Letter: Vote Kapoor for neighborhood involvement

Graphic by Lori Deaton

South Asheville activist Vijay Kapoor has signed into the race for Asheville’s City Council. An attorney who also has degrees in economics and public policy studies, Kapoor heads a firm that consults on governmental and public-sector workforce issues for both large and small governments. If elected, he would advocate for greater involvement of neighborhood representatives in the City Council’s planning and decision-making.

Vijay was born in Chicago, the son of an Indian father and a Polish mother. He grew up in Asheville and now lives with his wife and children in the Ballantree community on Sweeten Creek Road.

I urge readers to vote for Vijay Kapoor for Asheville City Council in the [primary] election if you agree with me that “We need policies that permit rational and responsible development, but preserve what makes this area special.”

— Paula I. Robbins
Asheville

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17 thoughts on “Letter: Vote Kapoor for neighborhood involvement

  1. Deplorable Infidel

    Be sure and ask EVERY candidate if they will absolutely work to make the AVL Housing Authority ACCOUNTABLE to citizen taxpayers ! Tell them we need all new MANAGEMENT at the Housing Authority with resignations from Gene Bell and David Nash! Pin them on this issue NOW!

    • NFB

      Evidently you missed the filing deadline, but there is still time to start a write in campaign!

  2. luther blissett

    I’ve been largely impressed by Vijay Kapoor’s contributions since announcing his candidacy, but the recent controversy over a housing development on Overlook Road — on a parcel of county land with city land on either side — raised a few questions. Perhaps the reporting was deceptive here, but it implied that Mr Kapoor was as worried about it slowing down his school run from Ballantree as the impact on local residents.

    South Asheville’s issues aren’t unique to the city, but they show up more often than elsewhere by virtue of the map: how do you approach development that crosses the city limits and creates zoning anomalies? How do you coordinate services fairly with the current division of responsibilities between city and county, along with the legislative shackles on annexation? Since Mr Kapoor has direct professional experience in this field, I’d like to hear him talk about those places where the city meets the unincorporated county, because the issues around “the city that’s not in the city” are not going away any time soon.

    • luther blissett

      And in case it needs underlining: everyone running this year needs a well thought out answer to this question, not just Mr Kapoor.

      • Lulz

        And not one will answer the question that makes the most sense. Combine city and county governments. But that would mean job losses as they’re nothing more than welfare with fat bonuses.

        • bsummers

          Yes, yes. We’re familiar with the warm tinglies some get when they contemplate the abolishment of the City of Asheville. Unfortunately, it’s in the same category as my fantasy of that starting position with the Chicago Bulls: Ain’t Gonna Happen.

          • luther blissett

            Most people who cheer on the idea of consolidation seem to think of it in terms of bringing down certain city services to the level of the county: opt-in trash pickup in Montford; Mountain Mobility vans instead of buses for West Asheville; wait your turn for the roads to be cleared on icy mornings. There’s another model that raises up county services for people in Candler and Arden and Reynolds, but that doesn’t get mentioned much.

            Consolidation would at least bring Biltmore Forest’s property tax base into the combined municipality. Might want to ask people in Woodfin and Weaverville and Montreat and Black Mountain, too. It would, alas, mean that the very rural bits of the county would still likely subsidize services they don’t use very often. And does “welfare with fat bonuses” include any inefficient overlaps between the sheriff’s department and APD? So many interesting questions.

            So, back to annexation for those “in the city / not the city” places. A creative approach might be to give voluntarily annexed communities a transitional property tax break that phases in the city portion over time. After all, property tax breaks are routinely offered to corporations. But that’s probably “Ain’t Gonna Happen” as well.

        • NFB

          Or, perhaps, completely separate city and county completely. But that will never happen and if it did it would not last long once people in the county outside Asheville try to run the county for a short period without all the money city residents put into the tax coffers.

          • luther blissett

            The county libraries won’t turn you away if you want better reading material.

      • Deplorable Infidel

        course, we already know to steer clear of the nasty ELITIST Rich Lee , who hates veterans …

      • Deplorable Infidel

        Yes, good question…and a great question to ask ALL candidates is ‘Will you work diligently to bring the Asheville Housing Authority under CITY oversight and management?’ ‘Do you support the demands for resignations from the two Housing Authority overpaid executives, Gene Bell and David Nash whose incompetence can no longer be tolerated in Asheville?’ WHAT will you do about it in particular ?

        Ask them all!

  3. Jackson Tierney

    I’ve heard Vijay speak on several occasions and found him to be thoughtful, level headed and not afraid to take a stance. I came away feeling he has the backs of neighborhoods and he is not beholden to developers.

    BTW, the primary is October 10, not September 12.

    • Tracy Rose

      Thank you for catching that error, Jackson. We had fixed it in the print edition before publication, but it had slipped through the online version. The letter is now updated.

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