City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Asheville City Council meeting.

If you could just take a moment to silence your cell phones. And please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay, I'm going to read our decorum statement and then we will begin. Members of the public attending council meetings or addressing the council shall abide by the following rules. Everyone shall follow the instructions of the mayor or any other presiding officer or official and shall refrain from impeding or interrupting the conduct of business. This shall include but not be limited to clapping, yelling, or other audio expressions of approval or disapproval of comments made during the meeting. Persons addressing the council are expected to observe the decorum of the chamber, to be respectful of the council and the public, to refrain from the use of profanity or foul language, to refrain from personal attacks and commentary on candidates for political office, and to refrain from making disclosures prohibited by the Personnel Privacy Act with respect to any city employee. Failure to abide by these rules may subject you to removal from the council chamber. All right, thank you. We have one proclamation this evening. And if anyone here is in attendance for that, it is National Gun Violence Awareness Month. And if you'll meet me down by the lectern. Welcome, Sheriff.

And our Chief.

Do you have a cowboy hat, too? I'll read the proclamation if there's anyone who wants to say a few words, please. Whereas gun violence continues to affect families, neighborhoods, schools, businesses, first responders, and communities across the United States, causing loss of life, serious injury, trauma, fear, and long-term harm. And whereas in 2024, approximately 44,000 people in the United States died from gun-related injuries, including firearm homicides and firearm suicides. And whereas during 2024 and 2025, the city of Asheville experienced an annual average of seven firearm-related homicides, 100 aggravated assaults involving a firearm, and 456 gun discharge calls for service. And whereas the City of Asheville remains committed to supporting Buncombe County's community-based public health response to violence, a strategic community-led initiative aimed at reducing gun violence and systemic inequities in Asheville and Buncombe County, offering support for violence prevention professionals, youth leadership development, and building a multi-sectoral coalition to prevent and respond to community violence. Whereas the City of Asheville recognizes that reducing gun violence requires a coordinated and evidence-informed approach that includes prevention, responsible firearm ownership, safe storage, trauma-informed support, youth engagement, community partnerships, focused enforcement, data analysis, and services that address the conditions that can lead to violence. And whereas Asheville's public safety agencies, community partners, service providers, schools Businesses, faith communities, neighborhood leaders, and residents all play an important role in preventing violence, supporting survivors, and building a safer community. And whereas National Gun Violence Awareness Day began in honor of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old student from Chicago who was shot and killed in January 2013 and whose friends wore orange in her memory because orange is the color hunters wear to protect human life. And whereas on June 5th, 2026, communities across the United States recognized National Gun Violence Awareness Day, followed by Wear Orange Weekend from June 5th through June 7th to honor victims and survivors of gun violence and to renew the shared commitment to preventing future harms. And now, therefore, I, Esther Manheimer, Mayor of the City of Asheville, do hereby proclaim June as National Gun Violence Awareness Month in Asheville and encourage all residents to honor the lives affected by gun violence, support prevention efforts, promote safe and responsible firearm practices, and work together to build a community where every life is valued and every person can live free from the fear of gun violence.

I'll take just a second, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Manager Wesley. Council members, thank you so much for taking a moment to recognize such an important proclamation. While this may have happened in another city, as you heard, it resonates here with us locally. You may not know, but Eric Lordman would be celebrating his 28th birthday tomorrow. Instead, he lost his life to gun violence in March this year. So our sincerest condolences go out to his family, all victims of gun violence. And APD remains committed to any gun violence, but we can't do this alone. That's why we've got so many integral partners that play such a key role in helping us reduce and hopefully eliminate gun violence in our community. Thank you all for taking the time to be here tonight. And I'll give the mic to anybody else if they'd like to say a few words.

Good evening, councilwomen, councilmen, DK, all you guys. I want to thank you guys for this proclamation. One, I want to echo the sentiments, the words that the chief said, but to be able to recognize what's happening in our community and to put action behind it, I want to thank each and every one of you, not only for believing in the chief of police and the police department, the sheriff department, but for us who are working to help, you know, alongside of those guys, build up those efforts. So again, just elated. I want to thank the partnership from the county with Hannah and Will, Jackie Latek, Libby Cowles, who's not here, for the work that we've done and continue to do this work, protecting our youth, our young people, and trying to prevent violence from happening in this community. So again, I want to thank you for that. My name is Kenan Lake, and I am with My Daddy Taught Me That.

Amen.

Okay, Council, next we have our consent agenda. Do we have questions, comments, or a motion? So moved.

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. We don't have anyone signed up to speak under consent, so all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, thank you. The ayes have it, seven to zero. I'll try to remember to keep announcing that.

All right, we have, Mayor, before we move on, I just want to lift up a community event that is happening this Saturday, 9 a.m. to 12, the Asheville Street Dog Coalition, which provides veterinary care for local animals who belong to some of our more transient and unhoused folks. is going to be set up at the ABCCM Crisis Ministry. So if you will spread the word, 9 to 12, and there's also volunteer opportunities as well. Thank you.

While we're doing announcements, Trans Pride is coming up June 13th. You can get more information at bluerichpride.org. Happy Pride. Happy Pride.

Okay, all right. We're going to hear one presentation tonight. I'm going to turn it over to the city manager, and this is a report regarding our quarterly Helene recovery update.

Thank you, Mayor. We have Bridget Herron here who's going to give us our quarterly update on Helene recovery.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of council. My name is Bridget Herron, and I'm the recovery coordinator with the city of Asheville. here today to provide kind of a high level overview of where we are in our recovery from Tropical Storm Helene. So just as a reminder, these are the main funding sources that fund our recovery work. This evening I'm gonna be touching on just a few highlights from the federal funding sources, which are the three listed underneath the grants. So starting out with the FEMA Public Assistance Program, which is mainly to repair our damages, We had 135 damages that we bundled into 50 projects. And if you look at the circle graphic, And you think about it kind of like a clock. So the orange section is the beginning stages of developing a project through this grant program. And that's where we're going back and forth with FEMA to talk about scope, cost, what we're going to do with it. And so about a third of our portfolio is working through that process. Then you move into the gray section. This is like the next third of our portfolio, which is where FEMA is reviewing that, whether that's insurance review, mitigation, environmental review, something of that nature before we can get to work. The green sliver in there is when it goes to headquarters and to the Department of Homeland Security for approval. Happy to report that since the posting of this presentation, they've actually approved the funding in there, so we can move that 4.2 into the blue section. And blue is the term of obligated, which means the funds are available for us to be reimbursed once we have all the documentation in place to be able to request that. And how that works is it goes from FEMA to the state North Carolina Emergency Management, and they're actually the ones that we request direct reimbursement from. So to date, we've been reimbursed over $34 million, and that represents a little over half of the expenses we've paid so far in the recovery process through public assistance specifically. And I'll say that we have seen quite an increase in the approval rating time since FEMA has reopened since the shutdown and when I gave the last quarterly report.

A question on this. This is very helpful, and thank you for communicating this way. It's something on my mind a lot. I was in DC a couple weeks ago talking about that gray section saying, What can you do to expedite getting these funds back? My question, so we're at 54%, but are we still incurring new expenses in PA?

Every day.

So it's a moving target, right? Correct.

Right. So hopefully at the next quarterly update, I'll be able to say that all the costs we incurred during the response period will be reimbursed. Oh, wow. Like we're really close to that, but not quite ready to say that today. Okay. So yes, that's all the costs that we incurred from the moment the storm happened and we started responding to today and that'll continue to increase as we move more projects through into construction. Thanks. So the next program is the hazard mitigation grant program and as you might remember it has two parts So the first part of this program is an infrastructure for public Publicly owned spaces and so the city has submitted over 400 million And grant applications through this program it goes through North Carolina emergency management they're actually the applicant we're a sub applicant as part of that process and So three of those have been submitted to FEMA. That's the bulk of the dollar figure, right? So that's over $300 million. And then we have six applications that are still under review that aren't on FEMA's desk yet.

So the top three have already passed through NC Emergency Management.

Correct. And the three are listed.

And one thing to note... So that top one is the water filtration system for North Fork. So that's a really big deal, and I think that's about 150?

That one's over 260 because it's two parts. It has the permanent filtration system at the North Fork Reservoir as well as the alternate pipeline project that doesn't follow the riverbed.

And we also need a water filtration system for Bee Tree, but that is being pursued under public assistance. Correct. Okay.

So then the other side of this program is for private property owners, where they can apply to be acquired, to elevate their property, to do slope stabilization. This has been quite a slow process, as you've all seen the news coverage, but we have seen an increase in how quickly FEMA is starting to approve those properties, which is great news. And the North Carolina Emergency Management is working really hard to be responsive to that. So they're really prioritizing how do we get checks in people's hands who want to participate in this program. So as a reminder, after FEMA approves it, the state starts to go through an appraisal process of the pre-storm market value of that property, and they're able then to make an offer to the homeowner. At that point, they can opt out if they want to, or they can stay in if they choose to stay in, and that's about a 90-day process. They choose to stay in, then the state goes to demo that property and put it into deed restriction before handing it over to the city or county, whatever jurisdiction it lies in. And so we've increased the amount of acquisitions that have been approved to 26. And again, those addresses remain confidential until we're confirmed that the city's gonna take ownership over those. And so we'll continue to keep you updated as we get through that process. But really exciting to finally see some traction and finally see some homeowners being able to be made whole. So moving on, just one quick hit on the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Fund. As you all probably saw, the Small Business Support Program has been activated. It's very exciting. There's two elements to this. Asheville Recovers Together, Optimist, Vensors, Disaster Recovery Accelerator. On Thursday, there's an information session from 930 to 11 at YMI, so business owners can come there, ask questions, get technical assistance, learn more about the opportunity. Applications open June 15th. I believe they close July 14th, but that doesn't mean you have to wait until then to begin the process because the application's online. There's a lot of documentation for federal funds, and so it's a good idea to go on there and start to gather that documentation.

I have a question about this one. I was hearing from some business owners, they were under the impression that, let's say that they had their business paperwork up and running, but the storefront wasn't open yet. that they might also be eligible for recovery funds because their business was operating but not open. And now they're hearing that's not the case. Can you confirm where we're at with that status?

Operating but not open.

Well, I guess operating might be the wrong word. They were in business, but their business, the door wasn't open yet. So they might have opened shortly after Helene, but they had been setting up their business.

but registered within the city of Asheville. So I think...

It looks like someone jumped into action.

Just jumped up on the thing, everyone.

Why else would we make you guys sit through these meetings? Thank you. There's an eligibility requirement that $20,000 in revenue must have been accumulated by a business for them to be eligible, and that can be achieved in the years 2023, 24, or 25. So if they were all ready and set to open, but didn't open yet, you know, didn't open their storefront yet, that requirement can be met in 2025 as well.

And that's been clarified with... 20,000. If they put 20,000 into implementing their business... In revenue.

It's in revenue. So if they collected revenue of $20,000 in 23, 24, or 25, then they would be eligible. And there were some business... organizations that mentioned that and we clarified that to them in the last week. And so I think that may have been addressed.

It may have. I think they're looking for where they would point to find that information or to share it.

The Asheville Recovers Together frequently asked questions website is updated weekly. And since we received that question, that's being clarified on there to make it as clear as we can. Thank you so much.

Can we introduce yourself and say your title?

Oh, sure. My name is Elma King. I'm the CDBGDR program manager.

Thanks, so you said a business owner must have had revenue of $25,000 in 23, 24, or 25. Is that cumulative over those three years or in one year?

In one year. In one year, at least $20,000 in revenue. Okay, okay, thank you. And that 2025 applicability is assisting those businesses that have yet to open their doors. Okay.

Is there a requirement for number of employees?

I cannot recall the employee requirement.

James is shaking his head now. That's great, because I do know in some of the earlier grants, you had to have two or more employees, and there were a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of people like myself who just make their own way, and that's their Asheville method. So that's great to know.

Thank you.

Great, so moving on, these are just some upcoming opportunities for our community to provide input on how our recovery is going or our recovery boards. So as you know, later tonight, there's a public comment hearing on a substantial amendment to move funds from the multifamily housing program and infrastructure program into the single family home repair. So people can have an opportunity to speak tonight. If they're not able to do that, you can submit written public comments up until June 14th. So the information is here. That was discussed at the Housing Recovery Board earlier this month and will be discussed by the Infrastructure Recovery Board on June 23rd. Also, we have the next round of planning projects through the CDBG-DR program that will be heard by people and environment, and the unified concept from the French Broad River Parks that's gonna be here jointly between people and environment and infrastructure on June 23rd. So some great opportunities to get some progress updates, hear some input from our community members. And then just to close on some accomplishments that we've experienced over the past quarter. Mayor mentioned this earlier, but we have received a positive eligibility determination on the permanent pretreatment system at the Bee Tree. treatment plant, also known as DeBruyl. So that's excellent news. We're very excited about that. Again, as we also mentioned, the North Fork Resilience Project that has pre-treatment alternate transmission has been submitted to FEMA. We really appreciate the state support and really getting that across the finish line. They have quite a load of applications, so appreciate that they prioritized our number one priority. We saw our first home repaired through Renew NC, and then you all took action at your last meeting to award over $8 million in multifamily housing. That will add over 200 affordable units. So just a snapshot in time of what we've done over the quarter to really see some action. So excited for this update and here for any questions.

Great work.

That's very exciting. I know there have been some folks who are wondering about the Renuency Program rebuilding. This is the first time in the city limits. They've done other homes outside the city limits throughout Western North Carolina, but this may sound surprising, but compared to the operation of this in past storm events on the East Coast, it's much faster. than it has historically been. So I know it seems frustratingly slow, but it's actually doing much better than it has historically. James is getting ready for the next item. So, manager? Hand the report. We're done with the, okay. So we're gonna move on to public hearings. We have one public hearing tonight. And that is a public hearing to consider a substantial amendment to the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Action Plan to reallocate $19.2 million to the single-family home repair program for a $22.2 million program total, reducing the multifamily new construction program total to $18.8 million and the infrastructure program to a total of $115 million. And James Shelton is here to present to us this item. And just so everyone knows, this is our opportunity after this presentation to hear public comment, but we're not voting on this tonight. We'll be voting on this at our next meeting.

