With a new Council on the way, here’s a look at Asheville’s government, what it does and how you can change it
Above: City Hall by night, photo by Max Cooper.
Today three new Asheville City Council members — Keith Young, Brian Haynes and Julie Mayfield — will be sworn in. It remains to be seen how, or to what extent, this will change things, though the recent election certainly saw some upsets.
Covering our city’s government has been a major priority of the Blade, and we’ve gone in-depth on everything from low-paid city workers to the bus system, in addition to our regular meeting coverage. But local government, while incredibly important, can also be a daunting thing to jump into. The political affiliations at the national and state level don’t have the same impact they do here (the Democratic party doesn’t weigh in on zoning, for example). While local government’s the level that affects people’s day-to-day lives in many ways, it’s also the one people — including in Asheville — usually pay the least attention to.
Voter turnout is anemic and a lot of activism usually gives this particular part of our power structure scant attention. I’ve commonly heard questions like “what does Asheville’s mayor do?” or “how does Council work?” City officials — both elected and appointed — can even use a jargon that’s a bit hard to understand for some of the public (though we make our best efforts to translate).
So below is an effort to give any citizen reading this a basic idea of what local government does and doesn’t do. In this we won’t just delve into how Asheville’s government works on paper, but where historically controversies and conflicts have arisen in our specific local government, complete with links if you want to know more about those incidents.
This guide is not static. We’ll update and modify it as things change. Most importantly, we’ll also detail how you, if you’re concerned about something in your city, to suggest, plead, demand, arm-twist and generally push to change things.
The basics
Asheville’s city government is run by City Council, composed of seven people: six Council members and a mayor, all serving four-year terms. Every two years (when there’s not a national or state election) half of the Council seats are up for election: three were up this year, and three Council members and the mayor’s seat will come up in 2017. All Council seats are at-large, meaning any voter in the city can vote for them; they don’t have to live in a particular part of town.
Asheville’s Council elections are non-partisan, meaning that candidates don’t run as Democrats or Republicans. However, in recent years a progressive coalition (roughly some centrists and the center-left with some more left-wing types as well) has generally dominated over conservatives. After today’s swearing-in, the current Council will consist of six Democrats and one progressive independent (Haynes).
However, there’s still plenty of political conflict, especially as many parts of that coalition no longer see eye to eye. The major parties don’t generally take positions on some of the issues that affect cities most and Ashevillians that largely vote similar ways in state or national elections can disagree vehemently on local issues like how the city develops or how it should handle public space.
Rather than running city government full-time, Asheville’s mayor oversees meetings, sets the agenda, votes on issues before Council and represents the city at events. While this is more power than some mayors (who might only get to vote in case of a tie) it also isn’t a “strong mayor” system where they’re the primary governing leader of the city. It leaves much of the extent of their role up to the individual mayor (current Mayor Esther Manheimer, for example, has taken the lead in trying to deal with state legislators). From its own ranks, Council appoints a Vice Mayor who sits in for the mayor if they’re away.
Council is, ostensibly, part-time. The mayor brings in around $25,000 a year from their role and all the Council members less. The assumption is that they’ll have another source of income.
Council appoints (and can fire, if they choose), three key positions: City Manager, City Attorney and City Clerk. The City manager and the city staff then deal with day-to-day government, making them incredibly powerful and the part of government most people encounter, and something we’ll delve into more in a moment.
However, Council is supposed to set policy, can direct staff to take a particular step (if a majority of them are behind it) and they have to approve any change in the city’s laws (called ordinances). Council can, ostensibly, turn down or change a proposal even if staff is in favor of it.
Council generally meets the second and fourth Tuesday of each month, at 5 p.m. in City Hall. By law these meetings are open to the public and Council must decide, discuss and vote on major issues in public as well, they can only meet privately or in “closed session” on very specific matters like getting advice from an attorney.
Council also, importantly, sets goals each year at a day-long annual retreat and occasionally have extra meetings, or work-sessions, specifically to tackle matters like the budget.
The powers of the city
So what does the government they oversee do? The city has powers over a range of things, from what gets built, how services like police or fire function, if there’s a bus system (and if it has the resources to work), what non-profits get support and if companies do or don’t get tax breaks.
