 Tell me a little bit about yourself. It's like what brought you to Athens and what do you do for a living? Sure. So like a lot of people came to Athens for UGA. I had never been here before until I came up here and I immediately fell in love with Athens and the small town feel. I'm from Savannah. It's very similar to Athens in a lot of ways. It's just the downtown area. Kind of feels like a I guess a more cozy version of the Savannah downtown. And so as far as what I do for a living, I fix phones over and tablets and computers over at Dr. Phone Fix inside the Upps Ridge Parkway Walmart. So why do you want to be a commissioner and why do you feel that you'll do a better job representing District 10 than your opponent? Sure. So as I said, I fell in love with Athens. I started to get involved with some of these community groups like Athens Anti-Discrimination Movement, going to the forums that are all around because they were something that was really interesting to me. And as I went around listening to what people wanted this county to be, what the changes they wanted to see, it became clear that there was a consensus on a lot of these issues, a consensus on affordable housing in the community, a consensus on bringing high wage jobs to Athens, things like that. But it seemed like the commission would often talk about them, but not move forward on it. Now with the newer commission elected in 2017, what was it, 2017 or 2018? They were elected in 2018. 2018, right. Okay. So they're moving forward more on some of these issues, but still it's one of the things that we often see as campaign promises. And then when it gets away from an election year, I'm seeing that a lot of the times that people just keep talking about the issues and the commission's not really moving forward on a lot of them, even though there's a lot of agreement and a place to move forward on them. And so as commissioner, if I was elected commissioner, I would love to be able to kind of be that driving force to focus on the issues that I'm hearing in the community, in the district, outside of the district, and also make sure that the policies that are being pursued are benefiting all of Athens. They're not mainly focused on one area. They're not focused inside the loop. They're not just focused on the downtown area. They're focused on expanding opportunities outside of that as well. And so I think that's something that, you know, that's something I want to do as a commissioner, and it's part of why I want to be a commissioner. And as far, I don't want to make it a negative race. So as far as, you know, doing a better job, I just think that this election is going to be a referendum on who's working in the community, who is known, what's been going on over the past four terms, or three terms, of the commissioner in district 10. So do you think that's true that they're mostly they just focus on inside the loop, and they kind of ignore the outer? I think they're doing, I think they're doing better now. But I know that was a big issue during the mayoral campaign. That was something that Harry Sims talked about. That was something that Carole Gertz talked about, is you had a lot of focus on what's inside the loop. You had a lot of focus on the downtown area, and a lot of the times the other districts outside of that, district four, you know, district two, district 10, now a lot of these districts were kind of being that don't have the downtown area. We're kind of being left out of that. And now, of course, you are seeing movement towards it, but it was, it was a long process and almost a change of the entire commission, you know, half the commission changed over before that focus kind of came back to the districts that they're in. Now you have focuses on things like Bethel Holmes. Now you have focuses, so things like that, that are finally being focused on rather than just how do we continue to expand the downtown area, which is a good priority. But you should also look at how can we make sure that people that don't live in the downtown area are also receiving benefits from changes the commission is pursuing. So this is a non-partisan race, but party identification is still very important to a lot of voters. And I know that you've been active in the UGA College Republicans, and I was just wondering if you still consider yourself a Republican. So I'm glad this is a non-partisan race, because I'm not having to toe a party line. I'm not having to choose one or the other. There are ideas from both. There are ideas from people who aren't affiliated with either party. I've been endorsed by the Libertarian Party of Georgia, because a lot of my ideas are aligned with them. Ideologically, I do consider myself a Libertarian. And I tend to vote for who I think would be best to represent a seat, whether that be from the lowest level of county government to the governorship. And so I think it's one of those things that, I guess, I'm glad it's a non-partisan race, because I don't have to choose a party line and stick with the issues that they would subscribe to. People have to get to know what I'm running on, why I'm running, and my platform, I hope, would have brought appeal to the people in the district, which is what it should be focused on. So you said you've been endorsed by the Libertarian Party. Yes. So, I mean, do you consider yourself a Libertarian? You're an independent, so I'm saying. Essentially, yeah. But as far as when it comes to the issues, and especially local issues, I do consider myself very Libertarian-leaning, at least, when it came to issues such as reforming cash bail, when it comes to issues of harm reduction ordinances, when it comes to issues of looking at these affordable housing regulations. These are all things that I agree with on the Libertarian Party. My platform, of course, was the Libertarians came to a consensus on it and did vote to endorse me. So obviously, we have a lot of common ground there. So let's drill down and focus on some of your policy ideas. So affordable housing is a big issue for your campaign, like you've been saying. So just wondering how specifically that you'll address the lack of affordable housing in Athens, Sure. So I think the biggest thing right now that I'm looking at is zoning regulations and housing regulations. This is something I really want to work with the zoning commissions, the planning commissions, and of course, other commissioners to address the biggest problem