City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, everyone. Welcome to the Asheville City Council meeting. I was just getting the okay that we're ready to go. Um, if you could just take a moment to silence your cell phones and also I think most of you have seen we have a table for people to sign up out in the hall um to sign up to speak tonight and it will populate on our screens in front of us. If you could please rise for the pledge of

allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Uh before we begin our agenda tonight, I'll read the chamber decorum uh statement. 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 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. Um, all right. First, uh, we have one, uh, proclamation this evening. And let me just look at my agenda here. I see that Brent Bailey and Brent, whoever else you have with you, please bring up and meet me down at the lectern.

Jasmine.

Just you. And this is the fair chance hiring week proclamation. Whereas every year more than 600,000 individuals are released from seek and federal prisons and 9 million are released from municipal or county jails with many seeking to rebuild their lives and contribute meaningfully to their communities. And whereas approximately one in three American adults, 70 million people, have a criminal record, representing a substantial and often overlooked segment of our potential workforce. And whereas employment is the single most important factor in reducing recidivism with formally incarcerated individuals who maintain employment for one year post to release experiencing only a 16% recidivism rate over 3 years compared to 52% for those who remain unemployed. And whereas hiring formerly incarcerated individuals provide significant benefits to employers with 85% of human resource leaders and 81% of business leaders reporting that second chance hires perform the same or better than other employees. And whereas formerly incarcerated employees demonstrate higher loyalty and longer tenure with research showing they're less likely to quit their jobs voluntarily than other workers, resulting in reduced employee turnover and recruitment costs. And whereas employing a hundred formerly incarcerated individuals increases their lifetime earnings by 55 million, generates 1.9 million in income tax contributions, and produces 770,000 in sales tax revenues while saving millions of dollars annually by keeping them out

of criminal justice out of the criminal justice system. And whereas 93% of formerly incarcerated individuals between the ages of 25 and 44, those in their prime working years are actively working or looking for work, demonstrating strong labor force participation. And whereas many industries experiencing severe worker shortages, including construction, manufacturing, accommodation, and food services, retail trade, and administrative support services could benefit from tapping into this motivated workforce. And whereas communities benefit when people with criminal records find meaningful employment through decreased poverty rates, strengthen families, and reduce crime. Now therefore, I, Esther Mannheimer, mayor of the city of Asheville, do hereby proclaim April 12th through 18th, 2026 as Fair Chance Hiring Week in Asheville and encourage all employers, workforce development agencies, community organizations, and citizens to recognize the value and potential that formerly incarcerated individuals bring to our workforce and work together to create a more inclusive economy that offers opportunities for all members of our community to contribute, thrive, and succeed. Yeah, I just want to um thank the city for the proclamation and acknowledging this and also being a leader in offering those employment opportunities uh for those with criminal backgrounds. Uh many supervisors and managers report these are some of their most dependable and best employees. And so if we really believe that while people are incarcerated, they're having opportunities to rehabilitate themselves. It's an opportunity, it behooves us as a community to provide people once they are released. So once again, thank you all for getting behind this. We appreciate it.

Oh, I'm Brent Bailey and I'm the coordinator of the local re-entry council here in Bunkham County. Thank you. getting a picture. It's a job fair at the center. Okay. Period. When did he say Thursday? He did. He said job fair at the egg center Thursday.

Thank you. Okay, that concludes our uh proclamations. We um we have removed item D from the agenda tonight. That was a resolution authorizing the city manager to apply for, accept, and sign all of the appropriate application and acceptance documents for the community project funding award allocated to the city of Asheville as secured through Congressman Chuck Edwards office and managed through the Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. um this item. Yeah. What what I think we're going to do is bring this item to back down to the public uh to

policy and finance committee which will meet two weeks from today which is April 28th uh here in this room at 3:00 4:00 3:30 I don't know we're going to have a time that we know that we're meeting uh so that we can hear a lot more information about this um item and get full information uh for for us and for the community to hear about it. We hear a lot of questions and concerns about uh this funding item and we want to make sure that we address everyone's um questions and fully understand this item before taking any action on it. Uh if the council decides and one of the reasons we're bringing it to the policy finance committee is that's a full subcommittee of council. Everyone on council sits on it. um uh and if it were to move forward at that point, it would go to council uh in a May um agenda. Uh this um this issue in particular is very uh very important to cities right now, especially in light of what we're experiencing on a national level uh and federally. And I know a lot of cities around the nation are grappling with uh real-time intelligence center issues. Uh, so I think it it warrants a full conversation before moving ahead. Um, so with that, council, we need a motion to approve the consent agenda without item D. Do I have a motion?

So move. Second. All right. That's not Maggie. Okay. All right. All right. Our pitcher. Okay. All right. I have a motion and a

I do have a request since we're rescheduling this for the policy and finance committee. I think um one of the things that I've learned in our conversation in the community for the past six weeks as this has been bubbling up is that our neighbors were not aware that we use surveillance technology already and what it would mean to synchronize it. So if we could bring to policy and finance what some of the anticipated costs are beyond fiscal year 1. Um, and then also a conversation, something about like flock cameras and how they're currently used, what our policies are around them would be helpful.

And if there's any follow-up steps to be taken as a part of the funding. Okay. Okay. We have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda without item D. Uh, we do have two people signed up to speak under this item, and you'll each have three minutes to speak. The first person is Paul Howell and while Mr. Yeah. While Mr. Oh, did you want to speak on item D? We're We're not If you would like We're Oh, you do. It does say item. I'm sorry. Never mind. We're not doing that item. I apologize. Okay. We don't have anyone signed up to speak under the consent agenda. That's not item D. So,

can I make a comment about one of the Yes, please. Please. Um, I just want to highlight item F as in Fred. That's the memo um memo of understanding between the housing authority um and uh APD to provide uh services to those properties. Once again, this has been a long time um it's been a long time ask of the housing authority both from the leadership and residents. So, I'm very happy that we're finding a way to um provide them with the uh safety that they've been requesting for years. That is great. That is great. I think

I'm sorry. I Please, we can't have people speak out of order. We're doing the consent agenda right now. If you would like to sign up to speak, anyone if you would like to sign up to speak, just make your way into the hall and you can sign up to speak and address the council. Thank you. Is he saying under the public comment he did? I don't see on that list. Yeah. Oh, it looks like it's um every every single item D sign up has been moved to the general comment at the end of the meeting. So your name is number six in line during general public comment at the end of the meeting. What time is that?

Okay. So we'll so when we're when the at the end of the agenda we will take all general public comment and including it's well Paul said yeah he said he wanted oh he okay I don't so we'll move as quickly as we can to get there um all right those in favor please say I any opposed all right we have concluded the consent agenda we have um a couple of presentations and reports. The first the first is the state of the airport and the executive director Lou Bllywise is here. Welcome Mr. Bwise.

Good evening, madame mayor, rest of city council. I appreciate that. uh you have electronic versions and you have also been passed out hopefully a hard copy of our annual report uh summarizing operational issues for 2025. With that um air service for 2025 we have six airlines, American, Delta, JetBlue, Sunountry, and United. We had 27 non-stop destinations out of Asheville. Uh we added we lost Baltimore and Washington but we added Washington Dallas and Delta added Boston which is something that we already had. From a passenger perspective, we had a total of 2,240,877 uh passengers. That was up 3.1% and it is the second highest total of passengers coming out of the airport flying to the community or from seats in the market were down 1.5% for a total of 1,389,600. Load factor was down 4009% for a total of 78.39% load factors on all the airplanes. From an operations standpoint, uh we had 32,993 airline operations which is up 3.8%. And general aviation and military was down 10.6% for a total of 40,533. Uh we also during the course of 2025 uh unveiled our new branding and logo uh for the airport and and uh and the marketing materials that all go with that. From a construction standpoint, in 2025, we opened the north concourse ticketing and the temporary checkpoint. Uh completed the FAA control tower from a construction standpoint. Did some interior perimeter roads and demoed some general aviation hangers in making room

for uh additional overnight aircraft parking for commercial aviation. Total spent in 2025 was $126.2 million. community uh events that we had. Of course, our runway 5K uh we did earn about $38,000 net for that. Uh we split those proceeds up to various organizations, one being ABT Aviation Foundation of $15,000. Another one was WNC Pilots Association Foundation for another $15,000. Our charitable partner is Big Brothers Big Sisters. the course of the year, we provided them $6,000. And lastly, was this was a one-off. Uh but because of the government shutdown throughout the year, uh that had a major impact on our TSA workers at the airport, uh we provided $2,000 to Mana Food Bank because they assisted our federal TSA workers during that time. We had pause for passengers AVL gives uh which is our own internal charitable contribution program of over $12,000. Uh we did two blood drives. Uh we had two honor or Blueridge honor air flights recognizing our veterans taking them up to DC. music in the airport and our art in the airport program which started with the new terminal again and we highlighted those artists that were um were that were hurt and devastated from the hurricane Helen. From an economic impact, our number stays steady uh at $3.85 billion for western North Carolina. We're currently undertaking with the division of aviation another economic impact study that will be out in January. Our financials for the year from an operating revenue standpoint, we had $29.6 million. From an operational expense standpoint,

we had $17.6 million, netting us $12 million. Our assets in 2025 at the end of the year, 357,631,170, which is up $43.3 million from the previous year. I'm happy to answer any questions that you all may have. Thank you. Thank you for Lou. I do want to say the new terminal is very nice. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Wait till the second. Yeah. Something about baggage.

Okay. Our second um report for tonight is the manager's report and I'll turn it over to manager Wesley. Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to actually pass it off to my colleague Brad Brandham and D up.

Center.

Uh, good evening, mayor and council. It's nice to see all of your faces from this angle for a change. I appreciate that. Um, as was already said this evening, I'm going to be uh joined by our community or excuse me, our communications public engagement director, Dawa Hitch, and we're going to be talking to you about digital accessibility, specifically a fairly significant change that the city in conjunction with all local governments and state governments around the country are about to make that's going to represent a pretty expansive um and significant change in the way that the public accesses the current information that we put out digitally. be it on our websites, be it through social media pages and our apps. Um, all of this is going to be operationalized in a way that DA Hitch is going to explain to you in more detail this evening. But hopefully you will get the underlying um goal that the city staff have put forward, which is to ensure that we remain legally compliant with some new regulations on us while also continuing to strive for the level of transparency that we hold so important for our community. Why are we doing this? Well, in 2024, about this time of year, the Department of Justice and the federal government issued a ruling that said going forward, all state and local governments must become fully digitally accessible for those individuals with disabilities. And that specifically applied to digital offerings, including web pages and mobile apps. This is something that city staff have been working on to become compliant in for the last two years. The deadline for the city of Asheville is actually next Friday, the 24th. This rule, as I mentioned, is going to affect the appearance, the usability, and the function of all city websites, our social media pages, as well as our city apps. In addition, it's going to affect any of the pages that we have linked to those materials. So, it's a

very broad scope. The general rule says that if we put it out digitally, it must be accessible. And accessible is defined under the American Disability Act standards. There are some limited exceptions to this. Uh but they are limited in scope. So you're not going to hear much about us utilizing these exceptions except in extreme circumstances primarily not only because they are thin, but because our goal is to actually provide this material in an accessible format so that everyone can access it. The most common one that you will likely see uh some of our material being placed under what is called an archived exception. This really just refers to older materials used for records and research that's not updated. So it does allow us under the new rule to have some of our material go into these archived areas and you'll hear a little more about that uh when Dow comes up here. I do want to highlight an important part of the final rule, which is that there were specific consequences included by the Department of Justice for any non-compliance. They include not only enforcement actions by the Department of Justice, but the ability of private individuals to file lawsuits against the local government to seek compliance, compensatory damages, and also attorneys fees. And the last of those is one that we concern ourselves with because it may incentivize uh law firms to seek out any violations that they can file lawsuits against. With that being said, I'm going to stay just up here with you and continue to answer any questions that you've got during this process, but I want to hand it over to the far more apt hitch to take it on and show you how we're planning on operationalizing all of this. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council members, Dawa Hitch. It's my pleasure to be in front of you this evening to share with you um what this will look like in practice. So, just for a little bit of background,

um this ruling came down and work began on it not long before Helen hit. And so we all know that same team that was responding to the communication needs during that time as well as building the new astral recovers website and then into our recovery. Um is also the same team that's been working on on this project as well. And uh they've been putting all their time and energy into how can we be creative and accessible while also minimizing any risk that we're exposing the city to. So, that's just a little bit of uh background. What you're going to see here today is um really oriented towards this April 24th date next Friday. Again, so that we're minimizing that risk and um I think as Brad shared, there's a lot of unknowns out there about how some pieces of this ruling are going to be interpreted and we are going to have our our ears and eyes open for that and be as agile as we can. um if there are things that uh links may be removed or something that just makes it a to have an extra step to getting to the information. So, I just want to assure everybody this is no done deal as we walk through this, but we're going to continue learning and then opening up to be as um uh accessible as we can both for people um that are differently aabled and and those who are not. So, I did want to anchor us all into the people factor. You know, what's behind this ruling is is people having access to decision-m materials. And 16% of the global population experiences a significant disability. And there are lots of categories of people who are differently aabled. There's physical, sensory, cognitive, emotional, developmental, and how they interact with information um is

different in each of those categories. And so this is an effort again to make sure that that people can have access to the decisions, programs, and activities of their, in our case, local government.

