Consultants sent in to solve police woes, controversial naming deal approved, Duke won’t shut down coal plant and more in a packed, contentious evening for Asheville City Council
Above: the future SECU plaza outside the Asheville Art Museum, considerably more serene than Tuesday night’s debate over whether the slice of Pack Square Park should be renamed.
In about three hours on Tuesday night, Asheville City Council hit three particularly contentious issues — major conflicts within the Asheville Police Department, a controversial renaming of part of Pack Square Plaza and the retiring of Duke Energy’s coal plant
If the reactions from the different sides involved, and the members of the public that spoke, are any indication, none of these fights are going anywhere anytime soon.
Send in the consultants
To say that the Asheville Police Department has some conflicts is put an incredibly contentious situation mildly. Over the past few months, controversies over surveillance, overtime, radar detectors, labor complaints and more have rocked the department. Recently, 44 APD officers — about a fifth of the force — signed a petition expressing an “overall lack of confidence” in the department’s leadership.
Council, for their part, has doubled down in their support for Chief William Anderson, with some members going so far as to accuse the dissenting police of political motives. Some members of the community have also defended the chief and blamed the issues on a few disgruntled officers. Repeatedly, staff invoked the ongoing plan to overhaul the department.
Originally, a discussion of the APD’s woes wasn’t on the agenda. But the day before the meeting, City Manager Gary Jackson, who’s overseen city government — including the APD — for nearly a decade, announced that he would hire outside experts and appoint Asheville Fire Department Scott Burnette as a liaison between management and the rank-and-file officers.
If this process seems familiar — except for Burnette’s involvement — it is. In Jackson’s time at the helm of city government, Council and city staff’s approach on issues ranging from development to transit to law enforcement has relied heavily on consultants and 3-5 year strategic plans to try and deal with a number of thorny issues. In this case, the city unveiled its plan to overhaul the police department this summer, and referring to that plan as a way forward has remained a common defense throughout the recent controversies.
That followed public rifts between some officers and the departments and Anderson’s controversial handling of a wreck involving his son early last year. During the planning process, consultants held forums with locals where people expressed skepticism about what good the process would do but expressed their hopes for change.
Notably, the APD’s woes go back even farther. Anderson’s predecessor, Bill Hogan, resigned after a scandal over missing evidence and a lawsuit involving racist and sexist text messages from a drug unit sergeant who subsequently kept his job (the city later settled the case). Even the city’s own plans admit to a troubled history with local minority communities.
With all that in the background and plenty of police officers and their representatives in the packed Council chambers (supporters of the critical officers wore “44” stickers), Jackson took the podium to simultaneously assuage concerns and defend city government’s handling of the situation.
“When you think of major change what do you think of? How do we feel about change?” Jackson said. “Stressful, fearful, frustrating, confusing, unsettling, doubtful, anxious, maybe hopeful, impatient, energized, motivated. Well, we’re going through a significant change process — one we’re very hopeful for — with the Asheville Police Department.”
He claimed that the plan emerged from a “robust employee participation process” and that “it calls for major change… different ways of doing business” and that teams of APD officers are “gearing up to carry out this program.”
“Significant progress is being made in all these areas,” he continued, and the plan now needed “our full support.”
Burnette’s experience with organizing the fire department makes him an ideal facilitator, Jackson said, and the consultants will provide an outside review of the plan and its implementation, “an independent view of what we should consider” and examine the APD’s current culture.
“National consultants, with proven track records, are being contacted by my office as we speak,” he said.
By next week, Jackson hopes to have finalized exactly what the consultants will do (including how much they’ll cost), hire them by December and then have them review the APD, probably for about 120 days, though he noted it could be longer.
Council expressed their confidence in Jackson, called for the police force to put aside internal divisions and asked the public to trust them on the issue
“I hope that the public understands the challenges our police force faces,” Vice Mayor Marc Hunt said. “There’s a lot of focus on the chief here, it is much more complex than that. These challenges we face have existed for a long time and they need to be dealt with systematically.”
He also disagreed with those who’ve called for Council to take a more active role in the issue.
“It’s important for people to understand that the role of the City Council is to hire and supervise the city manager,” Hunt added. “We don’t hire the police chief, we don’t fire the police chief, we don’t directly supervise the police chief, we don’t have direct access to the personnel file of the police chief.”
Those duties, he continued, are Jackson’s, whom he has “full confidence” in and encouraged the public to do the same.
“I’d echo that,” Mayor Esther Manheimer said. “These are things that have been in the works anyway, but it’s become more apparent we need to talk about them openly and not just assume everyone understands what’s going on here.”
“I’m excited about this aggressive move,” she added of Jackson’s plan. The public should know that the city is safe and “they don’t need to be distracted by internal issues within the department.”
