An interview with Mayor Esther Manheimer

by David Forbes January 21, 2015

Asheville’s mayor talks about her first year in office, controversies, a defense of the city’s actions, turf battles and more

Above: Mayor Esther Manheimer, photo by Max Cooper

In 2013 Esther Manheimer, after a term on Asheville City Council, won the mayor’s seat decisively. But her first year in office would have far more ambiguities, clashes and disputes than that clear-cut victory. Last year saw the departure of the police chief amid turmoil, political battles over everything from Pack Place to graffiti as well as rising concerns over wages, the cost of living and segregation. An advocate of a method of governing with close cooperation between Council, technocrats and consultants to create extensive plans, the mayor also pushed a course of “innovation districts” and a focus on developing certain neighborhoods as a way to strengthen the city’s economy, securing major federal grants. More recently (as in last night) she attended the State of the Union address at the invitation of Rep. Patrick McHenry.

Manheimer, in her day job an attorney with the Van Winkle law firm specializing in “land litigation and creditors’ rights” sat down for an interview from her law office to discuss that time, defend the actions of Council and city management and talk about what she sees as the route forward.

David Forbes, Asheville Blade: Growing up in Asheville, what eventually led you to get into politics and run for mayor?

Mayor Esther Manheimer: I moved here the summer I turned 17. I was born in Denmark and I then lived in San Diego and then Olympia, Washington, then Spokane, Washington then Bethesda, Maryland right outside Washington, D.C., so the record is straight on that.

It’s funny, I think everyone gravitates to something they really like, like you’re a reporter. I’m watching my three boys grow up and seeing what they gravitate towards. My oldest is a math whiz and into all things tech. This was not anything I was interested in when I was young, so it’s amazing.

My interest started, frankly, in undergraduate school. I took a poli-sci class and during that class our professor had us go to city council and county commissioner meetings. It was in Boulder, so we went over to Denver to the state capital and watched the legislative session. Like a lot of people I didn’t really understand how these levels of government worked together and fit in until college.

Boulder was a really political campus. It was Bill Clinton’s first run for office, 1992, and I was involved in campus politics. I was actually the campus director of the American Movement for Israel. It was between the two Gulf Wars, that was when Democrats could be real pro-Israel and there was no inconsistency there. We shared an office with the Campus Democrats. We had speakers come like Jesse Jackson and Hillary Clinton. Then I started working with the student government in Boulder. That’s how my interest in politics started.

Then I went to grad school and law school. I worked for the [state] attorney general while I was in law school, I worked for the legislature while I was still in law school. I tried to be real deliberate about experiencing all these different settings. I worked for a non-profit and I worked for a private practice too. I wanted to really explore all those different areas.

I went to work for the legislature after law school. I worked on deregulating the electric industry, which didn’t happen but at the time was very much being explored. I staffed that commission and I got to see firsthand the interaction of these private electric companies — we had the CEOs of all these electric companies on that commission — with the legislators.

To clarify, when you say you ‘worked on,’ that means ‘we’re looking into this topic, research it and bring us back some information?’

They had staff to the commission. I was one of two lawyers that staffed the study commission on deregulation of the electric industry. There was a study, but at that level it was so big that we would handle the consultant that performed those studies.

I staffed redistricting. I was there from 1998 to 2002, so that fell during the redistricting period. I staffed a lot of standing committees — I did judiciary committee, local government, public utilities, Senate commerce — I just learned a lot about how interest groups lobby the legislature, how laws are actually created, who actually writes them. How politics influences law-making versus logic and research.

Oh, the two are at odds?

Sometimes the two are at odds. Usually logic and research wins out when it’s such a complicated topic that legislators can’t understand it. Otherwise, if it’s a juicy topic that everyone sort of understands, watch out, there’s a lot of politics.

So then I moved back to Asheville. We had our first child and my husband and I are both from here and our families both lived here. I moved back here and I wasn’t sure quite what I would do, but I knew I wanted to be involved in the community. I started with the Jewish Community Center, which was something I’d known. I’d worked there and now my kids were going ot go to pre-school there, so I started getting involved in that.