I might have just jumped in. I'm not sure if I introduced myself. I think Brad did, but again, I'm Daitch and I serve as the communication and public engagement director. So this ruling touches a lot of things that we all interact with daily. web pages, our public input platforms, software applications and web sites, our YouTube videos, social medias, uh social media platforms, documents, um archived material, slides, presentations, forms, and specifications. So, so it is material that people need to access to be able to do their work, right? If you're in construction, you may need some specifications that the city has um posted on the website. um if you are participating in decision- making, we want to make sure you've got access to the materials that are informing the decision. So, those all those components are important with with how we've mapped out a path forward. There's challenges. Um even coming from two different federal agencies. So, here's an example. We've got conflict where we've got conflicting federal requirements. Um, we've got our community development block grant disaster recovery funds that require posting of reports that HUD generates. Those reports that HUD generates that they require us post are not accessible. So we are having these conversations you know how how do we navigate through this minimizing the risk to the city and and and as we talk to our colleagues across the country which we do as we are involved in webinars from um ICMA and others all cities are experiencing these challenges of some of these conflicting requirements. Um, another challenge is is our sincere desire to meet community expectations for transparency and and accessibility. Then there's also the cost and time

required to remediate documents so that they are accessible or they meet the accessible um accessibility requirements. So this is an accessible slide deck. Um, what I'm going to do now is is talk with you a little bit about what's going to look different. Um, so so that we can be people can understand the why behind this and what the opportunities are moving forward. So when we're talking about city websites and our public input platform, there may be less content. That's not I want to I I I think there's been some misunderstanding out in the community about what that could mean if there is information that is anecdotal. Um we've got a lot of web pages that aren't visited often. They're kind of um their legacy from projects that you know closed out many years ago. So, we're going to we're going through and doing a cleanup to make sure that we can just manage all of the information that's out there. Our website is huge. There will be a record of anything that comes down that people will be able to see. So, if they would like that information that's no longer in a digital format, we can still get that information to them. I think that's a really important piece of this. Uh I think Brad mentioned that there will now be archived sections of the website. So you will see there will still be linked information documents in that archive section but it will be clearly noted so that people for example that are using machine readers they understand that as they come to that information and it will be clear to them. Um, and again, there are specifications about what information can be archived. And, um, just to paraphrase a bit of what Brad said, um, or maybe just to put this in plain language, if things are

being used currently to access programs or perhaps in decision making, they we're going to have to look harder at whether or not they can be put in an archived section. So again, we just want to be upfront about that. There will be a path of anything that you can't link to that you used to be able to just open a link and the document popped up and uh we've got a pathway for people to provide feedback on if there's anything that's not there that they loved and and we'll be working to remediate documents and get those things up as quickly as we can. Um consistency and forms. We got a lot of forms on the website. So hopefully people there and they ran all over the place. Some were forms you had to print off and fill out. Some were using software that is not accessible. So we have will now have consistency across the website with an accessible form tool and that's a project that the team's been working on to get us to where we are today. Uh there will also be fewer links to outside web pages. Um there's there's part of this ruling and and Brad feel free to jump in, but we are also limited to what we are linking to and what we're linking to needing to be accessible. So, um we'll talk a little bit more about what that'll look like in practice, too. Uh but just wanted to note that so so there's there's no surprise. um master plans where we what the plan is right now is that they will be named. They will be it will be clear that they are available, but until we can get those remediated, they will likely be removed. And the thinking behind that is we're still using many of our master plans to inform decisions that are being made from this day and on a programmatic level. Uh there will be accessibility statements made throughout the websites

um committing our commitment to meeting those requirements and um there will be some technical documents for example that have just that are still available. They'll have descriptive statements and again pathways to support. If somebody has uh a disability where they can't read it, we want to make sure they're getting the personal support that they need so that we are putting our time um our staff time in areas that is most important for those who have the greatest need. So, YouTube, uh, we do we've got a great we've got a pretty strong YouTube, uh, subscriber, um, following. And, and what I want to share here is that part of this requirement means that all videos must have improved closed captioning and audio descriptions added. So, I want to be clear, meetings will continue to be streamed, but there will be a lag before they're posted to allow for remediation. So, that's posted externally to the website. There'll be a little bit of a lag. We're working through the contract right now to have those remediated. Um, so our April 28th meeting will be an example. Well, there'll be a little bit of lag. You know, normally Dan and Logan, they stay here late. They they produce this meeting, they stay here late. they can get that uploaded back up to the website and it's available quickly. There will be there there will be a lag to allow for that.

What type of lag? What's that? Days, hours? No. Yeah, probably probably days is is what we're looking at and it depends on the length of the meeting for example and the complexity of the material.

All right. So something else that will look different just to be able to manage the YouTube as an accessible resource. Past videos that were on YouTube will be taken down and they will be listed on the website. So, you will still be able to access them under the archived material um exception that we have, but we'll need they'll be in separate spaces because we can't get into the back end of YouTube and give all of the disclaimers that we need to give about what's accessible and what isn't. So, we will be building back towards an accessible YouTube through the remediated videos that we're doing. Um, but here in this moment where we're having to remediate and we want to keep putting things up, people will need to come to the website and we'll create as clear a path as we can so they know that so that they can access past videos.

Quick question for you, Dawa. When I can't watch a committee or when I can't attend a committee meeting, I I often watch it preemptive to the council meeting to follow along. Is this only public facing? Is it possible that council will still get the videos? Okay, that's great. Thank you.

You got it. That's that's the fourth bullet right there. Anticipating that that's a question and and it's it's a question for staff too as we go through our day-to-day work meeting to be able to go back and look at those videos. Um so so of course minutes will be available. Another option that we're looking at is can we run the video transcriptions right after the meeting so the video transcriptions could be available and we can get those into an accessible format for external facing and yes council and can can we can share because we're not posting it externally links to council meetings council committee meetings recovery board meetings and planning meetings are what we're talking about prioritizing here in the short term I appreciate all these questions that that there's a lot to wrangle in this in this unfunded mandate adventure. So slide decks and presentations I alluded to this a little bit. They will look different. Um they are oriented towards being readable for people that use machine readers. So you'll see here this is the fifth slide that says what will look different. It's important to note that it's the fifth slide for anybody that's relying on a a reader. So there's some things you'll see there. There will be likely less content on slides. There'll be limited colors and font sizes, fewer complex images, and I I did want to share that presenters will receive training to provide clear descriptions of images such as charts and diagrams and site plans. So, you'll see more of that that helps us get things remediated quicker when people are talking about what they're showing so people perhaps that um have different abilities can also follow along. Um, so that that will be something that's different. There will also likely there there are technical drawings and things that also need to be displayed. And so we're working through what a solution looks like for that so that we can still get the videos repeated quickly, but we're not limited by the content um and the complexity of that

content. If you just think about all the site plans that you all see or the plats or or whatever that comes before you that's technical in nature. So working through um a solution for those as well. Um software applications and partner websites. The Asheville app is going to be replaced. I hate to be the bearer of of bad news. I know it is a beloved tool. Um but but that company does not intend to come into compliance and uh it's been a great team working on this between the city attorney's office communication and public engagement IT having to work with all of these software platform

to make sure that they're coming into compliance and not everybody's going to. So, our short-term solution, so we've got an RFP out. We're going to choose a new product um that closes tomorrow, the 14th, and we're going to have an interim solution until we can get that new product up and running. And and we're building that off of the way we handle incoming needs during Helen. So, we'll be managing that on the back end of our um public input platform where people can still use QR codes and things like that. Uh so, It's an imperfect solution. It's an interim solution. We'll certainly be sharing how people can access that, but that's the plan for the Asheville app until we can get the new product up and running.

So, since the deadline for compliance is next Friday, does that mean the Asheville app will be gone by next Friday? Okay. Well, I we're gonna get through this presentation, but I I um first of all, there is some murmuring that the feds will somehow suspend this deadline because no city is getting this whipped into shape in this time. And the unbelievable radical change in the way that you provide information and interface is is pretty overwhelming. I mean, DA is sort of softing it, but like basically we're not going to have pictures in slide decks anymore. Um, so well you can they'll just have to have alt text and they'll be

Yeah. So I mean it's a very important initiative on in some respects but I think there are a lot of cities that are not choosing to take these steps this quickly this fast because there are so many challenges around it and and there's so much uh loss of information for the community as easily accessible as it is right now for people. So, you know, I we can get to that discussion at the end and I don't know what the options are. I know that if you don't comply, there's always a risk someone will file a lawsuit. Um, if you but on the other hand, I mean, the change is is really dramatic. I mean, to be sitting here today talking about taking the Asheville app offline in a week is

like that's alarming. For me, it's personally alarming. It is. They're all going to email you. there's that but also I use it but um so you know I think um let's finish the presentation and then let's have that conversation and I just appreciate the comments about the magnitude of this it's been an enormous thing to wrangle um and yes again so another thing there's there will be a probable pause on the water smart customer usage data literally just

um and then for Now links to non city boards will be removed and again that's because of the accessibility of their content. What we can do is provide email information. So these are these are boards that maybe council appoints people to but that we don't manage and run. So again we're finding every way that we can continue the connection and then still um minimize the risk for not being in compliance. So, this is an ongoing project. I mentioned that in the beginning. Uh, we will be doing regular comp we still we do already and we'll continue to do regular compliance scans of the city's websites. Uh we will be remitting documents and and part of that will be based on requests and budgets and then um initial document scans by by our department staff and trained accessibility partners and other departments um will be made as we kind of transition into this new space where we're we're posting accessible documents from the beginning. So again, there's kind of two categories. Things that were that we're still using. Those need to be remediated and we're using them to make decisions or perform programs. There's stuff in the past that's archived. That's all good. And then there's this things that we're going to be designing, producing here in the future, and they need to be accessible to be able to be posted. So the ruling does have widespread impacts on the city's digital communications. Every effort is being taken to minimize litigation risks while maintaining transparency and access to information and there are initial adjustments that will likely evolve as more interpretations of the ruling become available. And our um our north star is that we're clear about things that have come down. Any any documents that are

not accessible, it will be noted. Um so again, we're being as transparent as we can be. DA, I just wanted to start with some appreciation because this does not feel like good news on its face, but as a fellow with the new disabled South Rising, I realized that coming into compliance with ADA is so important for our community. Um, I think of uh Gary Ray, who I serve with on the transit committee. Um, I've had the opportunity to serve with four blind members of our community on transit committees over the years and the number of times that staff would hand out a paper handout and ask us to vote on that item um was a shame um because we were missing out on the opportunity to make those documents accessible and um you kind of slid it in there unfunded mandate which means we're required to come into compliance quickly and there's not the support for staff to do it. So with that in mind, it feels a lot like and what I'm hearing in the community like if one of my students parents told them to clean up their room and so they threw all the Legos in the trash. No, it's like we need to put the Legos away. And I hear you saying it's going to take time and we're going to get there, but that some parts will be missing. And so I'm concerned about the backlog we have of open records requests, how long it's taking for members of our community to understand how we do the people's work. I'm concerned about what it means for us to like uphold the part of democracy where the press is able to tell the story of how our government works. I'm concerned about us being able to make good decisions when we can't access documents, which is already kind of a problem. Like I've requested multiple times to get documents about the budget presentations we've done so I can put together the pieces and make informed decisions. But as my colleague

mentioned, I review the archive YouTube videos of our housing recovery board of um old urban forestry commission meetings to understand how we got where we are. So, can you help me understand because the Bunkham County Special Collections is archiving all of the municipal websites in the county with a way back why we wouldn't partner with the county to hold some of the container while we move quickly.