In particular city government has a potentially high degree of power over the shape of the city through its ability to regulate development, which it does through a zoning code specifying what can and can’t be built throughout the city. It can also decide to grant exceptions to that or change zoning in an area. Usually this is to allow a particular type of project to proceed, and debates about how to use this power are at the heart of many of the city’s political conflicts.
Currently, the city is considering an overhaul of the set of rules that oversee development. Where it does and doesn’t regulate is a matter of major debate. When the city overhauled what type of development was allowed in downtown back in 2010 so that only the largest projects ended up before Council, some critics asserted that it permitted too many developments to be built, fueling an unpopular hotel boom.
If those rules are violated, the city can fine property owners, though how strictly it enforces particular rules can vary. In a recent, particularly contentious example: Council chose to strengthen fines and enforcement against those using Airbnb and similar sites to rent out homes to travelers in violation of its ban on the practice in most city neighborhoods.
The city also has cash. It collects most of its funds from a tax on property like land and vehicles, fees for services, and a portion of sales tax. This gives it about $154 million a year to work with, though plenty of that goes back into services or maintenance. As a tourist town, many people use city services but don’t pay taxes to the city, an issue city government’s identified as a major problem in keeping up with expenses. Citing cuts in state funds, infrastructure problems and the need to improve services, Council increased property taxes in 2013 and this year.
The city oversees public safety in the form of the Asheville Police and Fire Departments. It also maintains some roads, parks, pools and community centers and appoints the school board that oversees the city system (though that system is its own independent entity).
One of the main elements of the city’s services is the Asheville Transit System (renamed Asheville Redefines Transit a few years ago as part of a marketing campaign). The city funds the bus system, though it also receives some funds from the state and federal government, but it’s directly overseen by a management company due to a conflict between state and federal laws concerning unions. Currently, the city is opening that process up for bid after major complaints about safety issues and delays.
In Asheville’s case, the city also runs the water system (though the state legislature is currently trying to seize it) and the Civic Center (currently named the U.S. Cellular Center) venue.
Additionally, the city can also use its funds to back specific goals, whether it’s $350,000 to bankroll graffiti removal or the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which tries to incentivize affordable housing with favorable loans.
In North Carolina, moreso than many other other states, state government more sharply limits cities (something we’ll delve into shortly). But at the same time the city isn’t powerless either, a lot can fall under the state laws that allow local governments to make rules for the “health, safety or welfare of its citizens.”
Occasionally, however, one sees debates over where the city and state powers end, like the question of if Asheville could pass its own minimum wage or if the state can legally take the city’s water system.
The power of staff
In one of its key powers, Council appoints (and can fire, if they so choose) the City manager, who runs the day-to-day affairs of the city government. To use one imperfect-but-useful analogy the manager is the CEO and Council are the board of directors.
However, Council is supposed to set policy and they have to approve any change in the city’s laws (called ordinances). Council can turn down or change a proposal even if staff is in favor of it.
City manager Gary Jackson is probably the most powerful single person in city government, the boss of over 1,100 city employees (everyone except staff of the City Attorney and Clerk). While state civil service laws do affect the hiring and firing of most of these workers, most decisions about who runs (or doesn’t run) just about every part of city government are in Jackson’s hands.
City Attorney Robin Currin also wields a high level of power, as what she recommends as legal (or not) can play a major role in what options Council even considers possible. Sometimes this can even result in lawsuits, like when Currin’s office asserted the city didn’t have to turn over police recordings of peaceful protests and local media disagreed.
Indeed, from whether a beat cop issues a ticket to whom Jackson chooses to run a department, staff as a whole has a huge amount of control over what happens to the city, as most items will never reach the Council dais. If the average citizen encounters their local government, it’s often a city staffer, not an elected official.
Importantly, city policy specifies that Council communicate with staff only through the city manager, giving that job even more sway. As Council members usually have other full-time jobs, it falls to staff to write up the specifics of new laws, run services and generally try to carry out local government’s business. Importantly, they can also recommend how Council should vote on a matter, and those recommendations carry a lot of weight. Generally a development, for example, won’t get approved or even come before Council without staff’s endorsement, though Council can technically overrule them and let something proceed anyway.
