life, but it's really hard to have that conversation about existential threats to humanity when people's everyday apocalypse is happening right now. Can I feed my kids tonight? Like that. How can you hold both the both of those realities and a gentleness and a real human way communicate that if we improve the vulnerability index scores of the most vulnerable neighbors in our community that we have measured and know that data driven, then it improves the health and well being and resiliency of our whole community because we will have crises.

We've had floods like the 2004 flood in the River Arts District that disrupted quality of life and knocked out [00:16:00] businesses and Places of living. So if that's going to happen again, are we ready? So I just went through this emergency operations training that all the city council was eligible to do.

And I see us having a plan that's informed by the water outage. And I see that we have some of the right people in the right places to help us navigate those scenarios better. We're headed in the right direction. But if we don't increase our vulnerability index scores in the most vulnerable neighborhoods, some of them are historic black neighborhoods and neighborhoods like our EMA community, then we all will suffer because when the bottom drops out, it drops out from underneath all of us. 

Matt Peiken: Are these some of the details, the underpinnings of the Climate Justice Initiative? 

Kim Roney: Yep. So you can look at your neighborhood's climate vulnerability index scores, what some of the major threats are for our region. Because we're, honestly, we're really Safe from extreme weather events. And so it's unsurprising if you look at weather data and you're like, Oh, wow. It's a progressive or welcoming place in the South, and it's got [00:17:00] year round growing season, so there's delicious food here year round and it's relatively safe from extreme weather events, maybe this is a place for my home. Maybe it's a place that people are getting their second homes, or maybe that's one of the reasons why we have so many short term rentals where people are honestly making a plan for later. 

Matt Peiken: You brought up transparency and I know Advancing the open meetings policy is key to you.

Where do we sit on things? It's hard to keep track now in terms of what we're privy to and what we're not as a public. There's no more closed door meetings with Three council people. 

Kim Roney: Yes, that just recently came back. 

Matt Peiken: That recently came. 

Kim Roney: So This is a hard part of the story to tell Because you want to hope that your local government is doing everything they can to maintain Democratic process when we see such incredible flubs at the national and state level. But I want to back this up a little bit.

The first meeting I showed to City Council was December 9th, 2014. Then Council Member Gordon Smith said, Hey Kim, as a working class person, will you show up and advocate for [00:18:00] affordable housing? I'm really concerned if we don't build affordable housing in neighborhoods because people are pushing back, we'll have a housing crisis. And I said, sure. And so I showed up and I was terrified to speak in public comment. Cause there's like lights, camera action, the press rows, taking photos of you. There's people in suits far away. And they're just looking at you and they don't respond. And did I say the words in the right order? I have no idea, but it was very clear to me that we needed more working, poor and compassionate people in the room while decisions are being made about us without us.

And so I sat in the press row for a year for Asheville FM, and then I Left Asheville FM in 2016 so that I could serve on boards and commissions and prepare for 2017 run. And throughout this whole process, I've seen that there's a tendency to not want to do the people's work in public and bring it out perfectly shiny and packaged and rehearsed like it's a concert.

And I'm familiar with that because I rehearse for concerts professionally and have toured internationally. So I know that you don't like bring your practice work onto stage. [00:19:00] At the same time, it should not be so hard to find public documents, not only as a member of the public, but as a council member.

So each city council meeting, as part of my preparation, I log out and try to find the documents as if I were my next door neighbor and see okay, I know where to find it. Can my neighbor find it? 

Matt Peiken: So are you able to find these things? 

Kim Roney: One of the documents I was looking for recently was the human resources operational HR operational assessment. Took me half an hour to find in my own in mailbox.

So that's when I reach out to the clerk and say, okay, right now we're doing these followup documents from the behind the scenes check ins. And I know that there's a presentation available, but I can't find it. And can we put this in the eight week agenda on the city's website? And it's taken not just me, but our community to advocate for that so you can get more information about that advocacy at open meetings policy dot com, and see the individuals and the businesses and organizations that are signing on and [00:20:00] saying, Hey, when we do the people's work in public and at least make documents available and accessible for people low and no vision readers and so they're translatable documents for people whose primary language is in English, then we can actually give you public comment that's informed. 