My private law practice involved a lot of land use, so I was before a lot of boards and commissions, regionally, all the way to Lincoln County, Henderson County, Avery County.

I just think that’s really interesting stuff. I think it’s fascinating; I love to see how they work in different communities.

So I went on the Board of Adjustment here in Asheville. Then I applied for that vacancy that Holly Jones created by going on [Buncombe] County Commission and it came down to me and Kelly [Miller]. I didn’t get it and I thought “well, I’m going to run,” which is kind of a combination of my interest in politics and my absolute unwillingness to suffer defeat.

I love local government issues. Really in that order — local, then state, then federal. They’re so tangible. You can run into somebody in the grocery store and talk about stormwater. That’s great. That just feels so tangible.

So it’s a little closer to the ground level of people living their lives?

Oh yeah, and within certain arenas you really have the opportunity to do some things.

You just finished your first full year as mayor. Speaking of that arena to do things, what would you say was the biggest surprise during that year?

It wasn’t terribly surprising, because I’d already been on City Council. It is a little surprising how many people want the mayor to come to their event or whatever it is. Everybody thinks about the position of mayor differently, but I’ve always been surprised, “oh, you want the mayor? ok.”

It’s been enjoyable to see so many kids. As mayor you’re asked to speak to children all the time. I did a little bit of that on City Council, but they very often want the mayor to come to their school or talk to the whole fourth grade class. The kids are so engaged. I don’t know if it’s societal or what. But if you were to stand in front of them and say “this is a state senator,” they might kind of glaze over. But when you say “this is the mayor,” for whatever reason that resonates with them. They love to hear that I have kids and that my kids are in school. They ask me a lot of questions about being a mom and being mayor.

What would you say you view as you and Council’s biggest accomplishment during that time?

During our first year? I think the furthering and gelling up of the capital improvement plan, really refining the trajectory of the city and its investment in a strategic way. We’ve really, fundamentally decided we’re not going to do things like subsidize a Bele Chere that doesn’t bring a net gain to the city. Instead we’re going to take our dollars and invest them in infrastructure. You’ve seen the five-year plan and it’s a heavy investment in the River Arts District, in downtown, in sidewalks and other improvements. The adoption of the innovation districts, which does several different things but gives us the tools to be able to financially invest in those districts.

I think those are big accomplishments. On a personal level, we’ve talked before about tackling the state of our public housing in Asheville. That conversation is very much gotten started and it’s now much more than a conversation. We have an RFQ already issued by the housing authority [for the redevelopment of Lee Walker Heights], selecting a developer. It’s a complicated conversation, obviously, but we have some resources to make that a reality and now Duke [Energy] is going to contribute land to that redevelopment and we’re in conversations with Mission Hospitals. Those are some exciting, exciting things.

Looking back at the same period of time, is there anything that you regret or would have approached differently?

Every moment is a learning opportunity, so certainly you learn from your experiences.

I’ll have to say, the police department experience has been a learning one for me, a real struggle with how to play a role in that situation and try to weigh the options and come up with the best one.

What do you see as the route going forward with the police department? How did things get to this state and how is the city going to avoid some of these issues continuing?

My real impression, and it’s just an impression because as members of City Council, we really don’t get under that top administrative layer. We obviously are not privy to the day-to-day personnel issues within departments, other than what we hear at a policy-making level.

My sense is that we have some really talented, dedicated police officers. We are attracting some really interesting and talented new police officers because we’re a unique community and we’re able to leverage that to attract some good talent. I’m just finishing an editorial I’ve written about the police department and specifically our latest class of graduates from basic law enforcement training.

But my sense is that within the department, while they have policies and procedures on paper, they actual running of the department, the oversight and accountability of management is lacking. It’s led to low morale and issues like we’ve seen with the evidence room and radar guns. These are the kind of things that are really about management. Who’s checking to make sure that the person who’s supposed to make sure the radar guns are certified every month, are they doing their job?

The things you mentioned happened over an extended period of time. Going forward, what’s going to make sure that, with the oversight above it, that’s not going to happen again?