And there there's nothing that says we can't. It's certainly something that we we can explore. And it's I I think for the important thing for us is to make sure we really understand what the need is so that that we're taking our staff resources and and doing things that are meeting the need and and so because of course the county is also going to be under the same um obligations that we are with this ruling. So it's certainly something that we can explore. happy to explore that and always welcome for feedback to make sure we really understand what the need is so that we can prioritize things that may be going over to the archive and those things being the greatest need. So that that's certainly something that we can explore and look into. And then my second question is peer cities in North Carolina. What are we looking at to say okay there's an exception on purpose because we know that we asked you to do something that's very labor intensive and quickly. Are there some areas where we can like unite across and say like, okay, the YouTube channel is just going to take more time and we're all going to agree that we're gonna fix it, but it's going to take more time or are there other ways that we can build coalition across the state to meet compliance and accessibility without ultimately ending up with inaccessibility? Yeah, and I I'll let Brad speak to this too, but I can say that city when we're talking to our peers across the country, people are handling um they there there are they are interpreting the ruling in in many in many different ways. That is absolutely true. So all of our networks of you know other communication and engagement directors and staff everybody's talking about this and I and I will it's happening in the IT department too and I will say this when we're talking to software the folks we have software platforms with and our other colleagues in both of those

disciplines what we're hearing is wow you guys are ahead of most and and as behind as we feel that's encouraging but just to give you an idea of where People are kind of all over the board on how they are interpreting this, but I I'll let the city attorney talk about interpretation. I wanted to make sure we weren't becoming so riskadverse that we actually make more staff work with a huge backlog of open records requests.

Yeah, thank you for the question, the council member. I I think that is really um the thrust of of what the city is doing. But but I'll add to that and say that as I mentioned at the opening of the presentation, our our edict with staff has been to try to do what needs to be done to to bring us into compliance, but to try to minimize the hit to any sort of transparency, openness or availability. This is supposed to all be about accessibility and we don't simply wanted to train trade one person's accessible uh rights for another. So that has really been at the top of our minds. Uh, as as Dow will mention, I've also been in communication with the uh, city attorneys from around the state on this, uh, attended um, seminars myself and training sessions on this, as has everyone in my office. Um, we've been trying to learn about this, but quite frankly, we're facing a very great unknown ahead of us. Uh, because this is a new rule nationwide. There have been no court interpretations um, about any of this yet. So the way that everyone is going about implementing it is going to be necessarily somewhat different because no one yet knows what it means to be fully compliant. Um and therein lies the risk. What we're trying to do is to become as compliant as we can without losing anything. What I think DA has has tried to um explain is that in the transition you're going to see the rockiest days first before it gets better. it'll be darkest before the dawn and because that initial transition will require us uh to really start the process from day one. Uh all this has been in the works but we're going to have to make a lot of changes and then slowly we're going to be bringing things back priorit prioritizing those things that are most needed by the community. Um and then when we look at this thing in in six months a year it'll look much much better than it will on day one for us. We truly believe that. But in terms of how much risk we want to take on, the

problem that we have from the legal perspective is it's very difficult for us to put a value on how risky it is at this point without again any lawsuits having yet been filed. We don't know exactly how hard court systems or Department of Justice are going to be on this. What I do know um is that there are law firms around the country that have actually already purchased software programs that allow them to sit in their office and go online and search everyone nationwide's websites to find violations. Uh and that they are ramping up right now um to file lawsuits because they're able to gain attorneys fees from that. And that that's what we're concerned about from the risk standpoint.

Thank you. Um, you know, I get that there is risk and there's going to be law firms fishing for opportunities to file lawsuits and we've certainly,

you know, been on the receiving end of that in under different topics. But, you know, I I have a lot of heartburn about taking any of our archived information offline, any of the YouTube videos um that are out there. I I don't like taking the Asheville app offline without a solid replacement ready to go. Um I mean I it's you know so I and I think we're making great strides pro going forward to make modifications to the information that we have. I mean, the not you the clerk, but the you the clerk clerk and I were talking today about how apparently we're going to be using e signatures on on all of our resolutions going forward because that they will be compliant. So, I won't actually sign it. She promised me she won't put my signature on anything that I don't see and approve. Um, which seems a little odd to me that, you know, things like that. But but personally I I would not like to see us make changes like that where where people who are used to interacting with the city by looking at our YouTube channel at our videos or looking up information on our website or using our Asheville app. We to make those kinds of changes we need a greater transition time. And so I don't I would like to not see that happen um by Friday or what is this Friday or next Friday?

Yeah. I mean, you know, so how long how long has this been um a mandate an unfunded mandate? The the ruling came down uh April 24, 2024. So local governments have been planning for this essentially for two years now. When you say the ruling, you mean the Department of Justice issued a ruling that this was now a requirement at that point about two years.

Yeah. I um so and and since there is so much ambiguity about how to interpret it, I I don't know. It seems counterintuitive to me that you would take offline historic YouTube videos for every so no one can have access to them. It it doesn't I'm not totally Let me just Yeah. Just a bit of clarity about the videos. The videos will be on the website. Links to the videos will be on the website. The city of Asheville's website.

The city of Asheville's website. Yep. So, what we were talking about is the YouTube channel, which we can't provide all of the disclaimer information that we need to about the materials being archived. We we just don't So, the disclaimer information is on our website. You hit the link and it takes you to YouTube. Yes. So, it's just a more ciruitous way to get to those videos and then they'll all be listed so you can see what they are. It's just we're limited at the accessibility requirements, the way we organize information about what's archived and what's not on our YouTube station. And so as they become remediated,

then they can be moved back to the YouTube channel, but they will be linked on the website and yes, it will take you to a YouTube video, but it will clearly say this is archived material. So, what does that mean for like, I don't know, a committee meeting this week? Are we going to be compliant moving forward or are we going to just keep it our current practices and have to remediate the new ones? It seems like we would

Yeah, we'll be remediating the ones after the deadline. So, we're still in this little spot now where we're just we're running we're still posting things on the YouTube channel um for 2026. So, all of 2026 is where we're starting to with the remediation of those. Oh, to be clear, let's say that there's a housing and community development meeting coming up the first week of May. Will it be compliant? Yes. So that there is where it will be streamed live and then we can run the transcripts from it while it's being remediated and once it's remediated then it will be posted to the YouTube channel. Okay. Thank you.

I got another question. It's probably for you DA. Um on the Asheville app I guess. Yeah. So, in a week you're going to shut it off and we don't know when a replacement will come online, right? No. No. We And that's just the truth. Trying to negotiate with the platform provider got us to this point and then we got to a point where we're like, we got to make a decision because this is we we have issued the the RFP for the new provider. So, that that's closing I think today, tomorrow.

Um, and So we are well in the process of selecting the replacement provider. So in in consultation with our IT department um we believe that the gap is not going to be extensive between the current Asheville app and what will be essentially the new Asheville app. What would be non-extensive? Um give me a ballpark. I I think that there was mention of uh I think I think something a couple weeks was maybe

Yeah. Well, I we would have to get back with you on exactly what that means because then there's the whole, you know, choosing getting under contract and then launching whatever the new platform's going to be. And I don't want to overpromise, which is why we've developed this interim solution where people can still if you if there's something you there's a hole in a fence, if there is a pothole, parks and recreation, water, public works, all you know, their their services are access um noted through this app. making sure that people have some resource. It's not going to be the same level of service. It it's not because it's not a new app yet, but we are moving to a new product that we hope will be as we assume will be

all the history go away. I'm I'm kind of I like my hundreds of historical reports and submissions over 10 years. It's all gone. It's just going to disappear. Well, I we can look into that. I I'll have to check with it on that one just with what the I mean what the contract now and I was like wow I remember that I mean it's 10 years of history I've reported hundreds of things it's gone huh right thanks for that question

it's just sad okay well um it does sound like it's going to be bumpy and I kind of feel like well if we're not going to put the brakes on it. Now, um I if you know, we don't have another council meeting for two weeks, but if there is some type of a um an opportunity for this to be extended, like, you know, if there's a I I don't know if there's any litigation pending. I'm looking at you, Brad. Something where a court might rule that there needs to be a stay on the implementation or something like that. I would hope that we would take that take advantage of that to give us time to get all our ducks in a row.

We've been watching closely. There's been committee meetings on this at at the federal level with the possibility of an extension uh being issued has not happened yet. We're coming down to the wire. So, we're continuing to watch and we'll keep council informed. I can't believe Congress isn't jumping at an opportunity to help cities. That was sarcasm. Is it going to require any change in our behavior to be compliant like you know how we always go okay it passes unanimously or whatever I feel like we've been adding that in do we need to change our behavior at all the

there will be situations where we might ask you to make sure you're introducing yourselves when you're speaking um during meetings so that that's more clear but generally speaking no um most of the stuff that you're going to see is is when you're looking at uh the staff reports website uh material other digital accessible material. Uh but you should not have to worry too much about adjusting your behaviors. Uh but we'll keep you posted if any of that arises. Okay. Thanks.

Okay. All right. Does that conclude the manager's report? Yes. Thank you. Okay. We have uh one public hearing item that is a public hearing to consider amending the conditional zoning ordinance for property located at 30 Buchanan in place for the purpose of making amendments to the project conditions. Will Palmquest is m fighting his way to the front of the room. He's Maybe they you going to put it in slide chas.

There you go. Got it. Thanks.

Good evening, mayor, members of council. Will Pomquist with Planning and Urban Design. I'll be presenting this request for a conditional zoning amendment for the property at McCormack Field. Here you can see that property outlined in the aerial imagery and the existing zoning which is institutional uh conditional zone from a prior conditional zoning in 2023 which was updated uh six months ago as well. The existing future land use is parks and open space. no change in that would be required for this request. So that original conditional zoning from 2023 essentially was to uh for the project to receive uh technical modifications to the zoning requirements to allow for the uh improvements to McCormack Field that have been mostly completed. Uh an amendment to that six months ago was to confer an additional uh technical amend amendment uh for the uh lighting standards. Before you this evening is one additional uh modification to the underlying zoning regarding signage. So uh currently the site is limited to two signs total at 120 square feet total in the institutional district. This amendment would allow for three signs in total uh with a total square footage of 292 square ft. Uh one of one internally illuminated sign at the uh ticket entry area at 64 square ft. One internally illuminated sign above the right field grandstand at 100 square feet and then one mural along the uh pavilion wall with a maximum square footage of 128 square ft. You can see those uh three signs uh rendered in this um illustration. And and just to note that uh the the zoning u modification would basically just be for the number of signs and the square footage. It would

not regulate the contents of the signage. This was reviewed and approved by the planning and zoning commission at their April 1 meeting. staff findiness is consistent with the future land use designation of parks and open space and also supports goals in the comprehensive plans such as to promote access to well-maintained parks and open space for all and to enhance and celebrate Asheville's unique places and destinations. Therefore, staff concurs with planning and zoning commission recommends approval of the proposed conditional zoning amendment and glad to answer any questions you may have. Okay.