Thank you very much, Madam Mayor, City Council Members, City Manager. I'm James Shelton, the Community Development Division Manager for the City of Asheville. This is, as the Mayor mentioned, a public hearing to consider a substantial amendment to our CDBG-DR allocation plan, or CDBG-DR action plan. Back in April last year, when we were here with Council to get your approval of that action plan, one of the first things I said was, this will not be the last time you approve this action plan. We will be back, and we will be back to change things as information changes, as we learn new things, and as our program needs to adapt to our changing recovery. So I'm happy to bring this proposal to you tonight. Again, no action is requested of council tonight. We are excited to hear from you. We are excited to hear from our community on this recommendation. So our action plan originally allocated $3 million to the single family rehabilitation and reconstruction program and $28 million to the affordable multifamily housing construction program. The total cost of the single family program is estimated to be between 30 and $40 million. That's to repair and replace Asheville homeowners who were damaged during Hurricane Helene, who are qualified under this program as being low to moderate income. Staff are proposing a substantial amendment to the action plan, reallocating $19.2 million to the single family program. Now, not all of that is from multifamily. We have been able to identify some other opportunities for funding this for a new total of $22.2 million to the single family program. The Housing Recovery Board was asked to review this last week. So that last bullet is for the Housing Recovery Board presentation that we had last week. So let's talk a little bit about the single family rehab and reconstruction program. So this is a centralized housing rehab, reconstruction and replacement program that prioritizes low to moderate income residents, particularly those households that have a elderly person in the home, seniors age 62 or older, children or disabled household members who were impacted by Hurricane Helene. This includes single-family and manufactured homes. The house must be their primary residence, so this can't be a rental house. It can't be someone's vacation home. Eligible homeowners who are awarded the grant are expected to remain in their home for three years via an unsecured forgivable promissory note. And again, our program prioritizes deeper affordability here at the City of Asheville's program. This program has eligibility all the way up to 120% AMI across the entire Western North Carolina area. But thanks to Housing Recovery Board feedback and community input, we have targeted this program to be strictly at this point for households who are 60% AMI or less and have that one of three qualifying populations in there. So that's elderly, disabled, or children in the home. The program established a rehabilitation threshold of $100,000 of estimated repairs. What that means is if a property's costs of repair are greater than $100,000, then it's immediately re-categorized to full reconstruction. So it's like for like. So if it's a stick-built single-family home, you get a stick-built single-family home rebuilt. If it's a manufactured home, you get a manufactured home. Could I have this available for me? Thank you. The cost to meet CDBGDR home repair requirements include disaster related repairs. I wasn't able to add this into my I'm so sorry, I don't have that clear. But it includes disaster-related repairs, cost-to-repair-replace non-co-compliant issues, cost-to-repair-replace identified health and safety issues, as well as mitigation against future disasters. I'm sorry that's not clear, but what I did get from Renew NC was just a sample repair estimate from one of the homes in Asheville, just to get kind of an idea of like... what might be some of the things that are causing it to cross that $100,000 threshold. Some of the highest cost areas for this sample home was in painting, roofing, general demolition of tearing down what was damaged in the storm and rebuilding it, siding, HVAC, and framing and rough carpentry to actually reframe the damaged portion of the home. And just a quick note, this home was almost 100 years old. So where you're seeing painting, this is likely lead-based paint abatement that is required under federal programs. If you start doing this type of work on a home that was damaged in the storm, you're going to have to deal with any potential lead problems. So that's why you're probably seeing a paint high cost there. I just wanted to bring this to you guys. We've had some questions from the community as well as from the Housing Recovery Board about, well, why are some of the costs so high? Why is it crossing that $100,000 threshold? This is just one example. I don't have the address on here because there's PII involved with our program, so I'm not giving you which specific address this is. But this is a real example of a home, and I'd be happy to provide this to you guys after the meeting tonight and include this in our materials too. But this does add up. to 117,897. So this is before you're considering the cost of the actual rebuild. A program inspector goes in and says, what's the damage? What are the costs of non code compliant issues here? What are the identified health and safety issues? They give a cost estimate and that breaks it down to $117,000. That inspection report goes to the program where they assign a general contractor who goes and verifies separately the damage and the estimate. And they say, yep, I can verify that. Actually, let's adjust it a little bit. This is what my workup would look like. And then they get an authorization to proceed. Just want to lay out that that's kind of the process.

So it's two different.

Correct. So we had a lot of questions on why are some of these things coming in so expensive? And yes, it is expensive to repaint an entire home to do levy. Yes, ma'am.

But in this case, over the $100,000, it would mean that that house is entirely demolished and rebuilt? Yes.

Yeah, and I know we've had questions about could this be done cheaper if not done through Renew NC, but looking at those prices, some of those are actually pretty affordable. We're looking at my mother-in-law's house was flooded, not to do with Helene, but just a freak accident, and we're getting quotes right now, and these are good prices. So I've been asking some of the community advocates, like, tell me where you see you could strike a better deal.

I think the trouble is that since it's over the 100,000 threshold, these repairs will not be done. Instead, the house will be demolished and rebuilt in completion.

Mm-hmm.

And therefore, could a smaller program outside the Renew NC have done it differently? And the answer is yes. But once we're in on the program, we're in on the program.

Well, I think one thing to remember, though, and James was probably about to point this out, is that even if Renew NC doesn't administer, which is the state administering this program, and we were to stand up a separate administration, it still has to follow the HUD guidelines. And so we're still going to be restricted likewise. It's not like we can just say, do however we want. We still have to do lead abatement. We still have to do all the things that HUD would require of a project.

With the DR money, yes. Would we still have the $100,000 cap? Yes.

Well, no. The state set the cap. You can set your cap differently, but you still have to abide by these rules. And so when I've talked to the state director, Stephanie McGarrah, who leads the Renew NC program, This formula they've come up with is based on a lot of experience in working with other homes under these HUD guidelines. And what they have figured out is that once they hit that $100,000 mark, it ends up being so much work to comply with the HUD requirements that they have found that replacing the home is the most sensible thing to do. And that's how they came up with this threshold. So I don't know that we could reinvent the wheel in some fantastically better way knowing that we have to comply with these HUD guidelines and we need to address the situation these folks are in with damaged homes.

I didn't realize that we could have set a different threshold.

There's also an issue with mold. I'm seeing a lot of tree failures, and once you have the whole structure broken into, the issues spread. It's beyond where the damage was originally.

And one thing you do achieve by setting that threshold is a level of efficiency and speed. If you have general contractors that you go under contract with, like the state has to do hundreds of home rebuilds across our whole area, they're able to come in and do those rebuilds much quicker than you would have to do to find a paint contractor, a framer, HVAC company. All these contractors, the GCs can come in and do these builds. Mayor, I forget how quickly it was from that first build from when they went under agreement to actually having the keys to their house. It was within just a couple of months. So you're not dealing with contractors scheduling and coming into your house in and out. You're actually just getting the full rebuild. They can do it pretty quickly.

Yeah, they did emphasize to me that that is a priority for them, speed, and that, yeah, as you pointed out, that's part of the factor.

I know I'm taking up a lot of time. Maggie, I'm going to try to cruise if I can. So the maximum reconstruction award per house is $450,000. We're seeing about a $360,000 average to rebuild, which is what our program is focusing on. It's those reconstructions, everything that comes in over $100,000 that triggers above to the rebuild. Those are unlikely to be alleviated by other programs or funding sources. Temporary relocation assistance may be available to support families while their homes are being rebuilt. This is a new thing that the state is offering thanks to community input. So we really appreciate the feedback that the state has received from everyone on that. And in the end, homeowners receive a decent, safe, and resilient replacement home. This is our current application status as of May 28th. So the majority of the applications or most of the applications that have come in are hitting that phase one priority one. So again, that's zero to 60% AMI and having a child, elderly, or a disabled person in the home. That is our focus is on that population. Those are likely our most vulnerable households in the community who have likely no other resource to be able to recover. And that's where our focus is. The current $3 million allocation to this program from the city will likely serve up to eight households. Many applications are hitting that reconstruction thresholds and have a cost of about $360,000. We've authorized seven at this point, and one project was completed in April, and another is under active construction right now. So our proposed reallocation to this program is, number one, to move $9.2 million from the affordable multifamily construction program. That would leave that program with a new total of $18,800,000 from its current total of $28 million. That $18,800,000 is currently allocated as follows. A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO, THIS COUNCIL AUTHORIZED AWARDS TO TWO APPLICANTS UNDER OUR MULTI-FAMILY NOTICE OF FUNDING OPPORTUNITY, ONE TO DISTRICT EAST COMMONS AND THE OTHER TO 319 BILTMORE. 9,505,000 REMAINED UNAWARDED AND IT REMAINS UNAWARDED AS OF RIGHT NOW. HOWEVER, I THINK THERE IS A CONSIDERATION OF POTENTIALLY AMENDING THAT FROM LAST WEEK, WHICH THAT'S NOT FOR THIS PUBLIC HEARING, THAT'S FOR FUTURE CONSIDERATION. AND THEN $910,000 FOR ACTIVITY DELIVERY COSTS. Thanks to our continued engagement and input from our community and the Housing Recovery Board, beginning back in December, we, back in December, recommended $17 million to come from the multifamily program. And we said, wait a minute, that's maybe too much to come from multifamily. We were able to identify $10 million in design costs for the North Fork Reservoir project that are likely to be reimbursed first through HMGP. So that is from our infrastructure program, which is currently at $125 million. We're proposing moving 10 million from that to a new total of 115 million for the infrastructure program. This would lead to a total reallocation of 19.2 million with a total REAP program allocation of 22.2 to the single family repair and replacement program. This will serve an estimated 53 additional households with a continued focus on the less than 60% AMI, demographic, the elderly, disabled, or children in the home, and a continued focus on reconstructions to allow other programs to potentially deal with the repairs that might cost less than that. Again, we had originally recommended 17 million, but since then we've gathered data and considered alternative options, and this is where we have arrived to today. So also in April, our Housing Recovery Board gave us some feedback regarding any reallocation. What we heard was that multifamily maximizes investment per household, and it's a long-term affordability with 35-year deed restrictions through gap financing and tax credit layering. Single family as well offers residents directly impacted by the disaster support. It preserves generational wealth, prevents displacement of these residents in existing neighborhoods. But we also acknowledge the tensions between these two programs and the need to rebalance the portfolio in a fair and balanced way to ensure meaningful impact across both housing types. So just to show it to you in a chart, this is our current funding allocation, $31 million to the housing program, 125 million in infrastructure, with three million sitting specifically there at the single family program. What we're proposing is moving 9.2 from multifamily, leaving 18.8 there, and 10 million from infrastructure, leaving 115 there, for a total of 22.2 to the single family program. And that will serve an estimated total of 60 households. 100% of them are less than 60% AMI. With the multifamily program, we estimate that that will serve an estimated 400 households, and about 80% of those will be less than 60% AMI based on the income distribution of our affordable units and those projects that we expect. So what's our process? Right now we're having a public hearing. We published a draft amendment on May 15th, and that began our public comment period. So we've been receiving public comment online via email at our Housing Recovery Board meeting last week and public comment there. Tonight we'll hear public comment from our community, and then the public comment period will end next week on June 14th. I'll bring up a slide in just a moment how you can submit public comment after today. We'll also be back with the Infrastructure Recovery Board because this does touch on our infrastructure program. We wanna have their input as well on June 23rd, and then we'll be back to council for a final consideration on the 23rd too. With council's approval, we'll then submit the amendment to HUD for their review and approval. Once HUD approves, then we can go forward with amending any contracts if it is approved. So again, our public comment period is open right now. Our amended action, our draft action plan is available online, but you can come by our office at 70 Court Plaza here at City Hall to get a copy of it. You can submit comment during today's public hearing. You can submit written comments and questions by 5 p.m. June 14th to CDBG-DR at AshevilleNC.gov or via our public input page. We'll also be at the Infrastructure and People and Environment Recovery Board meeting on June 23rd and then a council vote on June 23rd as well. Again, just proposing a $19.2 million reallocation to single family. This is our key takeaways. $3 million is what's currently there. We would wind up with 22.2 total. With that, I'd be happy to take any questions from council before we open public hearing.

Do we know how many multifamily units were lost as a result of Helene?

I'm sure the royal we might know. I do not personally know. I'm not trying to be smart. I don't know the answer to that question.

So when you get back to that, can you also figure out how many we've added since or approved since? Multifamily. Multifamily, please.

How many council has approved or how many in general in the market have come in?

Give me both.

There's a little nuance in there, too. I know of a particular apartment complex that has just reopened. I'm assuming they would be on the damaged but now active list.

Because I'm trying to figure out when we get to the mark of we were where we were the day before the storm. In terms of the number? In terms of the number. Right.

I'd be curious, too. I have a lingering concern about what is, I guess, being listed as unallocated or unawarded. Any monies that are out there unawarded or uncertain, I think, should be moved to the single-family program to help achieve as much of those household restorations as we can.

You know, I don't disagree with you, Sage. I will say, you know, the application deadline was January 31, 2026 for this program. and about 285 folks applied only 110 or so of those were even eligible under the program guidelines and the state has not finished evaluating all those applications they will not be done until the end of september at the earliest so i think we don't want to get ahead of ourselves and allocate their total projected numbers already come down. Right now it's hovering at around 32 million down from a high of 38 million. So I would be hesitant to allocate more. This will more than fund what's already in the pipeline that's been approved. so we won't be leaving anyone out there hanging, so to speak. And this will give us some time to see how that review of all those applications shakes out and what the total really is. And then also for us to kind of think about this because You know, the state had 7,000 applications, over 7,000 applications in their Renew and See program, single-family home repair. Of those, about half are even eligible. They're working through their applications, about 1,500 of them, and I think you asked this question, are that P1, P1, what is it?

Phase 1, Priority 1.

Phase 1, Priority 1. And they don't have enough money to fully fund their single-family home repair program, but they are also funding some multifamily housing. So trying to thread that needle and provide a mix. So we may be similarly situated when this all shakes out, but it's still pretty fluid.

That seems to point to... where we started, with over a billion dollars in damage to the infrastructure, housing, and economy, only 225 million was never enough, so we need more.

Yeah, yes, and that's why we keep asking Congress for more. The governor was back up there again this, I think last week, asking for additional funding, so the ask does not go away. In the meantime, we still have, we're still at a situation where we're not

spending all the money we're receiving yet but we will get there to your point mayor i guess i would just feel more comfortable if we were overestimating the single family repair and able to reallocate it to building apartments as opposed to building apartments and falling short on the single family i think um

We do have public comment, too, on this. So just if there are. OK. Yeah. I still would like to. Go ahead. Go ahead. Any questions, too, before we go to public comment?

I'm finding this to be very complex. I think that it makes sense that we were going as quickly as we could early on so that we could get our HUD funding approved and that, as James has said, even this will not be the last time we revise this. This is just the nature of recovery. What the North Star for me is when thinking about this is if you're out there and you were flooded or you had a tree through your roof, whether that was a single family home or an apartment building, I want you to be taken care of. That's my goal. And I appreciate the question from Vice Mayor of how many multifamily units were damaged. I can think, like I see the building outline in my mind's eye. I have a few in mind. But I feel like when I'm talking to community members, I'd like some more data because some of this is coming to these assumptions of like, well, we should definitely take care of single family. Well, that assumes that that's property owners, and we can make some assumptions that property owners have a certain level of wealth versus multifamily, which is then gonna be renters, and we can make some assumptions that those renters have a certain level of wealth, and I'm feeling this either or, and I just wanna get a better understanding, because at the end of the day, if you live through this horrific thing, I want you to be taken care of, and some of that information It would be nice. So I think, and I don't know if you were going in that direction, but that data could help paint that picture for me.

So I just want to step in for a second and said, you know, we make assumptions about what wealth, according to whether you're single family or multifamily. Actually, we can say with this program for what's being presented, you don't have over 60%. Yeah, that's so is theoretically you could have, you could be a renter. and earn more than a homeowner.

Because of the AMI.

That's a great point.

Is a household's ability to recover? Is they're looking at insurance? They're looking at all the other resources that they might have available? So if a household comes forward and says, yeah, I earn less than 60% AMI, but I do have $500,000, for example, in a bank account that's liquid, then that's probably not going to be someone that's going to be served with the program because they have the resources available to recover. We're really trying to focus that on folks who don't have any other option.

That this is the last resort.

This is the funding of last resort. That's federal money.

And this is such a rare thing, too, that we would see an opportunity to have substantial funding to repair damaged single-family homes. You know, like the apartment complex and the LIHTC program is an existing program. This is such a rare pot of money. I feel protective of it and want to ensure, like you just said, that those who lost their homes are fully restored.

Let's hope we're never eligible for it again.

Yeah.

I'm sorry, Councilwoman Ullman, what was the data that you said that you would?

I think I was just reaffirming the inquiry that the Vice Mayor was talking about of information on number of multifamily units. Okay. that were damaged or lost or impacted. I don't know the actual metric, but what do we know? I've read a lot of information on single family damage, single family home damage, but I'd love some more of the multifamily, whatever information you have.

What does it look like to make us whole?

Number of units, exactly. We can get that. Yeah, thank you.

