Hoping for gridlock, mulling a whitewater park, diagnosing the police department’s woes and more as Asheville City Council tackles a bevy of reports
Above: City Manager Gary Jackson, file photo by Max Cooper.
As the March 24 Asheville City Council meeting drew near, word emerged that a hearing on a new hotel near downtown (yes, another one) was delayed until August. So another land war showdown was, for the moment, out of the picture.
By the time people filed into the Council chambers, with elected officials and staff inviting them to witness a new video and lighting system that had ended the venerable blue haze meetings historically took place in, that changed the shape of the agenda substantially.
As far as major items to vote on, there was still the appointment of members to the Asheville City Schools Board. Late in the meeting, Council appointed Shaunda Sandford, of Family Preservation Services, and retired teacher Martha Geitner.
But rather than items before Council for an up-or-down decision, the lion’s share of the meeting was dominated by presentations from staff, consultants and Council members about a range of topics.
Council typically doesn’t take any action when it comes to these (though, as this meeting would show, there are some exceptions), but they can be revealing about big steps that are coming down, as well as providing a glimpse of where city staff might prod Council to go, and vice versa. As the format for these reports isn’t as strict as a public hearing, the discussions can also range a bit more. It’s not unusual to see the kernel of new policies or laws originate in a brief remark during discussion of a report.
By that measure, the reports on March 24 were quite illuminating, touching on everything from development to a whitewater park in a gentrifying neighborhood to the much-debated state of the Asheville Police Department to hopes for gridlock in Raleigh. Here’s some of what the bevy of reports at Council’s latest meeting revealed about the lay of the land.
It’s complicated
Among the many other parts of Asheville’s ongoing political debates over the future shape of the city, the Mayor’s Development Task Force, its ranks drawn from the development industry, is looking at the way city staff handle new development and if the rules or procedures it operates under need to change to make the process faster easier for those involved.
“We had a well-represented group of realtors, contractors, design professionals, folks that serve on local boards, we also had a good portion of the staff present in the meeting,” local architect and task force representative Bryan Moffitt said, though he noted that City Manager Gary Jackson specified that staff weren’t to get involved with the task force until its final meetings.
The task force went tried to identify issues the participants had with the city’s approval process and their understanding of it. Staff then assembled a list of recommendations to help potential developments in “converting ‘no’ to ‘yes’,” among other goals.
Many of the suggested reforms are simple, Moffitt said, such as allowing more payment methods or expanding the hours and ways developers can submit their documents.
Interestingly, he noted, “I never heard anybody mention that we needed to make revisions” to the Unified Development Ordinance, the key set of city rules that control development in Asheville. At its retreat earlier this year, Council decided to overhaul the UDO, citing that its provisions don’t fit a changing city, though deciding on and implementing such changes would take years.
“No one talked about the fact that there was anything in our ordinances that was an issue in and of itself,” Moffitt continued. “Instead it was really how do we apply those, how do we apply those consistently, how do we apply those faster, how do we get faster turnaround times, how do we engage with each other, how do we get the community involved in the process.”
He added that at a recent luncheon eight different tables of professionals tried to answer how one got a development permit from the city. They came up with eight different answers.
“As design professionals we should know, but we didn’t, so we’ve got some work to do,” he said.
Council member Cecil Bothwell, who’s expressed more skepticism than some of his colleagues about the need to overhaul the UDO or approve a number of recent developments, honed in on the remarks about the city’s development rules.
“Despite constant complaints that I hear, reading it [the UDO] myself, it’s complex, but it’s clear to me,” Bothwell said. “I think it’s remarkably clear. Of course there are tweaks we might do, but I’m glad to hear the professionals feel that way.”
“We all practice in different environments, so I’m familiar with making applications and doing designs in different jurisdictions,” Moffitt, who noted that he and his partner work in six states, replied. “I have to say the city of Asheville is certainly no more onerous than any of the others. In some cases, we have tools here that I wish we had in other areas.”
He added that a lot of the things he hears developers here complain about are also factors in other cities.
Mayor Esther Manheimer also noted that in her own conversations with developers, she’d heard that “we are much easier to work with from a regulatory standpoint” than Charleston, S.C. and some other cities in the same region. But she agreed that the task force had revealed a number of technical improvements the city should enact.
Moffitt said the developers’ biggest concern was consistency, and that if a city applies its rules clearly and regularly, he and other professionals can build within them.
“Staff took a step back,” Jackson noted of the process. “These were very helpful suggestions that came forward,” and that city officials had made better informal relationships with the development industry as part of the process.
“There’s a lot to feel good about.”