Any qu no questions. Okay. Um a motion.

Yeah. I we I was just going to say I'm going to open the public hearing and close public hearing because no one signed up to speak under this item. So I'll entertain a motion. I move to approve the conditional zoning amendment request for the current McCormick field property located at 30 Buchanan Place zoned institutional conditional zoning and find that the request is reasonable in the public interest is consistent with the city's comprehensive plan meets the development needs of the community in that it in that the request one dedicates adequate resources to meet the maintenance demands of of existing parks including sufficient capital and operational funding consistent with best management practices and community standards for high level of service and two continues to create accessible urban places throughout the city and ensure the downtown services, amenities and resources are designed to serve residents as well as visitors.

Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say I. Any opposed? All right, um that concludes our public hearings. We have um uh some items of new business. Thank you, Will. Um, an ordinance amending article six, regulation of graffiti of chapter 10, nuisances of the Asheville Code of Ordinances to amend the definition of graffiti. And Carly Gillingham, I'm trying to remember if you're making your debut. No, second. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. Back. Back by popular demand. It is Carly Gillingham.

That's right. There you are.

So, I just

Thank you. Good evening, council. Um, Carly Gillingham, assistant city attorney here at the city. Um, I'm here to talk to you about an amendment to our graffiti ordinance, um, which is chapter 10, article six, um, in our nuisance code. Um, I believe Amy Deon is here, um, for any additional questions. Um, she's the director of public works. Um, so here's some key takeaways. Currently, our code of ordinances um, regulates graffiti as a public nuisance. The current definition of graffiti includes temporary, easily removable chalk and other water-soluble materials unless used in connection with traditional children's activities or any lawful business or public purpose or activity. Uh this amendment would modify the definition of graffiti to first remove chalk from the general definition um but add and define and I'll the language will be on the following slides um sprayable chalk which is a type of industrial strength more permanent chalk that is not as water soluble. It would remove undefined terms like lawful business and public purpose or activity in the above text. Um, it would exclude chalk markings from the definition of graffiti so long as they are placed upon streets or sidewalks and don't pose any public safety risk. And it would keep exceptions for any markings done in any material um for utilities or survey work. So background, our graffiti ordinance was first passed in 2014. Um, it allows both criminal and civil enforcement via penalties to perpetrators and property owners who fail to remove graffiti after notice. It uh has a provision for appeals of enforcement actions. Um, the current definition of graffiti does include chalk uh unless again used in those certain contexts. The amendment is basically intended to update the ordinance according to

evolving first amendment legal guidance, improve clarity by removing undefined terms and ensure efficiency of staff resources. Um that was just a little background that not necessary for this presentation. Um this did go to public safety committee. Um so here's kind of a restatement of what this would be in a little bit more detail. I'll show you the proposed amendment language in a moment. Um, the practical results of this amendment would be that chalk markings on streets and sidewalks are no longer considered graffiti unless they pose a public safety risk. Um, we would keep that exception for utility and survey markings. That's, you know, the kind of thing where uh Duke or um Enbridge might dig for utility lines and mark where they are. Um, and it may reduce staff time and material costs associated with addressing temporary, easily removable graffiti. So, here is the proposed markup. Um, as you can see, it would just remove the word chalk from the list of materials in the definition of graffiti. And then it would add that sprayable chalk. And that's chalk paint, marking chalk, inverted chalk, and similar substances. Again, those are those industrial strength forms of chalk that don't wash off as easily. Um, and it would add that um, utility and survey crew exception. And it would it would specify that chalk markings are not graffiti if they are made on streets or sidewalks unless it is determined that they create a public safety risk. Here's just a clean version of that. And I'm happy to take any questions otherwise I can put up that suggested motion language. And this is the first reading. Um I think Brad can talk a little more about that.

I don't see anyone sign up for public comment. Are you ready for a motion? Yeah, we'll need a unless there's any other questions. I couldn't remember the graffiti dog's name. What was the What was it? Auggie. Everybody's saying it, but I can't hear it. What? Augie. Auggie. Thank you. RIP Auggie. I move to adopt an ordinance amending article 6 regulation of graffiti of chapter 10 nuisances in the Asheville code of ordinances to amend the definition of graffiti. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Let me just double check. Double checking. Does it look like it?

All right. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. See you soon, Auggie.

See you. Um, okay. Next is an ordinance amending chapter 4 of the code of ordinances of the city of Asheville to provide for repair, closing, or demolition of abandoned structures. Mark Mthaney is going to come and talk to us about this item. Okay, good evening uh mayor, vice mayor, council. Hope everyone's doing well this evening. Uh I am Mark Matheni, the director of development services and I am here to speak on uh proposed additional uh ordinance wording. Here we go. Um, our key takeaways are the proposed ordinance update provides additional tool for our compliance team to pursue the building regulatory compliance process. Our compliance team uh currently regulates the unsil unsafe building ordinance and minimum housing. Uh, compliance of the ordinance includes uh providing a safe remediated building for the general public. Demolition is not the only method of compliance. Uh it's good to know that since 2023, the efforts of our compliance team have resulted in the demolition of eight residential buildings that would at that time have qualified as an abandoned building. And the important thing to note here is the demolition occurred by the current owner or new owners of that property that they were working with. This was not city initiated demolitions. for this presentation. A proactive building demolition program is not

included in in this ordinance change and would require significant additional human and financial resources. What is is that what you told us about in the first time you presented to us and how much was that?

So we we we didn't dive very deeply into it, right? We just used roughly what our current inventory at the time was was about 30 buildings and um human wise we we assumed two administrative positions and well into the million over millions of dollars right and so it based on the inventory that we had at time if we were to create a program and aggressively go after these which is not our intent right that's why I want this Last bullet point to be uh very very uh well known is that this is not why we're here tonight. Right? If we were to create an aggressive program, it would take a lot of effort both financially and uh staffwise.

Does that answer your question? It does.

Okay. Um, so the update the wording from the the wording for this uh intended statute uh uh ordinance comes from our general statutes 160D-1201 and it identifies abandoned structures. The wording comes straight from the general statutes. Any local government may by ordinance provide for the and it goes on and then we pick up this piece right here. The ordinance may provide for the repair, closing or demolition of such structure pursuant to the same provisions and procedures that are prescribed in this article for repair, closing, demolitions of dwellings found to be unfit for human habitation. This is just the second part of two pieces of this statute, right? And so that's why it's talking about the residential part above it. the exercise of police powers and authority. I don't necessarily I don't know. Should I read the whole thing? Okay. As as from the previous conversation we just had, I'm I'm I'm kind of thinking all the way through this of what you guys just heard as our accessibility updates. Um so really I I just want to get into kind of the middle of this paragraph. uh abandoned structures which may result in a health and safety hav hazards due to the attraction of insects or rodents. Conditions creating a fire hazard dangerous to conditions constituting a threat to children or frequent use by vagrants as living quarters in the absence of sanitary facilities. And this is the wording straight out of our North Carolina statutes. When we started presenting this early on in the year, um conversations came up about why uh it's called abandoned buildings and is there better words? Uh and and really the the logic there is just it's it's coming right out of the general statute, right? And so um

abandoned building originates from the North Carolina Jones statutes as I said 160D 1201 which is the basis of the of the update and would go on to say uh the in the past year period one-year period and which is determined by the city to be a health or safety hazard as a result and this is exactly what I just said right so it's not that it's just been abandoned for a year. It's that it's abandoned and it posts poses an additional public health hazard.

And that's a critical statement that you just made. And yes, that that's what it is. It doesn't mean that it's just an abandoned building can be an abandoned building, right? But once it becomes a nuisance to the community for these specific reasons, um is is is the important part of that. That's right. and um and the owners generally try to work against that. Our compliance team absolutely works with the owners to uh to ensure that that doesn't happen that way. So um yeah, correct. Uh the purpose of this article is to authorize the remediation and prevention of the health or safety hazards proposed by abandoned structures by empowering the city to take action to repair, close or demolish such structures for the protection of life, health, welfare, safety and property of the general public. And then the scope, which is really what's kind of on everybody's mind. Um the provisions in this article applicable to all structures existing and hereafter constructed within the city of Asheville that are abandoned structures necessitating repair, closing, demolition to protect public health, welfare, and safety. Um and since this is a short presentation, I won't go back through the key takeaways. They're the same as in the beginning. And glad to answer any and all questions. One of my questions it sounds like is also coming from the community is how are we differentiating between long abandoned buildings that are draining public resources and newly destroyed buildings because of hurricane Helen because it seems like folks are applying for the hazard mitigation grant funds and we won't don't want to do anything that jeopardizes their ability to receive those funds by knocking down the structure that provides the proof. So, do we have some guidance on that?

Yeah, and that and that's a great question. It is a it adds certainly the level of complication to an already relatively complicated process for abandoned buildings. And um as far as as as you know I I reference in the key takeaways how we're creating a tool for the toolbox, right? Another tool that we're creating at the same time is really we have the inventory of these buildings and and the inventory keeps growing as people let us know buildings that we haven't got on there yet. We're also developing a priority for that, right? So, we're going to create basically a priority filter for when to uh approach each of these buildings. And within that filter, we're we don't really have a name for it yet, but we're basically creating a TSEN um acknowledgement, right? So, if it's a spreadsheet, maybe there's a row or a column, excuse me, that that identifies that it's a TSolene. And the the idea is that the

tropical storm Helen. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Tropical storm Helen. Yes. Just the lingo. I've gotten out from THH, right? TSH. Right. So, um, yeah. So, so we would have a tropical storm Helen kind of filter on that evaluation. The the at our thoughts right now is this risk evaluation table will be basically point designated. So, as there's higher risk, the points would add up and then, you know, we might default tseline uh on to like a minus x or whatever until we can get through um allow the owners basically to get through the entire process for whatever federal or local um uh uh financial or assistance that they can get.

Thank you. Okay. I'm I'm struggling because we're not being asked to pay for it, right? So, we have this inventory and you put them in an order. How does doing this help with what we currently have if we're not funding the demolition?

Uh, correct. And so, um, as you see on bullet point number two here, it talks about how our compliance team is working that the only activity they have for going through the compliance process is using either unsafe building or minimum housing. And we we have buildings that don't really clearly fit within either of those. And and we've it doesn't mean we ignore them, right? we still approach them and we go through the compliance process which is a long process because we want the the owner to protect and have the ability to correct their properties, right? And so what this is doing is this giving is giving us the third a third item where it's unsafe buildings, our abandoned building ordinance and then our minimum housing ordinance. So, of the current inventory, doing this helps us get at what percentage of our current inventory that we can't get at with the

That's a great question. I don't have an answer for, but what it does allow is if we approach it on the unsafe building aspect of it, first of all, has to be an unsafe building. This allows us to do it that's not determined through the North Carolina State Building Code to be unsafe. And the other piece is honestly we have to kind of stretch the wording in the ordinances once we have the open hearings with the owners um about how this fits into the right uh direction in order for for them to get into compliance. And there's just it's a it's there's wording that's included in there. And what this abandoned building um ordinance gives us the opportunity is to have the right wording in order to work with the owners to get them into compliance.

Can I be more specific because where I live? How would this change have affected the mountaineering?