Ready for the public hearing part? Okay, we have a few people signed up to speak under this item. Again, we're not voting on this tonight, we're just listing. And this is a public, a federally required public comment period, and this public comment tonight is part of that. You'll have three minutes to speak. Watch the lights on the lectern. Green means go, orange means you're getting ready to stop, and red means stop. And our first speaker is Susan Bean.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, members of council. My name is Susan Bean, and on behalf of Mountain True, I join with members of the Buncombe Affordable Housing Network and also the Housing Recovery Board, the advisory board. I don't think this got mentioned in James's presentation, but they also at their last meeting after hearing this presentation voted against this amendment. So I just want to make note of that too. So on behalf of all of those folks, I am asking you to reject this amendment. At an average cost of $360,000 per home repair, our community would be committing almost $400,000 of public taxpayer funds to support a single family staying in their home for a minimum of just three years. Alternatively, if we keep the proposed $9.2 million currently allocated to affordable housing construction, our community benefits from 200 additional homes that will serve low income families for a minimum of 35 years. There are hundreds of storm impacted individuals and families still living in Asheville who do not own their homes, but are desperately hoping to live in a rental unit that they can afford. These people and families are living in their cars, they are doubled up with other families, or they're staying in shelters, or even on the street after facing evictions because they lost their jobs to Helene. The recent point in time count data revealed that 87 people who lost housing due to Helene are still unsheltered. These are some of the people who likely are not showing up here to make public comment, but who are storm survivors and need housing support through CDBG-DR funds just like homeowners do. While I support shifting the funds from the infrastructure program, and I'm grateful for the staff and folks who did that magic to solve that problem, to address our community's housing needs, I ask that you please not support the recommendation to reallocate any funds from the affordable multifamily construction program to the single family repair program. I firmly believe that city, oh, thank you.

I don't think that's correct. I think you've got another minute on there. I apologize, I don't know what happened there.

Okay, I just have one more sentence. I firmly believe that city housing bond dollars can more efficiently serve more families through locally administered repair programs and that CDBGDR dollars are better spent on affordable housing construction. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. David Greenson.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. David Greenson, part of the GAP AVL team. I'd like to begin by citing some classic wisdom from Star Trek. In The Wrath of Khan, Mr. Spock tells Captain Kirk that, quote, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. But in the very next film, The Search for Spock, Kirk reminds us that, quote, sometimes the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many. Asheville has a unique opportunity right now to address both the needs of the many and the needs of the few, but only if we proceed strategically. I understand the desire to help more homeowners through Renew NC. There are families still dealing with damaged homes. Their needs are real and urgent. But Council has a responsibility to consider the needs of the many. As Susan just pointed out, the affordable housing funds being redirected could support housing opportunities for hundreds of households. In contrast, the new NC funds will only help roughly 60. That doesn't mean this amendment is wrong, but when we're looking at that kind of a disparity, the burden of proof should be exceptionally high. The Housing Recovery Board voted against this amendment because it concluded that fundamental questions remained unanswered. Before choosing the needs of the few over the needs of the many, we need to know how much of the money we turn over to Renew NC is gonna reach homeowners and how much is gonna go towards administrative and contractor costs. If additional funding is approved, how many homeowners are still gonna be unserved? And why should Asheville commit another 19.2 million before receiving the data needed to independently evaluate the program's performance? If Renew NC is the best use of these funds, then the state should be able to demonstrate that clearly and transparently. And until those questions are answered, I would urge you to press pause. Council will consider additional homeowner recovery strategies next month. Local housing experts have suggested alternative approaches that could preserve more homes, help more families, strengthen our local economic recovery, and provide greater public oversight than we're ever gonna get with Renew NC. Mr. Spock was right that the needs of the many matter. Captain Kirk was right that the needs of the few matter too. The challenge before council is to ensure that in serving the few, we do not needlessly fail the many. Let's be strategic. I urge you to press pause, and I hope we can all live long and prosper.

That was probably one of the episodes involving the Borg. Marvin Feinblatt.

Hi, council. First time I've been up here and even though I worked here for 10 years. So yes, I worked for the, just saying, I worked for the community development department for the city of Asheville for 10 years. I retired and then I worked for the Office of Disaster Recovery for HUD, managing these grants for the last six years until I just retired. I have a lot of different Nuancy type of questions, which is probably not appropriate here, but I just, when I initially saw the original action plan, I was aghast that there was three million for homeowners and what was it, 17, 18 million for multifamily housing. As being somebody who's been to all The different grantees from Mississippi, because I handled the whole Atlanta region, from Mississippi to Florida, it felt to me like multi-housing was taking care of Asheville's problems rather than the problems of the people who were actually hurt. I mean, we need a lot of affordable housing, but I'm... being out in the field and talking to the people. It's the people who lost their house. It's gonna take a long time. With all this money, the six years, well, five years, because we took the administration money first, to get all this done, you're gonna find you're halfway done in five years. And I just, rather than get into all the different little pieces, I would say you really need to focus on those who are injured and get them back into their house. They're a little bit above the poverty line. I mean, the line you set, you probably, they still have problems. It's an economy that's killing the middle class. So I would be more inclined to help those that have lost their homes or are out of their homes I heard a comment saying we may have to reallocate them. You do have to relocate them if you're going to move them out of their house and rebuild it. That's a law. So those are my initial feelings. I guess I can talk about, I'm worried that working with the state of North Carolina is going to become cumbersome. Where are we going to stand on their priority list? I mean, are our people going to, we put our people first. from Asheville, their priorities are from Hendersonville to Pennsylvania County to everywhere. So how are we gonna make sure that the people in Asheville are being served? And I'm gonna stop there. Okay.

Good time. Would love all the minutiae in an email though. You mentioned having more. I would love to read any insights based on your experience. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

Vicky Meath. I think our buzzer's gone crazy. Is our buzzer okay? We might need an upgrade in the buzzer department.

Oh, Council, I am Vicki Meath. In addition to being the Director of Just Economics, I'm also the Chair of the Buncombe County Long-Term Recovery Group's Housing Committee and serve on the Buncombe Affordable Housing Network. I am asking that you oppose this amendment I too, like was said by members of council, care about both renters and homeowners and want folks to be whole and also know that 225 million coming from HUD is not enough to make our whole community whole for all the damage. However, we want the most efficient use of funds as possible, and as noted by the presentation earlier, that sometimes the Renew NC program is not the most efficient use of funds. That $117,000 would cost three times as much for repair and rebuild, whereas the LTRG has completed three construction projects, Archer has done a lot of home repair and has cost less. And because of the challenges with the restrictions of the Renew NC program and the federal requirements, the cost for single family home and repair is significant. and can be done more efficiently with other funds. I wanted to read a testimonial from a disaster case manager, and I'll submit some comments officially with some more testimonials, but this is from a Buncombe County Long-Term Recovery Group disaster case manager. She said, I spent over a year as a North Carolina disaster case manager in Buncombe County, and now I'm working in DCM in coordination with the Buncombe County Long-Term Recovery Group. I work to support many Asheville renters and homeowners working through the recovery from Helene. While the multiple available public and private recovery pathways that exist for homeowners could certainly be strengthened, renters in our city have almost no options when it comes to repairing or replacing their damaged homes. This gap leaves renters vulnerable to unsafe housing conditions or to ending up with no housing at all. Prioritizing the construction of truly affordable housing now means we can create stability and resiliency for renters as well as homeowners. I worked with a single mother in South Ashton who was living in a storm damaged rental with her children. Trees had damaged the roof and it wasn't properly repaired. So water intrusion was causing the floors to rot and she was bleaching the walls every day to keep the mold at bay. She was actively looking for another rental for months and months, but she could not find anything in her budget with enough room for her family. She was afraid to bother the landlord too many times about repairs because she thought he would find a reason to evict her and then she and her children would be out on the street. I just want you to understand that rental units, renters are also, and multifamily housing is a part of the recovery. Thank you.

We're really blessing people. I'm sorry about that. Spencer Curtis?

Thank you.

Hi, Spencer Cargis. I'm with Asheville for All. I just want to sort of encourage council to lean to the impulse that I'm hearing from you tonight, which is that this is a really important opportunity and there's a lot of care to be taken here. and there's a lot of unknown questions. First of all, like the mayor said, we don't actually know the full need until September, right? We also don't know the total loss of multifamily homes. This is just such a huge opportunity, and we know that objectively it can help more people to focus on multifamily homes. feels like this would be one more hasty decision that we might want to walk back in the future. I'm also just curious about one point on the slide, you don't have to answer me right now, but on the $10 million being pulled from the North Fork Reservoir, is that for sure? That feels like kind of the thing to have a question mark on that slide feels like a pretty big question mark that I would again want to, I want council to take their time and consider it. So I urge you not to support this amendment tonight. Thank you.

Elise Marder.

Maybe the light. You just haven't turned it over yet.

No spoilers. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Elise Marder. I want to begin by saying that it's clear additional funding is needed to help vulnerable homeowners recover from Helene and remain in their homes. Home repair is an anti-displacement strategy. For many lower income households, repairing a damaged home is what allows families to remain in place preserve intergenerational wealth and stability, and avoid displacement. In that sense, these are restorative investments in historically marginalized communities that have too often been underserved. I am concerned, though, about the broader implementation framework that has led us here and the recommendation to move funds out of other allocations, particularly infrastructure. When the city CDBGDR action plan was originally presented, and state plans were described as being complimentary. The key takeaway slide from that original action plan adoption presentation said that the plans would work in concert, specifically recognizing the state's focus on housing programs while the city focused heavily on infrastructure and economic resilience. The state's plan allocated more than $800 million for single-family housing repair and reconstruction, and this other slide noted that projects within city limits would be eligible for these programs. Now, however, we're being told that Asheville households are effectively excluded from the state-funded portion of that housing allocation, and that the city residents must instead rely on Asheville's comparatively small housing allocation to meet these needs. I do not believe the burden of repairing Asheville homes should fall solely on Asheville. And I believe that all phase one, priority one households statewide, including within Asheville, should be fully served before state resources move on to households in lower priority categories. These are some of the most vulnerable households in our communities. Low income families, elderly residents, people with disabilities, and households with children. Part of this proposal would shift $10 million away from infrastructure activities based on the expectation that initial design expenses may be reimbursed through FEMA's Housing Mitigation Grant Program. I understand the reasoning, but Asheville's infrastructure recovery needs remain enormous, close to $1 billion, as shown in another slide from that same presentation. If some infrastructure dollars can be supplemented through outside reimbursement so that the total funds for infrastructure improvements increases by 10 million, that would be far preferable to net zeroing infrastructure investments in order to fill this housing gap. I strongly urge city council and city staff to formally pursue all available avenues to secure access to state housing recovery funds for eligible Asheville households, including engagement with state agencies, the governor's office, and the General Assembly so Asheville residents are not left carrying a disproportionate share of the burden.

What is going on?

Thank you, Elise. Scott Adams.

Hi, I'm Scott Adams, and I'm here speaking on behalf of Asheville for All, one of the co-lead organizers, and I'm here to speak in support of the Buncombe Affordable Housing Network's open letter that's been sent and all the materials around it. Two things that really stand out to me, at least in terms of numbers, are The basic cost per unit, and we can, I guess, quibble over 365 versus 360, but just something that I've seen that stands out is Archer's cost per unit is 13 times less than Renew NC's, potentially, for single family home repair. Looking at the number of homes repaired, that's also a factor of 13. That's my quick comment on cost around housing. This is actually a housing comment, or this is an infrastructure comment masquerading as a housing comment. So then looking at numbers, North Fork Reservoir only serves 70% of the city's residents. No running water for 18 days, no potable water for 53 days. Those are my household numbers in West Asheville. Others may have had plus or minus. The design requirement for formal hazard mitigation grant program submittals is 60% design. Interestingly, just a month ago at the infrastructure committee, they noted that they were at 30% design. So we're somewhere between 30 and 60% design. Mr. Shelton's slide number nine had a really interesting phrase on there about the transfer of the money from $10 million for the North Fork pretreatment likely happening, but I read likely as a possibility, not a promise. So with that, I would encourage you to not be penny wise and count foolish on that very specific, precious amount of money for our drinking water system. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, and then Kyle Turner.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council, staff. I'm not here to agree or disagree with any of their reallocation. I think you have a serious job to do with that. We'll let you do that. However, when you make this decision to move forward, let's make sure what policies and procedures or standard operating does the city have. Is this either in draft format or is it already a standard operating policy to govern this entire program? monitoring the public reporting responsibilities of major federally funded programs that affect Asheville residents, but are administered by Renew NC. Good governance requires that we ask the questions today. The goal is not to delay recovery. The goal is to ensure recovery is effective, accountable, transparent, and worthy of public trust. The programs appear to involve substantial administrative oversight to ensure homeowners can safely return home. What policy and procedures are in place to ensure that we address common situations such as mortgages, probate, death of the applicant, ownership changes, divorce, foreclosure, or other family financial circumstances that may arise during the construction process. Who pays when the contractor walks off site? Who pays when the contractor is terminated for default? What kind of policies and procedures do we have? If a house was vacant and a tree fell on it during the storm, Is it something that we're going to put in place just because it is a residence and it needs to be replaced? What are we going to do with these houses if we don't repair them? That's a problem. The city cannot afford. Good luck on your decision. I don't know. I have a few more minutes. I can just stand here. But I think you have a large decision upon you. this money, this reallocation may not be the answer. But if you decide it is, make sure there's standard operating procedures and guidance to oversee the money that it's gonna cost to administer this program.

Thank you. Just a few points of clarification there. That was our last speaker. These do have to be a primary residence, an occupied primary residence at the time of the damage. And also, there are HUD guidelines and they address all of the issues that you're talking about in terms of the title of the property, the ownership, the successor interests. Not to say that's not a challenge, I understand. in listening to how the program is administered at the state level, not just in our state, but in other states, you do run into that. Because sometimes people, for example, they might be living in a home that they own through inheritance, but the property hasn't been, the estate hasn't been probated, so they don't have a deed in their name. So there's issues that people can encounter like that, but the program navigates those issues. those challenges. We will not be administering this program. It's being administered by the state, so the state will work with federally qualified contractors, and they are. That's who's doing the work. But oddly, the state is our subrecipient, so we have oversight over them as our subrecipient. James, did I mess any of that up? Do you want to say anything else? Okay, thank you. Thumbs up. He changed his mind. Again, we're not voting on this tonight.

I do just want to make a quick comment that this is still during our public comment period. Right. So we did have a housing recovery board meeting last week, and they did vote on this item as part of our public comment. So I did not include that in my presentation tonight because it's not standard practice to include COMMENTS AS WE ARE STILL UNDERGOING OUR COMMENT PERIOD, BUT WE DID PROVIDE THAT TO COUNCIL IN OUR STAFF REPORT, THE RESULT OF THE HOUSING RECOVERY BOARD CONVERSATION.

WE DISCUSSED THAT AS WELL AT AGENDA REVIEW.

I DO HAVE AN ADJUSTMENT TO THE QUESTION I ASKED BEFORE, JAMES. YOU CAN STAND BACK THERE. I'M CURIOUS HOW MUCH OF THE CDBGDR FUNDS THAT WE HAVE VOTED TO ALLOCATE AND MAYBE MORE TONIGHT, HOW MANY UNITS Will those votes, like how many units will be served? Do you follow me on something?

So currently, this is the current allocation. If I could have that back up, thank you. Currently, we anticipate that the $28 million currently from multifamily would- No, that's not what I'm asking.

Oh, I'm sorry. So we approved two last- council meeting, how many units was that? If we add this, how many units is that?

One of them had 92, 205.

205. 205. So I would like to compare that number to what was lost when you get that.

I just have one general comment, but James, I don't need you. Does anybody else need James while he's up? I mean, I always need James.

We do need you, James.

