Tomorrow may see that rarest of all creatures come to Asheville: a short City Council meeting, as it begins early (4 p.m.) and has a short agenda, so Council members can meet with Southern Conference Basketball Tournament decision-makers. Before that, Council has to vote on a series of annexations and unveil next year’s budget.
Asheville City Council will, at its meeting tomorrow, grapple with stimulus funds and state legislation. This will also be the first meeting where interested citizens can watch live, via the Internet.
At its meeting tomorrow, Asheville City Council is set to vote on the controversial Larchmont affordable-housing development and on renewing URTV’s agreement for one year. The city’s budget woes are (again) another topic that Council will tackle.
Asheville Chief Financial Officer Ben Durant is resigning to take a job at Elizabeth City State University, meaning the city must now conduct a nationwide search for a new budget point person while it faces a looming $3 to 5-million deficit in the next fiscal year.
City Hall renovations! Budget deficits! Bus system reforms! Public art! Google! Planning commission controversies! All this and more, in the latest live Twitter coverage from Asheville City Council …
Asheville City Council member Cecil Bothwell, citing “failures in the process” of reviewing and appointing candidates to the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission, calls for it to be dissolved and reformed so that recent appointments can be reconsidered.
The Asheville City Council has a full agenda tomorrow, both at the formal meeting and the worksession that precedes it, where Council will discuss the anticipated $5 million deficit the city faces next year and the implementation of domestic-partner benefits.
At a press conference this morning, an interfaith group of more than two dozen local religious leaders issued a “statement of appreciation” backing Asheville City Council’s recent vote in support of establishing same-sex domestic-partner benefits for city employees.
The appointment of Holly Shriner, a housewife with no formal planning background, to the Asheville Planning and Zoning Commission has raised concerns about her qualifications.
Asheville is facing a $1 million shortfall this year. Mostly due to sales-tax decline. Projections for next year’s city budget show a $5.1 million deficit. Mayor Bellamy says the city needs to plan how to replenish savings and asks, “We need to ask how low is too low.”
On the agenda for Asheville City Council’s Tuesday, Feb. 23, meeting are a financial report that brings grim tidings and the beginning steps to a series of annexations near Airport Road.
Mayor Terry Bellamy, along with City Manager Gary Jackson, appeared on the Conversations radio show on WCQS last night. Bellamy defended her controversial vote against same-sex domestic-partnership benefits and said that the issue was a way for Council member Gordon Smith to boost his own chances at a future mayoral run.
Better health care, getting Google and taking tourism to “the viral world” were all topics of discussion at a meeting today between the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce and city officials.
Early this morning, in the food court of the Biltmore Square mall, members of the Council of Independent Business Owners gathered to hear elected officials from Buncombe County and the city of Asheville summarize their situations and goals.
In the aftermath of last night’s Council vote to support same-sex domestic-partner benefits for city employees, four local Baptist ministers held a press conference today to voice their displeasure, while saying they still welcome homosexuals into their congregations
Asheville City Council member Cecil Bothwell proposes a sweeping civil-liberties resolution that would include clauses against racial profiling, surveillance of political advocacy groups and helping federal officials in immigration enforcement.
Council looks at restructuring the Housing Trust Fund, URTV and its own invocations.
Council had a full agenda, including a request by Mission Hospitals to add a five-story outpatient facility, consideration of an innovative plan to help citizens make Asheville more energy independent, a plea to run drinking-water lines to homes near the former CTS plant, and a request to amend the Glen Rock conditional use permit.
Stream buffers and design review kick off Council’s new year
While Asheville City Council meets in retreat to discuss its procedures and goals for the coming year, new Council member Cecil Bothwell has announced 11 goals he’ll pursue in 2010, ranging from the sweeping (decriminalizing drugs, ceasing immigration enforcement) to the local (ceasing to build downtown parking spaces, simplifying the city’s development ordinance).
Asheville City Council began its annual planning process Friday afternoon with a stark assessment from the city’s top management: The recession has exposed “structural weaknesses in the city’s financial foundation” that will require a long-term City Council strategy to repair.