I have right now with our housing situation. We are in an affordable housing crisis. Athens has high rents. The rents continue to rise and people are unable to afford a lot of these houses and stay in them. One of the biggest problems right now is the regulation that mandates that no house can be built below a thousand square feet, unless it is built on a multi-family lot, in which case the minimum drops down to 700 square feet. And Habitats for Humanity is currently doing the Tiny Homes project, and which has 700 square feet houses that they're able to rent out an affordable price. But they had to get a multi-family lot to do that. It shouldn't be that difficult. That is something I want to target. Obviously, there should be regulations in place to make sure that housing is being built for quality, that housing is being built to safety. But in a county that has nearly a third of its residents in poverty, you shouldn't have to have a thousand plus square foot houses being built, especially when the bigger the house, you know, the more it's going to sell for, you should be able to build these 800 square feet houses, these 700 square feet houses. And if that's what people want, that's what they can get, you know, and if they can afford it, absolutely, they should be able to buy into that. And, oh, go ahead. I just have a quick follow-up on that. So I think, you know, I clearly agree that I don't agree with these, these limitations. The reason why they did that, from my understand, is that they were trying to sort of get rid of the, you know, like the trailer homes. Right. If getting rid of those restrictions, but if that would mean that there's more trailer parks in Athens, is that something that, you know, you think people in district 10 would, so on? See, I don't think it would have to go to that. I think it could be more along the lines of encouraging things like cottage courts, encouraging more affordable housing. That's not necessarily trailer home, trailer, you know, trailer parks in the area, but looking at how can we build quality affordable housing that, you know, is built small, you know, they don't have to, rather than building cookie cutter, you know, suburban places with 1200 square feet houses that most people will have sizable amount of people in Athens can't afford. How can we build areas that have smaller houses that are quality that people can afford? This is something, you know, that Minneapolis had a problem with affordable housing as well. And it's a really interesting sort of thing that they did. What their council did was they focused on single family housing and zoning and they changed that and they worked out with all these different members of the community. They worked in redlining. They worked to change the restrictions that were put in place. And when they did, they went from a housing crisis to a housing boom. They no longer had a shortage of affordable housing. Now they were able to get people and houses and it didn't require a growth in trailer parks. It didn't require a growth in shoddy housing. You know, they were quality houses, but all it took was just revising single family zoning laws. And so that's something that I definitely want to look. How can we apply that project to Athens? How can we change the some of the zoning laws to make sure that we, yes, we have quality housing that looks good in the county. We make sure that the county looks nice, but it also makes sure that people are able to afford houses and they're not being forced out to Oconee County or they're not being forced out further to anywhere, any surrounding counties because they can't afford housing here. And you've also said that you want to freeze property taxes. So if our local government needed extra revenue for something, I was wondering what sources of funding that you would look to instead. Sure. So I want property tax raises to be the absolute last resort. Obviously they're going to raise, you know, move up automatically as property values goes up. That's something that the commission can't change. However, what I want to make sure is that the commission is not raising the mills to spend more on projects. I would like us to look at using, Athens has the great resource of the splost, looking at if we have projects that need funding, can they wait? And if not, you know, at like I said, absolute last resort property tax raises, because I think what it comes down to is property tax is definitely a part of affordable housing. It's after you pay that mortgage, are you going to be able to afford to continue living there if your property tax is raised? Now all of a sudden you're in a situation where you can no longer afford that house or it's now your budget's a lot tighter. So that's something I want to focus on is making sure that people who purchase a house are able to stay there, that their property taxes aren't continuously raising to fund projects unless the county absolutely has to. And like I said, the resources that we have as far as the speed loss is concerned, as far as the project list, making sure that any project that can wait is suggested to a committee for that, that, you know, is asked, can we put it on that project list? Where else can we get the funds? Can this be something that we can form a partnership with other groups rather than raising the property taxes in the county? So if I heard you right, so you would support something like a squashed or another sales tax kind of thing over property tax increases, is that correct? Over property tax. So how do you feel about the current squashed voters actually? You can vote on that right now as we're talking? Well, I hope people go vote, you know, how they feel on it. Currently, I am pretty ecstatic about some of the projects. I do like the idea of the East Side Library. I think that was something we talked about at the last meeting. I like the idea of the Solar Rise Athens. I'm glad that that's coming here. And so there's a lot of good on the project and there's a lot of projects that I still don't know quite what they entail because they're kind of, you know, those smaller, not smaller, but those projects that are just, they're needed, but they're not flashy and they're not the ones that are publicized as much, you know, renovations to things like Bear Park, Hollow and things like that. So I think that there's a lot of good in the squashed. Is there anything on there you don't support? Well, there's so many