Please do not leave. Just a general response to some of the sentiment I heard, because I really appreciate all of the expertise and public comments tonight, and for those of you who took the time to come and share with us as we deliberate this hard decision. Some of what I heard around angst with the Renew NC program, I share. My concerns with the thresholds and the replacement value are like yours. I also heard concerns around increased administrative costs and we need to be making the most efficient use of these funds. And I'm not sure how much information everyone all has. Like for example, one of these multifamily projects is not in the flood zone, but will spend a million and a half dollars being flood proofed as if it were. So to me, I'd rather have that one and a half million helping single families. So there's a lot of data here and nuance that we're still trying to navigate. And there's efficiencies on both sides that we really have to watch. And again, I just really feel we have to make the community whole. So I appreciate the data conversation. We've been trying to get at that, but I think we'll need it. And lastly, I'm not sure if, and maybe this was a James question, are there deadlines? Do we have to decide this in June?

So here's what the deadline is. At a point, we will get to the fact that there's not enough funding and homeowners will be told that their project cannot move forward because there's not enough funding. So right as of the last conversation I had with the program they already had in the pipeline ready to go $12 million in projects in the city. And I think it's probably higher now. I'm looking at Bridget and Jamie. I assume it's higher now. So we will be turning people away. And I'm very concerned about that prospect. So I think there is some urgency around at least this intermediate step to get us to 22.2 million, but then that'll give us a cushion to be able to make a later decision. I can see that.

Because it's not, yeah, like approving money for the apartments doesn't make them come to fruition in two months. So I guess that's what I'm getting at. But that's helpful. Thank you.

Any other questions, comments?

All right. Well, we appreciate everyone's input tonight and the comment period is still continuing. And again, we will vote on this at our next meeting. Now we're going to move on to unfinished business. And the first item is an ordinance amending the fiscal year, 2026-2027 fees and charges manual to incorporate changes to parking fund fees. And we're going to hear Lindsay Spangler. And as you know, we already voted on fees and charges once before, but we made a change to parking. So we got to do it again. This is the south slope, I believe. Oh, oh, right.

Thanks, everyone. Lindsay Spangler, Budget and Performance Manager. So yes, we are proposing a change to the Fees and Charges Manual, and I'll walk you through the proposed changes now. So just a little background and history. So we did approve the Fees and Charges Manual for FY27 in March. And around that same time, council was presented with some additional information about some parking fee adjustments that could be made. And so after those conversations, the proposed changes that we have included in the budget for tonight are the expansion of parking meters into South Slough. which includes up to 170 new meters, along with some additional expenses that go along with that, which are two FTEs and some additional operating and capital costs. In the first year, it's a little bit more expenses because of all the startup costs associated with the program. 480,000 in the first year and 166 recurring costs. And that's against an anticipated revenue of about $500,000. I'll show this in a chart later. There's also some other smaller operational changes that are being operationalized here as well. So here are all the fee changes that will be a part of the fees and charges manual. I won't go through all of these, but just some of the ones listed here. Three out of the four garages will have their monthly permit fees increased, including lots as well. We're also proposing an increase of special event fee and instituting a failure to pay fee for garages for folks who need to get out of the garage without paying. And there's some other smaller ones here, but these represent a list of the changes that would go into effect starting July 1. And this chart shows the budget impact of all of those fee increases from the prior slide, in addition to the budget impact from the South Slope expansion. So you can see that top line is South Slope. We're anticipating that revenue will increase by about $500,000. And then, as I mentioned, there's some first year and ongoing costs. And so the last column there shows that net fee revenue that you'll see. So it's only about 20,000 in the first year, but then ongoing it's $332,000 per year. And then there's some more minor changes for the other fee increases. These are more, they're not necessarily big revenue drivers for the city, but more meant to help with operations in the parking garages and lots and just create more efficiency for parking overall throughout the city. So all of these changes are included in the 27 proposed budget that you will be voting on tonight in the parking fund. Just to provide a little bit more detail about the south slope expansion, so here's what the next steps are gonna look like. So in the summer and the fall, If this gets approved tonight, this will be a public engagement and planning time. And at the same time, the parking division will start ordering new vehicles for enforcement officers. Then going into late 26 and early 27, that's gonna be the design phase where the team will start to work on signing and marking up spaces and ordering parking meters. And starting in the spring, they anticipate they'll be hiring some new enforcement officers and then implementing the program.

Implementing the program, meaning installing the meters starting spring?

Yes. The loose program, yes. Okay. And that... leads us to this action that is requested by you tonight would be to adopt an ordinance amending the FY27 Fees and Charges Manual to incorporate these changes. And again, the budget for these changes is included in the FY27 budget that you'll be voting on tonight.

Any questions for me? I have a couple questions. On the timeline slide, you mentioned two seasons to do public engagement. I thought we'd already spent a bit of time doing public engagement in the past when we decided we want to do this. So could I have some more information about what we need to engage the public on to take potentially two quarters.

Jessica Morris is here from the Transportation Department to help answer your questions.

Great. And then a second question I had at the agenda briefing was, I see you're proposing to add three staff, and I would love to know if we got quotes on what that would be if we partnered with the private sector for that instead of expanding headcount.

So Jessica Morris, Assistant Director of Transportation Department. For your first question, so there has been off and on conversation over several years about meters I believe on Cox Avenue. And so public engagement that we wanna do is broader than just Cox Avenue. And I don't believe that we're gonna do anything months and months long, but we wanna have a broader conversation with the rest of the South Slope businesses. So we'll likely do some outreach with multifamily housing, as well as the business association there, just kind of have a refresh on what parking needs there are in addition to meters. So we're looking at permit options and other options. So we just want to get some feedback about what might be useful on certain streets, on certain blocks. And because it's not just going to be meters, we want to have a mix of parking permit options that might better suit needs on different blocks, if that makes sense. So we want to just make sure that we're reaching out to the community, letting people know what we're going to do, what's the timeline, can we meet certain needs, talk about loading zones and things like that to try to make sure that we're putting things where they will be most useful when we actually go to Stripe and sign.

And then it mentions the design phase. Maybe I'm grossly oversimplifying this, but We have a lot of very complex projects that the city executes that I can understand it taking a long time to redesign the Riverway. Aren't we just installing meterings and hanging signs? So I guess my inquiry is, we stand to benefit from $320,000 of additional revenue once we get this going. We're having an extremely hard conversation later today about how we're gonna fill These budget gaps, I just feel shocked to hear that just adding parking meters is gonna take us a year. I don't know, I'm feeling like where is the government efficiency and the get it done spirit? It just seems, if we can't even install some meters in less than a year, I don't know, just seems like a really long time.

Part of it is that we're waiting for the Cox Avenue project to be done as well.

But I thought that we clarified during the agenda briefing that there would be staging and that Cox Avenue is one street, but the South Slope are many others.

Right. And we can order meters and start putting meters on other streets earlier. And we can put meters on Cox Avenue earlier and then remove them.

I'm not advocating for installing something or moving something. I'm just saying.

I do wish the process was a little different. I wish the public engagement piece was up front. Because I'm hearing a lot of... concern from residents also business owners workers that work at those businesses that really take advantage of those spots and so i wish before we voted on any changes we had that information from those folks first then we can move forward and then whatever decision we make we move with efficiency and i'm okay to move forward like

Thought we've had a lot of the engagement.

Yeah, is it really that our, I mean, I guess we've been talking about meters in the South Slope for eight years, and this is really the first time we've done more than Cox Avenue engagement? I guess I feel like we've done this. No.

What we want to do is detailed engagement about where we want to have loading zones and things of that nature. So not like, do you want meters or do you not want meters? It's going to be what kind of permits are going to help you guys? Do you want to see... Do you want to see monthly permits? Do you want to see 12-hour permits? Do you want a loading zone here or a curbside space, like detailed block-to-block kind of engagement with business owners?

Yeah, having been through that process with you before, I agonize for you.

Yeah, so it's not do you want this or do you not? It's what do you want to have on this block that can serve your business or your residents, that kind of detailed public engagement. so that when we go to stripe it and sign it, we don't get, oh, well, we really wanted that loading zone to be two spaces down. We wanted it here. We want to get that upfront design. And when we say design, we don't mean design like construction design. We mean, how are we going to stripe this street? Are we going to have an ADA space here, there, or there? That kind of thing. detail is what we mean about design.

So it would be including like beer and food delivery truck driver input as well. Because they'll know where they're loading.

Yeah, like we'll meet with well-played and say like, and the businesses on Lexington and say, where are people unloading? Where does your FedEx driver unload? What is gonna be most useful for them? So that when we go to restripe something, we can try to meet as many needs as we can. We're not gonna be able to meet everybody's needs, but try to do that all up front so that if we make changes, we're getting that all up front. That's what we mean by public engagement. Does that make more sense? Sure. It's helpful.

I understand, yeah. I mean, I know I've been through that process. It is complicated when you get all those businesses on one street trying to figure out where to put their loading zones. There's a lot of opinions. I wish you luck in that process. What I'm hearing from my colleagues is probably what you're hearing from me is it's been a long time. We need more money.

So, and we had planned to do it previous year, but we didn't want to implement fee increases. I know.

So... Can you confirm for me that we're still keeping the first hour free in the city decks? Yes. And then the Buncombe County still has a parking program for workers, and the Buncombe County deck is very close by at the entrance of the South Slope. So there are spaces for workers to park for a reduced rate.

Correct. I don't think they've sold out their program.

But we need to signal to them they may need to increase their AMI or something. There's no benefit to those empty spaces, and they have never filled. So something's not right there. Not our deal.

I've talked to a lot of workers who weren't aware of the program, and so this is me reminding folks that there are reduced parking spaces in the Buncombe County decks, and you should apply.

If you qualify. Could we jump back to my second question? Sure.

Can you remind me what it was?

Sorry. You're suggesting to hire three FTEs. And I wanted to know what the cost comparison was to partnering with the private sector instead of expanding staff.

OK. So we're proposing to hire one full-time field supervisor and two part-time parking enforcement officers. We have not done a cost comparison for looking at just doing an expansion of the South Slope. for using a private sector contractor just to do parking enforcement. The Dixon study that we did, which is the parking study that we finished up actually right before Helene, did say that that is an option that we should consider when we do expansions in the future. It said that it's something that would likely be more financially feasible in locations that are farther away, since this is just literally, just physically expanding right next to where we're already, and we already are doing enforcement in this area, it's just not metered enforcement, that this wouldn't really be a huge financial savings to go with a private sector contractor. These folks that we would be hiring would be servicing the entire area, not just dedicated to the expanded area. They would be rotated into the team. It would be one whole team servicing the entire enforcement area. So we'd have a total of four full-time parking enforcement officers plus two part-time parking enforcement officers and one supervisor and one field supervisor. overseeing the entire enforcement area.

Of downtown. Of downtown, yeah.

Including the South Slope. Yeah, the entire CBD, essentially. So this would help us in a lot of other ways as well. They would be doing, we'd have a lot better coverage in general, especially on weekends. and they would be able to have a lot better coverage overall for people taking off time. So overall, I think this would be a really good help for us to have these two extra parking enforcement part-time officers coverage.

Yeah, and I remember us considering many options, and one of them was greater weekend coverage, and part of the challenge was how difficult that would be with your current staff capacity. So this might open up just more options for us to look at over time. Okay, those are my questions, thanks.

Anybody for a motion? I have one budget question maybe for Lindsay. So, okay, if this is creating $600,000 potentially down the road, but it's not impacting this budget that we are talking about next, right? We're talking about a year out. No, this is impacting the budget that you're voting on tonight.

The expense side and the revenue side are both included.

Okay, guys, I hadn't seen that in that. We got the updated slides yesterday, but it's not built into any of that. The single fees and charges. Year one, this year. Yeah, yeah. There's that note at the bottom. So what's the net impact to the, okay.

So it's, I'm sorry. It's included in the proposed budget. It is in there. It was originally included on the May 12th proposed budget.

Oh, it was already in. So it doesn't change that. It doesn't change that. Okay, that's what I'm getting at.

We just have to.

Okay. You just have to update the fees and charges manual so that we can charge these new bills.

There's some reason it's a separate vote. I don't know. I always thought we did it so that you knew what to use to roll into the budget. But since we're voting on the budget tonight, this is still a separate vote. I assume there's some procedural reason why it needs to be.

I think it's less procedural. The fees and charges manual is a separate ordinance from the budget, so they do have to be voted on separately. You, as a council, approved the updated fees and charges manual at a previous meeting. However, this particular item was not quite ready for that, so we still have to do it in advance of your voting on the budget.

So because I'm hearing a lot of business support for this, and also we have some solutions for the workers in the area, I move to adopt an ordinance amending the fiscal year 2026-2027 Fees and charges manual to incorporate changes to parking fund fees. Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. We do have one person signed up to speak under this item. You'll have three minutes, and that is Kyle Turner.

I'm sure you understand, but I don't.

Is there already a contract awarded for this service for the install of these meters? And if there is, And if there's not, I don't have much to say. But when there is a contract awarded for that, then we wouldn't be piece milling and deciding we can do this change and we can do that change. We would award a contract that would establish this endeavor. It looks like right now you're just adopting the fee structure for when we do install the meters. So when we install the meters, it just seems like there's a bunch of questions about the contract terms and conditions, how it will go down, what would be the period of performance and would that, is that something you're voting on tonight? I'm not sure I understand that. I'm sure each of you do.

Thank you. Yes, no, we're not voting on the contract tonight. And there's not yet a proposed one. Okay, that was our last speaker under this item. We have a motion and a second to approve. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

No. No.

Okay, so all those in favor, raise your hand. We have five people raising their hand. All those opposed, raise your hand. Two opposed. Okay, thank you. All right, we're moving on to the next two items are under unfinished business. These are items where we already had the public hearing and so we are now going to hear a presentation and vote on these items. The first is an ordinance. adopting the 2026-2027 annual operating budget. Lindsay is going to do this presentation. I want to make a couple of notes before we start. You can stand right there. One, we have a conflict of interest policy and a couple of us sit on boards that receive funding from the city, but they're They're which two boards? It's the Sports Commission and the Economic Development Commission. So these are boards that the city appoints members of council to, but they also get funding from the city. So Sage, Turner, and I will not be able to vote on a vote that funds those two particular boards. So you'll see those votes broken out. The other thing I wanted to mention at the start of this is that There is a bill that would require a moratorium on tax reappraisals in the state of North Carolina, which would require us to use the tax valuation from last year and not the new appraised rates for homes. It passed the House, It's a Senate bill that passed the House in second reading today, and it hasn't been amended, which means tomorrow it'll be on for third reading. And if it passes, it will go to the governor. If the governor signs it, it becomes law. If the governor doesn't sign it... Popcorn's right on. It does not become a lot. It becomes a lot without a signature. But, so that's very disruptive for all the cities and counties across the state that are right now passing budgets to start July 1. But in... committee today, another bill was amended that would exempt all the Hurricane Helene counties. That amendment passed in committee, but that bill, which is a separate bill, confusingly, doesn't go to a vote till tomorrow. So, everyone cross your fingers. It was a Republican, actually, from Waynesville, Representative Bell, who made the amendment, and so hopefully that'll stick. But with that, hopefully, we won't have to do this again, but if we don't get exempted, we might. But with that, Lindsay, I'm sure Lindsay's looking forward to doing it all over again.