Council member Cecil Bothwell ‚ who also sits on Council’s Public Safety Committee attacked the press for their coverage of the issues in the APD.
“Frankly I think the press has been wildly irresponsible in recent months, reporting allegations as if they were the truth instead of reporting clearly that there are two sides to a story,” he said. “We’ve had internal investigations that have cleared questions in the past. There are issues, absolutely, there are issues that must be addressed. But it’s unfair to frame it as if every allegation is true.
The plan he said, “has only been in operation for one quarter. I would urge the public to be patient because big change takes time.”
In turn, each Council member expressed their support for Jackson’s plan and encouraged police and the public to unify behind it, focusing on the APD’s achievements instead of its problems.
But in the public comment portion of the meeting John Midgette, director of the state chapter of the Police Benevolent Association expressed a more skeptical view than the picture presented by Jackson.
“We are here to represent the members of our association who have already reported to us acts of retaliation for coming out,” he said. “The dispute before the city raises serious implications for public safety in Asheville. The officers are being obstructed from properly performing their duties under state law and the hostile workplace that’s been created in that process.”
In an Oct. 27 letter, published by WLOS, Midgette asserted that some of the reported issues with Anderson could, if true, constitute “crimnial as well as administrative misconduct” called upon Manheimer to have the State Bureau of Investigation, a special prosecutor or the Civil Service Board investigate the situation rather than the city manager’s office, and warned that if issues like the radar detectors weren’t resolved, it could have consequences for the APD’s certification.
The letter also sharply criticized an unnamed Council member (later revealed to be Bothwell), noting “Compounding our concerns, one councilmember has contacted this association and advised us to ‘back off until after the election,’ claiming that officer complaints are a political ‘orchestration.'”
“Such reaction is clearly not helpful to properly resolving these matters nor do they represent what the police officers, their families, and the citizens of Asheville deserve,” the letter continued.
At the meeting, Midgette repeated his assertion that investigation by a criminal justice agency may be necessary, but noted that he was “cautiously optimistic” about what Jackson had proposed and “I’ve had a very favorable conversation with the mayor.”
But he asked that the PBA be involved in the process and that if information did arise that showed APD leadership had violated the law, that it promptly be turned over to the authorities.
APD Sgt. Rondell Lance, president of the local Fraternal Order of Police lodge, said the organization supports officers that are, as they see it, fighting for better working conditions.
“There are issues that need to be looked into and evaluations that need to be made,” Lance said. “There are problems in the department that need examination.”
“With all the press in the last few weeks, the FOP feels confident that race is not the cause of it and race plays no role,” he added, replying to criticisms that some of the animus against Anderson, the city’s first African-American police chief, is racially motivated. “In my 26 years with the department I have seen disagreements with each administration, oftentimes played out in the media.”
But he said he feels the FOP is ready to work with Jackson and the consultants to solve the issues and that they’re glad to see Burnette, whom they respect, involved.
However, if Council hoped that their remarks and announcement of Jackson’s approach might quell the controversy that’s not happening yet. Late Wednesday, Midgette called Bothwell’s comments “repugnant” and said the PBA is considering legal action against him.
Name calling
While not involving questions about public safety, the question of whether rename a piece of Pack Square “SECU plaza” in exchange for $1.5 million from the State Employees Credit Union foundation to the Asheville Art Museum attracted no shortage of controversy itself.
The funds will go to the museum’s renovation and give SECU rights to the name (and a future sign) for 30 years. But the proposal was announced the week before the meeting, without time to In addition, the Art Museum’s been part of a public battle over the future of Pack Place that included a controversial restructuring by the city this summer. The issue of selling naming rights for major pieces of public space has sparked debates before.
City government owns the property and leases it to the museum, so any renaming requires Council’s approval. All Council members and Jackson noted that they didn’t like that museum Executive Director Pam Myers had given them such short notice about such a major step.
“We’ve got very imperfect circumstances in this case,” Hunt said. “The order was a bit reversed here. We know the art museum entered a contract with SECU for this grant money, promising naming rights. Is that a good thing? No. There’s been a lot of serious talk between individual Council members and city staff with leadership of the Art Museum to make it known that this is distressing to us and I can assure you it’s a serious discussion. It’s not an acceptable way to go forward in the future.”
Especially as, Hunt added, the move gave little time for public input or debate.
That said, despite feeling “backed into a corner,” in Council member Gwen Wisler’s words, Council declined to refuse or delay the museum’s request on those grounds, noting that the funds played a key role in getting to the goal of renovating the building and that even if the process had been more open, it may well have reached the same result.
Hunt asserted that to delay approval for a few weeks until the next Council meeting “would not be good for this community, it would not be good for this project, it certainly would not be good for funding partnerships we need to rely on to get things done. Our community happens to be good at making it difficult to get things done.”
