Commission member MZ Yehudah cut right to the point at a recent meeting of the Community Reparations Commission. “Are reparations for Black Asheville legally defensible?” The answer, according to city and county attorneys, is complicated.
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Commission member MZ Yehudah cut right to the point at a recent meeting of the Community Reparations Commission. “Are reparations for Black Asheville legally defensible?” The answer, according to city and county attorneys, is complicated.
“Putting the city logo on the park is a small but important symbolic gesture letting people know this is a place where they are welcome and that the city supports and cares for this park.”
“I feel that electric vehicles should be kept within cities as much as practical because they are at their best in urban gridlock and upwind of downtown.”
“The bottom line is that the turnover rate for teachers and the unfilled positions of police officers in Asheville is unacceptable.”
The big question heading into the April 24 meeting of the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority was whether affordable housing projects would qualify for financing from the agency’s new $10 million grant fund. The answer was “not really.”
As a deadline nears for the Community Reparations Commission, pressure mounts for the group to finalize its recommendations for how the City of Asheville and Buncombe County governments can make amends to their Black residents.
“The onslaught started a few months ago, when my partner and I joined the City of Asheville’s composting program. The chore of taking our slop bucket to the East Asheville Library branch has been a revelation — of maggots.”
“The government should be doing all it can to support the commission in crafting recommendations to repair harm from the centuries of damage done by our government and society to Black people.”
At a Community Reparations Commission meeting March 18, the Carter Development Group identified four themes and outlined 10 “high priority” recommendations for actions local governments should take to cease harm to their Black residents.
“Personally, I will miss seeing an open field but understand that infill happens — just make it palatable to those of us who live here.”
“While sitting in traffic jams on Patton Avenue, I often wonder why the city doesn’t try to purchase the old Kmart shopping center at Louisiana Avenue. It has sat there for years, empty.”
“Like much of the nation, Asheville faces a housing affordability crisis. The solution to that crisis for Asheville is to build a lot more housing throughout the entire city, including in my neighborhood.”
“Please, City of Asheville, stand up for the community and support the value added to the lives of West Asheville by the pool and pool house.”
As former Equity and Inclusion Director Brenda Mills reflects on her career as she begins retirement, two accomplishments stand out. One is the positive reception city employees gave a plan to increase racial equity. The other is the Reparations Commission.
The proposed regulations would ban future short-term rentals, both whole-house and rentals within the owner’s primary residence, in unincorporated parts of Buncombe County unless they were located within commercial zones or in an open-use district, among other changes. Existing short-term rentals would not be impacted by the changes.
If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to learn more about local government and how you can help steer the ship, both the City of Asheville and Buncombe County applaud, encourage and welcome your interest.
Inside several specialty shops along the mile-and-a-half stretch from UNC Asheville to Beaver Lake, hawkers of shoes, homebrew equipment, crystals and haircuts continue to sell their wares and services, building community amid the slower traffic, and their opinions — like their specialties — vary widely.
“If you are weary of the high taxes, roads filled with potholes, cracked or absent sidewalks, having a skeleton police force and subpar schools, I hope you will be inspired to run for City Council.”
“City of Asheville, please give our pedestrian crosswalks a new paint job.”
“The City of Asheville should buy the garage and surrounding land, probably for pennies on the dollar if it is not already in bankruptcy court, and build a new Thomas Wolfe complex on the site, a parking garage already built.”
In her first move as facilitator, Vernisha Crawford implemented a more rigid meeting process designed to allow more commission members an opportunity to speak while keeping meetings on schedule, things the 25-member commission had struggled to do at times.