Council and Jackson generally work in very close accord – he’s been in office for a decade, almost twice the average for a city manager — but he’s not escaped controversy over his conduct during that time, which has seen everything from the city gain a AAA bond rating to major problems in the police department and criticisms of an overly cozy attitude towards developers.
Nonetheless, the attitude of the current Council to the manager and staff were summed up in the remarks of outgoing Council members earlier this month, who praised Jackson and staff extensively. Jan Davis, a 12-year veteran of Council, advised incoming Council members to heed them closely and carry out their recommendations, “recognize that they probably have more talent in their field than you do. Listen to what they say and you try to make it work.”
Despite that attitude, Council and staff don’t always see eye to eye, though the conflicts can be hard to ascertain because they don’t always play out publicly. One that did, to some degree, was Jackson and other senior staff pushing back against the effort by a majority of Council, following public pressure, to raise all city employees up to a living wage, though one was eventually adopted.
But so far Council and Jackson generally work closely and he maintains their strong support. We’ll see if that changes with three new Council members.
The boards
Council and staff aren’t the only people playing a role in running the city. The city also has a wide array of boards and commissions, their members appointed by Council. The citizens who serve on these can sometimes craft policy as well, to varying degrees. Like Council meetings, the meetings of these must also be open to the public, and many boards have a designated Council member who’s supposed to serve as a liaison with them.
Some of these oversee relatively minor, technical matters. Others can be incredibly powerful. The Planning and Zoning Commission can give final approval to some development projects without going to Council at all, and the Civil Service Board is set up by its own special state law and can even overrule decisions by Jackson or other city officials when it comes to some personnel matters.
The idea, basically, is that citizens will help craft — with staff’s technical and legal assistance — policy, which Council can later choose to take up or approve. It’s supposed to be a way of dividing up the workload and allowing more input in the process from members of the public, especially those most directly affected by an issue.
They word, however, is “supposed.” Whether it does or not is a matter for some debate. How these boards are composed is worth watching, as sometimes specific interests, groups or industries will be assured seats on them. How the city chooses to craft a board can affect what kind of policies that board will recommend and whose interests it will represent.
Additionally, Council also has three-member committees of its own devoted to wider areas of policy like finance or public safety. These committees will often consider an issue before it makes its way to the full Council.
Sometimes board members will disagree with a direction staff is recommending or a Council committee will become the site of a political battle. The process of selecting a new police chief, for example, saw members of the Citizens Police Advisory Board sharply criticize staff for what they saw as ignoring the will of the public, while staff emphasized that any major decisions on the matter rested with the city manager. Similarly, staff trying to bring forward new restrictions on buskers have faced considerable backlash at meetings of Council’s Public Safety Committee and afterward, Council members agreed to delay the issue for further discussion.
Counting on the county
Asheville is also, importantly, part of Buncombe County — Asheville residents also pay Buncombe taxes and vote in county elections — and the role of county government frequently plays a part in the city’s politics too.
The county — which probably merits its own guide at some point in the future — is an important government in its own right. A lot of services people associate with local government are actually run by Buncombe County, not the city of Asheville. That includes the health department, social services, the landfill, a large part of the education system (even many students inside the city limits go to Buncombe County Schools) and the jail, among others.
City and county governments have had their tensions before, and back in the mid-2000s fought bitterly over the water system moving to city control. But over the past decade things have generally become far more friendly. Occasionally Council and the county commissioners will hold a joint meeting to coordinate plans on a variety of issues. The county, because of its sheer size, also has a larger budget, almost twice the size of the city’s. That means that on issues like affordable housing, economic development, city officials will often try to get cooperation (and funds) from county officials as well.
The role of Raleigh
Things are far less kumbaya with the state legislature in Raleigh, and this can sometimes be a major factor in local politics as well. North Carolina is what’s known as a “mother, may I?” state, meaning that in many cases local governments have to have approval from the state or an existing state law to take action on a particular topic.
