Letter: Lee has integrity, financial savvy

I write to express my support for Rich Lee for Asheville City Council.

I do this in spite of the fact that, as a die-hard libertarian, I usually disagree with Rich’s policy preferences. But as a realist, I accept that that will be so with nearly every viable Council candidate, so I have to look at other factors to make my choices.

In Rich’s case, these are the factors that persuade me:

• I know him to be a man of integrity, honesty and candor.
• He neither spouts BS nor tolerates it from others.
• He deals with finances professionally and is a whiz at understanding spreadsheets and budgets.
• He is highly intelligent and analytical.
• Nobody better combines being a policy wonk with being willing to get his hands dirty in doing the often tedious, nitty-gritty stuff that makes a city work.
• He recognizes that everything in governance is a trade-off among competing interests and values, and is therefore pragmatically willing to take the possible instead of hold out for the ideal but impossible.
• I believe that he will give opposing ideas, from me or anybody else, a fair hearing and evaluation, even if he ultimately decides to support a different position.
• He habitually thinks of policy matters for the long run, rather than just the here and now.

I wish that Asheville would generate a strong, small-government, maximal-freedom candidate for City Council. But until that happens, I’ll gladly accept these other admirable qualities as all that I can ask.

Please join me in supporting Rich Lee for Asheville City Council.

— Robert J. Woolley
Asheville