I’ve never been involved with the hiring of one of our police chiefs, but I will be this time and I think a lot of people will be this time. I will be looking for someone who’s very strong on that internal management component.

The city manager’s done a good job, in the nearly 10 years he’s been here, of systematically placing leadership in departments that are pretty detail-oriented, that implement systems and procedures and follow them. They’re good community leaders too, [Assistant City Manager] Cathy Ball, [Development Services Director] Shannon Tuch, Barber Whitehorn, our new director over finance, Roderick [Simmons] in Parks and Rec. These are people that are running their departments well, they’re not missing anything.

The oversight is good, the accountability is good and they’re also very good at community engagement.

You mentioned that in the Council-manager system, Council does primarily deal with the top level of administration — it’s actually in the city’s rules — so in your view that top level of administration is functioning pretty well and relations between Council, the mayor and management are good?

Oh yeah. I don’t have anything to compare it to in terms of my experience, because I’ve never been on another city council, but through my lifetime experiences I know that in terms of our internal relationships with each other we’re very positive, very supportive. Where we disagree we do so professionally and politely. We work really well with management, with Gary [Jackson, the city manager] and his team. They’re not on pins and needles. They’re able to have the freedom to really do they’re job effectively and recommend good policy direction.

That’s kind of the newer way of doing business. That’s what newer, more effective cities are doing. They’re transparent, they’re run professionally. They embrace newer concepts, they strategically look at the future and plan for it and implement it.

That’s versus the old system which was a good old boy network, which was behind closed doors, “hey my neighbor’s barking loudly, let’s pave their road” or do a favor for a friend and just think about tomorrow, not long-term.

We could be a city where we just did the very basics: paved roads, replaced the sidewalk, picked up your garbage, made sure you had water, police, fire and issue some permits. We could do that. We could just do the very basic things or we could do what we’re doing, which is visioning for the long term and then figuring out how we get from A to Z.

The River District’s a perfect example. The fact the River Arts District has not already been developed is too bad; a lot of other cities have already taken advantage of their river and transformed it. We’re doing it now, so better late than never.

The process is telling of how we do things here: we have commissions that study it, we have charets for public input, everybody provides concepts for what they want to see. Then we have this really talented staff that’s capable of putting together the community’s vision but also utilizes newer ways of tackling challenges.

How are we going to deal with stormwater? Well, a really good way is to create an artificial wetland and it will also become a place where people will enjoy it, a greenway will go by it.

That’s an example of how we’re doing business here. That’s not required, that’s not meeting the minimum, it’s exceeding.

You bring up the RAD and you’ve been a big advocate of innovation districts. Infrastructure is, of course, a major governmental issue. As that discussion’s gone on you’ve seen people in areas like Hazel Mill Road, for example, that are not part of these districts raise concerns if they would see their aging infrastructure replaced. What’s your response to that and is that a concern?

I don’t think because you’re making a concentrated effort to invest in a certain district you drop the ball on infrastructure in the rest of the city and I don’t think that’s what we’re doing.

I was at the Downtown Association lunch and someone made this comment about how the city has all this money now and we all just sort of laughed, because there isn’t an endless amount of money to do every single infrastructure improvement project that’s needed.

What we’ve been able to do is drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to replace a sidewalk or repave a street, to do that needed maintenance.

A lot of this is meant to spur economic development. A recent map put out by the Wall Street Journal, drawing on census data, showed that wages were down in Asheville and the surrounding county over the last ten years. Of course living wages have been a major issue here. What actions should city government take to deal with that concern or spur better jobs?

I do recognize that, and I’ve seen the data. Our greatest growth in jobs is in the service sector, and those tend to be your lower-paying jobs and they tend to be paid without benefits.

What I would say is that the city’s economic development policies do not center around incentivizing growth in that area. Now, growth in that area is happening; we’re sitting next to it right now. But there is not a single penny of incentive money that goes to a new hotel, for example. While that’s great for the tourist economy component of the city, there’s nothing needed on the city’s part to encourage more of that.