Rapid response
Next up to the podium was Wilson Sims, speaking for a push to build a $1.7 million Whitewater Park in the River Arts District. The push has the backing of some environmental groups (Riverlink, the French Broad Riverkeepers) and business leaders (former Chamber of Commerce CEO Rick Lutovsky is a major advocate) as well as a study completed by Lyons, Colo.-based firm S2O about possible plans that might work in the area.
Sims claimed the construction of a whitewater rapids, through changing the riverbed, and surrounding park on the French Broad River would attract economic activity, help with environmental preservation and provide a public boon for Asheville’s citizens. Supporters wore life jackets to the Council meeting.
“Suddenly the opportunity and timing to move on the whitewater park became apparent,” Sims said. “The reaction by many has been how inexpensive this estimate is versus the benefits that will derive.”
The plan, Sims added, was for the vast majority of the money for the public park to come from private donations. But as the overhaul of the area’s infrastructure is already in progress, the backers needed Council’s approval. While not a formal action, Council members had to nod to let Jackson and staff know to include the whitewater project in planning for changes to the area, so its backers could adapt its design accordingly. The project, if it goes forward, will also need to get federal approval for its changes to the river.
“It will reinforce Asheville’s reputation as the outdoor adventure and recreation mecca,” Sims claimed.
The push takes place in the context of larger attempts to develop and deal with changes in the “East of the Riverway” area, encompassing the River Arts District, the Southside neighborhood and other nearby areas. As one of Asheville’s “innovation districts” and the subject of considerable federal grants to overhaul the infrastructure, the current city government hopes that the RAD and nearby areas will see a downtown-style boom, increasing its own coffers in the process. At the same time, there are serious concerns about gentrification (the city commissioned a study on that last year) and many nearby areas are still hard-hit by the effects of redlining and urban renewal.
As for Council, they gave the whitewater project the go-ahead it needed to continue planning, but not without noting some reservations.
“I think this is a really nice project and fits in really nicely with the transformation we’re seeing down in the River District,” Manheimer said. “To me this seems like an exciting opportunity.”
Vice Mayor Marc Hunt asserted that he was “a strong advocate for the proposal” but thought it would have been more ideal if it was incorporated with the infrastructure overhaul planning a year and a half ago.
Nonetheless, he noted other great city projects, like Pack Square Park, had their “bumpy” points.
Asked by Bothwell how much staff time helping the whitewater effort would take, Jackson replied that they didn’t have a definite answer but that if it proved feasible, they would have to incorporate it into the planning for the numerous other changes taking place in the river area. “We’re going to have to reinvent the wheel here.”
“We’re already doing a $50 million makeover, there are a lot of moving parts here,” he added.
Council member Jan Davis noted that previous efforts, like the Pack Square Park overhaul, had seen problems that had necessitated the city needing to take over efforts that were originally meant to have had more private contributions.
“There’s a feeling we got from here to there without a lot of process in the way,” he said. “I’d really like to have some of the blanks filled in.”
Council member Gordon Smith similarly noted his support for the idea, but wanted to know more about the operating costs that the city would take on, even if the funds for the park’s construction were privately raised.
“Pack Square Park’s lovely, but it ended up costing a ton of money from taxpayers,” leaving the city stuck when the organization raising the money couldn’t come up with enough funds before the project’s completion.
“I don’t want the presumption that moving forward with answering these questions tonight means the project is greenlighted; I think we’ve got to get the questions answered first,” Smith said.
The whitewater park plans, Manheimer added, “aren’t quite gelled up enough yet for us to say yea or nay.”
Diagnosing the APD
Last year, APD Chief William Anderson retired amid considerable controversy about the state of the department, and the city hired the Matrix Consulting Group to find out the extent of the divisions and issues and what might be done to fix them.
Some of the results of that study emerged earlier this year, though the city was initially reluctant to release them, revealing multiple issues with morale and divisions within the department. At this meeting, Matrix President Richard Brady was on hand to directly tell Council about the firm’s findings. The gist was that the APD had major issues that had built over time, but that there were opportunities for reform.
“We’re here to make a much more positive and functional culture within the department,” Brady said of the eventual goal. “We can have a high-performing department without all this internal dissent.”
The firm conducted over 30 interviews with employees as well as a survey and five focus groups for different parts of the APD’s staff.
Those consistently found, Brady noted, that APD officers felt that there was inconsistent discipline and promotions, a lack of accountability, an “us vs. them” culture, “just a lot of finger pointing and not a lot of taking responsibility,” a lack of training for managers and a lack of transparency within the department.
“It gets down to a lack of leadership and a positive culture within the department,” he said. “By leadership, we’re not just talking about the chief, but captains, lieutenants, sergeants, anyone who has a leadership role within the department.’