Um so the the mountaineering obviously is a property on tunnel road which the city has recently used what we call abatement action on. we've actually entered that property and done some cleanup work uh with city staff and our contractors. Um I think that that is a good example of the kind of situations that uh the city would utilize this additional language. We did not need it specifically for that one because we already had some pre-existing language in our ordinances. Mark's already mentioned this. The best way I can describe this is that in any sort of property nuisance, uh, in order for us to hold the owner of those properties accountable to quite frankly fix their own properties, um, we need an ordinance on the books or a statute saying that you must do these things. Right now, we've identified a specific hole. It may not be a big hole, but it's a hole. We currently have the ability to address residential properties that are posing a hazard and non-residential properties only if they don't meet the building code.

So the mountaineer end would have met it. I'll I'll leave it to Mark to say if we had building code issues there. I think that's

right. Right. And and and a good question and the mountaineer end is a great example because it it actually it has multiple buildings uh and and some of them are unsafe buildings and some of them actually would fit within what we're trying to do here, right? they they aren't necessarily unsafe, but they are a nuisance, right? And so because that property is so big and there's so many buildings, um this this one would actually probably take both or or having both would allow us to have a better conversation with the owner about coming into compliance. So to be super clear because I've heard some concerns about, you know, what if there's construction or as uh one of my colleagues said, you know, they're working with the feds for a payout. So if they're actively working to get something done with that property, then they would not fall under this uh ordinance. it would be a willful, you know, ignoring of us or or something to that effect.

Yeah. So, so an interesting way to to to to to ask that question and the one thing that we we we have to understand is is we we're going to we're going to acknowledge all the buildings, right? We're going to inventory and and if if it if this is a building under that condition and um and it came on to let's say the abandoned building or unsafe building, we're still going to acknowledge it, right? we're still going to capture it on our inventory uh list and but um that that there's a series of communication of of required communications that we have with the property and building owners and after we get through that series of required ones we also have a lot of optional ones that we that we've been doing for years. That's how our compliance teams works, right? So we always stay in communication and and frequently the owners will tell us how much how long it's going to take. we're like, "Can you can you put that board back up in 30 days?" Right? And they're like, "Well, I'm still waiting for the feds." And that sort of thing. So, as we have those conversations and part of the the risk assessment that we've identified is that that that we don't necessarily have on the written policy or or or a process. Right now, what we're going to do is is have like a um a refresher, right? So maybe every 90 days we check in on what that property looks like and and call in on the owner and see what kind of updates they've had from federal or local res or any other resources that may be available. Yeah. So we would keep a constant monitoring on that.

Okay. So it sounds like the difference between what we have on the books now and what we would have is now if a building is out of compliance because of building code then we can hold that property owner responsible. uh however, but if it fits property code but is a public health nuisance, right now there's no mechanism to get them to repair or remediate that up until demolition. It's right now it's a it's a stretch and we we do it right and that's how we have the properties we've been working on for the last you know x amount of years, many years. We we all know there's a lot of buildings that have been out there and and we have to work within kind of our ability within the unsafe building uh wording in order to even get those uh hearings and those orders that are required from the ordinances and and the general statutes.

So this language change gives us more decisive and clear language to hold community like property owners accountable to following through with addressing their unsafe building. That's a great way to summarize it.

Awesome. I think that's really important. I think especially after Helen and I appreciate you, Councilwoman Rooney, bringing that up. I think there is a difference between the house in my neighborhood that had a house fire and the family has been really trying to figure out how to move forward and folks that have flood damage and storm damage um to places that have been a real challenge in neighborhoods for a long time. and we haven't um had clear authority to really step in and say this is unsafe. This the neighbors are very concerned children are walking by this what whatever. So I think that um having more clear language to have expanded authority to hold people accountable um is in the best interest of the public. I'm thankful this item is here. I appreciate all the extensive detail sharing um and clarifications around Helen. You know, I'm reminded why we are even talking about this like the mountaineer was a good example, but um are we also looking at in the future expanding it to residential or leaving that one alone? Because I asked because you know there's some concern up here. Are we reaching too far is the language adequate? It was really clear in our inboxes from the public and just in our own passing by. Some locations are just so far gone. I mean, it I don't want us to get too into the weeds of trying to protect from things that really we're not ever going to do, right? There's a clear need for some of these abandoned buildings, but I'm curious if we will move into some residential at all. I know we've had some like there were there's some houses on State Street that have come up repeatedly in our emails.

Yeah. So they um so so we already really have a process for residential, right? Our our minimum housing actually gives us a very similar direction for compliance. So that doesn't need any bolstering because I feel like we've had some of that in the past. We just need bolstering. We need bolstering. I'm bolstering for I mean we have the we have the tool. We're we're I mean not only are we very slow to use it, we even then once we're to the point where we can demo the property or or it takes a long time.

Council member Turner, if I can add to that. It's really interesting you bring it up because the state statute that allows us to adopt this particular ordinance says that you already have the authority to do the exact same thing for residential property. You simply don't have to adopt an ordinance. Um, it just requires this additional step for non-residential properties. Okay, that's helpful. Okay. So, any other questions? Do I have a motion? Uh, and then we have a couple people signed up under public comment.

Yes. I move to adopt an ordinance amending chapter 4 of the code of ordinances to insert a new article 8 abandoned structures to provide for the repair, closing or demolition of abandoned structures deemed health or safety hazards. Second. Okay, we have a motion, a second. We have two people signed up to speak under this item. You'll have three minutes. Please watch the lights on the lect turn. Um, green means go, orange means you're getting ready to stop, and red means stop. The first is Drew West.

Good evening, mayor, members of council, and city staff. My name is Drew West, and I represent the Council of Independent Business Owners. I'm here expressing our members opposition to the proposed ordinance amending chapter 4 to expand the city's authority over abandoned structures. While we appreciate the intent of the address to address properties that pose legitimate health and safety risks, however, as drafted, this ordinance raises serious concerns for the business community and property owners across Asheville. First, the definition of abandoned structures is overly broad. A property deemed vacant or not in active use for one year, regardless of the reason, could be swept into this process. Many commercial properties experience extended vacancies due to market conditions, financing challenges, or redevelopment timelines. This ordinance risks penalizing owners who are actively working towards reinvestment. Second, the ordinance grants significant discretionary authority to staff with limited guard rails. The ability to initiate action based on complaints combined with administrative hearings where formal rules of evidence do not apply creates an uncertainty and exposes property owners to inconsistent outcomes. Third, the financial implications are substantial. The provision allowing the city to place leans not only on the subject property, but also on properties owned within the city and even within one mile raises serious concerns. This could have a chilling effect on local investment and redevelopment, particularly for small business owners who are hold multiple properties within the city. Additionally, the potential for demolition after a relatively short period, coupled with the city's ability to declare abandonment of intent to repair, creates a risk for properties that may be a part of a longerterm redevelopment plan. This is especially concerning in a challenging economic environment we face post. Finally, while the ordinance references concerns about vagrancy and unsafe conditions, it does not address the root causes contributing to these issues. Business owners are already facing increasing challenges related to public safety and enforcement. Expanding regulatory authority over private property without addressing those

underlying issues is unlikely to produce desired outcomes. SIBO urges the council to pause and revisit this ordinance with input from the business community. We believe a more balanced approach is needed, one that targets truly dangerous properties while protecting property rights, encouraging investment, ensuring clear, consistent standards. We stand ready to work with you to develop solutions that improve safety without creating unintended consequences for Ash's business climate. Thank you. Thank you. Um the second person signed up to speak under this is Matt Allen.

Good evening. I'll try not to echo too much what Drew said. Um my name is Matt Allen. I work for the local realtor association in governmental affairs and you know first just want to acknowledge I think we can all agree addressing unsafe buildings is good policy is a general matter also just want to acknowledge based on the presentation you're authorized to pass something related to this under state law. Uh all that said I do think that should pump the brakes because there are some provisions that are unclear and can lead to unintended consequences. Um I submitted a written comment earlier today a little more comprehensive and thorough but I just want to touch on it on those points that I sent. Um the first thing is related to and and Mr. Mthini uh addressed this briefly, but regarding this regulatory gap, you know, um it would be interesting to know before we move forward to know just how much of a gap exists in what this ordinance would address as opposed to the existing unsafe building ordinance. You know, if if you're looking at the definition in the abandoned structures ordinance, you I'm just looking at health and safety hazard as a result of insects, rodents, fire hazard, dangerous conditions, etc., etc. It seems to me that that could all come under the purview of the unsafe buildings ordinance. And you know, again, I I I heard earlier from from uh Mr. Brandom and from Mr. from Mthini that that's not necessarily always the case, but I think it'd be interesting to know how many of those parcels wouldn't come under the unsafe buildings ordinance. Um, second, you know, Drew alluded to this. Um, Councilwoman Rooney mentioned this, too. It it would still be helpful to have something in writing in the ordinance distinguishing between Helen impacted properties and then properties that just been vacant for a year and have health and safety issues. you know, just kind of saying that, yeah, after it

gets passed, we'll address that and make sure to distinguish between the properties doesn't provide as much reassurance as actually having something in the actual ordinance, distinguishing between those types of properties. Uh, third thing I want to mention is that the uh ordinance lacks standards for establishing time frames for property owners to repair or demolish an abandoned structure. So, you know, looking at section 4-229, it talks about the public officer serving the order and then within the time specified. So, you know, the lack of standards uh or other guidance for the public officer to apply in determining how much time an owner should be given is concerning. you know just as a practical matter uh how long it takes to repair or demolish bu a building will depend on all sorts of factors you know size of the building the nature and extent of the repairs necessary so including some reasonable guard rails for setting compliance deadlines and then providing standards for the public officer would be helpful um

thank you

in closing please consider continuing this for more discussion thank you so No collapping, please. I'm sorry, but if you really like it, just give us a hands. Hands in here. Hands up. Um, okay. Council, we have a motion in a second um for this item. I, you know, I guess I, you know, my um this just seems somewhat performative really at this stage. um as as you would say because we're not funding it. Um but but it is a statute that authorizes cities to take these actions if needed. Uh and a lot of cities have adopted these these ordinances because because there are times where we encounter situations where the ordinance is just much more efficient vehicle. Frankly, in the history of the city of Asheville, as I've known it, um it is extremely rare for the city to take action in actually demolishing a a building. There are many times where and and unbeknownst to many people in the public where uh a a property becomes derelict and the city is not trying to notify the property owners about the condition of the property and asking them to remediate it. That is very that is 99.9% of the case most of the time. Um in fact often when we receive a complaint from neighbors about a a property uh and we um bring the staff into the conversation, they'll tell us, "Oh yeah, we've already um been working with the owner. We've contacted them and we're we're taking these steps to secure the property." So you usually that's the case and and there's a variety of reasons why the city doesn't take that further step to actually demolish the property. One, it's it's a judicial process, so it's ownorous and it's

expensive and you can put a lean on the property, but you might not recover um recover the funds. You know, I think we're lucky in that our city doesn't have a lot of um vacant or derelic buildings as as people you go to other cities, you see a lot a lot more. So, we we don't see as much of it here, but we um we do have certain situations that crop up where um where the vacant building is is posing a a danger to the adjacent community. Um, and the other issue in terms of balancing, I mean, I know we heard from the Realtors Association here tonight asking us to pump the brakes on this. We actually do hear from a lot of property owners who are concerned about preserving the values of their property and the safety of their property because maybe the neighboring property has fallen in disrepair. Um, we probably have collectively received a hundred emails about the car wash on Sweden Creek Road that has been damaged. That is a Helen damaged property. So, you know, the city is not moved to do anything other than contact the owner and try to work with the owner to secure the property and clean up the property. Um we we certainly don't want to uh harm anyone's ability to fully realize the hazard mitigation opportunities you can receive if your property flooded uh during the hurricane. So I guess I don't I don't um I think we've always been so cautious with the use of these ordinances historically. I don't see any reason why that um approach would be changing. As was stated, we're not funding the two the two positions that would be needed to have a really robust program, which we've never had. Um but but there obviously are some extreme situations like the mountaineer in where

