No honeymoon for city hall’s newest officials as the public turns up the pressure over police weapons, housing and more

Above: City hall by night. File photo by Max Cooper.

It’s a clarifying time. It’s easy to forget that local governments are grinding on, still inflicting the same evils that got us here. Indeed the soft approach taken by DC police until long after the far right burst into the capitol is eerily similar to the ways that APD has tolerated and even fraternized with the far-right locally. The bulk of Asheville city council still insists that the Asheville Police Department actually solves violent crime.

APD even re-elected far-right harasser Rondell Lance to the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of the Police. So in light of the violence inflicted by APD since the Klan attended officer funerals and how Council’s no fans of democracy themselves, they delayed reversing a GOP gerrymander to give themselves an extra year in office and carefully maneuvered to make sure the public wouldn’t decide who occupied last year’s vacant council seat.

On Dec. 8 three brand new Asheville City Council members joined the ranks of officialdom as the new council held its first meeting Dec. 8. If they expected a welcome party, they were sorely disappointed.

The meeting marked the debut of Sandra Kilgore, Sage Turner, and Kim Roney, as well as Sheneika Smith’s ascension to vice mayor. After the results of the election, centrists still maintained a majority but the meeting showed their control slipping. City hall backed away from possible backing of the Raytheon deal and made (slow) moves towards removing the Vance monument. They also decided to get cops more guns and keep the gentrification cash flowing.

Indeed locals clamoring to defund the police, provide deeply affordable housing, and pay those promised and greatly-hyped reparations dominated what stretched into a five hour meeting. Locals anger and determination stretched the meeting on, leading Mayor Esther Manheimer (a wealthy lawyer) to gripe about the length, and Kilgore (a well-off realtor) to sigh that “I hope this is not the norm.”

For the rest of our sakes let’s hope it is.

Same shit different day

“How exactly is this re-imagining public safety? The past summer, Jerry [Williams’] mom stood on stage at Pack Square and told a crowd of people how that rifle blew the arm right off her son…Disarming [APD] is the deescalation. For several months, we’ve been calling for you to defund APD by at least 50 percent. The funds for community needs are right in front of you and… [officers] are quitting in unprecedented numbers. Even they understand how much they’re not needed or wanted.”
– Melanie Noyes

Every meeting Council takes up a consent agenda, a list of items approved in a single vote. It’s supposed to be uncontroversial, bureaucratic procedure.

In practice, they’re a way for city staff to pursue their conservative agenda more quietly.

On Dec. 8 they used it to push more funds for the cops, over $100,000 in grants and cash for morale (their feelings are fragile), body armor and — most tellingly — brand new rifles. The same type of rifles used to murder Jerry Williams in the infamous 2016 shooting, For city hall, this is supposedly what de-escalation looks like.

After months of requiring locals to register for comment by noon the day before the meeting, council begrudgingly made a small concession to public pressure and extended that window to 9 a.m. on the day of the council meeting. Even with major hurdles city hall put in place since the summer uprisings, the number of comments rivaled meetings in June and July. The message remained the same: defund the cops and start real reparations to Black communities.

The 14 locals commenting on the consent agenda alone was far more than had spoken during entire meetings recently, and they forced council to vote on each item associated with APD. Roney voted against all three, and was joined once by Turner, who voted against the cops getting more guns.

Even with locals’ intense opposition all the APD increases were approved, though not before APD Chief David Zack seemed on the verge of tears (45 officers have quit since June) claimed an increase in violent crime (there isn’t one, the APD does this every time they get criticized) that somehow only more guns could solve.

Before citing homicide statistics (which have actually decreased since 2018), persons shot, and reported gunshots, Zack explained that “those are weapons to replace what we have.”

Some of these, however, are weapons that aren’t being used by the 45 officers who bolted since June. Thousands of locals have been shouting for the majority of this year that these weapons aren’t keeping Black people safe, and they aren’t keeping Asheville safe. The pandemic that city hall has worsened has claimed at least 201 [adjust these numbers] lives in our area. City hall’s quest to “reimagine public safety” apparently means doing the exact same thing as before. But locals are making it a harder haul.

The unresponsive and the unaffordable

“It’s frustrating to need to loan money to developers who are just going to make money off of a project, when in town right now there are people in homeless camps at risk of freezing to death because we don’t have enough deeply affordable housing available and we don’t have enough free housing available.”
– David Saulsbury

Zack was back to present to council on “quality of life issues,” which meant cops kicking homeless people out of their camps in a pandemic winter. He also touted APD’s new snitch app, and railed against “repeat offenders” in a city where thousands were suddenly thrown out of work.

Fire Chief Scott Burnett also spoke, mentioning the ways that his department is counterring the pandemic. However the department is simply failing, spurred on by a wider governing body that refuses to pay firefighters a living wage. Furthermore, under Burnett’s management the AFD insisted on an in person training that spurred a COVID-19 outbreak.

Shortly after these abhorrent presentations, Council moved on to new business, where it discussed subsidies for Bryson Investment Group, a developer who plans to build modular condos in West Asheville, housing meant for those making around $40,000 a year. Despite former Council member Keith Young’s “no” vote when the project was brought before the city’s housing committee, it got unanimous approval. That included Roney, who had just finished running on a platform that prioritized deeply affordable housing — which this definitely was not — and who excused her change of heart as supporting the “missing middle.”

