Asheville Citizen-Times: Ex-Democratic NC chair, Asheville reparations activist among 44 eyeing vacated council seat (3 August 2020)

Stephanie Pace Brown hopes open Explore Asheville's new downtown offices in this 2017 file photo.

Too much tourism, one critic says

Andrew Fletcher, a local musician, served on the TDA-created Community Leadership Council for a year until resigning this week, citing an “opaque, confusing” and disappointing process to reshape the Tourism Development Product Fund.

“I think from the TDA’s perspective, Brown’s tenure was a wild success,” Fletcher said April 3. “But from the perspective of a community suffering under the weight of unsustainable over-tourism reliant on paying low-wages to their workforce, it’s led to catastrophic development trends. What’s been good for tourism businesses has been deeply damaging to the life and livelihood of the tourism workforce, and I hope that her replacement recognizes that better than she did.”

Fletcher would like to see the TDA abolished and a new organization created to distribute room tax money “for greater public benefit.”

https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2020/04/03/tourism-authority-ceo-stephanie-brown-depart/2939275001/