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Austin Head: DJ/LGBT Advocate Is Running for City Council
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Race
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| Contributor | Thomas Walker |
| Last Edited | Thomas Walker Apr 03, 2013 11:37am |
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| Category | Profile |
| Author | Melissa Fossum |
| News Date | Friday, March 15, 2013 05:35:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | As a deejay, Austin Head knows how to work a crowd. It takes finesse, and it takes being in touch. Those skills are coming in handy for the entertainer/LGBT advocate: He recently announced that he is running for a seat on Phoenix's District 4 city council.
It's a very different gig than providing music at a nightclub, but his entertainment credentials play heavily into his decision to run. He wants to see Phoenix get a cultural makeover, and help shed the idea that the city is the capital of a racist and homophobic backwater state. When Head and a friend were assaulted in November in a bias crime on Central Avenue it cemented his resolve to enter politics.
"I'm sure that if [the light rail] was running the Thursday I was assaulted, I would have been on the light rail and not walking on the street," says Head, who advocates light-rail expansion and densifying Phoenix's business and entertainment clusters.
Arizona makes headlines, obviously, but for all the wrong reasons. (We're a recurring Daily Show gag.) He wants to change that, citing the Big Apple's "I Love New York" campaign as an example of cultural rebranding.
"Some of the reasons businesses don't come to Phoenix is because of the reputation that Arizona has," he says. "Some large entertainment names don't come here on tour because of SB 1070 and other reasons, like [Sheriff Joe] Arpaio's practices," says Head, who wants to see Phoenix branded less as a resort town. |
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