Today, local political celebrity Dr. Carl Mumpower announced he would resign from the X Party if the shenanigans over ownership of Asheville’s water system did not stop. I had to blot out the party name because the JLF must remain politically neutral (1) so it can keep its nonprofit status and (2) because we-all are too enlightened to engage in that level of mischief. Regardless, the perps backing the siege against Asheville all belong to one of the major political persuasions, and those who go gunnin’ for the man who steals their water are of the other. Belonging to neither party, I have found the arguments on both sides as unsatisfying as those offered for going to war against American civil liberties after 9-1-1.

Applying what tiny semblance of logic I can muster, though, I have for more than a decade been sympathetic toward Asheville. I have said why in previous posts. What is significant about Dr. M. splitting from his party, and supporting Asheville in continuing to responsibly run the utility, is that he participated in a number of closed sessions and got to hear stuff beyond the grasp of us ignorant masses. Mumpower did, however, stop going to the meetings following a stink raised by the local daily about Asheville’s closed sessions, even though the same newspaper gave a pass to the county’s pro-seizure closed sessions.

As time swiftly runs out, legislators are being wooed into believing it will be really cool to decrease Asheville’s net worth, destroy its bond rating, saddle taxpayers with debt service on bad interest rates reverberating into the county’s budget, “and who knows what-all.” The best reason is that Rep. Tim Moffitt is fulfilling a campaign promise made to a short-sighted, influential supporter. The second best reason is that a tyrant has been raised up to be a scourge to those who have made Asheville “a cesspool of sin.”