Definitely. Thank you very much. Those are really important clarifications to start the process. All right. Again, Lindsay Spangler, Budget and Performance Manager. And I'm here to provide a few slides on our budget process that we've gone through together so far. This is hopefully the end of it. So just a reminder on timeline, as you know, we started this process back in January, coming to you all with a discussion on what we thought our gap might be for the coming year. And across all of these touch points, we've come back to council and taken feedback and updated our projections. We've also received comments from the public, both in February and again in May. We did release the proposed budget about a month ago in May, and now we're here tonight to adopt the budget. So I'll start by just giving a quick brief on what our proposed budget was when we came on May 12th to discuss with council. This is what it was. It was $275.58 million in all the funds, which represents about a 7.5% increase over the 26th budget. So just digging a little bit into the work that we've done on the general fund side, which is of course our largest fund where most of our work takes place. So as I mentioned, we came in January to tell council that we expected we might have a gap as large as $30 million due to a few different factors. We had some one time Balancing strategies and the current budget that we did not think we could roll over into FY 27 We're also facing some increased costs that were outside of our control such as health care and retirement costs for our employees there were also some Contracts that we knew were going to increase in cost in the coming year transit was a big one and there were some others as well and And lastly, we knew that we needed to add debt service for our general obligation bonds, which were approved by the voters in November 2024. And of course, we delayed adding debt service for those bonds last year due to Helene. So over the past few months, we have worked to whittle down that gap over February, March, and April. We did this by continuing some of the cuts from FY26, refining our estimates, looking at healthcare and personnel costs, We also approved fees and charges increases, which we just discussed a little bit of that before. And of course, we also proposed some budget balancing strategies and cost reductions that are a part of this proposed budget. And so that gets us to our proposed budget, which was a gap of $8.9 million. And to balance that budget, we propose a tax rate of 37.84 cents. And since that tax rate is above the revenue neutral rate, we just want to remind folks here and listening in the community of all of the investments that we make as a city with our tax dollars and our other revenue. that we need to increase that tax rate in order to just maintain these existing essential services for the community. So just to go through some of those on the public health and safety side, the REST team, which is run by the fire department, continues to support vulnerable populations, especially in the downtown area. The fire department will also be able to operationalize the fourth shift, next year, which will effectively increase the hourly pay of firefighters. The police department is also continuing to fill their vacancies and they, by being able to do that, they'll be providing increased support in many priority areas that require more attention. We're also increasing support from both the county and the city for the Code Purple program to meet some increased demand that we're seeing since Helene. And lastly, even though there's been some significant cost increases to trash and recycling services, those services will continue at the same levels as before. On the culture and recreation side, parks will continue to provide quality and affordable programming, including summer camps, are not a part of any of the budget cuts that we took. Holiday celebrations and other downtown events will also continue. They'll be receiving city support through the bid fund instead of the general fund, but the programming will remain the same. There's also continued support for athletics programs including at the city's parks, the tennis center, and the golf course. In terms of community and organizational investments, we continue to support bus service, even though the new contract, as you know, will go into service at a higher cost to the city. In spite of that, we'll continue to provide service at the same levels with some stricter performance standards in place and on-site crisis counselor and some other enhanced metrics as well. We are also adding an additional staff for affordable housing development program management as part of the geo bond funding increase. The budget also includes a 2.8% cost of living adjustment to support existing staff to manage the rising costs in the area and throughout the country. We're also maintaining healthcare costs for our employees, despite the fact that premiums are rising throughout the entire country. And lastly, we are planning to complete a salary study over the next year, which will allow us to bring some data-driven recommendations to council next year when we start talking about salaries and compensation. Lastly, our strategic investments, we continue to focus on engaging our residents, especially in the city's historically underrepresented populations. We're also continuing to fund the Neighborhood Matching Grant Program, which provides small grants for community projects directly to neighborhood groups. We're also providing support to key organizations within the community who provide direct services. And we also continue to contribute to the county's homeowner grant program that provides support to both homeowners and others that need assistance throughout the city. And lastly, of course, this budget funds three quarters of the debt service for the general obligation bonds, which are already working to support essential capital work in the voter-approved categories of housing, parks, transportation, and public safety infrastructure. So there's a lot going on throughout the city despite the fact that we've really tried to make this budget about maintaining our existing services as much as possible. And so these are the existing services that we continue to provide. So what does that mean for our taxes? So the current rate for this year is 44.19 cents. And as part of the reval process, which is led by the county, City staff calculated a revenue neutral tax rate, which is 32.89 cents. And when we proposed the budget in May, the proposed rate was 37.84 cents. They're in bold, which is 4.95 cents above the revenue neutral rate. So this is all as of the proposed budget on May 12th. So now we'll talk a little bit about some changes that we're proposing since then. And these changes are really based on feedback that we're hearing from the community and council about the desire to decrease the tax burden on community members and property owners. And so these four adjustments that we're recommending really go towards decreasing that tax rate. So I'll just go through them one by one for everyone's awareness. So the first one is the property tax collection rate. So we had originally budgeted a 99% collection rate. However, the county who adopted their budget last week, actually within the last month or so, they ended up increasing their collection rate. And so we reached out to them. And as you all know, the county is the one who collects the taxes. And so given their expertise in that area and the fact that they were raising their collection rate, we felt comfortable raising our own collection rate, so we're raising it from 99% to 99.5%. And that still is within a range of what we expect. The reason we had originally budgeted it lower was because in a reval year, sometimes collection rates can go down. But given that the county has increased their rate and they feel comfortable with where that is, we also feel comfortable making that change. Next, the bid sales tax for APD personnel. So this is simply a transfer of funds. So we would take down about 0.23 million dollars in APD personnel costs and instead cover those with sales tax that gets allocated to the bid fund. So this would not represent a change in service for APD. This is put in place to decrease the tax burden on payers in the general fund. This would simply be recognizing the work that APD already does downtown and using the sales tax to support that work. Next, for the APD Academy.

Can we pause there a second just to clarify that? Because earlier this year we made new efforts in downtown, additional efforts. So when we were thinking about this, that's kind of what I thought was gonna be happening. Some of these newer efforts would be funded. It's not that we're detracting from somewhere else in the police department.

No, we're not recommending, I think, APD continues to expand their workforce and to get service where it's needed. We believe that they do at least this dollar amount of work downtown. this wouldn't necessarily increase their presence downtown.

Is that allowable use? Are there restrictions on how we can use that particular sales tax?

Right, yeah, I thought it had to be enhanced service versus comp versus just normal operations.

Yeah. So thank you, Council, for that question. The important two elements of this that we have to distinguish from the public is what we're talking about here is what we call the bid or the municipal service district. So it's the area that we set up essentially downtown that the council levied an additional tax on to provide additional services for. That additional tax that you levied was a property tax. All of this is defined in North Carolina General Statute Article 28 of 160A. It talks all about how a bid can actually be managed, and it allows for you to levy a property tax. That property tax is specifically regulated. It must be spent within the bid, and it must be to provide supplemental but not supplant of services. So you can't replace what you're already doing. You have to add additional services. What Lindsay is talking about here and what's mentioned on the slide is actually sales tax that has been generated within the bid. That is not regulated in that article at all. The plan would, I believe, to still spend it within that geographic area of the bid, but it does not have the same regulations as the property tax.

So would that type of cost, that type of revenue be eligible to use for... debt service on a capital investment in the downtown such as a performing arts center for which we do not have any future dedicated revenue sources for.

Assuming that the location is within the bid, which we're talking about the same one, then I think the answer is yes.

I'd support that idea because this is going to be a recurring cost, correct?

What is that idea?

Funding the APD. If we do it this year, I guess we're going to have to do it next year, or am I thinking about that wrong?

And we can change the budget again next year. But it would be an annual gap.

Yeah, it would be. I don't support, the three others are fine, and they're good, and thank you, manager, for finding some other saving opportunities. But the bid sales tax for APD personnel, I think we need to continue to fund that from the general fund and set aside this sales tax revenue to be used specifically for something that enhances downtown. I do think we're gonna be faced with how to finance a performing arts center for the portion of our debt service and that's not something that I think is broadly supported in the community to be funded out of the general fund. But for sales tax to be spent in the downtown, that would make a lot of sense to support those businesses in our downtown. But there are also other expenses that aided is looking at to bring enhancements to downtown that they could utilize this funding for. So I do worry that any time a government identifies a new source of revenue and as soon as they blend it in to their general fund expenditures, they never claw back. And I was mentioning to Representative Turner long ago when I worked in the legislature, I remember that the lottery for education was only gonna be additive. It's only gonna be additive. And here we are in North Carolina. How are we funding education? Not well. So I just worry that that we should not try to earmark, we shouldn't fill this gap with this funding this year because it'll be hard to undo it next year.

I was the, I think I was the person that suggested this concept and I'll tell you from where I was coming from because like I said, I did think that we were making some increased efforts in downtown. We have for the last several years been responding to increases in downtown issues throughout the spring and summer and then in the late summer we'll have to throw some attention at it. And so what I was suggesting earlier in the year is that we preemptively paid more attention to downtown so we didn't have that same situation. So we did. And then when APD came with a $1.8 million request to fill additional vacancies and that was the impact of the budget, I saw the two as a potentially blending option. I was looking at it as one time to be talked about again potentially next year just to get through this budget crisis because we don't have a performing arts center yet. We don't have anything earmarked for this funding and it's not clear what it's gonna do if it doesn't go to this. So I continue to support putting it in there with the caveat that we need to talk about it differently next year.

Can I suggest an idea? I remember earlier in the budget process we were talking about the debt service for the geo bonds. And I know you guys had floated the option to us about instead of doing the full 100%, we could do 50%. And now what we're, being presented is 75%. And so I'm wondering what does it look like to claw that back down to that 50% and then maybe kind of use those for what Council Member Turner is saying. I agree for the APD.

You're talking about from the bond?

Well, from the money that we would save for that.

How much is that?

You don't have a slide on that, do you?

What is the difference between 75% and 50% of the bond? That I would have to look up. What we have in right now is almost $5 million for the bond.

But do you have a property tax?

I don't want to be wrong. I think it was $3 million each, wasn't it? And then you came back with $5 million.

I don't want to be wrong. Let me just say this. I mean, I don't disagree with the idea, but I am a little worried because the other piece of legislation we haven't talked about is not only the moratorium legislation, which just passed the House, and it's a Senate bill, so it's already, is the bill that passed that will put a referendum question on a constitutional amendment that will allow the legislature to cap. property taxes starting next year. That's gonna be on the ballot in November. I'm sure it'll be very popular. Who doesn't want a property tax cap, except for maybe your elected officials? So I think, I don't know what the exceptions are. The problem with that legislation is that it just generally says they will be authorized to cap property taxes with exceptions. So we don't know if they'll carve out exceptions for bonds. We don't know if they'll carve out exceptions for, they rejected a number of amendments in committee that would have carved out exceptions for funding. first responders. I mean, so we really don't know what that's going to look like. So I just, I would like us to try to just, you know, I just want to make sure we don't make a decision that we are in a pickle next year.

I appreciate you bringing that up. And we talked about this earlier because I've been really conflicted about the budget on the whole, but this pressure that we're feeling from these outside entities is impacting my decision. Let's get through the presentation, I guess.

Yep, you have a little bit more, don't you?

I do, yeah. I'll just keep going. Thank you very much. All right, so the third item here is aligning the academy start date, so typically APD has two classes per year. We had originally budgeted their second class to start in January, but after speaking with APD leadership, it sounds more like the start date is actually gonna be in February, so if you kind of shift our projections a little bit, it gets you a little bit more personnel savings. And lastly, community center security. We've taken another look at our incident data at community centers and we're going to decrease that contract by another about $100,000. So those are the changes that we are proposing since May. And this is what it looks like for the tax rate. So before on the previous slide, I showed you a tax rate of 37.84 cents. All these changes will change the tax rate to 37.50 cents per $100 of assessed value. And so that represents a tax rate that's 4.61 cents above the revenue neutral rate compared to previously 4.95. And here's what that looks like for the average homeowner or a range of homeowners We have all property values here from $250,000 home to a $1 million home. And we're showing here the annual and monthly impacts for those homeowners.

Thank you for the value spread.

Sure. All right. And so here is what the budget then looks like with all of those adjustments baked in. So the only thing that's changed is the general fund amount here. It's now... about a 2.3% increase, and the overall budget for all funds is $275.1 million. I think that's my last slide. The last slide is your vote, so any questions for me?

Could you remind me what the cost was of the... 1% benefit?

The 401k. Of the 401k, what was the dollar amount there? Yeah, it's about $530,000.

Yeah, I just remain concerned. Our employees are the city, are the work that we do, are the services, they build the infrastructure. We're seeing waves of retirements. I don't know, I feel concerned about having that one pulled out. I'd like to see us fund that. I also am concerned about using the found sales tax for APD personnel. I feel like one of the main drivers for me and my interest in starting ADID was so that we could have a financial model that insulated investment in downtown from general fund scarcity and challenges. And in literally the first year that we could go take from that piggy bank for a budget gap in the general fund, it's being proposed to do that. It's counterintuitive to investing in downtown when we still have high unemployment, when we're seeing businesses close, when it's the economic driver of a region the size of West Virginia. Someone mentioned Pennywise, Pound Foolish earlier, and that strikes me as that, despite a challenging budget year.

How much does not doing those two things increase the military from what is proposed?

Can you go back to the, Tony or Lindsay, can you go back, yeah, let's use this slide because This tells us the bid sales taxes point.

230 grand. Yeah, that's $226,000. So if you do just the three, you'd have less point.

I can tell you the number now.

Yeah, let's do that. So if we were to undo that sales tax, bid sales tax APD personnel shift and add back the 401k, the new tax rate would be 37.77 cents. Say that one more time. 37.77. As opposed to?

That's a 4.88%.

increase above revenue neutral.

But from where we were, we were looking at a 4.95 over revenue neutral, so this would put us at a 4.88.

This goes from 37.84 to 37.77, proposed to now, if you make those changes.

Just wondering, were there any other potential cuts that are not included that would make up the difference for what we're just discussing?

There were none that we would recommend. What the goal was in the second attempt is to try not to reduce service to our residents anymore than we did in the proposed budget. And so that's why we were looking at options that would not impact service delivery.

Were there anything with the community center security that we could go further?

I think you,

You feel like that's as far as you can go?

Yes, that's as far as we can go this year. That adjustment right there that we're seeing. Based on the incidents that we've seen at the various community centers.

I would love to see some more information on the data, the incident reports that you're using. I'm abreast of taking it seriously and that would be helpful data.

I would support looking at that community center security as well. I mean, even if we... did another 100,000, that would help us for the APD personnel. And again, if we're investing so much in our law enforcement who are trained, who are the most professional out there, I feel like we should rely on those folks instead of having redundant services. I mean, I don't know if these folks seem to be this over... burdened with policing. You know, we've had one incident in two years that I know of, so I'd be interested in that data too.

Oh, yeah, well, I mean, we have to make a decision tonight. I think what the manager's telling us is she's identified this further reduction from where we last looked at that contract. And she will continue to work with Parks and Rec to see if there's any further cuts. But for purposes of our consideration for tonight, this is where you feel comfortable landing. That's great.

Well, and the other thing is, unless I misunderstood, we're paying for the security by actually reducing the community hours, especially on the weekends. So I have a lot of concern there as well. Or I...

It's not a one for one community center hours with community center security. Of course, if the centers are not open, it does allow us to shift a little bit, but it's not a one for one connection between how it impacts our budget. I will also share with regard to community center hours, our staff has been working with our programming partners and the changes won't take effect until the end of August. And we feel pretty confident that we'll be able to ensure that all of our programming partners will still be able to act in the new year.

That's important to me. I know that's important to you and several others of us. Community centers are pretty important to a lot of people in their enjoyment and recreation and occupation. Do you wanna bring us back to the, we have this complex motion situation because of the recusals. Let's see. So council, if we were to tweak this, I guess we need to talk about that before we start voting on this. So one idea is to reinstate the 401k 1% Another idea is to not use the downtown sales tax revenue for policing. Anything else up for consideration in terms of adjustments? Okay, so we... Let's go to slide 13.

Slide 13, please. On slide 13, it shows what the decreases would have been if we would have accepted what these last minute changes were going to be. So what is 37.5? What is that relative to what we're deciding now?

So I think what you said is if we do the 401k and take away the... It was those four items.

The 226. So basically we're adding the items on the previous slide. We are adding, sorry.