the city has to go to court to to deal with a property that's just um creating a safety issue. So, you know, with with that, I you know, I I think that it's appropriate for the city to add this to their um toolbox, uh in the event that it's needed. It may be something we don't use for, I don't know, two or three years or four. You know, it could be a long time before it's ever put into action. Um but but I appreciate Councilman Hess working on this issue and hearing the call from the community around one particular situation and asking you know what else can we do? Um and our city attorney said well actually there is something else you could add. So um so that's how we that's how we got here. That's how that journey landed us in this place. Anybody else? I just I want to address something that was said in one of the public comments about um I think the statement was that we could have non-abandoned buildings swept up in this process and I don't think that's accurate. I think they will have plenty of opportunity to assure the staff that they're working on something clean up the ex something that is minute that will allow it to be not in further trouble. I I don't think things are just going to get randomly swept up. we will have some measure of control and discernment over this. As the mayor said, should we ever need to use it, perhaps we won't. So, I'll go ahead and say um I'm going to be maybe the lone no. um based on just a um a philosophy that I have um I fear that it is performative and upon passage the community will have expectations which this vote will not meet. We are not as the mayor said funding the actual positions and it may not happen for years. earlier in this process, I'd

asked that this be considered throughout the budgeting process so that maybe we could fill those um position positions and as of today it hasn't come before us in a budget discussion. So that's the reason for my no vote. Okay, we have a motion a second. Any other comments, questions? All right. All those in favor, please raise your hand. All those opposed, please raise your hand. Okay. Thank you. So, how would that fit into ADA compliance? Would we then announce that it passed by a certain number? Oh, good point. And I should announce

the raising of the hands. So, so um that will be the final vote as it always has been will be reflected in the minutes. The minutes will be written in an accessible format. on the video. Um, obviously we're going to have be adding closed captions to things like that and we may ask you to do a verbal vote. It's it's a great question. It's little details like that that we're discovering as we're running these sort of scenarios in our head. Uh, but that's a classic situation where we may ask you to audibly vote uh as a roll call vote. Thank you. Okay.

Or audibly vote as a roll call vote or just say I think just say the vote. I think what you were asking Kim was that I state in that the vote was a six to one vote. I think that would also Okay. Yes. Yes. Um All right. And the final item of new business is a resolution updating the lease agreement with DeWine Seed Silver Dollar Baseball LLC for McCormickfield. Chris Coral is magically here to talk to us about this

magically. Uh good evening. Thanks for having me. Chris Coral, director of community and regional entertainment facilities for the city. Here to talk about uh naming rights for McCormack Field. Um so key takeaways for today. Lewis McCormack Field. It's owned by the city. Uh it was originally named after our then staff bacteriologist Dr. Lewis McCormack and has been leased to the Asheville tourists uh the current ownership since 2010. We just completed well in the next 6 days we will complete a $38.5 million renovation uh for opening day which will be one week from today and that will help us get into compliance with Major League Baseball's Professional Development League facility standards. Um this group approved a 20-year lease of the facility in May of 2025. Prior to that, the deal points that were associated were approved in 2023 and um the annual lease payments from the team will help offset the annual debt service payments that we have to take out the bond debt for the project. Within the lease, there's a provision that grants the right and the authority to market and sell the naming rights of the facility um to the team and it gives them the chance to do what they can with it. And we did that to help raise our uh total lease payment. And the team has now secured a naming rights sponsor and proposes to rename the facility to Home Trust Bank or Home Trust Park after the sponsor Home Trust Bank, excuse me. So, brief history, 2016, the team in the city commissioned a facilities study. We found that we needed about $6 million in recommended improvements. We did about 80,000 of those. It turns out to be a very good thing because we would have invested in the facility and then had to do additional work later. Um, which we'll get to in a second here. In 2019, Major League Baseball announced a planned contraction of minor league baseball,

which is the Player Development League. In 2020, that actually happened. So, we had 42 teams lose their affiliation. Our team actually lost ours briefly. Uh, we were dropped by the Colorado Rockies and picked up by the Houston Astros at that point. In 2020, Major League Baseball issued new licenses to all the remaining teams that are valid through 2030. And they set out a new standard of facility standards and a rubric scoring system to apply beginning in 2023. U McCormick Field scored in the bottom 10% nationally. That's where it's good that we didn't do those improvements in 2016 because there's some things that we would have had to redo that were not considered important back in 2016 that then were of the new standards. So, in 2023, council approved a funding letter of commitment to Major League Baseball for facility upgrades. And then we worked out an agreement with the city, the county, Tourism Development Authority, and the team on a joint funding plan to restore the facility and meet Major League Baseball's facility standards. Uh, we started construction the day after the season ended in 2023. Opening day, like I mentioned, is 7 days away and we are this close to done at the moment. and we will get done. Uh key deal points with that agreement. Um each entity involved had some really specific conditions that they wanted to make sure were met in order to bring their funding to the table. So we we all knew that we needed to meet facility standards. We wanted to guarantee that the team would stay in Asheville for the duration of the debt service payments. The requirement to expand events outside of uh professional baseball, which we've already begun. We have um college baseball that's already been announced in May. will be announcing some volleyball events later this week. We have some leads going on some concerts and the team has hired a special event position that is a full-time position dedicated to non- baseball events. Uh she started just a couple weeks ago, so that process is rolling to get into non-

baseball events there. We wanted to retain affordability and ticket pricing. Uh you can still get through the gates for $12, which is a great deal for a baseball game. Expand sustainability practices at the concession stands. maximize private sector funding. That was the team lease and potential naming rights when we were talking about this in 2023. And managing traffic for baseball and non- baseball events, which the team has agreed to do for all events at McCormick Field over a certain threshold that was part of the first conditional zoning that we came to for the property, and amending the fireworks night structure. So, naming rights. The lease provides the right and authority to market and sell the naming rights to the stadium and to retain the revenue there from to the team. But the team is also responsible for the any costs and expenses associated. If the naming rights license expires and the field needs to go back to McCormick Field, it is the team's expense to get signage back to McCormick and take care of that flip back to what it currently is. Uh the identity of any future sponsor at the time we are writing the lease um of the name of the stadium shall be subject to city council approval which cannot be unreasonably withheld, conditioned or delayed. And the name shall be appropriate for a publicly funded fac or publicly owned facility and shall not be a bad taste, offensive to the city's image, a potential source of embarrassment to the city, or in conflict with the city's community standards. So those lines are straight out of the lease so you can understand how it's written. And when we were negotiating the final lease payment and the funding structure, potential naming right funds were factored into the annual payments from the team when we were working on how much they were going to be paying us. Their lease over the 20 years averages a little over 475,000 per year guaranteed revenue to the city. So, Home Trust Bank, here's two versions of the logo, the horizontal and vertical logo.

Um, Home Trust Bank is the is here is supported in Asheville, headquartered in Asheville. It's um, two years younger than the stadium, so at 100 years itself. Um, the conditional zoning you approved earlier. Um, this sign here that you can see is actually above the ticket entry. Uh, hopefully will be in place for opening day, but that was one of the signs that was included. Um, Home Trust Bank's a frequent award winner as best places to work, best banks awards, and um, their company fundamentals really align with city council visions. Uh, they have literacy initiatives. They actively try to fund affordable housing projects and they do financial education and many more. Um, a highlight I mentioned to some folks earlier today, they're committing uh, some funds to local charities for every strikeout throughout the season. So, it's just like every little bit, right? So, cheer on the pitchers. Um, and back to T key takeaways. And this was a pretty short one like Mark's and I won't go through them again, but open to any questions.

I asked for the lease agreement and read it like a true nerd. Um, I wanted to point out that um, for those who are following along the conversation, I still hear concerns about why support taking care of this facility.

And number one, it's our city park. So when I toured it back in 2023 and it was falling apart, it was clear to me that allowing a public facility to fall apart and rot in East and Valley Street wasn't appropriate. Um but while we were getting a better deal for Asheville, I came up with a huge list and I reviewed it against the contract and I wanted to highlight as you already did. Um section 9001 talks about the use of the park. So before this new contract, it was just a park that we allowed to be used for baseball. Now it's our park that is used for baseball and other park uses. And in fact, there's a requirement in here to have 35,000 attendees for non- baseball events. So what would it look like to have trivia night, movie night, ice skating in the wintertime like the Greenville facility does? Um, I think there's a lot of ways for the public to benefit from our park beyond baseball and in addition to baseball. Um, I just wanted to confirm, which is in the documents, but maybe you can speak a little bit to um, some of the neighborhood concerns around parking and how we're going to address that when we do things like host concerts.

Yeah. Um, first to go back to your 35,000 person requirement, as a note, if the team does not meet that, there's actually a monetary penalty. So their lease payment goes up for each person under that. So they're they are incentivized just like we are to host non- baseball events. So double edge there. Uh parking plan. Um we initiated it. It may may have been last season. It could have been two seasons ago at this point, but the tourists are hosting or managing parking for every tourist baseball game and they're expanding that to non- baseball events. So anytime we have I think it's over 500 people simultaneously in the building they will manage the parking aspects. So if if when I should say when not if we get to concerts there there'll be a full parking management plan letting the neighbors both sides of the stadium ostur and east and valley street know of what the timing is of the event what's happening where it's going. And if we go way back to 2015 I think it was the last concert that was put on at the stadium. The tourists work with area lots, I think in a mile radius to have parking available so that people could park all around and not in the neighborhood and then come to the event. That was for a Florida Georgia line and Nelly show. Um tourists currently run a shuttle from the Cox or the garage that's on um Ashland Avenue and Cox, the new 500 space. We would do that and we'd also be running it from other shuttles based on potential capacity for the uh concert. Hopefully, they're big concerts, so we'll be running shuttles from everywhere, but if they're smaller, it'll scale based on the total attendees expected.

And the other thing I was just going to mention, I was worried about the naming rights when we were headed in this direction, and I am glad that it's a local um owned business. To piggy back on that, well, first um I'm glad you mentioned the positive aspects for Home Trust. I worked at a nonprofit that did affordable housing and every year Home Trust was a consistent um funer. Um were there any other corporations in contention? Can you tell us who they were? I I don't know. Uh this this was handed specifically to the team and we have been kept out of that specifically

because I heard something but I won't say. And then um secondly, was there because this is the sentimental side of me and some things that I've seen online. Was there consideration to like um Mor Home Trust Park at McCormick Field? Like a merger? I can't specifically the 10year-old in me can still be like nostalgic.

The the team worked that agreement out with Home Trust for the name. Um, I would liken this to the Civic Center. So, many people still call us the Civic Center. I appreciate when you all call us the Harris Cherokee Center, Asheville, because that helps with our naming rights in the future. And that will really help the team in the future too if and when a renegotiation ever comes to continue calling it Home Trust Bank or Home Trust Park and not McCormickfield. Um, but it is still McCormick Field. So it's, you know, Home Trust or it's McCormick Field DVA Home Trust Bank in theory, right? It's a license for the name, but it is still McCormic Field at heart.

Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Uh, all right. We already have Oh, we don't. We need a motion and a second. Anybody ready for that? I got a motion. Uh, I make a motion to adopt a resolution authorizing the renaming of Lewis McCormic Field located at 30 Buchanan Place in the city of Asheville, North Carolina 281 to Home Trust Park. Second. Second. And I'm I'm sad that Jonathan Wayne Scott isn't signed up to tell us about Lewis McCormack, but we do have one person signed up to speak and that is Dennis Justice,

the bacterologist. I still have history lesson. Y is that a tourist t-shirt?