We recognize that we want higher quality jobs; they pay more and they have more benefits. In order to do that we’ve got to grow these other sectors, like advanced manufacturing, technology, medicine. Those are growing. The Chamber’s 5×5 [plan], those are sectors that are identified. You’re going to see our economic development strategies aimed at a Linamar — an advanced manufacturer — or a White Labs, our newest company coming to town. That’s a great example for Asheville, that’s the collision of making beer and chemistry. It’s considered a biotechnology sector job and they will pay good wages.

We’re using a city building that we’re selling to that company so that we can also change a non-tax revenue-producing property that’s actually historic — on South Charlotte Street — and see it redeveloped with a private company owning and using it. So it serves a lot of different purpose.

That’s where our efforts are aimed, because that’s what we need to see. The challenge there is sort of a critical mass issue. In order to bring in a company like that the company needs to have talent here that suits those jobs, and we have some of that.

But one concern I have heard is that a lot of times folks that are able to fill those roles want to live in a place that has enough employers that if they were to not be one with one they could find another. We can’t be a community where you no longer have your job at wherever in this tech industry and now there’s not another option for you. It’s a little bit of a chicken and egg problem. But that doesn’t mean we’re not determined to continue to work on it.

On that note, an investigation of ours recently showed that the city has a number of employees that do not make a living wage — I believe around 140 according to a count in October — is there any plan going forward, as the budget cycle’s beginning, to raise the wage for those employees so all city employees are paid a living wage?

These are the temporary, seasonal employees?

That’s the category they’re in, though some have worked for a number of years for the city, for even decades in a few cases.

So we’ve had one City Council [committee] meeting already where we’ve discussed this. We’re now at a point where staff are going to bring back some recommendations on that and lay out the issues for us. I think the city manager was telling me that in order to bring everyone up to a living wage in this category it would be about $250,000 but I’m not positive of that number.

It presents some issues like, for example, lifeguards. We pay seasonal lifeguards in line with what seasonal lifeguards get paid, whether they’re with the city or the county or a private pool. So one issues that presents is, well, are we going to just pay a lot more than they pay at another pool? Then what do we do about the assistant manager and the manager and does everybody get bumped up? Does it make sense?

That doesn’t mean that’s not a challenge to overcome. I’m interested in looking at what it would take to change that.

Which meeting was that in particular?

I knew you were going to ask me that and I’m trying to think where we did that. I know [Council member Gordon Smith] was there and I know Gary was there. Maybe Gordon has a better memory than I do, I go to a lot of meetings [laughing]. I just remember sitting in the meeting and discussing it.

[Editor’s note: The day after this interview, Smith said he didn’t recall the issue being raised in any committee meeting he had attended (including the Finance Committee, which would usually review such a matter) nor had he heard an estimate of the amount it would take to raise the temporary/seasonal employees to a living wage. When the Blade has clarification on the meeting Manheimer was referring to, we’ll add that information.]

Wages are a major concern a lot of working people in this town cite. Affordable housing, the cost of housing is a major focus in this city. Are the current city programs working given that the cost is still increasing? What else is needed if not?

Affordable housing is such a complex problem because it’s tied into so many issues like transportation and education and quality jobs. But you’ve seen it; we’ve done an affordable housing study to see how we stack up across the state, and we’re definitely the most aggressive community in terms of pursuing affordable housing. We’ve beefed up the affordable housing trust fund, but more needs to be done.

The same problem existed when I lived in Boulder: it was a funky small town but it cost a fortune to live in. Unfortunately, there’s going to be an element of that, I think, no matter what. Any time you are a really attractive, great place to be that a lot of people want to live in, that creates a pressure on housing prices. In addition, when you are unable to grow outward, sprawl outward like in Atlanta that creates pressure on the housing stock that’s here.

We have literally geographic barriers here. On the one hand that’s a good thing, because it helps preserve our city as a smaller city and it inhibits excessive growth, but on the other hand if everybody decides they want to move here it creates upward pressure on housing prices.

