Nine days into Pride month, it appears Asheville City Council is on the verge of resolving an earlier dispute over whether it would include public support of drag performances in its official resolution.
During the May 23 meeting of Asheville City Council, the city unveiled a resolution that would affirm support for the LGBTQIA+ community. But moments before Council was slated to vote on the consent agenda item, it was withdrawn due to disagreement about its contents.
“While we have strong consensus among Council members for the LGBTQIA community, we haven’t quite struck consensus around the wording of this resolution,” said Mayor Esther Manheimer before removing the item from the agenda.
While Manheimer did not explain the specific sticking points, Council member Kim Roney said the dispute involved whether the resolution should include language supporting drag performances.
“The draft has been redrafted several times since February, and is in fact the most watered-down resolution in North Carolina,” Roney said during the May 23 meeting. “My hope is that it is ready to come back soon and that we’re ready to stand with our neighbors who use drag as expression and artistic form.”
A new resolution included in the Tuesday, June 13 meeting agenda appears to do just that. The updated language reaffirms support for Asheville’s LGBTQIA+ community “including, but not limited to, Pride celebrations, drag performances and LGBTQIA+ inclusion in every aspect of civic life.”
Council is expected to vote on the resolution as part of its consent agenda Tuesday night.
In other news
Council will also vote on whether to adopt the proposed fiscal year 2023-24 operating budget. This year’s budget saw calls for pay increases for police officers and increased funding for transit from community members.
Prior to the formal meeting, Council will hold a work session at 2 p.m. in Council Chambers. The session serves as a follow up to March’s Council retreat, where Council members fleshed out priorities for fiscal year 2023-2, but did not name specific goals. Public comment is not accepted at work sessions.
Consent agenda and public comment
The consent agenda for the meeting contains 12 items, which will be approved as a package unless singled out for separate discussion. Highlights include the following:
- A resolution authorizing the City Manager Debra Campbell to enter into an agreement with the town of Black Mountain to accept $25,000 in funding support for transit Route 170 for both fiscal years 2022-2023 and 2023-2024. Route 170 is used for the city’s Asheville Rides Transit service between downtown Asheville and Black Mountain, which costs the city roughly $250,000 annually.
- Adoption of an ordinance increasing the rental fee for additional 95 gallon trash carts by $1.00 for a total of $17.00 per cart per month. The fee increase was left out of the other solid waste fee increases approved in April in error.
- A resolution accepting the Flood Mitigation Actions Report and submitting the findings to the Community Rating System program. The program, which the city joined in 2014, provides residents with lower flood insurance premiums. Residents currently receive a 10% reduction in their flood insurance through the program.
Council members will gather in their chambers on the second floor of City Hall, located at 70 Court Plaza, starting at 5 p.m. The meeting will also be carried live on Charter/Spectrum Channel 193 and livestreamed through Asheville’s public engagement hub and on the city’s YouTube channel. Members of the public can listen live by calling 855-925-2801, meeting code 2048.
Those who wish to speak during the meeting must attend in person and sign up at the door. No live-remote comment will be permitted. Prerecorded voicemail messages can also be left at 855-925-2801, meeting code 2048; written comments can be sent to AshevilleCityCouncilJune132023@publicinput.com until 9 a.m. June 13. General comments for City Council can be sent at any time to AshevilleNCCouncil@AshevilleNC.gov.
The full meeting agenda and supporting documents can be found here.
Crime rampant. City council focused on an alphabet soup proclamation. What a useless collection of officials. Pompous Roney the worse. Opposes most everything except noise creation except where she lives.
The are loads of problems in this country. That’s not stopping state legislatures, including in NC, from freaking out about drag shows. It is the unhinged right derangement over gay people that is resulting in City Council supporting a good number of its citizens.
Agree with you about Roney though. A rigid ideologue in a line of rigid ideologues elected to Council over the years (Bothwell, Mumpower) It speaks volumes that when she ran for Mayor the totality of her colleagues publicly backed her opponent.
If we could get rid of the far right and the far left, we’d have a pretty good country again. And an elegant sufficiency of housing…