Because I can just jump in and say, before we get into a motion, this has been an adventure. It really has. Knowing that we're in the height of recovery and knowing that all the changes that are going on in the world, you can feel the impact, the economic impact on families and on, I mean, personally, you can feel it. Nevertheless, being on the inside, you have a different appreciation and a different level of empathy for the conversation about getting us to an approved budget. And I have to say hats off to you for being very attentive to all the changes. I mean, I've never seen this type of orchestration since I've been on council. You've been very attentive and the finance staff have been in tow with you the entire way. I don't know that there has been one thing that we've raised that you have not put a lot of consideration into, and for that, I would like to say thank you. And to every, I mean, this is, I don't know of another municipality that goes through this long, this lengthy budget process to educate everybody to prepare us all for today. I went to bed with this on my mind, and that 37.5 was in my mind. And painfully, because this is not an easy process, because when making decisions, you have to humanize everything you hear. People have to live. Even the conversation earlier, we're doing a one or. It's both and. People's lives are at stake. So I was painfully in favor of the 37.5, but I don't know if I feel good about the changes right now on the dais. I wanna say yes, and I don't know if tonight we don't get to a yes and we have to go into contingency if we can ever get to a yes, but my heart was stuck on the 37.5 in favor of everything that has been done and where we've come from.

Lindsay, can you say what the number would be if we did the 401k and not the sales tax?

Before that momentum is lost, I want to just say I second everything that she has said. You have done a wonderful job. I don't want you to lose that moment.

You're saying what it would look like to... I think you said it was 3.77.

You're saying what it would be to continue with using the bid to fund police. No, no, no.

I'm saying don't use the sales tax to fund police and do fund the 401k. So that would be... Yeah, I think you said it was 37.77.

Take your time. That would be 37.58 cents. Sorry, she's trying to use my spreadsheet, y'all. I should have let her use her. It's okay.

So to do both would be 37.77 cents. And can somebody tell us the difference? I mean, to Councilwoman Smith's point, 37.5 versus 37.77, you've got your median house of...

378, I think you, I'm sorry, 478.5. What would the difference annually be to a rate to somebody who's paying this tax?

Yeah, so we're trying to anticipate all the questions y'all might give us. I think we've got those numbers here in the spreadsheet. So for the typical homeowner who owned a property valued at 478,500, to do this would be an additional $9 a month, or $9 a year impact. It's a very small change to the overall tax rate.

$9 a year. Correct, correct. Between $37.5 and $37.77. Correct.

That still makes me a question I had before. If your property value goes up, right, and you, it's nine over what your property value is this year, right? But if your property value were $100,000 less Last year, when you get ready to write the check, it's more than not a difference of $9. Could be. So that is an interesting math question.

That's why I asked for the spread.

Which I discussed with Tony before this meeting. So if your property went up... more than 22.7% in value, you will see a tax increase of some kind with this, with any of these scenarios. If it's below that, you'll actually see a tax decrease. So that's the break even threshold. 22%? 22.7%, that was based on approximately 37.77, I think I had it based on.

Yeah, that's even at revenue neutral, as the mayor was indicating. So, if your property value increased by more than that average, then even at revenue neutral, somebody's tax bill would go up. Yes.

So, do more expensive properties have a lesser increase generally in our community? In the percentage appraised increase? Right. So, I'm going, okay, who is below 22? Instinctively, I'm thinking it's higher value homeowners.

Does Buncombe County give us any of that data?

We haven't seen any of that data, no.

It would be helpful, wouldn't it?

So we don't know.

Commercial properties would be that. So I am going to just, before we vote.

Well, commercial properties are doing that because they're starting at a more significant value, which is what I think Vice Mayor Mosley is referring to, because their percentage is smaller because their valuations are so much higher. And I think that's what she's getting at.

So I know the cost of doing business is going up, and the business that we do is serving the people who live and work here. As our residents and local businesses face an affordability crisis, it's been critical that we examine every dollar, and I think we have. I appreciate the impressive work our new city manager, DK Wesley, and our staff, including the HR team and finance team, are doing to dig us out of systemic and inherited issues with the goal of maintaining services. While I believe we have the right team in place to get us moving towards a budget that reflects our community values, I only have two options for voting for the budget, and tonight I'm not able to support, in part related to the compensation structure that leaves more staff behind in living wages, The impact of the 401 match, which I think we've moved towards addressing, and that's good. Cutting the community center hours that are part of neighborhood resiliency, and a lack of prioritization for funding the strategic partnership fund for youth programming that historically served to reduce the opportunity gap, but is also needed to prevent gun violence among our youth. Lastly, there are unanswered questions about disparities in our county tax structure. There's more to work to do to make sure that commercial real estate like hospitals and grocery stores are paying their fair share instead of the burden of the valuation falling heaviest on the residents.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You know what? Can we go back to the motion slide? I'm sorry. Okay, so the way this is supposed to work is first I get recused, then we have a budget vote. No, no, no.

First you adopt. I'm sorry, budget vote, then you get recused.

That's correct. So the budget that you're voting on does not have any allocations for those two items. Oh, I'm sorry, you put it without the, yes, okay.

We'll do the recuse. So if we wanted to make an amendment, it would be in the first one.

So we would do it in this initial round, and then I got it.

Correct.

And so what would be the best way to do that, to just say the tax rate?

I have actually sent council an updated motion. We can adjust this as need be, but it includes what I think I heard from the majority of council, which is starting from the manager's proposed budget, which I'll call the 37.5, but with two changes. One would be to... eliminate the use of the uh bid sales tax for public safety funding and move that back just into the bid um and that's i think 100 226 000 it's specific to your motion and the reinstatement of the one percent employer match 401k with the new tax rate being 37.77 so you each have that motion and that would be the first motion you would make and if we need any other changes i can edit those

I'm ready to make. I make a motion. I move to adopt the fiscal year 2026-27 annual budget ordinance with the following adjustments to the form presented by the city manager. One, elimination of the 220,000 like 226,000 allocation of bid sales tax revenue for public safety, and two, reinstatement of the additional 1% 401k employer contribution, and three, an adjustment of the fiscal year 2026-27 general fund tax rate to 37.77 per $100 of assessed value. Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second? Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Council, we're gonna take a vote on this. I did wanna say to our manager, Wesley, we hired you in December, and then we handed you this incredibly difficult task. Both Asheville and Buncombe County were looking at shortfalls in revenues, needed to cover expenses, and you figured out how to navigate us through that. We've had many, many, many meetings, and so thank you to all the staff who worked worked on this and thank you to the community that's been following this process and giving us your input. I think this is an incredibly difficult year. It is very important for us to keep property taxes as low as possible to address affordability. We also need to pay our staff better. And this budget, although it doesn't get us right to where we need to be, it is better than it was. And so I think that that is very important. I know we're gonna be looking holistically at our staff pay and looking next year at how to make further adjustments so that we address some of our bigger challenges in our staff pay. The other really important thing about this budget is of course it's a balanced budget. It shores up our reserves and we have been able to reestablish our AAA bond rating as a city. That slipped after Helene when the bond market was looking at cities that suffered the hurricane and thinking about our revenue situation. So we really needed to demonstrate that we have a stable financial situation that allows us to borrow for the general obligation bonds that people have passed, that allows us to borrow at the lowest possible interest rates. available to cities, so it makes a big difference for taxpayers and what they pay on that debt. So again, thank you so much for all the work you've done, and thank you to council, because this has been really challenging.

I'm going to chime in with one more thing before we do an official tally. I take property taxes very seriously, because they affect real people and real budgets, and it's just so hard out there right now. I also think most people understand instinctively that ignoring a crack in the foundation doesn't save you money. It actually means a bigger repair bill later. And we've done that over and over and over again with a lot of our infrastructure and a lot of our core services. So part of our responsibility as a city I think is making thoughtful investments early enough to avoid costly problems down the road. And so despite the adjustment we're looking at here, I'm proud that we aren't eroding those core services and widening that gap and kicking the can down the road to get more and more and more and more expensive, which has historically been a challenge for our community. Thank you.

A little feedback on that kind of sentiment, too. One of the things that has been a driving factor for me through this budget process, which has been an amazing and formative process, I will say, has been the chart we started with that showed the five years and that number at the bottom of each year that said we are looking, we're staring down increases of 20, 25, and $30 million a year in shortages. gaps for each of the next five years. So we've made some real effort. We started at 30 million, we're not, I think we're down to 12, is it? I'm curious what that does to that chart. I'm wondering how, in light of these bigger conversations around caps on potential property tax rate increases caps or restrictions on revows, how are we moving and navigating through the next few years? And to me, when I think about our inability to simply just create new revenue streams, we have dreams, we have goals, we wish the state would allow us to do more things, but we can't just create them. I'm left with this overwhelming feeling that we have no choice but to cut expenses because next year we might have to cut even more if there's another $25 million gap and we can't raise property taxes. I don't understand how we're going to get to these next few years and resolve those problems too. I think as we move forward through next budget cycles, I would like to have that as a more integral conversation throughout. What is this change we're making as a council on this random Tuesday do for the next five years? I agree. And it's not clear to me right now. And I'm really struggling with this budget. And I've been saying it through the whole budget cycle massive appreciation for staff. I agree with so much of what I've heard up here. Staff deserve more pay. We have more services. We need more community services. When we start cutting stuff, and I see the list of community programs and services cut, it gives me heartburn. I want to be able to do everything, but we can't. And I don't know that I can support this tonight. Because I feel like across the board, between the fees we've added, the taxes we're adding, What the county is adding, this is a $500 impact per year per resident, and that worries me. And that doesn't include homeowners insurance and Duke price increases and all the other things, inflation. And I just don't know how our homeowners are doing, our residents are doing it. And I'm just really conflicted. So I hear you.

Where are you getting the $500? That's if you have. City, county, and fees.

The collective impact to the taxpayer. For us right now, this looks like what we're talking about in the silo right now is about $220 to $225 a year for the median house price. But collectively, the impact is greater.

Yeah. I share your concerns, Council Member Turner. I, first of all, I just want to say, DK, the amount of interaction and seriousness that you have brought to the council is just seriously amazing. And so thank you for that. And thank you to all the staff. Echo what my colleagues say. You know, I'm really having trouble supporting this budget for a number of reasons. We addressed the 401K. We added that back in, which I'm thankful for. We're looking at the community center hours, which I don't think even in August we should be cutting those, especially as we move towards fall and winter. Those are often those darker months. People need to be with each other. We need to be in spaces. Um, you know, I just think sometimes we lack creativity. And, you know, so many times out there in the private sector, in the public sector, workers are frozen in time in their wages. And we, meanwhile, you know, the top earners, you know, are continuing to get increases in pay. And so I'm just, you know, I'm, If the 50% of debt service was okay four months ago, what makes it not okay today to reduce that burden? I mean, more likely to support this budget. Or if we just froze the top 1%, 5% of city earners for just this year, right? And let the other folks catch up, save that money and put that... towards again reducing the tax burden on our citizens and then that community center security is just a heartburn I cannot I can't it's just to me it's replicating what we already have with less professional less trained less qualified people and some of our most vulnerable neighborhoods and so that's where I have some hang up. So if we could do a little bit better on this tax burden, I could support this, but I just don't think we're there yet.

Okay, we have a motion on second. Anyone else have any questions or comments? If we don't get a budget tonight, what happens?

If this is not approved, what happens?

Come back on the 23rd.

State law requires every local government in the state of North Carolina to pass a budget which must be balanced by July 1st. If you do not pass a budget, you still have one additional meeting this month. In the absence of a budget, we're not even allowed to spend grant funds, which means money coming in from FEMA and the other programs you've heard about tonight, we must stop spending those.

Starting July 1.

Starting July 1, exactly. Not starting tomorrow. And in order to have the ability to at least, I'm going to say keep the lights on, pay our ordinary expenses, our debt service, and those other items, council would need to pass at least an interim budget, which can only go for maximum of maybe 50 to 60 days.

We've only done that once.

We've only done that once. That would allow at least just the base operating expenses to continue to occur. You must, must set a final tax rate essentially by August 1 by under state law. So that is the true drop-dead point. If we made it beyond tonight without a budget, you would probably want to give the city manager time to at least prepare an interim budget and finance staff or council to consider your next meeting. It would be difficult, I think, for them to come back with both an interim budget and an alternate budget for you with just one meeting left in the month.

Okay, so we have a motion to second. Any other questions or comments for staff or anybody? I see that DK is looking pretty. Yeah, I mean you've done so much work and you've met with all of us individually, you've worked with staff and I think you put together a budget that reflects as best the input you received. with your expertise.

So I... Yeah, I don't see this as an indication of staff at all. I feel like you all have been more than helpful. We have not clearly, if this budget doesn't move forward tonight, it's because we haven't communicated with each other enough or something to get to the same place to be able to direct you better. Because you all did a fabulous job.

All right, so are we, do you all have any more, I mean, do you feel ready to vote? I want to ask you to make sure you feel ready to vote. Painfully ready. You don't feel ready to vote? Well, I guess, will you ever feel ready to vote?

Never in the history of, no.

I mean, you know, this is a hard budget vote period. I'm not sure if waiting makes it better, but do you? Yes, it did, yes. You know, I guess I'm not hearing from anyone. I mean, Beau, you've said several things that are pretty complicated and at this late hour would be very difficult to try to address in the budget. I think I haven't heard anyone say... Any, a counter proposal other than, boy, do I hate raising taxes, which, yes, absolutely. I mean, that is an, you know, absolutely. I don't think anybody in an elected position takes lightly trying to balance a budget and dealing with, you know, the few tools that we have. well, really, the only levers we have to pull here are property taxes and fees.

Well, to be clear, I've heard both say this conversation about the community center service offer or security multiple times. This isn't today only. No, no, no, I know.

And I think the manager did her best to address the security contract.

And there was a lot of list making and ideas, just to say. And I mean, actually, DK did a wonderful job of flushing out tons of ideas that we brought her. So there's been a lot of effort. I think it's really just, it's just the time. It's the time. We're in our second year of recovery. We're not actually recovered. We've got chaos at our state level of bills and property taxes, and we've got chaos at a larger level.

Do you want to do a counterproposal that cuts the 1% 401k and adds the bid thing back in?

that gets you back to the 3.5 that you slept on.

Or go to adjust the bond fund to balance it out, to get it back.

I am where I am. I'm comfortable with adjusting the bond fund. I have been for the whole time, honestly.

You mean the three. So wait, I'm hearing, or Council Member Simpson, did you hear? I just heard. few people say they're comfortable with amending that 75% bond fund.

Were you able to calculate that?

I hear you saying you're comfortable with the 37.5, but the 37.77 is...

But what are you okay with? If we do go into contingency, are... and alternate, what will get you to a yes? And Councilwoman Turner, what will get you to a yes?

Oh, you know, we're close. We're close, yeah.

Will we ever get to a yes? That's my question to you two, because I came in here thinking that we were there, but at the final hour, you guys are like, no, actually.

In fairness, the last time we heard from our city manager on what we were going to hear about for the bid sales tax was that after we just approved the budget, we were going to get multiple strategies after having input from the aided. And then on Friday, I learned that it was being proposed to us. So the last public information...

But you're ready to move forward. I'm speaking to the other two. What would get you all to a yes?

Reducing the tax burden. By who?

By how?

By the GEO, by the debt service on the GEO bonds. Moving it from 75%, if that'll make, to 50%. Making sure that we have that 1% for the 401k. I can't support the budget without that. And then the community center hours. That would get me to a yes.

Well... When you say the community center hours, is there a security or not? We have the adjustment here. A reduction or?

Well, I would do a reduction. We've talked about this a little bit, Council Member Smith, so I'd like to hear your thoughts about that. But that's the way I would pay for it.

When I hear city manager say, Wesley saying is that they made the reductions based on incident audits. So right now, without a strong commitment from APD to give the staff and families in those neighborhoods the confidence that they'll have someone to have their back, then where are we? I don't wanna make a blind decision to take it down to zero without confidence that our children, elders, and program participants feel safe.

What do you think about the 75% down to 50% for the- I don't know.

