Since being elected to Hendersonville City Council four years ago, Lyndsey Simpson has successfully advocated for paid family leave for city employees, worked on capital improvements such as the new Edwards Park and—as liaison to the Environmental Sustainability Board--helped hire the city’s first Sustainability Manager. Earlier this year, she played a critical role in creating the Strategic Housing Committee to help address housing affordability.
“There isn’t much that is more fulfilling than being able to contribute to my community,” Lyndsey said. “While I didn’t have the privilege of being born in Hendersonville, I love it so much and it is truly my home. I cannot imagine living anywhere else. To be able to drive through town and see how the council’s actions improve the quality of life for others in my community is kind of indescribable.”
A graphic designer and founder of LS Creative, Lyndsey and her family moved to Hendersonville in the summer of 2016. “After the presidential election, I knew I wanted to get more involved. I started attending City Council meetings and at that time the Council was four men and Mayor Barbara Volk. The more meetings I attended the more I felt like there wasn’t adequate representation that truly reflected who was living in the community.”
After participating in Henderson County’s Vision Program and Rising Leaders Program through United Way, Lyndsey decided to run for City Council. “The issues that led me to run are the issues that still drive me today—supporting families in our community, increased pay and great benefits for our employees, adequate and affordable housing for all, environmental sustainability and to ensure that our community is a place where everyone feels welcomed and supported.”
In 2021, Lyndsey was chosen by fellow council members to act as Mayor Pro Tempore, the person designated to perform the duties of the mayor in the mayor’s absence.
“When I was elected in 2019, I had never been in politics and honestly, I was very green. This job ended up being so much different and so much more than I imagined. Not to mention, four months after being elected, the pandemic began--it was a crash course in how to govern. But when you can see how much a project is affecting the lives of people in our community and when you hear their stories, that really makes the work worth it.”
Lyndsey hopes to use her experience and knowledge from her first term to continue working on things to improve the community. Her specific goals include increasing employee wages to ensure everyone is making a living wage, putting sustainability goals into action, finishing and approving the Housing Strategic Plan to provide more attainable housing, and improving parkland and open spaces so that they are more accessible to more people.
As a graphic designer, Lyndsey approaches every project as a puzzle to solve and that carries over to City Council work. She is also determined and accustomed to thinking outside the box. “If I cannot think my way through something, then I’m going to look how to go under, over or around it. Being able to look at issues from a bird's eye view also really helps because we are working on projects where we need to think of what will happen in 10, 20, 50 years as a result and see how it will work with other areas of the community.”
Her advice to others is especially appropriate this year: “Be afraid and do it anyway. Just because something is scary doesn't mean it isn't the right way to go. You have to push past that fear to get to the other side and time and time again, pushing through has been so worth it. Follow that whisper in your soul and be afraid, but do it anyway. And, when things get tough, don’t give up. Every obstacle is a challenge and most of them are put in our path to teach us something. You just have to be willing to think outside of the box, ask for help when you need it and be authentic in all of your actions.”
To learn more about Lyndsey's campaign, visit her website.