That means, for example, that while Asheville can use fees or property taxes to raise revenue, it can’t create new taxes on things like hotel stays or prepared food and beverages. Those have to be approved by special laws from the state. In this case, there is a hotel tax (technically for Buncombe County, but the lion’s share of the hotels here are in Asheville), but it goes to the Tourism Development Authority — largely to market the area to tourists — not to the city coffers.
The state can also pass laws to restrict specific local governments — or ones clearly targeted at a few governments — as well. Asheville’s water system has a number of unique restrictions on how its revenue can be used and what its powers are due to laws passed by the state legislature. A city requirement that contractors had to pay a living wage was also struck down by a state law forbidding the practice statewide.
At the same time, as mentioned in the first section, local government isn’t powerless either, and existing state law does give it latitude on some major issues. However, the extent of those powers might change in coming years, as some GOP legislators want to remove a large amount of local control for all cities across the state (though the last attempt fell short).
While things have grown particularly acrimonious with a Republican-dominated legislature, even during the days of Democratic dominance there were often major disputes as well. Democratic leaders passed the restrictions on Asheville’s water system and repeatedly declined to give the city a hotel tax.
Since state Reps. Tim Moffitt and Nathan Ramsey lost their seats in the last state election, city government’s faced less legislation directed at it specifically (though the fight over the water system seizure is still winding its way through court) but the GOP legislature as a whole remains more willing to roll back the powers given to cities.
Public and private
Of course, governments don’t just deal with other governments. The city also deals with outside private entities, from consultants to businesses to non-profit organizations.
Sometimes this is intended as a way to extend the value of services in cash-strapped times. For example, rather than developing housing itself, the city uses funds from its affordable housing trust fund and other sources to bankroll housing built by nonprofits like Mountain Housing Opportunities or Habitat for Humanity.
Each year, the city gives grants to non-profits, especially in areas like education, services for low-income families or job training. Some of these funds come from the federal government but are distributed by the city.
Other times the grants or donations attract a bit more controversy, as when the city recently increased the amount given to the Chamber of Commerce’s Economic Development Coalition in an attempt to draw more business to the area and encourage economic development.
Under Jackson’s tenure, the city also frequently hires outside consultants for everything from the process of selecting a police chief to assessing how much the city pays its employees.
In other cases the city has given tax breaks to private companies in an attempt to attract them here – Linamar and New Belgium being two major examples — and that’s often done in cooperation with the county and state governments. Depending on who you believe, those incentives are either corporate welfare or necessary to draw in higher-paying jobs.
What you can do
So, with all that taken into consideration, what can you as a citizen, do? If you’re upset over an issue or the direction of your city, how do you go about trying to change things?
Email or call Council members — The information for doing so is listed here, and there’s even an easy link to email all of them at once.
Show up to speak on an issue — Remember the part about Asheville’s elections being really low turnout? Partly because of that, when people show up to speak on a topic, it can have an effect. It’s not uncommon to see issues stopped, changed, delayed or passed after a strong turnout, in-person, from part of the public. Council has public comment on every issue it votes on during its meetings. Also, at the end of each meeting there’s a time period where citizens can bring up any other issue they choose.
Participate in elections — This means more than just voting, though that’s important too. The filing fee to get on the ballot in city elections is generally far lower than others and door-to-door campaigns can still have a fair amount of impact in local elections.
Apply for a board or commission — The city, frankly, has a lot of them and is perpetually seeking people to occupy those seats. If you’re particularly interested in one area of what local government does, apply to be on one of those commissions.
Push for a referendum — It doesn’t come up often, but North Carolina does allow citizens to change their city charters by referendum, though there are some limits. By gathering enough signatures, a group of citizens can put some matters — like changing the structure of city government — before the voters.
This last came up in 2007, when a move by a majority of Council to shift to partisan elections proved unpopular, and a petition drive and subsequent referendum overturned it and kept the city’s non-partisan system.
And, of course, there’s always direct action methods like protests or civil disobedience, which can on occasion work with local government, just like with pressuring any other institution.
At the end of the day, everything from the hotel going up across the street to the behavior of the police to if there’s music on our streets can depend on what our local government does and doesn’t do. Right now, that’s shaped by a depressingly low percentage of our city’s population. Whatever your view about their actions, that — and the ability to change it — are worth remembering.
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