Good evening, madame mayor and members of council. I'm Dennis Justice. I have been a volunteer for local sporting events for 20 years. Dan Wilhelm, the Ashel Smoke was a friend of mine. Henry Logan absolutely was a friend of mine. He encouraged me to go back to get my bachelor's and master's degrees in sports management. I don't care if I'm the only person that's willing to speak on this. I want to apologize to Dr. Lewis McCormick for not being aware that you were looking to do this when you're considering the bond package because I would have spoke about it then. No supposed good deed of a bank can compare to the countless lives that Dr. McCormick saved. That name is sacred. Do Mr. DeWine talks about the sacred nature of the field. It is not sacred if you change that name. And I resent driving here and seeing a billboard on the way over here, them changing the name already when you have not yet officially supported that they should be rebuked for this. I reject the idea. They already put signage at the statement says home trust part. I understand they have to put the signage there, but they should have had it covered up until you actually vote in an extra few minutes to give them what they want. They should be rebuked for this. You know what would happen if the University of North Carolina said that we are going to change the court name and take Roy Williams name off that court and put in Home Trust Bank. There would be riots in Chapel Hill and I'd be right there with them. If Home Trust Bank wanted to be a part of the community, they should have been involved with the construction of the stadium from day one. Then they would have been justified to have their name on like Rickley Field, okay, or Bush Stadium. They would have been better off helping the soccer community finally build a real soccer stadium. Not just finance a bond where they make money, but actually help network of people to help build that stadium. You know, good deeds are filthy rags. There

is a tourism fund the state has that's going to give a golf tournament here over $3 million. Why did the DeWine family not pursue that? Is it partially because it was funded by tax by uh sports betting revenue and there and Governor Dwine in Ohio opposes sports betting? Is that part of it? That $3 million would have been better for this stadium. But my message is not really for you at this time. I'll be speaking later about pickle ball and I hope you hear because I think it's a good idea, but there's some technical things I want to talk about. They would have been better off looking to put that money uh from that fund from that for this um baseball stadium. Dr. uh McCormack saved countless lives. There are people in this area that would not have been born had he not done his work. And I think that name is too sacred to change. But my message is not really for you. It's for the arts community. This is the second time we change a sports venue name in the last few years. I drive by as an Uber driver the people uh passengers from the actual airport. And every time we pass the civic center, I have to tell them, "No, that's not the Heritage of Cherokee casino. It's a naming rights thing." I still drive people to the g the the civic center that thinks I was taking them to the casino and they were wrong. Okay. The arts community needs to come up with a permanent name for their proposed performing arts center now. And they need to get a state legislator to pass a law saying this building shall be forever known as. Because if you don't, someday down the road, if you get your art center, a future city council will sell out the arts community for the corporate buck. Thank you.

Thank you. Y I love the passion. Okay, remember just

so on 828 News Now it reads, quote, "By 1905, McCormack was living in Asheville and serving as the city's first bacteriologist. At the time, the city faced a major public health challenge, the common house fly. Swarming the city after decades of livestock traffic, flies were seen as more than a nuisance. They were the carriers of disease. And one man stepped in with a solution that would leave a lasting mark on the city. Dr. Lewis M. McCormack, Asheville's only bacteriologist at the time, believes house flies were a major cause of disease. In 1905, he launched a grassroots campaign he called Swat That Fly. End quote. Catch that fly. Swap that fly. Um, I'm curious because I see the tourist team is back there. Is there any other memorial to McCormack, Dr. McCormack on the campus of the stadium? Is there anything or this will just disappear with the name? Is there an homage, a plaque?

There is a new new and be to be unveiled on Tuesday history wall that has on there. The cornfield letters that were on the front gate are now This is an accessibility. Accessibility issue front gate. letters are there and a little story about the history. So there's a whole from the start of time of the stadium to present history wall now in left field along the concourse. Okay. So there's a bit of a timeline and a historic walk and a

Yes, there's a history walk. Um the McCornfield letters that were up starting in 1992 um have been moved. They had they were moved had to be removed regardless have been moved to the history walk. And so everything in the history walk talks about McCormick field history. Do you have any little flies? We we definitely get some free fly. Okay. Thank you. The McCormack fly. That's Brian DeWine. Brian DeWine. I just want to encourage us to continue that name through future planning. The McCormack hot dog. Whatever it is, let's not lose it. Let's not lose it with the naming of the stadium is my point.

Okay. Okay. All right. So, um, everyone, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say, "I." Any opposed? All right. The motion passes seven to zero. Um, all right. Now, we're going to move on to general public comment. Um, I have a lot of people signed up for general public comment who I suspect are maybe not here. So, can I just real quick, um, uh, do a little roll call? Um, okay. So, and just if you still want to speak, just ra raise your hand when I call your name. I can be your visual. Um, Vince Pster,

so still. Uh, I see Nina Tovish. Jen Key. No, Jen. Okay. Uh, Curry first is still here. Um, William Emerson right here. Okay. Van. Um, and Van, do you still have the three people waving their time for you? Enzo, thank you. Sarah Kent. Um, okay. Enzo, was it somebody else back there? Yep. Okay. Enzo and now Gorami. Um, and Jimmy John. Okay. Um, Samuel Flem, I'm sorry, Samuel Fleming.

Okay. Jen Hampton, you're still here? Yes. Um, Aaron uh Dalstrom, you looking? not here. Paul, Mr. How, are you still here? No, he's gone. He's gone. Okay. Um, okay. Shaha, uh, Adrien and Jason. Okay. Um, Sean Snider, is that person still here? Debbie Jensen, gone. Jordan Garmin, gone. Alan Exavitz gone. Austin Caseaseman or Casman Cosman

gone. Ann Craig gone. Lauren Bayer gone. Camilo Garcia gone. Hold on. I got to get Patrick Con here. Yes. Still here. Yep. Okay. Finnegan Henson gone. Uh, Stephen Rible, gone. Brian Sykes, gone. Ben Jeff, gone. Drew Gatis, gone. Lauria Lefay, Lola, gone. Says lawyer, but okay. Natara Kitty KDles, gone.

Lavender Leuen, gone. Ben Spencer, gone. Kenyon Duca here. Nina, you're on here twice. Okay. Scott Sebertson, gone. Sorl June, gone. Marin Beam, gone. Benjamin, um, sorry. Set. I'm not saying right. Moskin, gone. Gus Larson, gone. Ethan Steel here. Okay. Dennis Justice I think here. Yep. Coming back for um Mo Knight gone.

Jessica McClean gone. Oh no, Jessica's here. Sorry. Sorry. Saurin Peterson here. Here. And Nicole Lopez here. Here. Okay, great. Thank you all. Okay, so with that, um, we'll be able to do the three minutes for each person. And the first person signed up to speak here is Vince Prister. Oh my god. He's about to be related to come to the microphone so everyone at home can hear you too.

I hope y'all guys are doing pretty good. Uh speak like that. Uh Kim, I really want to tell you that um it's no offense to the new uh the mayor here, but I think you're going to win this year coming up. The reason why I say that because I feel it, you know, um I don't like being nervous. So, you know what I'm saying? Just to talk about it. But, uh, it's so much stuff that I want to say, but I really can't get it out because I last time I've been here is like six years ago, right? So,

when I was talking to the mayor, um, I basically told the mayor like several times, right, you got to do better than Asheville. You know, you can't My god, man. There's so much stuff I want to talk about because I know I got three minutes, but you just can't sit back and just talk about all this stuff that's going on in Asheville. There's nothing getting there's nothing getting done about it. So, I just want to tell you that when you do become mayor, I want you to change everything about Asheville. There's nothing to do here. You know, like man, I'm so dang nervous. Uh, anyways, I want you to tell I'm trying to tell you that I want you to do better, right? When you do win, don't take this opportunity and say, "Oh my god, I wasn't I won the lottery." You know, now I can go get gas, but you know, I've been at work like all day like since 5:00 this morning. I don't have nothing to do with I don't have nothing against the mayor. But at the same time, it's nothing being done in Asheville. You look at Asheville, Asheville look like trash, you know? Like I'm sit back. I'm sitt here thinking like, damn, I've been working since almost 13 hours. So, at the same time, like I appreciate you, man. I really do. But at the same time, it's like Kobe Bryant. You like Shaquille O'Neal. She like Kobe uh she like Kobe Bryant. You know, it's it's you done had so many opportunities to show Ashville what what you supposed to do. But at the end of time, like I tell you, you know what I'm saying? You got you you got a big opportunity. Once you get this big opportunity, don't blow it. You know, for one, you know, just change everything about how Asheville built. It's starting with the city buses. The city buses look like crap. Crap. You got to change the color. And to be honest with you, when you do become mayor, I won't let you know this here because I'm not going to be back here. The

reason why I came here today because I was want to be spoken. This, you know, last time I be here six years ago. Last time I told the mayor, I said, "You got to be open with the public." That's the reason why so many kids is getting in trouble, not minding the parents. They not doing nothing because there's nothing here in Asheville to do. You know, y'all guys, they worrying about the the stadium. That's trash. If you ask me, 41 years, I moved in when I was 38. So moving from California to here is a big difference, you know. So, uh, I just want you to understand like I want to congratulate you to tell you that you're going to do a good job. Thank you. Y'all have a good Thank you, Nina Tovish.

We've all been there. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council, and city staff. I don't even know where to start with this accessibility, digital accessibility issue. I gather this has been on the books for two years. I'm sort of surprised that the public anyway is only hearing about it a week before the deadline. I hope, and I think I'm hearing some of that from this council already, I hope that you will not let fear of litigation the city's obligation to make its information, past actions, and decisions accessible as much as possible until you have the time to do the kind kind of full remediation that I understand that this rule requires. 16% of the population has a form of disability that may affect their ability to use digital assets as well as others. But that means that 84% of the population should not lose access to what there currently is. And it seems to me unlikely, again, not a lawyer, major disclaimer here, not a lawyer, but it seems unlikely to me that a court would ignore goodfaith attempts to remediate and at the same time demand that information that's already available and accessible be made unavailable and inaccessible to 84% of the population. I I

We live in strange times, but it's hard for me to imagine that. It would be important, I think, to see how the county is responding to this concern and to coordinate with them. I also would beg you not to discontinue the water dashboard and the Asheville app because with my background in software development, I can tell you that there's no way that with an RFP you get to a transition in weeks for a major project like something like the Asheville app with even more requirements for assistive functions in not going to happen. I can just AI is good, but it is not that good. It takes teams months and often years to do this sort of work. So, I I I'm just confident that there is no off-the-shelf product that can make for a transition in a week's for something of that ilk. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you,

Curry. First, I'm going to begin by apologizing for my rudess about many minutes ago. Um, I had come here to speak about the surveillance issue and I had one goal. I wasn't going to say for against I was going to say we need to delay this. The community is starting to get interested. They don't have a lot of information or even perhaps this is council. So, I applaud that and I think it's great that you're moving quickly. April, you know, April 28 meeting, we we don't just leave here and say we're going to look at it and there's already been a plan and I appreciate the mayor said this is very important. So, we got a good first step. Now I think communication is a big issue and I think the most vulnerable community with new surveillance is of course the immigrant community and we know without this issue even coming to the city the immigrant community in this city justifiably is terrified and it's three letters IC and this is just another surveillance maybe this will help them maybe this is good maybe it's worse a lot of these surveillance things target the immigrant community. So we we have to know the council, the city and the immigrant community. Is this good or bad? And how do we do that communication? And I think we should go to like all souls. Every Tuesday from 2:30 to 4:30 they have free meals for the immigrant community. They also have food people can take home. That's a venue we could go to some members of the city council, some other people and talk about this. And those people today that support this, they might go there and convince people in the immigrant community says we want this. We're going to be safer. I don't think that's likely, but we don't we don't know till we do it. We have to and

we and we have to go out to them. We can't just say come to city hall. They don't they're not going to come here. But we go to them. Black community. I hear this about, oh, the black community is going to like it. They're going to be safer. If they are safer, great. How do we know that? Has a black community said they'll be safer? We need to ask them. We need to talk to them. And maybe when we talk to them, the black community will convince us there's a lot of problems here. So, it's got to be committ. And we go to YMI. They're not going to come here. They'll go to YMI. And we have people there. We talk about this, the pros and cons. and we educate ourselves as well as the community. This needs to be done. Um, and then the police. I've lived here 15 years. I've done some things with the prior woman police officer. I can't think of her name. We had citizens and we worked on a new use of force policy. We met with her. She brought in a nonprofit about and they came in and we changed it community working with a nonprofit from Baltimore and we did it. So now the police, this police department, I'm one person I believe is good, but I'm thinking about not the officers, but the people are officers. Somebody who's

Thank you. Thank you. Um, William Emerson.

