At their budget work session yesterday, a majority on Asheville City Council nodded in approval for a 1.5-cent property tax increase and a $3.50 monthly trash pickup fee. Councilman Gordon Smith reportedly refrained from pitching or yawing. He only complained the legislature’s elimination of municipal business fees was the latest in a series of systematic redistributions pumping resources toward the wealthy. If that were the case, the city should invent something more skewed toward taxing the wealthy than a garbage tax. Chris Pelly spoke against the move, but the reason given in the press was obtuse.