The city of Asheville is shifting staff as part of an effort to improve social media and community relations. Asheville Police Department spokesperson Melissa Williams will move into a general community relations role, including overseeing the city’s blog, Facebook and Twitter accounts, while Lt. Wally Welch will take on public information duties at the APD.
The city of Asheville is still warning residents with discolored water not to use it for cooking or drinking. The reddish, dirty color is due to repairs on a broken water main. The city says the number of homes affected is decreasing, but murky water remains in parts of the north, east and west areas of its service.
Figures released to Xpress yesterday by the city of Asheville reveal that the last round of winter storms exacted a toll. The annual snow budget is almost exhausted, and the city may have lost over $11,000 in revenues it would normally receive from parking garages.
Photo by David Forbes
With temperatures warming and most of the roads clear, here’s an update on city parking, transit and facilities.
Photo by David Forbes
While most of the snow around town is cleared, forecasts call for more on the way. Many buses are back, albeit on limited, delayed or reduced routes. Some city facilities are closed, and city parking is still free to the public.
As city of Asheville crews begin to plow secondary roads, bus service resumes on limited routes, Many facilities are closed today or working on reduced hours. The Asheville City Council meeting for today is also canceled.
Photo by David Forbes
On Dec. 31, the recycling location at the Westgate Shopping Center saw its final day.
Photo by Jeff Tallman
To avoid fines, Bernard Carman, a Montford landowner involved in a dispute over city zoning rules that prohibit more than five unrelated tenants from living in his eight-bedroom house, says three tenants are leaving in order to comply with the rules.
Photo by Jonathan Welch
The city of Asheville is launching a new question and answer effort from the public, this time via Facebook, complete with a video introduction.
Two benches at the intersection of Haywood and Walnut streets were reversed last week: They’re now back to back instead of facing each other. A city spokesperson says the step was taken when, after investigating complaints of drug dealing and other criminal acts, the police “found that certain people were using the positioning of the benches to view and discreetly communicate police activity to one another.”
A proposed ordinance that would allow considerably more density — and faster approval — for green, affordable development saw a reversal last week when the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission voted it down 3-2 and recommended a scaled-down version instead. The rules triggered a debate about exactly how Asheville will pursue the oft-touted goal of sustainability.
A “scheduled water interruption” in the South French Broad Avenue area has shut down water to homes, along with the YWCA’s child care center and summer camp. According to YWCA marketing director Ami Worthen, however, the organization received no notice of the interruption beforehand. Shortly after 2 p.m., water returned to the area.
Unless additional funding is received, public-access channel URTV — now known as the WNC Media Center — will cease operation in September of this year, according to a notice sent last week to the city of Asheville and Buncombe County. Both city and county officials claim that URTV is receiving funding as it always has.
The city of Asheville has appointed John P. Smith, a former city manager of Fayetteville, N.C., and North Myrtle Beach, S.C., as interim finance director as the city faces the tricky task of closing its budget gap.
The Asheville Police Department issued a release this morning announcing the first charges in the alleged fraud by several employees of the city of Asheville Human Resources Department. These include the director and assistant director of the department, who the city has no announced “are no longer employed.”
In the midst of an ongoing investigation into possible fraud in the the city of Asheville’s flexible-spending program, Assistant City Manager Jeff Richardson is taking over the Human Resources Department, and will audit the program monthly until it can find a third-party administrator.
Didn’t get to be part of the Downtown Master Plan Advisory Committee? Here’s your chance to sit on the Downtown Master Plan Action Committee.
Firefighter Charles Alexander Diez, facing felony assault charges for allegedly shooting at cyclist Alan Simons‘s head last month, is no longer employed by the city of Asheville. City staff would not reveal whether Diez was fired, or chose to leave his job.
Asheville’s budget for the next fiscal year will come in at around $135 million, Chief Financial Officer Ben Durant predicts. And if City Council approves the budget he’ll propose on May 12, it will be balanced, with revenues equaling expenditures. That’s an accomplishment even in a good year, but all the more so given that […]
Amid the din of arriving and departing buses at Asheville’s Transit Center on Coxe Avenue, Rep. Heath Shuler announced today that he had secured $238,000 in federal funding for the city’s planned transition to hybrid buses.
After months of debate and $170,000 in taxpayer money, the city of Asheville on Thursday unveiled the final version of the Downtown Master Plan, intended to shape the future direction of downtown economically, culturally and architecturally.