Manheimer, noting the number of people ready to speak about the topic, said she’d devote a half-hour each for proponents and opponents of the idea. But as it turned out, only Art Museum Board member Kim McGuire spoke in favor.
“We share your concern about the process and we’re determined to do well in the future,” she said. “We have been working very, very hard to raise funds for this project. We’re close to our ultimate goal…naming opportunities are an essential part of capital funding for any project.”
All the other speakers were sharply critical of the proposal.
“Pack Square is one of the mostly richly historical places” in the region Leslie Anderson, the city’s director of downtown development in the ’80s and ’90s, said. “This area, including this part, already has a name: it’s Pack Square.”
Further, the lack of public discussion meant that the city should not approve the museum’s request.
“This is land that has belonged to the people of Asheville since 1897,” she continued. “It is not a nonprofit’s property or a corporation’s property or even this Council’s property. It is sacred ground held in trust by the municipality for all people.”
Adrian Vassallo, president of the Downtown Association and a member of the Downtown Commission, also blasted the city for a lack of transparency about the renaming, the major changes to Pack Place and $2 million the city’s tagged for the Art Museum from its capital improvement funds.
“That discussion was never had with the Downtown Commission far as setting priorities for downtown,” Vassallo said. “From my perspective, that’s where we provide input to you on what the needs of downtown are. The needs for infrastructure and service are greater than the needs of the Art Museum.”
“Why are we being circumvented with this?” he asked. “We heard earlier with the police presentation that this is not going to be a fast process, that we need to do it slowly and make conscientious decisions, But we’re pushing this through without having open debate about what the needs of the art museum are and what the priorities of downtown are.”
Starting in its dealings in 2012 with the museum, Vassallo said the city’s charted “a path of resentment and divisiveness and it’s not going to be cured by this vote tonight.”
“Frankly, I think you ignored your own boards, your own processes and your own systems in trying to rename something that has a perfectly good name,” Ted Prosser, one of the owners of Asheville Commercial Real Estate, said. “This process has been flawed, secretive and not transparent at all. I think that’s created a lot of mistrust with something that’s probably a pretty good effort.”
“There’s a lot of people that are not happy with this at all,” he added.
But Council went ahead with the renaming and passed in unanimously.
The coal train
Duke Energy district manager Jason Walls said that despite a campaign by environmental groups and some local businesses, the power company has no intention of closing the primarily coal-fired Asheville plant. More, from my piece over at Carolina Public Press:
“Demand is growing,” Duke Energy District Manager Jason Walls said. “While technology is helping to drive energy efficiency, our region’s demand for electricity has doubled since 1975. Local generation is critically important to Western North Carolina.”
Earlier this month, the WNC Alliance published a letter from 80 local business owners calling for the company to retire the Asheville plant due to the pollution and environmental issues caused by burning coal. Other groups, like the Sierra Club, are also part of the local Beyond Coal campaign. Last night also marked the one-year anniversary of Council passing a clean energy resolution that committed the city to moving towards cleaner energy and away from coal.
But contrary to coal’s critics, Walls asserted that renewable energy has its limits in the mountains, with geography limiting the usefulness of both solar and wind power here.
“Without a way to replace the electricity that’s generated from the Asheville plant, it would be irresponsible for the company to retire those units,” he said. “Renewables are a valuable addition to the supply portfolio, but we must recognize their limitations.”
“Right now there are no plans to retire the Asheville plant,” he added. “It’s simply too important to our customers.”
…
Emma Greenbaum, the Sierra Club’s organizer of the Beyond Coal campaign, took issue with Walls’ portrayal of the situation and reasserted the need to retire the plant.
“Although we do have scrubbers on this plant, the Asheville coal plant is still the largest source of toxic air pollutants” in the region, she said.
“Burning coal is the largest contributor to carbon emissions from the electric sector overall and Duke Energy’s Asheville plant is the single largest source of these emissions in our region,” she said.
Greenbaum further noted that the unusual winter weather (and the resulting strain on the power grid) that Walls referred to earlier this year was something the area would only see more of unless climate change was curbed.
“You are not alone, though it might feel like it sometimes: When Council unanimously passed the clean energy resolution last year, there were 149 plants that had been retired as part of the Beyond Coal campaign,” Greenbaum said. “We’re now at 178. That’s a huge leap in just a year, and I truly believe Asheville belongs in the ranks of such progressive cities that have retired their coal plants and brokered investments in clean energy and energy efficiency. Please show a willingness to take the long view.”
—
The Asheville Blade is entirely funded by its readers. If you like our work, donate directly to us on Patreon. Questions? Comments? Email us.