Pushing the envelope

Asheville’s would-be drug czar: City Council member Carl Mumpower. file photo by Jonathan Welch

Carl Mumpower is no stranger to the streets. The Asheville City Council’s lone Republican has made news before with his forays into the city’s housing projects and low-income neighborhoods, and what he’s seen there has prompted repeated calls for a full-court press against drug activity. Perhaps the most visible incident was a 2004 visit to Lee Walker Heights with former Council member (and former APD officer) Herb Watts. During that adventure, the two men easily scored crack cocaine, which they turned over to the Asheville Police Department (see “The Education of Dr. Mumpower,” June 23, 2004 Xpress).

But Mumpower touched off a lively e-mail exchange with a late-December request to APD Chief Bill Hogan that the Council member be allowed to tag along each week to observe the Police Department’s drug-interdiction efforts. Hogan vetoed the idea, and Mayor Terry Bellamy and City Manager Gary Jackson soon got in on the act.

In her e-mail, Bellamy supported Hogan’s claim that such oversight goes above and beyond the proper duties of City Council members. Weekly ride-alongs, she maintained, would violate the city’s charter.

“No matter how much we know and how much we care about an issue, we have legal limitations on what we can do,” Bellamy later told Xpress. In a city-manager form of government, Council members make policy and the city manager is responsible for implementing it.

Mumpower, however, says he’s observed police operations dozens of times under both Hogan and former Chief Will Annarino.

Hogan also cited concerns about security and confidentiality if Mumpower’s request were granted, but it remains unclear how much the Council member’s Dec. 12 tongue-lashing of the APD may have influenced the chief’s decision.

During that meeting (Council’s final session of the year), Mumpower chided the Police Department for having dropped the ball on drug interdiction. He also took his Council colleagues to task for failing to implement the tougher drug policies he’s called for. That earned him a scolding from Bellamy, who blamed the judicial system for cycling convicted drug offenders back onto the streets. The mayor also cited the APD’s call logs as evidence that the police are doing their job.

Mumpower has persistently called for beefed-up enforcement over the years, but his proposals have been shot down by Council colleagues who saw them as one-dimensional efforts aimed at furthering a failed war on drugs without addressing social issues such as employment and medical treatment.

Mumpower, however, makes no apologies. “I have been very direct,” he told Xpress. “If anyone is offended, they deserve to be.” His e-mails were no less severe, airing “concerns about a developing police culture of corruption by neglect” and blaming a lack of police enforcement for the city’s decision to buy out the McCormick Heights housing project.

“APD is not matching the creativity, enthusiasm, and persistency of those dealing drugs on our streets,” he wrote in a Dec. 22 e-mail.

Noting an increase in drug arrests since the APD Drug Suppression Unit was formed in 2004, Hogan’s assessment of the problem jibes with Bellamy’s: an underfunded criminal-justice system that puts dealers right back on the street.

“Kids have little fear of the police,” said Hogan. “They get arrested in the morning, they’ll be back on the street dealing by the evening.”

The e-mail objections to Mumpower’s requests were swift, with Hogan promptly writing to Jackson, “At this juncture, I believe it is appropriate for you and [City Attorney Bob Oast] to meet with Dr. Mumpower to discuss the legal criteria that applies to City Council members concerning [oversight] and direct involvement of city operations.”

Within the hour, the mayor jumped into the fray, asking that she and the rest of Council be briefed on the proposed meeting. “I have a growing concern about Council members stepping over the line of [policy-making] … into the area of policy implementation, which is the city manager’s and staff’s job.” she wrote. “More importantly, it is against the law.”

Hogan, however, told Xpress that his concerns about Mumpower’s request did not amount to an outright ban on observation. “We have not prohibited him from ever going out,” said the chief, explaining that he merely wanted to look at the legal issues involved.

According to a Jan. 2 e-mail from Jackson to Mumpower, the Council member did meet with the city attorney, but neither man would comment on what was said behind the scenes. Oast declined to discuss any legal advice he might have given Council members.

Jackson told Xpress that Hogan and other city staffers are compiling drug-enforcement information from other cities as a prelude to mapping out a new interdiction strategy. Additionally, said Jackson, Hogan will be working with the Asheville Housing Authority, which owns and oversees the city’s housing projects, to explore ways to coordinate efforts and information.

In the meantime, Mumpower continues to roam the streets of Asheville’s hot spots, aiming to complete 30 observations of drug activity in 30 days. In a sample of his findings that he shared with Xpress, Mumpower notes that he was “actively solicited” for drugs in the Deaverview, Pisgah View and Lee Walker Heights housing projects and observed drug activity at Livingston Heights.