Asheville City Council held a budget meeting at 10:00 a.m. today. Only those with the luxury of taking the day off belonged there. It would have been a five-hour round trip for me walking. Whining aside, council advocated a 1% tax increase. Members complained, in not so many words, that the General Assembly requires local governments to develop a balanced budget, and yet it yanks them around so they can’t. I think the Founding Fathers would have called that despotism.