Asheville City Council’s retreat just concluded. Jan Davis and Gordon Smith assisted by providing copies of the secret papers to members of the audience during the first break. Otherwise, it would have been a matter of turning our attention to items a through h on pages 3 and 4, etc.
Following are things I “learned:”
- The city needs to deal with the pending anti-Asheville legislation that would seize the airport, water system, and other properties. Esther Manheimer said the only difference between Asheville and other NC local governments is that they stand a chance of having legislators respond to their requests.
- “Lobbyist” is a bad word.
- Members of council were willing to wait for PACE programs to become legal before implementing one.
- People can pretend it really makes a difference if the city’s strategic goal is to become the safest city or just a safe city. Council deliberated this fifteen minutes in spite of the mayor stating twice the only thing that mattered was how council wished to reapportion funds going to police and fire.
- Prime downtown real estate should be used to raise crops for the food-insecure. A number of organizations are springing up in the city to assist with this issue. Urban green spaces help push sprawl into the burbs and give NIMBY’s a run-for-the-money in opposing infill development.
- Raising the wages of city workers by taking more from taxpayers directly injects money into the economy.
- Marc Hunt assumed “neighborhood services” pertained to sanitation and street repair, but was informed it was intended to suggest the creation of an Office of Neighborhood Affairs, served by representatives from Neighborhood Associations.
- One guy in the audience would have rather listened to cows breathe than hear about the different hats of group dynamics.
