Asheville City Council

With a slew of presentations and only a handful of formal votes, the Asheville City Council’s March 13 meeting harked back to the good old days when Council members used work sessions to get up to speed on issues facing the city. The meeting spotlighted a number of potential future initiatives, including a new park, a new racetrack and a living-wage policy.

The evening’s most contentious item—and one of the few that resulted in a vote—was a resolution laying down conditions that would have to be met before Council would support the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce’s request for an adjustment to the local sales tax (see “Terms of Enragement” below).

It’s all the wage

Citing a wide and growing divide between the highest and lowest incomes earned by American workers, Isaac Coleman of the Asheville/Buncombe Living Wage Campaign urged Council to adopt a policy ensuring that all city employees earn a living wage. Using census data, the group has calculated a figure based on local housing costs. It works out to $10.86 per hour for people without health-insurance benefits, or $9.50 for those with employer-provided health insurance.

The campaign, a joint effort by members of assorted local advocacy groups, notes that the endorsement would be largely symbolic, as both part-time and full-time city employees already earn at least that much.

The living wage is based on the assumption that people shouldn’t have to pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing—the same percentage used by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. That’s not the same thing as the minimum wage—the least amount that employers can legally pay. North Carolina raised its minimum wage to $6.15 an hour last year—$1 more than the federal minimum.

But an official endorsement by the city, argued Coleman, would encourage a comparable trend in the private sector. According to the group’s figures, 25 percent of such workers in Asheville earn less than a living wage. And as housing prices rise, those workers are increasingly shut out of the market, he said.

“There is a lot of concern that Asheville could become a city of economic extremes,” said Mark Siler of Christians for a United Community, a partner in the campaign.

The group is also asking Asheville to make paying a living wage a criterion when hiring private firms to work on city projects.

But that raised a red flag for Council member Jan Davis. “I think we need to look at the small-business owners we might put out of work,” he said, adding that he wanted to hear some feedback from the Chamber of Commerce.

Council member Carl Mumpower, meanwhile, smelled socialism. “This is a highly socialistic issue,” he said. And though city staff plans to research the issue and present a report listing pros and cons, Mumpower said, “We need somebody else to offer us the other side of the view.” If no one else was willing to make such a presentation, Council’s lone Republican said he would do it himself.

But Mumpower’s doubts didn’t dim the enthusiasm of others on Council. “It’s just a great day to be a citizen of Asheville,” raved Vice Mayor Holly Jones. “This is what we hold up for the community to try and turn around this wage disparity.”

Council member Robin Cape emphasized that the city’s endorsement would be philosophical, not a move to regulate local businesses.

“We’re not asking employers to do this now,” she noted. Instead, Council members, “as employers in this city, are looking at ourselves and who we wish to be,” she declared.

Mayor Terry Bellamy discouraged further deliberation until Council members have a staff report, due sometime in April.

A test drive

During City Council’s annual retreat in January, Davis voiced his desire for a new racetrack in the area, noting that the loss of the old Asheville Motor Speedway (now the site of Carrier Park) had left many local race fans out in the cold. Before the Amboy Road track was closed in 1999, some 4,000 to 5,000 fans showed up for races each week, said Davis, a former racecar driver and racing fan, adding, “I think it’s important to an awful lot of people.”

Talk of siting a track near the Asheville Regional Airport has drawn the ire of Henderson County neighbors concerned about noise. The target property’s location in a floodplain further complicates matters. There’s also a potential regulatory tangle: Anything built on the site would require approval by the city, the Asheville Regional Airport Authority (which owns the parcel) and the Federal Aviation Administration, noted City Attorney Bob Oast.

Despite those challenges, Davis insisted that there has not been a close enough look to rule out the idea.

“We have done the least amount of due diligence to examine this idea,” he said.

Noise from the track is a major concern, said Council member Brownie Newman, adding, “That could be the biggest showstopper for me.”

Tracks in other cities have had to deal with similar concerns, countered Davis, and they’ve figured out ways to address them. Nonracing events, he noted, could bring in additional revenue for the track.

Before committing staff time to researching the idea, Bellamy reminded Council that the racetrack is only one of the 52 items on the wish list that came out of the January retreat.

But Davis pushed for at least an informal indication that the idea was not dead on arrival. “We need to show that we are not spinning our wheels and saying something we are not going to do,” he maintained.