I think they've done a great job in substantiating why 75 as opposed to 50. I think we are where we are. I just feel from this council today that this is a little upsetting.

What's upsetting?

That we've gone this far and we're not getting to a yes. What approval?

So, just to answer the question, if we were to reduce the amount budgeted for the geobond from three quarters to a half, that would be a 1.65 million dollar reduction to the budget, which would allow us to bring the tax rate down to 37.18. That would include, again, bringing the public safety funding back in. And the 1%. Yeah, the motion that Council Member Oldman made.

36.

Wait, just to clarify, you said bringing the public safety back in from the general fund.

He means not using the sales tax revenue for public safety.

And you said, say the number again, 37. 37.18. So even lower than what was proposed when we started today. Lower than what was proposed, yes.

Is there any?

I'd be open to rescinding my motion and making a motion in support of that.

Brad would have to very quickly draft another motion. That just floats the tax burden.

The next year.

We have to do another half.

When we might have restrictions upon doing so.

Hopefully there'll be an exception for GO bonds.

And I've got to say, some of this risk about what we're able to do in the future is literally the only thing swaying me right now. I don't want to impose this tax burden on our residents. Coming out of recovery, I wanted a more austere approach. And we've done a lot, don't get me wrong. Knowing that we may not be able to raise taxes later and are going to face even more critical needs is actually making me wonder if we have to approve this tonight out of need. Not that I want to. To some of the questions earlier, I had a longer list of things and ideas, but I feel it doesn't help anybody to just list them right now at the last minute. I've been through meetings with our manager. I've talked to each of you on the phone about them. You know where they are. I take that as a they didn't reach you all in the same way that they meant to me, so we're not looking at them as options. But I certainly had more things that I saw as possibilities.

Well, is there any appetite to move the bond money from three quarters down to a half funded?

And so the next budget cycle we have to add that right back in the following year? Yeah, we'll have to do the other half.

And it will be one point something total. Did you want to add anything?

Or tell us a little bit more about why you didn't split the bond that way.

I guess we're all on pins and needles. Oh, I don't want to stop us then. No, no, I mean, in terms of getting to four votes here, I'm just trying to understand if there's any appetite for this change, this three-quarter to a half funding for the bond. Bo, I hear you saying that will bring you across the finish line. That's what you're saying. Because it brings the property tax rate down slightly.

Keeps the 401k for the workers, keeps committee hours through the summer, and et cetera.

Okay, so that's where you are. But, I mean...

last year, fullness. So what's happening now, we're just saying, let's do it next year. That worries you, or you don't care for that.

It's a challenging one. And it probably has less impact later.

I'm open to other ideas as well.

Well, we have a motion and a second to have a budget, a balanced budget adopted that has a tax rate of 37.7 that funds three quarters of the bond.

37.7.

3.77, right? Yes. 37.77. Yeah. And I'm still not hearing whether or not there's four for a different version. So I'm open to ideas. I'm open to... Do you feel like you have...

I think ideas I throw out now will make it more confusing, so I'm going to refrain.

I feel like I'm hearing that there isn't support for it, which I don't want to say out loud, but that's what it sounds like. The bonds or the motion? For the motion that was made. And I just want to make a plea... Yeah. Having a budget's pretty important. Making hard decisions that are unpopular is part of leadership.

But no is a decision. Do I want to vote for this? No is a decision. So then what are the constructive options?

The vice mayor did second the motion, so I don't know.

But I wasn't going to vote on it. I just did it so we can move forward.

Oh, okay. So you're not in favor of the budget? No. That's done then. Okay.

Well, then. So is there an alternate that you would support? It sounds like you would like to.

Yes, but early on I wanted to be more austere. And once I saw that that was not an option. It's been speed rolling ever since. It has. I agree with that.

Okay, so I can rescind if someone wants to take away the 1% 401k and go back and the bid and go back to what DK proposed.

I don't think that has support is what I'm hearing.

Yeah, I don't. So, okay, let's talk about this then. Vice Mayor, you're talking about an austere budget. Sage, you're talking about an austere budget. What would that look like that would gain your support?

Early on in the process, I wanted to know more about what a reduction in services would look like as well. And I felt like I was the only one who really wanted to see that. And then we're gonna do like a study to see for the next year.

I remember that.

So really a revenue neutral budget. And is that where you are as well?

Actually, I have some philosophical concerns, too, because of things that happen throughout the spring in our budget cycle around things like overtime. I wanted us to take a stab at overtime. Right. And, you know, when we see these increases in personnel and these increases in specific departments of personnel and these significant impacts to overtime, which I know is being worked on, to me there's movement there. And it's a... It's a statement, too, and I actually want to echo, I don't know who said it, but I was also feeling better about the idea of staff increases when it was several options that could be applied differently, but then it came as one option that I didn't feel as comfortable about, which we've had that conversation at the dais, I think, every year I've been here, you know, and It seems like a lot to deal with at the dais at the last minute. I know I've had my conversations with each of you, so I won't.

Well, it's not at the last minute because there's a proposal you're saying there also isn't support for. So I'm feeling pretty confused. Yes, there's some suggestions.

I don't know that we can make a proposal right now that the city manager and her office can handle.

Let's do this. If we don't mind, I would love to just take a quick break. I've got to step out and use the restroom. So let's recess here. Let's give ourselves about 10 minutes or so. All right, welcome back, everybody. Thank you for indulging us in that recess. We are back. Where we left off, we had a motion and a second on the table to adopt the budget with a couple of changes, and now where are we?

I would like to rescind my motion. Okay, and will the seconder help with that? Yes.

Yes, okay. Now, do we have a new motion?

Okay. All right, I move to adopt the fiscal year 2026-27 annual budget ordinance with the following adjustments to the form presented by the city manager. One, reinstatement of the additional 1% 401 employer contribution, and two, an adjustment of the fiscal year 2026-27 general fund tax rate to 37.69 per $100 of assessed valuation. Okay, we have a motion, do we have a second?

Second. All right, thank you. All right, council, as you can see, this motion's a lot like the last one, except it goes with the recommendation of the manager to shift the downtown sales tax to supplement the general fund. So that allows the property tax rate not to be quite as high as originally proposed. All right, we have a motion to second. Any other questions, comments, council? Okay, all those in favor, please raise your hand. All those opposed, please raise your hand. Okay, so the vote is four to three, we have a budget. Unfortunately, that's not the last thing we have to do. So now, if someone will make a motion to recuse me.

Make a motion to recuse Mayor Manheimer from voting on the attached budget amendment in accordance with NC Session Law 2021-191 SB 473, Economic Development Coalition.

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

All right, and now... And then we adopt, then we do this in linear order. Okay, so now...

You're doing it.

You're doing it. Okay. Is there a motion to adopt a physical year 2026-2027 budget amendment in the amount of $100,000 in the general fund to allocate budget from the city manager's contingency to fund the city's annual contribution to the Economic Development Coalition?

So moved.

Is there a second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Good, thank you. Now we need a motion to recuse Councilwoman Turner. I make a motion to recuse Councilwoman Turner from voting in the attached budget amendment in accordance with NC session law 2021-191 SB 473 sports commission.

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, and now will someone make that fifth motion?

I make a motion to adopt the fiscal year 2026-27 budget amendment in the amount of $45,000 in the general fund to allocate budget from the city manager's contingency to fund the city's annual contribution to the sports commission.

Do we have a second? Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, we are done with those items. Then we are on to unfinished business. Item C, a resolution author, we're changing topics now. Thank you, budget people. Thank you very much. We're moving on to a resolution authorizing submission of the 2026-2027 Annual Action Plan for the CUNY Development Block Grant Program and Home Investment Partnerships Program to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. And James Shelton is here. This, again, is one that we have already taken public comment on.

That's correct. So as presented at the last council meeting, we are recommending funding for four organizations with this year's CDBG funding. We have a total of $1,046,468 to award with this year's funding. We recommend funding the Asheville Water Resources Department with $500,000 for lead pipe replacement. Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity with $177,136.40 for home repair, which is agnostic to Helene or not Helene. $100,038 to Helpmate Incorporated for domestic violence survivor tenant-based rental assistance program administration. And then $60,000 to Pisgah Legal Services for homelessness prevention services. And the remainder would go to CDBG administration. And then the home program, 100% of the funding to rental construction development. I believe you have all the funding amounts in exhibit A of the staff report. We did undertake a public comment period. We received one public comment during the public hearing and four written comments during our public comment period. All of them asked that we fund Homeward Bound in some capacity. They were not one of our recommended awardees during this year's funding cycle, but that is part of our report to you tonight, that during the public comment period, we did hear five comments to support Homeward Bound in some way.

Yeah, if anybody would consider shifting some of the funding from the water program to Homeward Bound or however.

May I ask a question? Not necessarily so specific to Homeward Bound. Is the goal to fund more housing services or is it specific to Homeward Bound? The reason I'm asking is when I looked at the scoring, Safe Shelter scored higher than Homeward Bound in each of the categories and requested less.

So both great recipients. Can you tell me the differences in what they're requesting money for? I thought they were programmatically somewhat different.

The Safe Shelter was, I believe, to support their emergency shelter programming. The Homeward Bound program was to continue their case management for homelessness prevention. And so they partnered with the Housing Authority of the City of Asheville to do case management services. That was the portion of the program that they scored highest on. Homeward Bound also applied for what's called housing services programming, which is administrative support for administering a tenant-based rental assistance program. And they scored lower on that one specifically because they did not demonstrate a need particularly for that because they did not receive, excuse me, they did not receive a home tenant-based rental assistance award this year.

So it was administrative funding to run a program that they didn't get an award for. So that makes a little more sense because it's not usual for staff to recommend them not being in the funding stack.

It wasn't necessarily that we didn't recommend them.

It just didn't come to the top as high, yeah. That makes a lot more sense to me. I'm actually comfortable.

So they did submit two applications. The one for what we call public services was for housing case management in partnership with HACA. And that was for $124,197. And the other for the tenant-based rental assistance program support was for, just a moment, I will find it, $154,725. Now, I will make a note that regarding the public service application they submitted and our public service capacity to award public service dollars, we do have a cap of 15% of our grant that we can award for public services. So we've already awarded $60,000 to, or at this point we have $60,000 recommended for physical legal services and that is a public service type activity. So that does eat away at our cap that we can award elsewise for public service. So what you have available to you...

So, James, you were saying, Sage, you were saying that...

I wanted to make sure you didn't miss that, because we're all concerned about Homeward Bound, but one of Homeward Bound's asks that wasn't being funded was funding to administer a program that they did not get the grant... for that program.

Which one of the applications does that fall under?

That is the housing services application. So if you're looking at what I provided to you guys after the agenda briefing last week.

We're looking at the staff follow-up information. What was the program we funded last year through this that we didn't fund this year through it for Homeward Bound?

have to look, I believe last year we funded AHOP, the coordinated intervention.

Yeah, it was under public service.

Correct.

Yeah.

Okay, and so this is a prevention program, $124,197. Yeah. But we have a public service cap.

But we have a cap.

You cannot award that amount without reducing the other public service award that we have.

That's what I'm saying. It's for out, yeah.

So if you keep the award at, PISCA Legal Services, which is a public service type award. That is a $60,000 award. The most you could do to Homeward Bound should you choose to want to fund them is $96,970.20.

And what are they doing at PISCA Legal Services?

Well, we actually fought to bring that one back. If you don't mind. I always hear all the time people call them and they don't help them. I talked to Pisgah Legal about this specific funding, and it was evictions protections at a time when evictions were cranking up, at a time when HACO was making some decisive moves that may equal evictions. So we at HCD actually brought Pisgah back into the funding fold.

So are there any eligibility? criteria to this, because I get messages and emails that probably we all do that.

There's a scoring machine.

You need to qualify for that, but I don't know that we can get into that tonight. There's income qualifying, sure. At PISCO?

Yeah, you can't be a client at PISCO unless you're low income. Mm-hmm.

And a variety of services. Are we considering doing one instead of the other?

No, I'm actually right where we're at with the staff recommendation, and I'm happy to move forward like this. If you all have some changes, I'm just not there.

I'm just making sure the maximum amount of people, because a lot of people go to Pisgah Legal, and then I hear, oh, they turned me down because of some sort of criteria. So is that a city criteria that's there? So is there a way to...

Not tonight, no. Okay. I mean, if we're changing it, we could change anything. Change Pisgah to not fund them, you mean? I don't think we can change Pisgah's entry yet.

You know, again, making sure the most amount of people can get served.

You know, I would love to see a shift, what we can, over to Homeward Bound and, I guess, take it from... I'm just skeptical whether we can really execute... Where would you pull it from? There's two different pots. You just said we could... What can we pull it from?

You could potentially reduce from the actual water resources allocation of $500,000.

So that's what I was saying, is just shift whatever you said the cap was, 97-something-something, from water over to home about. That's correct. For that public services piece. We are, you know, we just have been... We will be the recipient of a $6 million grant to work on prevention in Asheville. We don't have the money yet. Prevention is right at home. Yes.

So is that an argument to do more lead pipes? No.

That is an argument that we still need this service for the time being. And we might be able to revisit how this is done once that program is in place, which Emily is working hard on.

And what's the dollar amount?

Six million?

No, I mean for this potential move tonight.

You said it could be up to.

The maximum would be $96,970.

So $96,970? Mm-hmm. So if I made a motion to authorize the submission of the 2026-2027 Annual Action Plan for the Community Development Block Grant Program, CDBG, and Home Investment Partnership Program, HOME, to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development with the change of $97,970 coming from the lead pipes program and moving to the public services. Then I will second it. Okay, so I just made that motion. Okay, great. We got a motion. Did that cover your two things?

We got a second. We had a public hearing on this before, so we're not taking public comment on it tonight. But does anyone else have a question or comment for James? Well, not comment, but a question? James? James? No. Okay.

So just to be clear, was the motion... To move from the lead pipes to the homeward bound for that maximum dollar... The maximum dollar amount. For the public services one. $97,970. $96,970. $96,970. That was the number. Okay.

And that would leave...

Oh, yeah. I don't know how you were. We weren't.

That would leave $403,030 for the water project.

Which is a great start and will help. That's an anti-displacement strategy. It's an important tool. All right. Got it.