projects. It's right. I'll be honest. I'm not a huge fan of the arena. I see where it's coming from. I do. I think that is one I want to point out. I think it's very important to have a epicenter of culture in any city. I've been to the Classic Center to see a production of rent. It was great. You know, this, the Classic Center has a lot to offer. And I think that people, especially with their pledge to, to bring living wage jobs and hire people within the county, I do think that that's a good start. I am a little concerned with the amount that was allocated to it. I would have liked to have seen maybe a smaller amount and maybe more later on. And I am a little concerned with the process of it being not put on the list and then re-added to the list, I think was my biggest issues with that. So that's the one I'm not quite ecstatic about. But I don't think that it's a make or break. So, if you were a commissioner, would you, you know, listen closely to the citizens committee or do you think there's some certain associations where it makes sense to put on a project that they didn't necessarily support? I would definitely listen to the citizens committee. It's there for a reason. You know, it's there to get a general feel of what the communities are feeling. Beyond that, I would also, you know, welcome more citizens input before it's finalized rather than just the meeting before the projects are finalized. I know that there were other meetings before them, but the Classic Center was one of the ones that it was added. And then there was one last meeting, a special called session to finalize. And so it's kind of one of those things I would look for more input and definitely, yes, listen to the citizens committee. It is there for a reason. 22 people definitely have a lot more opinions than just 10, well, or 11, including the mayor. So I think it's one of those things that you kind of get a more diverse range of opinions. And if they suggest things on a project, obviously, I do think it is good to look at those objectively and talk with the commission, like, how is this possible? You know, how much can we allocate to this? What are the pros and cons of it? Definitely. I think that's absolutely okay to do. But definitely, I would lean very heavily on the citizens committee recommendations. So are there any other major issues your campaign is focused on or any big changes that you would like to bring to City Hall? Sure. So one of the biggest things I'm focused on is transparency. Transparency in one of the good things that our county does right now is they record pretty much all the meetings and it's on the public forum. Anyone can go back, look at them. And they do post when the meetings are, especially the work sessions, those are on a pretty set schedule. The one thing that I want to focus on is making sure that special called sessions, if possible, I would like to see those put up 48 hours in advance to allow people to plan to go to them. Sometimes these meetings are put up hours before they're called, which makes it really hard to plan. If you're, you know, if you are at work or if you had something else going on, you're not able to say, oh, I need to go buy this. This is important to me. So that would be something I'd like to see. 48 hours in advance, you know, give people two days notice. Hey, this is what's being called. This is why the special session is being called. You have the chance to put input on that. That's my biggest focus, you know, biggest thing as far as transparency is concerned. I also, it's a more minor thing. And I think it's something that the commissioners could do. But kind of one of the things that really helps with events is making the Facebook events form for people to use them because anytime you mark interested or going, other people see that. So it kind of broadens your base. Right now you aren't seeing the commission meetings on Facebook unless you follow one of the commissioners or you follow the main county page. And even then it's a little hard with the county page because they post everything at once. So you kind of have like blocks of posts. So I would like to see maybe one of the, you know, any of the commissioners in their districts posting on their candidate pages or their public figure pages. Hey, this meeting's happening. You can click on this if you want to go. And then that way more people can see it. Just kind of utilizing social media in a more savvy way. As far as one last aspect of transparency, I actually really like what Commissioner Denson does with his town halls. Having a monthly town hall would be something I would absolutely be open to doing, would love to do. I think it's very important that people know why their commissioner is taking the votes and they know who their commissioner is. So I think that's one of the other things I would pursue in my personal capacity. So how can voters in District 10 learn more about your candidacy if they have additional questions? Oh, and so where is District 10 exactly? Okay. Which part of the county are we talking about? Sure. So to find out more about my candidacy back to the social media savvy, my Facebook page and my Instagram page are both under the same handle, SPIVA, the number 4, A-T-H, SPIVA for Ath. My phone number is on there. And of course my email, devinspiva, gmail.com. First and last name, easy enough. And so anyone who has questions can email me. They can call me. I'll pick up. If I'm not at work, if not, I'll give them a call back or they can go to my Facebook page where I have my platform listed out. And I post thoughts on other things too. Now District 10, so District 10 is kind of like a triangle from at the tail end of the county. It covers all of Timothy Road. It covers Epstridge Parkway, Epstridge Parkway up to the Oconee line. And it covers old Epstridge Parkway and a few other areas, smaller roads. And it has, if you vote at the library or if you vote at Timothy Elementary, you might be in the district. It's a little difficult because there is some overlap there, but definitely at Timothy Elementary, more than like you're about 90% sure to be in the district. And let's see. So that's, as far as neighborhoods, Kingswood, Idlewood, apartment complexes, Abbey West, Athens Ridge, River Club, and a few others. Very cool. Do you have anything else that you'd like to say? I don't think so. No, I think we covered just about everything. Well, thanks so much. Yeah, well, thank you.