Mumpower agreed, saying, “While we’ve got critical mass, let’s take action to move this forward.”

As the Airport Authority’s board chair, Bryan Freeborn told Council that the racetrack has that body’s support as long as the agency doesn’t have to pay for it.

Although there was no formal vote, it was agreed that staff would explore the idea.

A park-ing problem

Another group came before Council championing the creation of a new park overlooking downtown. But these folks came with hat in hand, asking Council members to kick in money ASAP to help buy the land. In order to close on the wooded parcel sandwiched between Beaucatcher Mountain and Memorial Stadium, the city and Buncombe County would each have to commit $575,000 before the end of March.

The Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit that helps communities preserve green space, has the 30-acre tract under contract, reported staffer Maggie Clancey. The group is prepared to contribute $375,000 toward the purchase and has lined up more than $1 million in other funding: $500,000 from the North Carolina Parks and Recreation Trust Fund and $575,000 in private donations, said Asheville resident Scott Riviere, a volunteer involved in local fund raising for the project.

The private donations demonstrate significant support for the park, he noted. The property has been appraised at $2.6 million, but that figure could rise to $7 million if it were developed—a real possibility if the city and county don’t act fast.

“The present owner will develop this property if we do not close on this park,” said Riviere. “This is our last chance to make Beaucatcher Overlook Park a reality” and retain the parcel’s wooded character.

City staff will research the project and report to Council on March 20.

Terms of enragement

A request by the Chamber of Commerce to support adjusting the local sales tax produced the evening’s most discordant debate.

The General Assembly added a half-cent to the sales tax during the state budget crisis several years ago, establishing a 7 percent rate. Half of the increase was removed at the end of last year, when the fiscal picture improved, and the remaining quarter-cent is due to expire June 30.

The Chamber, however, wants to return to the 7 percent rate and make it permanent. The city and county would share the additional revenue, which would amount to about $17.8 million per year, Senior Vice President Kelly Miller told Xpress.

City Council has consistently opposed using sales-tax revenues to fund its infrastructure needs, notably the Civic Center. Council made that position formal in a resolution to the N.C. General Assembly earlier this year.

But Newman sparked controversy with a prepared response that seemed to take some of his Council colleagues by surprise.

Newman first introduced a resolution opposing a sales-tax increase as regressive. The sales tax, he argued, unfairly penalizes low-income people: The less someone makes, the more they spend on sales tax as a percentage of their total earnings. That resolution passed on a 4-3 vote with Bellamy, Davis and Mumpower opposed.

But Newman’s second resolution—the one that caused the most uproar—spelled out a list of specific conditions that would have to be met before the city would support a sales-tax increase.

The list included the following points:
• Groceries would be exempt from the sales tax;
• A per capita formula would be used to divide the revenue, rather than the value-based formula used now (this would increase the city’s share);
• 30 to 40 percent of the additional revenue would be earmarked for programs and services targeting the poor;
• Asheville would also get a 1 percent increase in the hotel-occupancy tax, earmarked for Civic Center renovation;
• The Sullivan Act litigation would be settled out of court.

The last item—which refers to the city’s lawsuit against the state’s passage of legislation forbidding the city to charge customers outside the city limits more for water—created the most fuss, as Newman went on to spell out specific terms for such a settlement:
• Asheville agrees to no differential water rates;
• Asheville agrees to no diversion of water funds for other purposes;
• Buncombe County pays Asheville $4 million to $5 million annually as reimbursement for county services paid for but not used by city residents, such as the Sheriff’s Department.
• Asheville has the authority to make annexation a condition of water service for new developments within one-half to one mile of the city limits, as all other North Carolina cities can do.

Newman’s motion to approve the resolution was seconded by Cape.

But the mayor objected to including specific terms which, she noted, the county had previously rejected.

“It’s the same position we had before,” Newman agreed.

“And it didn’t work!” retorted Bellamy.

Unwilling to endorse the whole list, the mayor wanted to vote on each point separately, but Newman feared that might dilute the resolution so much that he could no longer support it.

Growing ever more frustrated, Bellamy said she was being forced to vote yes or no on something she could support if it weren’t for a few details.

Davis agreed but said he would nonetheless support the resolution. “It is regrettable to have to do this in this manner,” he said. “I don’t want to, but it’s the only way I’m going to get anything at all.”

The resolution passed 5-2 with Bellamy and Mumpower opposed.