The outdoor bar and event space, which has been located at the intersection of Hominy Creek and the French Broad River in West Asheville since 2016, is located on county-owned land and is being forced to move because of a stipulation in a land conservation easement agreement between the county and RiverLink.
The report, authored by Kevin Keene of Keene Mass Appraisal Consulting, concluded that there was “no evidence of systemic racial or income bias,” “no evidence of overt political interference” and “no evidence of bias in the attitudes of the workforce.”
City staff, however, plans to recommend the commission get only another three months to complete its task of finalizing recommendations for how the city and county can repair harm caused by generations of systemic racism and produce a final report. The discrepancy rankled commission members.
Joining the Family Justice Center in the building would be tax collections, tax assessment, election services, permits and inspections, planning, air quality and environmental health.
Amid a housing crisis that has seen costs continue to skyrocket as supply can’t keep up with the rising demand, many families are just one bad break away from becoming homeless. But this fiscal year, Buncombe County is making its biggest investment yet in affordable housing. For the first time in years, county commissioners are sounding an optimistic note.
Even after making some cuts to increased expenditures and allocating $3 million from reserves, the district may need to cut staff to close the $1.2 million budget gap, she said.
The Buncombe County Board of Education is not happy with the direction state legislators are taking in funding schools.
From child care centers to colleges, Glenda Weinert’s education experience has influenced students young and old. But it’s her business expertise and political leadership as former chair of the Buncombe County Republican Party that make her a unique addition to the Buncombe County Board of Education.
Commission member MZ Yehudah cut right to the point at a recent meeting of the Community Reparations Commission. “Are reparations for Black Asheville legally defensible?” The answer, according to city and county attorneys, is complicated.
The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners voted 6-0 on June 18 to approve a $440 million general fund budget for fiscal year 2024-25. Chair Brownie Newman said the decision to raise taxes is not easy, and this was the toughest budget season he’s been through in his 12 years on the commission.
From Asheville’s first elected Black person in 1882 to the destructive outcomes of one of the South’s largest urban renewal projects in the 1960s and ’70s on a previously thriving Southside community, the mile-long trail takes visitors through the under-told stories of Black Asheville’s long history in three sections.
If passed, the new rate — 52.35 cents per $100 of value — would mean the owner of a home valued at $400,000 will pay $2,094 in taxes to the county, $102 more than last year.
As the pandemic-era backlog of emergency vehicles continues to delay new trucks from reaching Buncombe County, paramedics are left driving aging ambulances longer than they should just as they are needed more than ever before.
On June 10, the Asheville City Association of Educators delivered a letter signed by the Parent Teacher Organizations or parent teams from all eight of the district’s schools.
After several months of discussion, including a contentious meeting with the Asheville City Board of Education June 3, Mike Sule, who was spearheading the project, asked the board to remove the project from its agenda June 10.
At a rally in Pack Square June 6, the Buncombe County Association of Educators, an organized advocacy group for teachers, argued that the state of North Carolina and Buncombe County governments should allocate more funding for education.
Former Buncombe County GOP Chair Glenda Weinert, who is a current member of the Buncombe County Schools Foundation, received the most votes on June 6 in the opening round of an open-ended series of votes among the six sitting members of the board.
More than half of Warren Wilson College’s 1,100-acre campus is on its way to permanent preservation after the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners agreed to chip in county funds to make it happen.
Your chance to address the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners on its proposed 2024-25 budget, including a 2.55-cent property tax hike, has arrived. Commissioners will hold its annual public hearing on the budget at its meeting Tuesday, June 4 before voting on the budget later in the month.
When it rains on the campus of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, stormwater pours off its plethora of parking lots into the neighborhoods, forest and French Broad River below, taking pollutants with it. Now, the community college, which sits at the headwaters of one of three primary tributaries in the Central Asheville Watershed, is working to reduce the volume of rainwater that flows from its campus.
County manager Avril Pinder’s proposed $441.9 million general fund budget, which still has to go through a public hearing and final vote next month, includes a 2.55 cent property tax increase next fiscal year.
