Enforcement issues topped the agenda at the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners’ March 20 session. The board tweaked the county’s animal-control ordinance to clarify that owners of seized critters held for more than five days will have to pay a $200 fee or forfeit their animals. The commissioners also approved a restriction on movie booths in adult establishments. Under the new rule, patrons watching porn flicks in private stalls will have to be in full view of a central point within the establishment. “We decided to shamelessly borrow from the city ordinances to prohibit screening of any booth,” joked Assistant County Attorney Michael Frue.
On a different front, the commissioners unanimously approved a new drug-interdiction plan that Sheriff Van Duncan hopes will induce municipalities in the county to provide financial support for the Sheriff’s Department. (Asheville, which has its own Drug Suppression Unit, would not be included in the plan.) Participants in the Buncombe County Anticrime Task Force, or B-CAT, would each contribute $28,423.50 (half the cost of a full-time officer’s salary and benefits) to fund new staff positions.
Under the existing Metropolitan Enforcement Group, there is extensive overlap with both the Asheville Police Department and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Drug Enforcement Task Force, said Duncan. He sees B-CAT supplanting the MEG and focusing on intermediate-level drug dealers in the county and participating municipalities. Besides getting the benefit of investigative resources they can’t afford on their own, those local governments will share in any assets seized during drug busts. “That could be enough to offset their expenditure for officers,” said the sheriff.
He also asked whether the county would be willing to contribute if an odd number of municipalities signed up for the plan. (If three joined, for example, it would fund only one-and-a-half officers.) And if all the participating towns pulled out after the initial two-year commitment, Duncan wanted the Board of Commissioners to commit to underwriting the entire operation.
Keeping Buncombe green
The board tentatively agreed to contribute $575,000 to buy land for the proposed Beaucatcher Overlook Park in Asheville, provided that the city kicked in an equal amount and the county attorney approved the contract. After presenting the plan, Maggie Clancey of the Trust for Public Lands and Asheville resident Scott Riviere raced out of the chamber, approval in hand, to make their pitch to City Council (which also agreed to the deal).
Riviere, who spearheaded private fund-raising efforts along with with Kenilworth resident John Cram, said they’d funneled all donations through the national nonprofit to take advantage of its tax-exempt status. Money raised to fund the park’s development will also go through the trust, he said.
Fairview resident John Ager, chairman of the Agricultural Advisory Board for Farmland Preservation, urged the county to develop a farmland-preservation plan. The voluntary agricultural-district and conservation-easement programs have been very successful, said Ager, though he noted pointedly that the largest nonparticipating farm in the county belongs to Chairman Nathan Ramsey. (Correction: Biltmore Farms is the largest such farm in the county. Ramsey’s is the largest in the Swannanoa Valley.)
Asked about it later, Ramsey told Xpress: “The way we look at it, we’re milking 150 cows and farming 350 acres, so we’re preserving our acreage. The present-use program is our farmland-protection program.”
“Now we’re onto a third possibility,” Ager told the commissioners. “The state has a farm trust fund on the books [that] hasn’t been well-funded, but we believe the state is about to give it substantial amounts of money. … If we have a plan passed, we will get priority and will have reduced by 30 percent the amount of money that must be put up by the county in order to get state money, so it will help us leverage county money.” The next step, he said, is getting input from farmers about how they want to preserve the land, adding that the advisory board hopes to have a proposal ready for consideration by this summer.
Meanwhile, Chairman Charles Smith gave an update on the Environmental Advisory Board created last year. “During our first six months, we spent a good deal of time being educated, looking at best practices regionally and nationally.” After that, he said, the board set the following priorities: storm-water runoff, open space/greenways and steep-slope development.
But even as the group created subcommittees to study those issues, said Smith, “Events overtook us, with storm-water and steep-slope regulations proposed by staff and passed by the Board of Commissioners.” He said his group had been meeting with municipalities that weren’t aware of the state storm-water regulations and with some stakeholders concerning open-space rules.
Speaking for the environmental board’s Steep Slope and Ridge-top Subcommittee, Steve Sloan commended the commissioners for having tackled those development issues but said more needs to be done. “Buncombe County has approximately 217,000 residents,” he observed, “and by 2025 it is estimated we will add 70,000 people. That’s adding another city the size of Asheville.” Steep-slope development, he noted, entails severe health-and-safety concerns, and the county’s future economic health depends on preserving natural beauty.
Calling scenic resources “priceless,” Sloan said: “Tourism dollars decrease directly with damage to mountain views. And improved or maintained mountain views result in an increase of tourist dollars spent.” To achieve this, he said, “We find that a truly comprehensive plan is necessary for steep slopes and ridge tops. We would like to be charged with talking to planning staff and fashioning rules such as a sensitive-area overlay; that’s been done across the country.”
Commissioner David Gantt voiced support for the board’s work but added, “I would like to see you consult with [the Council of Independent Business Owners], the homebuilders and developers about this before we act on it.” Asked why he suggested consultation, Gantt told Xpress, “I wanted to get a balanced position. That board is my baby, and if you look at that board, it is weighted toward environmentalists.”
Other business
The commissioners approved applying for $400,000 in community-development block grants and a zoning change that had been unanimously endorsed by the Limestone Community Council.
The following board appointments were also made: Lou Mongiovi, Mark Morris, Pat Roberts, John Menkes and Norman Riddle (Board of Equalization and Review); Janice Buckner, Eleanor Starnes and Margaret Duckett (Agricultural Advisory Board for Farmland Preservation); and Nancy Schnepp (Tourism Development Authority).
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