The City of Asheville wishes to renew a lease with the Army Reserve Center on Louisiana Avenue, charge $82,000 this year, and increase rent 5% each following year for a total of five years. According to my faulty memory, the last time the city raised attempted to raise the rent, veterans got very angry after Bill Fishburne, senior editor of the Asheville Tribune published an article with the title, “City Council Screws the Troops.” The year was 2000, the US was at war in Iraq, and a $1 lease for 50 years was renewed for $60,000 a year with CPI increases. I really botched this. Thanks go to Pat Kulba (my mother) for correcting me. According to unfaulty memories, rent was raised to $60,000 a year with CPI increases for a ten year period in 2000. However, the city voted to raise the rent in 2006, when the US was at war, to $112,000. Although the federal government embraced the increase, public fervor managed to talk it back to $60,000. A memo circulated behind the scenes among council members and select reporters (I was not one.) indicated $1 rent was standard fare for all other reserve centers in the state.
Mayor Terry Bellamy reported to the police and the press that the article had caused her to receive a lot of death threats, the worst of which was an invitation to escort her to the river. The mayor at the next meeting turned red in the face, pointing and screaming about, “that horrible, heinous reporter,” spewing “lies and misrepresentations intended to harm and divide our community.” History will likely write it up to coincidence, but the Mayor’s Committee for Veterans’ Affairs was created immediately after the brouhaha.
