News

2015 HHS graduate announces candidacy for City Council

By Lightning Reports, Published: June 7, 2017

The first candidate to publicly announce plans to run for the Hendersonville City Council this year would bring diversity and youth to the elected body.

“I’m running for City County because I believe there’s a growing minority community in Hendersonville and they’re not reflected on much of our municipal government,” said John Moore, a 2015 graduate of Hendersonville High School. “They deserve a voice and they deserve a seat at the table and also believe it’s time for young people to start taking responsibility for city government.”
Moore, who turned 20 on Monday, would be the first African-American on the council since Diane Caldwell, who left the board in 1997.
The conflict between the city and county over Hendersonville High School highlighted a need for improved cooperation, he said.
“I think that shows that within municipal government we need to start molding better relationships between the city and county officials when it comes to issues like the high school, when it comes to issues like water, because we’re seeing the county commissioners basically berate the city council. We need a person on City Council who’s going to be working to kind of ease the divide that we’re seeing right now.”
Moore, who served as student body president of HHS, said he could accept the county’s decision to replace the 1926 high school despite his preference that it had gone the other way.
“I have a really close bond with the original building but I do believe the state that the building is in that we should be doing everything to can to mediate the issues,” he said. “Right now with some of the choices that we were given it’s the best choice at the moment.”
Moore is following an ongoing environmental study of whether the long-abandoned Mud Creek dump has left contaminants in the soil around Green Meadows. Even though Green Meadows homes are on city water and not wells, Moore said it’s possible that the unregulated dump, which operated until sometime before the early 1970s, could have left pollution behind.
“We still have to see what the results of those environmental studies are going to be,” he said. “If those results turn out positive being contaminated I see it as another Flint, Mich. It’s a low-income community that foresight isn’t going into where these communities are being developed. … These are people who garden in this community. We need to ensure that the infrastructure including the pipes are properly maintained. Who’s saying the soil contaminants haven’t gone into their water system?”
Tests so far have shown no toxic chemicals or groundwater pollution attributed to the dump.
Moore also said he wanted to work through the City Council to address affordable housing and other cost-of-living issues in Hendersonville. “I believe higher density housing like apartments and condominiums are going to be what our city needs so people can afford living here,” he said.
Filing for elections in Hendersonville, Flat Rock, Fletcher, Laurel Park, Mills River and Saluda runs from noon July 7 to noon July 21.
Hendersonville Mayor Barbara Volk has said she is leaning toward running for re-election. The terms of council members Jeff Miller and Jerry Smith also expire this year.