While he said that “a line in the sand has to be drawn now,” he noted that some of the findings were optimistic. APD officers believe, he noted, that the internal issues did not bleed over into its dealings with the community. Ground-level supervisors and communication also received some praise.
“Right now you’re in the middle of a new beginning,” Brady said, noting the city’s plan to overhaul the department.
The recommendations that emerged out of the report included a “chief’s advisory board” to make decision-making more open, a second deputy chief, more training for high-ranking officers, more communication with the associations representing police, a better relationship with the powerful Civil Service Board, a code of conduct (including for officers talking to media), firm disciplinary guidelines and new policies and procedures. On that last matter, Brady noted, the APD’s are so outdated that “they need to be thrown out the window.”
“The problems we’re talking about here didn’t happen overnight; they took years and decades to happen,” Brady concluded. “They didn’t involve just one person, they involved multiple people. Everybody had a different stake and role in where we are. But they are solvable.”
Davis emphasized that “we’ve got a lot of really good people working at the APD, I wouldn’t want them to come out of this in any way feeling like they’re damaged goods,” but “we’ve got a culture that’s developed over a long period of time that needs to change.”
Bothwell criticized what he felt was local media over-focusing on Chief Anderson’s conduct last year. Instead, he noted, the report showed complaints spread across all levels of leadership.
“I believe citizens who depend on local media for their information were repeatedly informed over the past year that the chief was the problem in our department,” he said. “They constantly went back to the chief’s problems and didn’t bother to investigate and ask the questions you asked. It is cultural. This isn’t to blame anybody, it’s what’s evolved over time.”
Council member Chris Pelly said he took away “that there are challenges yes, but we’ve got a road map, we’ve got a plan” and he’s optimistic about the department’s prospects.
“Change is very hard, but this City Council supports our police department,” Manheimer said. “We’re hopeful that this will provide us with a clear path forward.”
Jackson, who’s overseen the city’s departments, including the APD, for nearly a decade, said “you can expect us to put action steps to this” and track the progress on implementing the report’s suggestions while consistently updating Council’s Public Safety Committee so “Council and the community can see that we’re following through on this and we’re doing our very best efforts to move forward across the board.”
Hunt noted that as Jackson’s in charge of the day-to-day management of the city bureaucracy, including the APD, the report’s “advice is really more to you” than Council and praised the manager for his handling of the situation. “I think five months ago there was a lot more angst and uproar.”
Cheers for gridlock
Recently returned from Raleigh Manheimer, who travelled there in cooperation with the League of Municipalities had, in her view, good news and bad news about what the legislature was up to.
“The good news is that Asheville isn’t being singled out for any damaging legislation, so that’s a change for us, woo-hoo,” Manheimer said. “But there is a continued push against cities by a majority of the legislature and we’re seeing that in a lot of different legislation that’s coming out.”
Since 2010, fights between Council, which while nonpartisan is entirely made up of Democrats, and the Republican-dominated legislature, were the main political struggle in Asheville.
After elections last year saw state Reps. Tim Moffitt and Nathan Ramsey, both Republicans, defeated, Manheimer expressed her hope for improved relations with the legislators. Moffitt in particular was vocally opposed to the city government, and pursued a number of controversial moves (in many cases with Ramsey’s support) like trying to seize the city’s water system and drafting a bill to overhaul its elections.
Now, Manheimer said, the issue was legislation chipping away at urban revenue and authority generally, rather than Asheville in particular. These included proposals to allow more referendums on city borrowing, sharply reducing the property taxes developers have to pay for up to five years, and ending property owners’ ability to file protest petitions against new development.
On the positive side Manheimer said, Asheville and other cities were rallying to restore the historic tax credit, repealed last year. The credit played a key role, she noted, in restoring the city’s downtown, and Gov. Pat McCrory supports its renewal, though it seems unlikely to pass the state Senate.
“Finally I saved the best for last, and I say that sarcastically,” Manheimer said, noting a recent bill to change the way the state divides sales tax revenue to favor rural counties over more urban ones, leaving Buncombe County and all the cities, towns, school and fire districts within looking at a severely curbed cash flow.
“The loss to Buncombe County alone, not including all those entities, is projected to be around $19 million right now,” she said. “There’s kind of a mad dash to figure out how to manage this bill.”
But there was still some cause for hope, Manheimer added.
“The only thing that works in the favor of cities in North Carolina this session is the absolute animosity that exists between the House, the Senate and the Governor’s office, which might result in lots of bad legislation not moving,” Manheimer said.
“Well that was cheerful,” City Attorney Robin Currin replied.
“Hooray for gridlock,” Smith chimed in, and Council laughed.
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