Letter writer: St. Lawrence Green offers line in sand for City Council

Posted on by Letters
Graphic by Lori Deaton

I have been tapped as the Best Local Politician in the Mountain Xpress poll for six years running — ever since I was elected to Council. That’s entirely because I try to vote the interests of those who elected me.

Unfortunately, many elected officials forget they are representatives and imagine they know better than the people who elected them. It often seems to require superhuman efforts to get Council to listen. (Think of the apartments in Kenilworth, which cost neighbors thousands to defeat. Or those on Fairview Road who failed.)

This year’s election offers a chance to change the direction of City Council. St. Lawrence Green offers a line in the sand. City staff is peddling the land opposite the Civic Center for a high-rise development, another high-rise in a forest popping up like toadstools. Some Council candidates offer wishy-washy mumbles suggesting that we can sell the land but still create a public space. The plaza they are proposing is not green and not public — it would be privately owned and controlled.

Brian Haynes, Rich Lee and Keith Young have endorsed preservation of St. Lawrence Green as a public space. That’s one of many reasons I have endorsed them for Council. We need them on City Council, and I could use the help.

— Cecil Bothwell
Asheville

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10 thoughts on “Letter writer: St. Lawrence Green offers line in sand for City Council”

  1. OneWhoKnows

    Rich Lee is NOT a nice person and is yet another progressive power seeker, seeking to RAISE taxes, and CONTROL the citizens.
    Haynes and Young don’t have a CLUE about ANYTHING important!
    Asheville does NOT need another evil progressive trying to DICTATE! WE the PEOPLE are sick and damn tired of the poor
    leadership that AVL suffers now for decades!

    • bsummers

      YOU the PEOPLE, eh?

      Are you THIS angry with THE Republicans in rALEIGH who just raised your taxeS?

      • OneWhoKnows

        YES! republicannots in Rawleigh are a HUGE disappointment! WAY too liberal/progressive!

  2. Alan Ditmore

    A park on St. Lawrence Square, instead of housing, will make rents skyrocket. Bothwell, Lee, Haynes and Young are clearly determined to raise rents and force workers to waste gas on long commutes from Landrum by displacing potential walkable housing with another downtown park.

  3. Lulz

    Let me guess Bothwell, you’ll break out the vacuum truck to suck up the leaves for that area ALONE. LOL, here’s some more of my money for the art museum and the CORPORATE breweries. Please take it all as I don’t need to eat.

    As long as Asheville imports rich people who’ve never has to struggle and this is important, have the time to be involved in politics, the farce continues.

  4. No longer liberal

    Well this makes it easy to know who not to vote for. Spend spend spend. Go away Bothwell, Asheville and its residents can’t afford want snake oil your selling

    • Jaded Local

      Hunt and Mayfield are opposed by both the Bothwell and Mumpower crowd. If they’ve got both extremes against them they must be doing something right.

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