So I think more needs to be done. I think if we can find a way to continue to fund affordable housing. We had a workshop recently to examine all the different options and we’re going to get some recommendations coming out of that. There’s some zoning or permitting issues we can do to lessen the cost of housing construction. I know Gordon’s really interested in pursuing the tiny houses concept, which presents building permit issues, state building code issues. So it’s breaking down barriers so that affordable housing can be constructed.

If there’s opportunities to leverage city-owned land to make it available, those should be and are being explored. There are some cities that actually get into the business of lending money for housing. Those are not all that successful and arguably not a good role for the city to be in. I think the way we do it where we try to support the construction of affordable housing in whatever way we can is probably a better one to continue to pursue.

One community hit particularly hard by the wage declines, the lack of affordable housing and a variety of other issues as well is the African-American community here. At some of the protests organized in recent months I’ve heard over and over again that de facto Asheville is in many ways still a segregated city. What do you think of that assessment and from the city government level, what should be done about that?

I think the assessment is correct. It’s striking to me. I’ve lived in a lot of different places and I’ve thought about this a lot. I’ve studied it. I’ve written about it. Asheville has 18 percent of its African-American population living in public housing or on Section 8 vouchers whereas statewide it’s only three percent. I’ve said that a zillion times.

That right there tells you a whole lot. Also, we have a very small African-American population as compared to the state norm if you were to go to Durham or Charlotte or Greensboro or Goldsboro or wherever. Our African-American population is smaller and more impoverished, so the disparity is striking.

There are many ways to address it. I would argue that first and foremost it’s through education, because education is a pathway out of poverty and poverty is probably the main contributor to de facto segregation as you say. City Council can appoint the school board and we can help with certain issues like the CAYLA Institute or the after school program at Asheville Middle School, there’s some things we can do there. We’re allowed a role in the hiring of the new superintendent and she’s very focused on closing the achievement gap, so that’s one thing.

But from a city perspective I go back to, again, our public housing situation, which is where this is very evident. I hold back my eagerness to tackle this all at once and do it now because I recognize that it is such a challenging issue for the community and I really want to be sensitive to the families whose lives this affects anytime you work on the redevelopment of public housing.

But in my mind the aim is to create a better place for families in our community and not continue with our system where we have isolated pockets of poverty. It’s not good for kids to grow up that way and it doesn’t lead us to a community involved with one another to the degree it should be. I think that creating mixed-income communities will provide better opportunities to break down this de facto segregation that you’re talking about.

One of the concerns, and I’ve been covering the RAD process and the Lee Walker stuff, that has been raised by some of the residents is the possibility of displacement, which had happened in some of the previous programs like HOPE VI. What assurances can be offered that this time, as something the city’s involved with, that that won’t happen?

Well, that is a concern of mine and I won’t support a project that does it any other way. Federal law requires that all units that are redeveloped be replaced. So there’s 96 units, I think, at Lee Walker, so all of them have to be replaced, as public housing. Technically, where I think you get some wiggle room is that you can do some of them through vouchers or whatever. But logistically because we have the opportunity to use this other land that’s closer to Biltmore Avenue I hope we see a system where we’re bringing online the new development with the existence of the current development so that there’s a smooth transition from one to the other, so it’s not just level it and move everybody out.

But this is a delicate situation, because this is the Housing Authority’s initiative that I, along with my fellow City Council members are very eager to support. So it’ll be between them and their developer. I just think it’s challenging any time a housing authority looks at this.

You asked me what was surprising and I talked about kids, but one of the things that’s really surprising is — I’m not a total idealist, I know how reality works and I’m very “roll up your sleeves and do it” — that there are a lot of turf struggles.

I’m sure they exist in every town, but everybody’s got their thing carved out for them, very personality-driven. There’s a reluctance, because of trust, to look at all opportunities.

That, to me, has been the most frustrating part, surprising/frustrating.

And you’re talking in general now, as well as on this issue?

Yes in general and yes on this issue. But I knew that going in, I’m not naïve. I get that. I’m just a little less patient with that kind of stuff because I think it inhibits the best result. It inhibits the speed with which we can get to the best result.

