The nice thing about Asheville City Council meetings is that one can count on Councilman Dr. Carl Mumpower to say what needs to be said. The downside is that his peers seldom vote with him.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Mumpower yanked almost every item on the long consent agenda for a separate vote. He voted against the acceptance of a $200,000 US Department of Justice Weed and Seed Grant because he did not want to be a party to the “flawed process” of increasing the national debt and “draining the life out of the country.”

Mumpower then voted against four state grants. Two were for amenities for local senior centers, and two were for stormwater planning and mitigation. Mumpower did not want to be using state funds on “nonsense,” when the state can’t even fund its judicial system enough to guarantee its citizens their Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial.

He then voted against a $10,000 city sponsorship of the 2008 Advance Auto Parts Big South Confrence Women’s Basketball Championship. Citizens stretched to pay their property taxes after the last reval didn’t need to be shelling out for this. Then, in a joyous moment, three other council members voted with Mumpower to cancel the mayor’s plans to contract for a $1200, 45-minute professional presentation on growth management for their retreat.

During the public hearings portion of the meeting, Mumpower voted against the Never-Never-Land Shangri-La master plan for subsidized upscale redevelopment of Asheville’s WECAN neighborhood. “Master plans scare me. Darth Vader had a master plan,” said Mumpower. Speaking of a slide sporting a fairyland tower bridge, he said, “This is Utopia. Expensive Utopia. You’re not going to build affordable housing in an environment like that.” The subsidies the plan would require, he said, “escaped reality.”

Only Mumpower and newcomer Bill Russell voted against reducing allowable heights for buildings in Urban Village zoning districts after hearing reasoned arguments from a developer who didn’t want to have to redesign his investment if the rules changed in the middle of the planning process.