Tom Tesser was one of several commenters from the Asheville Coalition for Public Safety, a recently formed advocacy group that looks to build support for the APD. Five of the nine speakers on budget matters sought larger salaries for police officers and shared their personal experiences of downtown crime and safety issues.
An agreement between Asheville and the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office, approved by City Council in a 4-1 vote Jan. 24, will allow the APD to use a county-operated camera network to monitor the public.
Response times rose from an average of 8.2 minutes for the highest-priority calls in the 12 months before the shift — which had the Asheville Police Department no longer send officers to the scenes of certain minor crimes — to 9 minutes in the 12 months after.
In Asheville and Buncombe County, the return to in-person government meetings has also meant a return to in-person public comment — and the end of live remote comment, despite there being no technological obstacle to continuing the practice. The decision has drawn concern from citizens who say it reduces their ability for civic participation.