But before they voted, six locals hit back, mostly approaching the city’s refusal to provide deeply affordable housing from the perspective of racial equity and reparations.

“We still seem to be in a pre-reparations resolution mindset,” said David Greenson. “We recognized that we have this incredible massive debt to pay, but we’re still proceeding with business as usual.”

Greenson continued, noting that “if it’s going to help a few Black people, but mostly it’s going to benefit white people” it wasn’t equitable.

Others criticized council for setting aside a whopping two thirds of the city’s housing trust fund for a for-profit project that refused to prioritize Black locals and will allow owners to sell the property at market rate after only a decade.

Asheville’s government could, of course, build housing itself, give the buildings over to tenants nearly for free and allow those tenants to take over running them. As evident by the developers own numbers, 12 single family homes could be built for $1.2 million (or less in many cases), but Council refuses to deny developers their hefty cuts — even while locals fear eviction and hunger.

The tepid ad-Vance

“I realized that this heaviness was a weight put upon me and finds itself similarly placed upon my community that we are constantly pushed into a spot of weighing out our options or choosing the lesser of two evils by local government…The destruction of this monument is actually behind schedule…[and] we will not stop paying attention.”
– Tashia Ethridge

“It still seems like there’s a level of people dragging their feet on this decision. It’s almost horrifying…It’s saying that this is the kind of individual that we look back on as a hero… A lot of the community was pushing for a significant decrease to the police budget that didn’t happen….maybe that can be reallocated to taking this monument down”
– Paul Schulman

Initially, Council planned to delay their vote on whether or not to remove the Vance Monument. This was despite widespread public calls for immediate removal. This was despite months of locals calling into the Vance Monument Task Force meeting saying the same thing. Then at around 6:30 p.m. the night before the meeting, city hall reversed course. Removing the Vance got a vote.

“Our charge was to prioritize the voices of people and communities who are most impacted,” Vance Monument Task Force Co-Chair and civil rights veteran Oralene Simmons, said. “By the beginning of November we had heard from over one thousand folks through emails, voice messages and texts, some fifty plus folks in two public call in events, and an online petition with over nine thousand signatures requesting the removal of the monument.”

“I am a direct descendent of the Vance family,” added Noel Nickle during the public hearing. “And just as I asked the Task Force, I ask that you, on behalf of my family and myself, vote to remove the Vance Monument without delay.”

Despite the voices of Simmons, Nickle, and thousands of others, the vote to accept the Task Force’s recommendation was not unanimous.

“I do not want to deepen the divide that we have in this city,” Kilgore, who case the lone “no” vote, said. She then descended into childhood memories and erasing of the monument’s intended meaning as a symbol of racial terror. “The monument became very special to me when I read in the newspaper and they found the time capsule underneath…they said they found the Color Enterprise, the newspaper…that basically said that they were actually practicing inclusion at that time.”

The monument was built as part of the violent white supremacist 1898 campaign that culminated in the Wilmington massacre and coup d’etat. It was built to help solidify a racist regime and revere a major segregationist leader.

“I am completely supportive of taking the monument down,” followed Wisler.

Council member Antanette Mosley soon followed with making the motion to remove the Vance, something she was proud to do “as the descendant of those enslaved in this area and very likely auctioned off at that very spot.”

It was city council, though, so they left it uncertain when the Vance will finally be ripped from the weary ground beneath it. It is undeniable that Kilgore has faced her share of racism, just as it is undeniable that neo-confederates doxxed, harassed and attacked anti-racists this summer and fall. By centering the belief that assorted members of the far-right deserve a seat at the table on the monument’s fate, Kilgore took the most right-wing spot on Council as the rest responded to overwhelming public pressure moved very tepidly forward.

Where credit is due

The onslaught of calls continued during the general comment period, including more demands to defund APD and to refuse to provide millions in tax breaks rumored to be slated for Raytheon. After locals stretched the meeting another half hour Manheimer made clear that City Hall would refuse to annex Biltmore Farms and would refuse to give tax breaks to Raytheon – a minor gesture to end what was a hellish year.

Council, of course, also ended 2020 by giving APD new high powered rifles, by keeping the cash flowing to developers, and by refusing to take a stand against the County helping Raytheon’s drench the local tax base in blood. They signaled to locals that they should expect another dose of gentrification, as well as more silence in the face of the evils running rampant in our city.

City Hall’s repeat offenses would be a tad more forgiveable if locals weren’t already weathering nine months of stress from a deadly pandemic, recovering from the trauma inflicted by APD and the far right over the summer, fall, and lifetimes, and wondering in increasing numbers where they will get their next meal, if they would be evicted, and how they will stay warm through the night and through the next three months on zero savings. These are the quality of life issues that most of us care about.

On this night, scores of callers cancelled any honeymoon plans for new councilmembers. But whether the rage is endured and whether Council encounters in the streets and where they’re comfortable the assertiveness that put defunding and reparations on the agenda last year and Vance on the chopping block is yet to be determined.

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Matilda Bliss is a local writer, Blade contributor and activist. When she isn’t petsitting or making schedules of events, she strives to live an off-the-grid lifestyle and creates jewelry from local stones

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