Matt Peiken: Yeah, you know, I understand one of the arguments for putting some meetings in closed session and for city council people to be able to meet privately is because some city council people they don't want to seem uninformed or seem ignorant in public when something's coming to them for the first time. They want time to study something before they're ready to come to the public and make a vote and. 

Kim Roney: So two things. One, you said closed session. Closed session is different than the three by three check ins. Closed session is a totally legal meeting where you do an announcement and you go into a closed session for very specific legally allowed reasons.

It could be like economic development opportunity or you're having an [00:21:00] issue with a hired staff member and there's legal ramifications for doing it that way and also legal protections. So that's totally different than doing the three by threes where you have two council members and the mayor, fully staffed, presentations, agendas, no minutes. No public record. 

Matt Peiken: Yeah. What's that about?

Kim Roney: I just, you know what the real bummer about it is that you have to like, because there's no minutes, you have to hope you remembered everything and wrote it down because that was your one chance to make a decision, but also it's, I don't know everything about, oh, let's pick something. Urban forestry. So if my friends who are arborists and working on the Urban Forestry Commission can engage the neighborhood of people with lived and professional experience to dig into an issue before it comes to me, I have so many more eyes and hands on it to help me understand and make a better decision.

So like for me, this is not just for the benefit of the public, but for me as a policymaker, right? 

Matt Peiken: Yeah. But [00:22:00] why have the three by three meetings. I don't understand what the rationale to have those. 

Kim Roney: Probably a lot of reasons. Probably something like you mentioned where folks are it's let's be honest, there's political capital. It's an election year. 

Matt Peiken: But it's interesting that those three by three meetings were happening until sunlight fell on them a little more and people were making an uproar. And then they were discontinued. 

Kim Roney: The regularly scheduled ones were discontinued and now doing them for special Controversial issues.

Matt Peiken: What's the difference? Why bring them back?

Kim Roney: That's a great question. So I've let my colleagues know that I don't support it, but at the same time, my community elected me to be present. So I have to show up and try to gain as much information as I can so that I can make informed decisions as a council member.

And if that's the only way that information is going to be presented, For example, you might've seen the story that the $18 million parking deck for Project Aspire isn't going to be funded by the city. That is because it came up in a check in. So you don't know, did it have [00:23:00] four votes? Did it have three votes?

Matt Peiken: Or why? 

Kim Roney: Or why? Or what were the details? Maybe we wanted, the community wanted it to happen. So like, how would they lean on our council members with the information that the council members had? It's just gone. 

Matt Peiken: One of the things I'm hearing from people who are campaigning for a seat, who are not currently on city council, is that current leadership is not Prioritizing maintenance, that we should be spending money on the front end so we don't spend more money on the back end.

Malvern Hills pool comes up as one thing. McCormick field comes up as another thing. There are other projects that come up, parking decks, things like that. That people could have and maybe did make the case that we need money to maintain these sidewalks Okay there's another one that we could spend money now and it's going to need to be addressed and that City council or city leadership is kicking the can down the road until they can't kick it any further, then it costs more. How do you respond to those, i'm not going to say Allegations or accusations? [00:24:00] 

Kim Roney: Maybe they are. 

Matt Peiken: But yeah, how do you.

Kim Roney: So i'd like to look at two: one is the malvern hills Pool and one is our state maintained roads. So I can't talk about Malvern Hills pool without talking about Walton street pool.

One of the reasons why we see so many people from all over the city using Malvern Hills pool was because the Walton street pool was closed. So if you go to my website, Kim Rooney for Asheville. com and scroll, scroll to the bottom, you'll see a link for blog. And in that blog, I have a piece on public third spaces and the Malvern Hills pool. And it goes into maintenance of public third spaces, like public libraries, public parks, public facilities, like pools, their importance and what we should do about it. We do have the parks and rec bond that'll be on the ballot for voters decision, November 5th. So that'll be part of helping us catch up.

But one of the reasons why we're digging so far behind all the time, and I've got to tie it back to that TDA funding, we have put selling our city out as a higher priority than improving the quality of [00:25:00] life for the people who live and work here. And it's not the first time. This is a hundred year cycle.

When Asheville first started having a tourism industry in the late 1800s, my great grandparents were here. It was a new kind of industry around: getting well from tuberculosis. And What I understood from my family members that lived here and their writings was that working and indigenous people were displaced and it seemed like there was no end to money in sight.