Look at us making decisions. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. All right, seven to zero. We did it. Thank you very much. Okay, we have one more item here that we'll be voting on tonight, which is a resolution amending resolution number 26-96, adopted on May 12th, 2026, to authorize the Additional Award of Community Development Block Grant Disaster Relief Multifamily Housing Funds to Mountain Housing Opportunity slash South Creek Development, otherwise known as Terrace at River Hills. And we have Nikki Reed here to present this item.

yes thank you nikki reed with the housing economic development department i also have elma king here who's our subject matter expert with the cdbgdr that can answer questions um i also want to note that we have representatives from the development team here tonight as well so jeffrey barton and rich olenichik from the mountain housing opportunities and charlie heritage with south creek development are here so At the end of the presentation, I'd like to invite the applicant to come up to the podium and make some remarks about their project, and they also can be available for questions. So with that, I do want to kind of briefly go over the slides. They are very similar with what we shared at last council meeting. So May 12th, council adopted a resolution to award two projects, Commonwealth and Laurel Street, for 205 rental units. Tonight we are here to recommend an award of 9.5 to Mountain Housing Opportunities and South Creek Development for the top-ranked Terrace at River Hills project to support 126 units. Again, to recap the meeting, the initial motion from last meeting failed to move forward, but we are glad to be here to reconsider this. It is the top-ranked and most shovel-ready applicant recommended by city staff, and unlike competing projects that rely on complex dependencies of other funding, Terrace at River Hills is vacant and ready for development. So with that, the city's investment is immediately actionable and avoiding the typical multi-year delays. So tonight we are asking for council to authorize this amendment to the May 12th council resolution to additionally authorize the agreement with Mountain Housing and South Creek for this award. So again, going into CDBG-DR, because I know there are a lot of questions about the costs, and I do think that is related to the structure of the program, and it is by design, but that still means that there are some ways in which we could seek some savings. So I want to talk about the disaster resilience characteristics. So it is a HUD requirement that we have disaster resilience, as part of our NOFO and as part of the multifamily awards. In order for us to implement that, we elected to go with the Enterprise Green Community Standards. They have a set program. It is cheaper and more flexible than the LEED program that I think we've all heard about. And including this would be able for us to meet that mitigation requirement and then also have a standard by which we could have through the NOFO to evaluate these projects. I will share that staff can commit to ensuring that we right-size these requirements for the projects such that they are not out of realm with what is appropriate to the site itself. So I did hear some comments about floodplain issues and floodproofing and we can get into that and the developer can also speak to that if that is a question. So again, we can commit to making sure that no project is burdened by unnecessary costs. Another component of course, mixed income housing. This was the same as before. Really looking at LIHTC income averaging and prioritizing deep affordability. That way we can really assure that we meet the residents that are in most need. So again, looking at our NOFO, 13 applications received, 12 eligible, total units proposed were 1,481 and over 70 million in DR. Again, our scoring for our NOFO was really adapted to be A point-based system that talked about financial efficiency, affordability, disaster resilience, commitments to long-term viability, and that was with the reserves that the developers would set aside for ongoing maintenance to make sure that these projects were cared for in the long term. And then shovel readiness. So again, we really want to ensure that these projects can proceed as quickly as possible to see these units come out of the ground. Again, the evaluation recommendation process, we presented this strategy at our last meeting to really understand what the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency is doing and how to really take advantage of not only the tax credit awards, but also the state's CDBGDR funding, which is why we were recommending funding two projects with a fully funded framework, one project that would seek the CDBGDR funding to advance as many units as we could possibly achieve. So, again, to minimize risk, full funding is recommended and minimizing the risk of losing the leverage or failing to meet federal expenditure deadlines. A quick overview of Terrace at River Hills. This is, again, the partnership with MHO and South Creek. Their request is 9.5. The location of the site is vacant. You can see the unit mix of the project there, 35 years of affordability with a total development cost of $42 million. Again, capital stack, this is the same as shared with Council previously. Looking again at a simplistic capital stack because we really want to ensure that this project can proceed and the CDBGDR request there from Asheville at 9.5. Rationale, again, is that we are shovel-ready with this project. The disaster resilience component can be met with the Enterprise Green Community Certification, but we can certainly right-size that to fit the need in this location. We did ask for higher reserves to ensure that long-term physical and financial viability, and again, this long-term community impact of seeing the 35-year affordability window is something that preserves affordability for our future. So again, I wanted just to recap this. I will share that the suggested motion has some nuance to it and I want to share that when these awards are made, the next step that staff does is to commit to a very rigorous underwriting process where we work with our consultants and the developer in very much of an open book style where we understand all of their numbers. We see their bids from the general contractors. We can follow up on every line item to ensure that we are not overfunding this project. And in this case, the NOFA was established so that we could have a criteria across the board, across all developments, to get the data that we need, the applicants that we need, the numbers that they were sharing with us to make an informed decision. But at this point, if we're able to proceed with this project tonight, we can then go into that underwriting process to ensure that we are getting the best bang for our buck. The motion was changed in this case to say, an additional award not to exceed. That means we don't wanna have to come back to council to ask for more money if we find out that there is additional gap. I think in the years past, we have seen that. We've seen other projects that actually do have to come back for council because we see that they need more funding. So in this case, we are wanting to ensure that this project can get built, reduce as much risk as possible, and ask for that authorization so that staff can do that underwriting in concert with the developer so that we can come to council A done deal.

But that's my remarks.

I'm gonna ask that Jeffrey Barton does share from the developer's perspective, and again, on hand to answer any questions.

Thank you. Jeffrey, you're finally up.

Thank you, Nikki. Greetings, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of City Council, City Manager, and City staff. I'm Jeffrey Barton, President and CEO of Mountain Housing Opportunities. Thank you for inviting us back as you reconsider making a funding commitment to support Terrace at River Hills' affordable rental development. I'm joined here today by my colleague Rich Olenicek, who leads our rental development team, and Charlie Heritage, managing partner of South Creek Development, our partner in this development, who we've known for many years. Since 1988, MHO's mission has been simple, to build and improve homes, neighborhoods, communities, and lives, and build hope and dignity in the people that we serve in Asheville and in Western North Carolina. In that time, MHO's finance developed or preserved 1,426 affordable rental units. We've completed 17 LIHTC developments comprised of 1,132 units. helped over 500 families achieve home ownership, and completed more than 5,500 home repairs to help low-income homeowners remain in their homes rather than face displacement or homelessness. We operated as a Community Housing Development Organization, or CHOTO, and maintained certification as a Community Development Financial Institution, or CDFI, through our down payment assistance loan fund. So in order to articulate the benefits of the city's investment in Terrace at River Hills to advance Asheville's housing recovery efforts, I'd like to share a little bit about what MHO has done so far to provide disaster recovery for this community. Like many of you in the immediate aftermath of Helene, we provided support for our neighbors in need, shuttling food, water, life-sustaining supplies, and basic sanitation to over 1,000 renter households who live at MHO-owned properties. We were fueled by community generosity, donations flowing through beloved Asheville, United Way, faith communities, and countless other community partners, all working with two goals in mind, save lives and save the community we love. We quickly obtained and deployed a significant grant from Dogwood Health Trust to provide rent relief for over a thousand renter households. We self-imposed a 90-day eviction moratorium due to non-payment of rent, even though there was no local, state, or federal requirement to do so, purely motivated by the conviction that tenants should not fear losing their homes in the aftermath of the worst natural disaster our community has ever seen. We launched a new resident services program last year, knowing that It takes more than just an affordable home. It takes community connection and access to the array of services available in our community for low-income families to stabilize and thrive. We repaired significantly flooded properties on Depot Street in the River Arts District, restored occupancy to 12 small businesses and 22 affordable rental units made uninhabitable by Helene. And special shout out to council members Sage Turner and Maggie Ullman for showing up to help us pressure wash in the aftermath. But even as we worked to provide this immediate relief, we also knew that we must mobilize a significant long-term housing recovery effort. So without missing a beat, the dedicated team at MHO resumed operating our key affordable housing programs while continuing to respond to immediate needs. And here are the results so far. Our home repair program serving households at or below 50% of the area median income in Asheville and Buncombe County has completed 353 home repairs to stabilize 249 households. with 29 more repairs currently underway, providing new roofs, electrical, HVAC, restoring water service, plumbing to people to regain a modicum of stability, while also adding critical accessibility features to help our elderly and mobility-limited neighbors stay in their homes. We've built 120 affordable rental apartments at Lakeshore Villas, a 4% LIHTC development in Arden. Just a tenth of a mile from the city limits, this receives $0 of support of city funds, $750,000 in federal home funds administered by the city. 30 out of 120 units there are set aside for tenants with project-based rental assistance. Since Helene, we've built 60 affordable rental units at Starpoint behind the Mountaineer Inn, including a set-aside of 12 units for young adults aging out of foster care. in partnership with an array of community service providers. That was made possible by $1.3 million that the city provided in support, including early funding to help us purchase the property three and a half years ago, with the condition that if we did not obtain financing within three years, we'd sell the property and pay the city back. We needed just 10 months to obtain highly competitive 9% LIHTC financing, and less than four years later, we are complete and move in ready, despite a thousand year storm event taking place in the meantime. We've also started construction of 84 rental units in Waynesville, funded in part by CDBGDR allocation from Tropical Storm Fred. Since Helene, we've started development of 60 new homes on an eight acre site between Black Mountain and Ridgecrest. We've provided construction support, down payment assistance to help 27 low income families purchase their homes, with three more set to close next week, including six families that we helped to build their own homes in Candler through the USDA self-help program, one of whom is a City of Asheville employee. And since Helene, we worked with Explore Asheville and the amazing artist Tommy Lee McGee to install a beautiful new mural project as part of Asheville's Black Cultural Heritage Trail on one of MHO's properties in the River Arts District. All this to say, since Helene, MHO is not just building homes. We're building hope and we're rebuilding community. We're delivering a significant and sustained housing recovery operation that Asheville so desperately needs. and we're just getting started. We have not done it alone, and we rely on important partners like the City of Asheville. So we humbly ask for your support to help us to continue our work to deliver meaningful, impactful, sustained recovery for low-income renter households that, like MHO and like you all, are working tirelessly to help Asheville recover. Terrace at River Hills is a key investment in the city's future. It is shovel-ready, reliant only on the city's CDBGDR funding commitment, an affirmation of a non-competitive 4% LIHTC award from NCHFA. It was the top-scoring applicant in the city's CDBGDR multifamily NOFO and will be a pillar of our city's ongoing recovery. We're eager to help you quickly leverage and deploy these federal CDBGDR funds into our community to fulfill their intended purpose. We're thankful for the hard work put in by city staff and its consultants to administer a fair, open, and competitive procurement process and request your full support to fuel Asheville's housing recovery by investing CDBGDR funds in Terrace at River Hills. Thank you for your consideration. We're here to answer any questions.

Thank you, Jeffrey.

I'm thinking of the deeply affordable housing in this project, including the one and two and three bedrooms for people and families, making as little as $8 an hour, and getting it done quickly to meet the CDBGDR deadlines. So thank you for that. Zooming out to the big picture, I do still have concerns on our end about the home repairs and pulling funds from the water infrastructure to make sure that we're able to do this kind of project. But I'm considering right to return and reducing climate-related displacement. So I know a family with kids who left Asheville because they couldn't afford it and had to move into an area even more heavily impacted by flooding. And now they don't have a home there either. And so this project for me represents being able to have that right to return back home. So I'm ready to make a motion when you're ready for one, Mayor. I have some questions.

Can you speak a little bit about the programmatic requirement of the flood proofing and the million and a half dollars and tell us more?

Yeah, so the city designed a NOFO to create a level playing field. It was important, even though there's great variation among sites, that the city be able to look with its consultant with apples to apples comparison. So the NOFO included a lot of resilience enhancements, and we've included those in our budget and in our funding requests. We are able to provide enterprise community green communities at nominal cost But it's these added enhancements that may not make sense to the site which is why staff is asking for the latitude for an up to funding recommendation that Your professional staff will be able to analyze what works best for the site and will work very closely along with them We don't want to provide needless cost. We want all the cost to be support renter households. So, yeah, we're completely open to reducing and eliminating unnecessary measures. And I recommend that staff be the ones leading that charge.

Yeah, that's of critical importance to me. I mean, I've already spoken at length about my concern is not your project, et cetera. My concern is the single family repair. And that's why I haven't been able to support this thus far. But my anxiety around it is cranked up when I hear that we might actually spend a million and a half dollars flood proofing a building that's not in the flood zone. And that just seems exponentially wasteful in light of my earlier concern. So I just really, whatever you guys have to do to eliminate that, please do.

Yeah, if this project had 100% construction documents that were being bid today, we could eliminate those, know the exact cost. Where we're at is a point that we need a funding commitment so that we can release the architects and engineers to design those plans. And to Nikki's point, You know, we are in a cost uncertainty environment. We know that with an up to $9.5 million funding allocation, this project will be built. What we don't know is how bids are going to come back in several months once we have those 100% drawings. And so that's where the flexibility comes in. I don't think anyone wants... needless resilience measures that don't make sense for this particular site.

Yeah, it's just they were baked in and we didn't even know until it was casually mentioned in a conversation. Like these are the kind of things, like I just knew the cost per unit was high inherently after seeing all of these projects for a decade. And it was concerning. And then I found that out. So I just, you know, I want us to really understand and evaluate this recovery money and taxpayer dollars with the utmost concern. And I know, I'm not saying anybody did anything wrong, but there's something in the process that didn't cue that, that we could have said, why would we require flood proofing in non-flood zones, you know?

Well, I think the confusion may be that the NOFO allows for that flexibility once the applicants are scored. In order to get that apples to apples comparison, you really had to have equivalent measures, understanding that there is wide variation in sites and need for those features. So I think it was actually a well-designed NOFO because efficient use of funds was a scoring criteria. And in order to be able to fairly judge, you have to create the same expectations of everybody who applies. It was kind of a way to evaluate, and then those can be backed out on a site-by-site basis. I do hope they're backed out.

It made me think that the projects were intended to be built, replaced in floodplains, if that was going to be a requirement. It's okay. I don't need to derail us.

Yeah, that was covered in the presentation. Any other questions for Jeffrey? Okay, thank you very much.

I move to amend resolution number 26-96 to authorize the additional award not to exceed of 9.5 million of CDBGDR multifamily housing program funds to Mountain Housing Opportunities South Creek Development Terrace at River Hills.

I'll second. All right, we have a motion and a second. And before we vote, I just want to say thank you all for coming tonight and thanks. I know I had a bunch of questions and after the last meeting and you took the time to meet with me and talk over the project and you all do fantastic work and I've always supported your projects as they've come through and they've turned out to be not only something that serves the community so well but also transformational in terms of some of the locations where they're constructed and the care with which you place a project. So thank you all for your service to our community.

I do have one, just one question.

Is it for Jeffrey?

Yeah, so I know there's a property management P and something, PMP, and I have gotten, and I don't know if anyone else has gotten, but I've gotten a lot of complaints about these folks. And so I just want to put that out there. I'm concerned about giving more money for you guys that are using this property management company that seems to be very unresponsive to the tenants when they bring up issues as far as maintenance. They are threatened with eviction. This is what they're saying. So I want to put that on your radar, that that's on our radar.

Yeah, I appreciate that, Councilman Hess, and would welcome an opportunity to follow up on individual cases. This was ultimately one of the reasons we launched a resident services program in-house, was to better serve resident needs. Partnership Property Management is the management provider. that has a depth of experience in the very complex compliance arena that is affordable rental housing, they, like us, are not immune to making mistakes from time to time. And so by having our own resident services resource in-house, we're hoping to kind of address and work upstream a little better before non-responsiveness occurs. So certainly, yeah. forward constituent concerns my way and we can follow up directly. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Nay.

All right, so six to one. This one passes. And just for the record, we didn't have anyone signed up to speak under that item. Okay, Council, we're now ready for our general public comment. We have one person signed up to speak under general public comment. You'll have three minutes, and that person is Sean Schneider.

I am Sean Schneider. I am a member and an advocate for the trans community here in Asheville. Three in 10 trans people live in poverty. I have many a friend who I have assisted with cash or paying a ride due to my fortunes in life. I see this city boast about its inclusivity and how it supports our community, yet I see often that when it comes between helping those in need versus developers or people with wealth, this city almost always chooses those with wealth and power. 17% of sexual minority adults experience homelessness, which is more than twice the general population. I know multiple people who have experienced homelessness, yet this city, who proudly weighs our flag, puts forth programs that push our unhoused populations out and into harm's way. We put forth panhandling moratoriums saying that this will help people when we know we'll just trap folks in the justice system with no way out. We know this is another tool of systemic violence being used to attack people who have nowhere else to turn. I try and regularly attend the Campaign for Southern Equality lunches that have happened once a month since Helene. I got my winter coat and socks there after I lost just about everything from the storm. Many of the queer community come there to get professional haircuts that they have a difficult time affording or massage that is impossible to afford. Yet when I hear that individuals here show up not to sit down and eat lunch with the people there, to talk to us at our level, but to go around and shake hands, it enrages me. We come here for community, for connection, and it is used to get brownie points for an election. We're not stupid, nor are we ashamed of who we are. We're a proud community who do not wish to be used for photo op while you ignore our actual needs. We are a proud and dignified community, one with many intersecting identities and needs. So if you raise our flag, you need to raise it most of all for those with the most needs and the least amount of power, not for those with wealth and power who can get what they want regardless of identity. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, that concludes our public comment, and we are adjourned.