Seeking to create a brighter future for everyone, housing and commercial developer and preservationist Ashley Harder is running for the District Four Seat on the Phoenix City Council in this year’s elections.
An experienced businessperson and community advocate who has focused on economic development, historic preservation, public art, and LGBTQ issues, Ms. Harder vows to work hard as District Four’s representative while prioritizing affordable housing, investing in the local community, and creating safe, inclusive, and connected communities.
Ms. Harder graciously sat with Blog for Arizona to discuss her candidacy for the Phoenix City Council.
The questions and her responses are below.
Please tell the readers at least two reasons why they should vote for you for one of the seats on the Phoenix City Council this election cycle.
“I am very excited to be running. I have lived in the district for 26 years and have been building a small business here for 16 years. I am not a career politician, but I am a community leader who has been doing the work on the ground for a long time working with neighborhoods around growth and change. I know this community because I’ve been part of it. I’m asking the questions people are asking: How are we investing in our neighborhoods? What does safety actually look like here? And are we making sure everyone benefits from the progress we’re seeing? I’ve been doing the work, and now I’m ready to step up and lead our community.
“We’ve seen such tremendous growth over the past 15, 20 years. And we have quickly become this sort of city of the future. I think we even heard it in the mayor’s State of the City address, right? The future is now. Well, the future is NOW! The future has arrived. What I’d add is that the future is also local. That’s what I’ve been building this campaign around. It’s happening right here in our neighborhoods, in this election. For me, it means staying focused on what’s right in front of us, our families, our kids, our small businesses, our schools, our parks.
“When I hear about our growth, I see that we welcomed in TSMC, tech, and innovation. We’re expanding healthcare, and we’re adding infrastructure, and we’re really excelling at the economic development for Arizona and for Phoenix. But as a small business owner, I also know that growth only works if it reaches the people who are already here. That’s why I’m running. I want to make sure this growth benefits our existing neighbors and neighborhoods and ensures that we’re growing in a balanced way, and being thoughtful about what’s important to us as we grow.”
Please advise on what are three major issues you would advocate for if elected to the Phoenix City Council.
“When I originally started my campaign, I knew I wanted to focus on housing. Housing, bringing investment into neighborhoods is something that I have been a part of with the revitalization efforts happening throughout our central core. I’ve advocated for light rail and transit-oriented development that benefits the neighborhoods it’s being built in. But housing has been my focus, specifically I have been working on affordable housing policy directly with the city for the past four or five years. This work centers around how we can get more affordable housing into the pipeline for the city of Phoenix. And we need it. I originally thought the focus was going to be how we’re going to get housing that fits into a dense and tight knit District Four. I have quickly realized that we need to be looking at housing across the continuum, because that is what I’m hearing when I’m at the doors talking with people. With neighbors I speak with, the greatest concern right now is around the unhoused and what we’re doing for our unsheltered community. I’m passionate about everybody having a safe place to call home, so my platform includes what we are doing around shelter, what we are doing with our human services, with public safety. So housing, but across the continuum and everything that connects with it.
Thirty of the thirty-six historic districts are within District Four. My background has been in historic preservation, adaptive-reuse, along with other types of projects, but with historic preservation and our districts, that is a piece of our housing puzzle. We need to make sure that we’re protecting our districts and also getting the housing that’s necessary. It’s a balance that needs to be struck neighborhood by neighborhood.”
“Another thing that’s been very important to me and important to District Four is small business. As I shared before about “the future is local”, making sure that our local smaller-scale businesses are getting support and good representation at city hall, there are a number of programs that we do have, but we can be doing a lot better. I really want to convene small businesses and understand what the challenges are today and make the city more accessible so we can help these businesses stay open, especially when we’re having difficult times in our economy. In a good economy we focus on how to help businesses open their doors, in a tough economy we have to work on how to help businesses keep their doors open.”
“Also, neighborhood livability. This goes hand in hand with housing. When you’re in a housing crisis, you have to think about how we’re squeezed right now, and we’re densifying; our neighborhoods are only becoming denser, and with it we need to be focusing on the public benefits in our open space and keep our neighborhoods healthy.”