So the city signed up for a whole bunch of bonds and the infrastructure was crumbling and then economics collapse happened. When I see us at the hundred year cycle of doing that again, where it was like the 1800s to the 1920s, here we are. Are we going to do this again? Are we not going to diversify our economy?

Are we not going to take care of and prioritize our infrastructure? Because if our only plan is more debt, then we're literally following the same path. Another concern I have is what is a priority if you don't know how to say no. That's the part of [00:26:00] the yes/no that is so hard and it keeps me up at night.

I think one of the examples is, I serve on our Metropolitan Planning Organization, which is the body that oversees our state maintained roads. During the Depression, the state bailed out the counties by buying up all of the county roads. So we have city roads, and then we have state roads. So think Merrimon Avenue, Hendersonville Road, Haywood Road, all the major corridors of our neighborhoods.

When Swannanoa River Road was prioritized as the number one priority because it's gonna fall in the water And I watched in these last few meetings at the MPO it get deprioritized to least important, It's not because it's no longer at risk of crumbling. It's because we don't yet have a strong funding strategy. Because we have chosen other priorities, including the smallest and least used parts of the I 26 connector that are eligible for other state and federal funding.

So When I see that priority slipping, I know that's going to impact more than just when I'm on council. It's going to impact future [00:27:00] generations, too, and so that's my big concern is I have the courage to say no and the leadership to say yes within the limitations of those confines and my doing my best work communicating with the public so that They can help us build more understanding and awareness and build more public pressure so that we're getting the priorities we need. Otherwise, we're just going to keep scattering and not really prioritizing anything. 

Matt Peiken: That's the thing though, too. For every yes, you have to say no to something else without more money coming in, right? And so where did you sit or where do you sit on the referendums that's coming up?

Kim Roney: For the bonds.

Matt Peiken: Yeah.

Kim Roney: So we're in a curious situation with the bonds where we're legally allowed to inform the public on the bonds That they're going to be on the ballot november 5th. Our community partners will be doing some more positioning on what it means. For me, the opportunity for us to all pitch in conceptually on the bonds makes dollars and cents so long as we're like Really looking back to those priorities.

So Let's look at the [00:28:00] new public safety bond. We didn't do a public safety bond last time. Right now we've earmarked some of our fire stations like the one in Oakley. When we see our firefighters living in working conditions next to their trucks, that's unsafe and impacts their health, but also not able to do their job as effectively.

Investing in a fire station makes total sense. What I'm pushing us to do is not just think Fire station, but also community center. We have so little land left in the city to develop that if we're going to have a fire station, can it also be a partnership with the county and other regional partners to make sure we have a climate resiliency hub, that it has a battery backup and solar, sort if the power grid fails for a season, people can still charge their phones.

Is there a way to have Water backup and maybe a food system backup on location, because then it's a benefit for the whole community while we're building up the space. So this is really when it comes down to the council's goal for improving core services, that's why we included that regional partnership as key because it doesn't make any sense for us [00:29:00] to just do one thing and then duplicate costs. Make our tax dollars go farther by working together. 

Matt Peiken: What are some things that people are not talking about, or it doesn't even come up in on these yes/no questionnaires that you think people should be talking about. What do you wish were more in the conversational air that just hasn't been? 

Kim Roney: I think for me, seeing what it looks like to get really serious about addressing homelessness, but also in a way that holistically looks at why people become unhoused in the first place. I think enough attention isn't on our public schools and our homeless students or students who are experiencing homelessness, because we talk a lot about reducing homelessness where it is right now, but we're not talking about the growth of homelessness that's coming.

And so when I volunteer in our school systems or when I'm talking with my music students, the pending crisis that's coming we're not really ready for that yet. And so what does it look like to [00:30:00] have. Public spaces that work for everyone to extend transit hours, to have public bathrooms.

Y'all, I didn't know public bathrooms are going to be so contentious. Yeah. It's such a human issue, right? So like, how can we improve the quality of life for all the people who live and work here and be prepared to be more flexible for the crises that come so that we don't have to be in crisis periods for long, so long. That's what resiliency is, expand and contract. 