Is there a turf war you can give an example of?

Pack Place. River Arts District. Riverlink. Airport Authority. MSD. Business Improvement District. Downtown Association. Everybody wants to do and cover more than they do and they don’t like plans that don’t involve them covering more than they do.

They want to preserve what they govern and they want to govern more, pretty much without exception. In my experience those are some examples of where you run into turf battles, and the city is at the table too with their own turf.

Speaking of turf, one of the biggest turf wars has involved the legislature in the past few years, it’s been one of the defining political battles. There’s a new legislative delegation, it’s changed pretty drastically. Do you see a change in tone and what do you think are the city’s hopes now for getting its priorities accomplished?

Yes, of course there’s a change. Yes, it’s very different, positive. I think we spent a lot of time on the defensive in the last couple of years. It wasn’t a matter of “can we get this initiative accomplished?” It was “can we avoid whatever this bad legislation is that will affect us?” So I think first and foremost we will hopefully enjoy not having to spend time on the defensive, concerned about bills that will negatively affect Asheville.

Yes, I think there are some opportunities for accomplishing some of the things on our legislative agenda. Some of them are statewide in nature.

Like posting notices online?

Or the historic tax credit, that’s a big deal for cities this time. That’s gone away and cities are trying to get it back. Making up the lost revenue for the privilege license tax, funding transportation. That’s just a major issue. Not taking away our zoning authority. Not taking away our environmental regulatory authority. So those are statewide issues.

Locally, we’ve got challenges on certain issues: graffiti, toplessness. Although I don’t really expect that we’ll see bills on those topics and I don’t really know that the city is concerned that we see those.

But I would say we have a good relationship with these folks. I’ll say I always appreciated [former Rep.] Nathan Ramsey. He was always willing to talk. He was texting and tweeting at me. I appreciated his open line of communication, he was always very cordial

I know John Ager well and he’s a great guy, he has a good perspective on politics and the legislature and he’s a big history buff and I feel like he’s kind of riding a wave of history. He wrote a piece recently, an editorial that was all about history. Brian Turner, I think he’s going to do a great job.

These guys have to learn a lot, they’re going to have to spend a lot of time down there figuring out how everything works.

Of course, you’ve also got Rep. Chuck McGrady, who’s the main Republican now in the house delegation in this area…

We get along really well. We’re still pretty divided over water. But we’re both lawyers, we know how to put that one disagreement to the side and talk about other issues. We’ve been able to find common ground on most of these other issues. It really wasn’t that difficult.

You mentioned working at a lot of different levels of government, and there have been a number of possible changes raised for the way the city’s government functions over the years, from full-time mayor to district elections to partisan elections. Currently, do you think there are any changes to the way the Council-manager system operates here that you would consider?

I think things function well as they are. I don’t think districts make a lot of sense for the city because we’re not that big. There are benefits to having a strong mayor form of government, there benefits to both systems, but I think ours functions well the way it is.

I do understand that there’s going to be a push to move municipal elections to even years, from the state level.

What’s your feeling about that change, if it passes?

Cities are opposed to it. It’s the same kind of concept that tax referendums have to be on even-year ballots. It’s purely political. Even years are larger elections and they tend to draw out more moderate voters, whereas these odd-year municipal elections draw out all the Democrats that live in cities, because we know that’s where all the Democrats live and the Republicans don’t like the way that voting goes.

The goal is quite clearly to get more Republicans on city councils. Now, the Republican legislators who support this change will say that it’s cost-effective, that it costs money to run an odd-year election, but its’ the same thing the Democrats did when I was in the legislature, where they started early voting and all the early voting sites were in cities to begin with.

One of the changes mentioned was full-time mayor and you, of course, have had some issues where you’ve had to recuse yourself because you work for one of the more prominent law firms in the city and you deal with many issues here. Is that something you’d support?

If they paid a full-time salary, sure I’d support it. That’s the issue. You can’t serve as mayor unless you’re retired. It’s not a living wage, let me tell you. I don’t know, maybe it is, it’s around $25,000 a year, so it’s right on the line.

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