“So, focusing on what our plan is for reinvesting into our parks, reinvesting into our public safety infrastructure, and focusing on heat mitigation is key for this moment in time. I really see us at a point where we are looking at this next chapter of growth. We’ve revitalized our core. We recognize that we need to be bringing in more services and more infrastructure to the western part of the district, and we have some really important decisions to make, and how are we going to resource it, design it, and keep neighbors involved and provide input in these really big decisions as we go forward.”
Please advise how you will turn out the vote in your favor in the election.
“In this political climate right now, I see running for office for a local council seat as a great opportunity to get people aware of what their local representatives do and what their city does and connect them back into their neighborhoods and to one another. Our campaign has really been centered on showing up and engaging with neighborhoods. So we are already canvassing; we are already getting out and doing a lot of neighborhood events, a lot of meet and greets, a lot of opportunities for residents and stakeholders to really share what their concerns are and have an opportunity to understand a little bit more about me and my background and this campaign and that I am someone that is going to be showing up for them.”
“I’ve been doing this work in this district for the past 16 years, building real relationships. People know me, though I have a lot more people to meet, but whether they know me or not, I want voters to know I’m going to keep showing up, and try to find solutions for them. So that has been really the focus and the priority of our outreach. Some candidates will run and they look at political endorsements and other opportunities for exposure and I am absolutely looking for those as well, but I really see the core of this campaign is about creating connection for our neighborhoods and our communities, getting people connected to the city, getting people to feel like they are a part of the growth and the changes and getting involved in their neighborhoods.”
“We’re always mapping out our strategy. We have a digital program and all sorts of other opportunities to engage with people, especially as temperatures rise and people are a little bit less likely to get outside. It’s very much a grassroots campaign, and I’m really proud of that. One thing I’ll share is that we’re doing things a little bit differently. We recognize the fatigue that a lot of voters feel right now, and that is by design. It is the landscape in which we are campaigning, and so one of the things I’ve been wanting to do is really create connections that are going to be enjoyable and are a little bit different than the typical political gatherings.”
“One of the things we did in April that I was excited to bring together was a gallery takeover. I had an office in the back of a shared art space over in Roosevelt Row for many years. We would curate art shows together there and I’ve had pop ups and curated art along the way, so I reached out to 10 artists that I know and worked with one friend, who curated an art show, and we did a gallery takeover at Project Space off of Grand Avenue as an opportunity for artists to come out and neighbors to come out and we had two different events where we could bring people together, and we could talk about arts and culture but at a campaign event. It ended up being the perfect timing for the community because it was at a time when, on first Friday, Roosevelt Row CDC, along with Downtown Phoenix Inc., were making choices of whether they would continue First Friday or how that might change and look. So we were able to have some really great conversations around the future of arts engagement, arts and culture, and its role within our city.”
“The event was during our city’s budget hearings, where people were also talking about how our city is resourcing our arts and culture programs. What are some ideas that people have about what they might want, what they need, or what they’d like to see in the budget? So just doing things a little differently is definitely important, especially as someone that’s not coming at this from a political background and doing this as a grassroots campaign. I’m definitely looking for all opportunities that are going to bring some lightness to this moment, some joy, and just really create genuine connections for the people that are coming out to learn about our campaign.”
Is there anything not covered in the first few questions that you would like readers to know about your candidacy for the Phoenix City Council?
“We have a real opportunity to get this next chapter right. I’m running because I really believe in our opportunities for District Four. We’ve seen a lot of investment through our central city, and those investments need to be stewarded and taken care of, and those relationships need to be strengthened. But there’s a real opportunity for us to bring investment and connection to the west side of the district. As we grow, we’re really entering this new chapter for our community and for our growth.”
“It’s important to me to make sure neighbors actually have a say in what’s happening in their communities, and that our city feels accessible and within reach, like a true partner. It’s the first question I ask people, what matters most to you? What’s important, what is needed. I’m listening and ready to answer. I’m ready to root in and do that work.”
“I love Phoenix, I’m grateful to all the opportunities that have been afforded to me and want to give back. Phoenix is an incredible city. Yes, we’re hot, and we have our challenges, but getting to live in the desert is something I don’t take for granted. It’s also why I’ve stayed focused on stepping up as a local leader, digging in, and doing the work on the issues that matter in our community.”
Please click here to find out more about Ashley Harder and her candidacy for the District Four Seat on the Phoenix City Council.
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