Matt Peiken: You mentioned the bathroom and it has come up as another, I guess, easy target, you know the million dollar bathroom. It's not a million dollars.

Kim Roney: I think it's like it's even gone way under budget now. It's like a four hundred thousand 

Matt Peiken: Okay, so even though I have four hundred thousand dollar bathroom and i've heard candidates talk about We already had an existing bathroom at the Rankin garage.

Kim Roney: Oh, yeah, let's talk about that one. So that's a completely wonky narrative that totally got missed. Doing the indoor bathroom means staffing it 24 7, So having an indoor bathroom with staff that you have to hope there's no staffing issues means [00:31:00] three times the cost over a five year period.

That means that we could have two other bathrooms? Come on, I think we're probably going to need more than one bathroom. There was a narrative that like, maybe people will leave a concert at a really public exciting music venue and then they'll detour to a homeless shelter before they go back to their hotel.

And I'm like, that doesn't make dollars or cents. What we do see is an opportunity to invest in infrastructure that's by design for high traffic use and ease of maintenance. And we're going to need more than one. So let's see how this one goes, but I couldn't make it make sense to spend three times the amount to constantly be like an out of order sign on the front. 

Matt Peiken: One thing you have also on your website, on your platform, we haven't talked at all about is water rate parity. Ooh, talk about that a little more. 

Kim Roney: Okay, so when I joined council, I voted against the water rates because we kept providing the steep bulk discount for a commercial water rate users. [00:32:00] I think by design, it was meant to grow the not only like historic but also exportable good and manufactured good of our beer industry.

And I think having an exportable local good is a really positive thing, but it's also something where costs can be passed along to the people who purchase it. So when we were seeing like a 50 percent discount for the largest commercial users of water, that meant that residents were picking up the tab for our water infrastructure.

And y'all, the water was out for nine days two Christmases ago, and I was helping people flush toilets, like this isn't good for business. So I've been pushing and pushing the council to help build that support to get us to the place where residents aren't just paying the most. But I think, What we saw is it took a, guess what, study and some action steps and that study was enough to push council in the direction we are now, which is where we have a three year plan to get us to recommendations, which means we're having fair water rates.

Water rate parity [00:33:00] is just like saying we should all be paying our fair share because keeping the water on is critical. 

Matt Peiken: Last thing I want to ask you about is reparations has been ongoing and continues to be ongoing. I know City Council approved an extension of commissions or the committee's life. To me, that seemed like a no brainer. What was the controversy around even doing that? 

Kim Roney: If we tried to disband the urban forestry commission, there'd be hell to pay. 

Matt Peiken: Yeah. Why would we even think about disbanding the reparations commission? 

Kim Roney: There's probably differing opinions on this, but I just want to start with saying I believe that reparations are necessary and possible.

When I see what has happened on purpose to our Black neighborhoods and the ripple effect in the five focus areas of education, economic development, housing, health care, and the criminal justice or criminal legal system, I know that it will benefit us all greatly and as a community and just have tremendous economic impact if we can shore up the harms that have happened.[00:34:00] 

And we're so close to getting to a place where the recommendations are actionable. So this extension was about allowing and supporting the reparations commission recommendation to go from recommendations to here's a plan to do something about it. And we're going to need to take that to an action step, right?

So I don't want this to just be another study that sits on a shelf that we never get done. It's going to require real dollars. So the next work is in front of us. I'm so grateful that our neighbors are willing to participate in the community reparations commission. But yeah, we're just going to have to back it up with land and money.

Matt Peiken: Anything we haven't talked about you want to close with? 

Kim Roney: Oh, I think one thing I wanted to mention while we're here is that we have so many new neighbors in town who moved here because of our beautiful mountains and because we're a friendly, wonderful place to live. We have a robust arts and culture scene.

As a member of our LGBTQ community, we're known for being welcome and inclusive, but we still have some deep [00:35:00] wounds in our community. And so there's an opportunity to plug in to have conversations with your neighbors. 

Don't be scared to like, listen to the human relations commission meetings and to listen to the reparations commission and listen to what's hopeful and possible if we work together to make this truly beyond the veneer of what was sold to us as being a great place to live and work and make those promises a reality, because I really believe that these hard conversations are worth having because celebration is in front of us and that will be a shared success as long as we have that shared responsibility too.