Photo by Max Cooper.
On Nov. 5, Ashevilleans and residents of several other local communities will decide their elected leaders. Here’s a roundup of useful resources and Xpress’ election coverage from this campaign season. Polls will be open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
The Halloween Voter Guide to Asheville City Elections – Complete with caricatures, this guide offers a basic look at the two mayoral and five Asheville City Council candidates.
2013 Children First Voter Guide – This guide, from local nonprofit Children First and co-sponsored by several other local organizations, provides information and policy positions on Asheville and Black Mountain municipal election candidates.
Precinct finder – Don’t know where your polling place is? With Ashevilleans’ tendency to move and the city’s many precincts, it can occasionally be a challenge to find exactly where to cast one’s ballot on Election Day. This useful tool from the North Carolina State Board of Elections informs voters where to go.
Election interviews: Esther Manheimer and John Miall – While the voter guide offers a condensed version of their positions, here are the full interviews with mayoral candidates Manheimer and Miall.
In their own words: Asheville City Council candidates make their case – A roundup of the full interviews with the five Council candidates.
The great divide: Issues of race, justice, opportunity discussed at YWCA election forum – A report on one of the only forums where discussions of race and class issues played a major role.
Video: Shouting match breaks out between Bothwell and Wainscott at candidate forum – The West Asheville Business Association forum got a bit dramatic, to put it mildly, when candidate Jonathan Wainscott shouted at Council member Cecil Bothwell. Wainscott verbally attacked the incumbent for not supporting his plan to bottle city water to make extra revenue and for supporting the coming New Belgium brewery. For good measure, Bothwell called Wainscott a liar, while he told Bothwell that all he had to offer was “sanctimonious bullshit.”
Saving face: Miall apologizes for online rant The Wainscott/Bothwell shouting match wasn’t the only bit of controversy this campaign season. Miall apologized for his “poor choice of words” after letting loose on Sept. 26 with a vitriolic Facebook comment aimed at Council member Gordon Smith (who’s running for re-election), calling him “Gordumb.”
Candidates question each other, development at CIBO forum – At this Council of Independent Business Owners’ forum for Council candidates, one of the last of the season, the candidates got to directly question each other. They also talked about their different approaches to development policy.
Doubleheader: Mayoral candidates tackle forums sponsored by bikes and business – While it took place before the Oct. 5 primary (and so one of the forums involved mayoral candidate Martin Ramsey, who’s no longer on the ballot), this piece on the mayoral candidates holding forth at forums held by CIBO and Asheville on Bikes in the same day shows their positions on a number of issues.
Asheville City Council candidates square off at transit forum – The main part of the campaign season for Asheville City Council opened with the Asheville on Bikes forum, the first time most of the candidates had faced each other in a public setting.
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