On a windy May afternoon, three professionals stood on a downtown Asheville street corner and confessed that they didn’t have enough change for the bus. I know … I was one of them. “Hey, I don’t have 75 cents! Do you?” I called out to Asheville City Planner Bruce Black. Frowning as he reached into […]

A Cadillac would be nice, but Asheville may have to settle for a solid, reliable Ford Escort, so to speak, when it comes to its parks-and-recreation programs. Some say the city “needs” $57 million for its long-range parks-and-rec improvement plan, which calls for new parks and upgraded facilities. But so far the money hasn’t been […]

“Tell me your gut feeling,” Asheville Mayor Leni Sitnick asked Hillcrest resident Lynnette Maybin on May 5. The mayor wanted to know whether the Hillcrest pedestrian bridge over Interstate-240 should be reopened or left closed. In February, late one evening, a young man was killed trying to cross the interstate. But four years ago, Hillcrest […]

Credit cards are tempters, like the devil whispering in Eve’s ear. Only these days, they shout their message at you, via cable TV. “Get all the cash you need!” blares one commercial. “Bad credit, no credit — get the card you deserve!” urges another. “Just 24 easy payments,” tease the itsy-bitsy fliers that come with […]

You can tell time by the St. Lawrence chimes, if you live downtown. And you can hear the rumble of the automobile engines and the sound of laughter echoing in the Civic Center parking deck after headliner events, if you live in an apartment or condo on Haywood Street. You get to vie for parking […]

“Tell ’em how we’ve been had,” Betty Fagan urged me after Asheville City Council’s April 28 meeting. Fagan, a resident of the Old Haywood area in west Asheville, had just witnessed Council’s decision, by a narrow 4-3 vote, to rezone 43 acres of mostly vacant and undeveloped land in her neighborhood from a single-family to […]

Asheville needs new parks, and it needs to fix the parks it already has. Asheville needs $57 million. That’s what City Council members heard on April 21, when consultants unveiled a new Parks and Recreation Master Plan: a long-range guide to meeting city needs over the next 17 years. Foremost on Council members’ minds, of […]

If there are two things Jerry Rice keeps an eye on, it’s local governments and the media. On April 14, this Buncombe County resident gave both a little lesson, telling Asheville City Council members that a recent Asheville Citizen-Times lawsuit against them was a misuse of taxpayers’ money. The Citizen-Times sued the city this winter, […]

Keep an eye on us — but make sure you’re accurate, Asheville City Council members told reporters on April 8. “Negatively impressed” by recent Asheville Citizen-Times coverage of their trip to a Chamber of Commerce-sponsored conference near Charleston, S.C., frustrated Council members let reporters have it, right between their notebooks. Citizen-Times articles about the trip […]

I was living large, on the verge of financial shipwreck. Whenever a Visa credit-card company called to say my payment was late, I always had to ask, “Which one are you: NationsBank? Compuserve? Union Planters? Capitol One?” I had almost as many Mastercards, too — not to mention the Discover card, a Pier 1 Imports […]

You don’t have to climb up City Hall to touch the terra-cotta tile that adorns its roof: One 50-pound piece hangs on a wall at the Asheville Art Museum, as part of “Pure and Simple: The Art and Architecture of Douglas Ellington.” Like the patina of fine Japanese porcelain, tiny veins feather the surface of […]

When almost no one shows up for your party, someone’s got to pat you on the shoulder and say, “Don’t feel so bad.” That’s what residents told Asheville City Council members on March 31. Council hosted its first community meeting of 1998 that evening, at the city’s Public Works Building in central Asheville. Problem was, […]

Where do Asheville’s city limits end? Wherever city officials want them to, Riceville Road residents fear. Their Buncombe County valley lies just north of the V.A. Hospital, and well within the reach of Asheville City Council members — who have been toying with the A-word recently. In North Carolina, annexation is a primary method for […]

A typical city annexation could bring nearly $2 million in new tax revenues to Asheville every year. But how does that amount compare to the cost of providing water, sewer, police, garbage and fire-protection services to newly annexed residents? No one’s entirely sure. Looking for ways to increase city revenues, Asheville City Council members wanted […]

The wheels of democracy turn slowly at times. It took three hours for Asheville City Council members to hear what local residents had to say about the proposed rezoning of 42 acres off Old Haywood Road. Two property owners have asked that their mostly vacant land be switched from single- to multi-family zoning. But so […]

What have greenways done for us lately? Just think of their recreational, health and fitness uses, or how greenways promote better water quality (by serving as a buffer between urban areas and waterways), or how they provide a safe route for bikers and pedestrians — or how they spur economic development, Charles Flink of Greenways, […]

Despite the risks and reservations, we have to do it, insist local officials: Use taxpayers’ dollars to lure new companies to town and hold onto those we have. It’s the gamble of economic incentives, in which governing bodies offer businesses up-front cash grants, low-interest loans, infrastructure improvements and/or tax abatements — in the name of […]

Both city and county incentives policies are based on projected tax revenues and jobs. How much a company receives is tied to how much it invests in equipment, real estate or renovations, and how many well-paying jobs it provides. Buncombe’s policy requires at least a $1.5 million investment; Asheville’s, just $250,000. City Development Director John […]

(for now, anyway) Money, it seems, makes our parks go ’round. With Parks and Recreation Director Irby Brinson projecting that the city will need $30 million for parks-and-recreation facilities over the next 20 years, Asheville officials almost sold Memorial Stadium for $1.4 million to local architect Robert Camille, who has discussed plans to build a […]

“See what you can get,” said Asheville City Attorney Bob Oast on March 3. He was summarizing City Council’s directive to staff: Take our top issues on the proposed cable franchise with InterMedia back to the negotiating table. “We’re suggesting that staff go back and tweak this,” said Council member O.T. Tomes. After weeks of […]