Hi. Thanks uh for listening to me council. Uh I came to speak on the surveillance thing also. Um this room this all these rooms city councils all over the country. This this is where teeth get sharpened for authority. The N in Nazi stands for nationalist. The Z stands for socialist. That's the extreme right and the extreme left that we argue about in our politics all the time. The police state is an extension of the slavery system in America. We were founded on a penal colony. We were always a penal colony. We fought for our freedoms. Everybody in this country has fought for freedoms to be free from authority. When you stand in this room and you vote on rules, you choose to sharpen the teeth of authority or to dull them. And I've heard a lot in this room tonight. I've heard a lot of trying to stop it and to dull it. And I've heard a lot of people amplifying the teeth. Um there was a housing situation earlier. That's a that's a situation where somebody was in here trying to sharpen the teeth of authority and give it some more words to make it a little more bite. I hope that before you guys decide on extending the surveillance system, you take into account that America was founded on a penal colony and that we are all still incarcerated in this system.

Thank you. Thank you. Um, okay. The next speaker is Vaughn and, uh, and I'm not saying the last name because there's not one. So, um, and we have three people that waved their time and I think those three people, will you just raise your hand one more time? Thank you so much. So, the three people have waved their time to you, Von. So, you may speak for 10 minutes. And hold on, we got we're we're in training over here with the timer. I do. I I would like to start and you have Yeah, you have a presentation. I'd like to start with a presentation. Okay.

All right. No. On item D or whatever it's going to be called now. Hold on. Just takes a second to get I think we're on the Has my tire. Okay. There. Maybe. Does it need to go forward one? There we go. Okay. All right. No. on item D or whatever it will be called in the future. No to mass surveillance in Asheville. Fact. Flock system was hacked this year and they pretended it never happened. Should be playing. It's not. Nope. Nope. This should autoplay. Pardon me. I don't know what's happening. Imagine.

Sorry. How do I get this out of the full screen? It's not playing it correctly. I think it's gonna want you to um mute the ad and skip it. Um it's supposed to autoplay within the the slideshow.

I'm sorry. Can we pause my time on Don't worry. We'll p We're pausing our time here. Okay. Um I may have to just play these through the YouTube app. Here we go. a commercial search. I very easily found the administration interfaces. I think it's Are you getting this? Are you getting the audio?

None of the data or video footage was encrypted. There was no username or password required. These were all completely public facing for the world to see. Some of them still are. You don't have to be an expert to find and gain access to this. You don't even have to type anything in to see every single activity that took place in these locations in the last 31 days. Whether you wanted to watch this footage live in real time or look at footage from a month ago, you could just point and click your way to it like you were watching Netflix. You could even open up the live streams in PLC or cast it to a television. Making any modification to the cameras is illegal. So, I didn't do this, but I had the ability to delete any of the video footage or evidence by simply pressing the button. I can see the paths where all the evidence files were located on the file system and I can see their hashes and signatures. Some of the devices we saw were the familiar looking Falcon cameras that you see all over the country, but the majority of these were Flock's new condor cameras which are designed to detect and track people. They're PTC cameras, meaning pan, tilt, zoom, and they quite literally use AI to zoom in and follow you around whether you're a person of interest or not. In just the time that it took to count and verify these vulnerabilities, I saw a family in North Carolina in a bunch of merchandise parking lot and I suppose one could cross their license plate and find out exactly what garages that will store these new fancy tools. I watched a man leave his house in the morning. I watched a woman driving alone. This trail had multiple arguments, right? No, they're not. Within two minutes, open source intelligence using a commercial facial recognition engine.

I found out that one of them just pitched medical school and the other is dealing with policy. The couple also just had a baby last year. They have a pretty concerning debt to income ratio. I also know that they drove over 45 minutes from their adjustment efforts to attend church in Atlanta that morning and check out this market and bought a sweater. I watched a law enforcement officer ambulances a man having mental health crisis in Iowa. All right,

I need to get back to my presentation. Sorry, this is I don't have control over the the uh the interface here, so I can't advance it. Is there a keyboard that I can hit the button on? This is a full screen video. If I click it, it just Okay, here we go. Okay, so the fact the the amount of information these mass surveillance networks gather is deeply deeply disturbing. This is all supposed to autoplay ago using a commercial search engine. I shared this information. I think this is the same video, isn't it?

Hang on. I'm sorry. I'm having a really hard time with with this because it's not playing the videos correctly. You don't have to be an expert to find. You'll be able to send it to us, too. If it gets too Yeah, you have a copy of this, but this sets up the argument that I'm going to make orally. Okay, I am very salty and uncomfortable about something today. Something skipped one of the videos. No, it skipped one of the videos. Hang on.

Are you looking at Ben? That's the YouTuber Ben. I have no control over the Can you go backwards? I don't have a keyboard. I don't have any ability to

Oh, there is. Okay, great. Great. That would have been very helpful. All right, let's try this. A few weeks ago, using a commercial search engine, I very easily found administration interfaces for dozens of safety cameras. I shared this information with 404 media and quickly none of the data or video was encrypted. There was no This is the same video. Let me skip the next one.

So the the thing that we're missing from that is just the the detail of information that these uh cameras allow access to. All right. Fact. Third party cameras handled by Flock are accessed by Flock and Axon employees and other parties who have absolutely no legal justification to surveil us or our children. I am very salty and uncomfortable about something today. Something I've known about for a while but I haven't really talked about that much is that Flock Safety USA needs no introduction at this point works with third party cameras which means that if you owned a store and you installed this retail network surveillance camera on your parking lot, Flock will happily act as a middleman and and aggregate the data from. Stick with me, it's going to get a lot worse. Maybe you happen to see this video of me speaking at Douglas City Council 2 weeks ago. We could go to the nearest Falcon camera right now.

And that's thanks to Jason Nunard. Jason has been getting quotes and invoices in the millions of dollars just to be able to know what the police are searching on Flock cameras via open records requests. And when you see some of the information that he's dug up, you'll understand why he's not letting this go. So right off the bat, Flock is very clear about who is allowed to access footage and data in both their marketing materials and their contracts. For example, no unauthorized users, including Flock Safety employees, have access to the footage. Okay. Well, a Dunbouty police officer by the name of Bob Carter, search database 63 times last year for all sorts of things like person on skateboard or yellow truck. But the problem is Bob isn't a done police officer. He's not a police officer at all. East Flocks VP of business development and also a registered lobbyist. Also, according to public records, on September 30th of last year, this same flock safety employee logged on and accessed a camera in the gymnastics room of the MJCC. And as it would turn out, Bob is not the only Flock employee that accessed these gym cameras. Mandy Glo is also in the audit accessing these cameras on three separate occasions on three separate days. between flock employees, police officers, and names that I can't trace back to either organization. You can see the combined hours of these people watching strangers and children through this facility's cameras, including, but certainly not limited to, the pool, the fit line studio, and preschool daycare areas. And the bigger issue is that what we know is just a tiny fraction. The network is not adequately auditing who's accessing these systems and what they're doing with them. So, let me ask you something. Are you okay with block employees or policing?

I think you get the idea. All right. So, uh there is no transparency. They are not honest about any of this. Um and there is no need for this in Asheville. And with that, I'm going to read the statement that I prepared. So, the real time intelligence center is a hub where Flock and its partners can access all camera footage, including camera footage from third-party commercial cameras handled by Flock. This would link us to the national mass surveillance network and enter us into a quidd proquo system of camera and data sharing between different government agencies that have no reasonable justification for surveilling us as we go about our daily lives. These agencies include ICE, the different branches of the military, the Secret Service, along with many small random agencies in other states that have no law enforcement purview at all. And this is not just license plate readers. This is an advanced network of AI powered facial and object recognition cameras in public spaces, businesses, daycare centers, pools, gyms, etc. And this network is being used to watch people, including children, for non-law enforcement reasons, some of which are extremely malicious. And this cannot be emphasized enough. This nationwide network is not secure, and they are lying to us about that. In response to Ben Jordan's documented hacking of Flock systems, which we all just saw, Flock said, "Our systems, our data, and our customers data has never been hacked. They cannot be trusted. Even if these systems were secure, and even if the only people accessing them were law enforcement with legitimate business, there's absolutely no justification for this level of mass surveillance." Flock even quietly changed their terms of service, removing a line, assuring customers that the company does not own

and will not sell customer data. They removed that, including data from third-party cameras managed by Flock that are being accessed by Flock employees and God knows who else to spy on children. This mass surveillance network and all of the data from our lives is up for sale. It may seem like a lot of money for a small town, but $1 million is nothing to flock. It is nothing to the Trump administration and its close ally Palunteer. Um we realize you may not see you may see this as free money, but it's not. Um the cost is too great and you cannot trust anything coming from the Trump administration and these utterly for-profit corporations in bed with them. So please, please say no to mass surveillance in Asheville.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Heckable timing. Yeah. Sorry for the technical challenges, but we worked around it. Jen Hampton,

take your time. That was close. Hi.

Hi. Um, my name is Jen Hampton and I wish you all a good evening as I try to find my speech. There we go. Like I said, my name is Jen Hampton. I'm the co-chair of Asheville Food and Beverage United and staff organizer for the Asheville Area Tenants Union. I wear a lot of hats in this community, but tonight I'm here as a very concerned citizen. I'm here to speak on the item that was item D, the mass surveillance system. I know that this has been going on for a while, but I must admit that it flew right by me until I saw the presentation at Nerd Night last week, and it really fired me up and terrified me. Um, and I hope it terrifies y'all after seeing what Van just presented. It seems like y'all buried this $1.1 million expansion of police surveillance in jargon, calling it a real time intelligence center. But let's call it what it actually is. A centralized hub for spying on the people of Asheville, funded by far-right federal administration that has declared war on our most vulnerable neighbors. This council claims to be progressive, yet continue to collaborate with a fascist federal regime. Last year, you thanked Trump for drone surveillance. now considering taking Chuck Edwards money to build a network that will integrate personal cameras and business feeds into a surveillance web readymade for ICE. We already know how APD uses technology. They've used it drones to hunt the homeless population and surveil bookstores. While I'm sure that you all feel like this is about public safety, it's really not. It's about treating the public as the enemy. Furthermore, while words like slaughter

have been used to describe the upcoming budget cuts to transit and essential services, I find it peculiar that we are somehow finding the long-term funds to maintain this bloated surveillance apparatus. At the February budget session, the public was clear. Scale back the spying and save our services. Cities across this country are cancelling contracts with flock and dismantling surveillance because they actually care about protecting their community. Why is Asheville doubling down on draconian spying? Burying this in the consent agenda was a deliberate choice. It is a choice to collaborate with federal fascism and we have noticed. We see what is being done and we urge you to please reject these funds and stop the expansion of the surveillance s uh state in our city. Thank you,

Patrick Con. He didn't hear you.

I'm sorry. Patrick Con. Thank you, city council. My name is Patrick Conan and I live in east west Asheville. Um, I'm here to speak on the real time intelligence center. And I want to start with what these systems actually are. The business model for Flock, Fus, Axon, and the rest of these vendors. It's not public safety, it's data. The city lets them install cameras and license plate readers on our streets. In exchange, all those vendors get a 247 data set of resident behavior that they license, analyze, and use to train AI models. That's the trade. We, the people of Asheville, were the product here. If you don't believe me, read the contract with any of these vendors. While we may own the data, they have a license to use it as well. on data sharing. Um, I just want to highlight that APD has said they don't share data with ICE, but APD flock data is shared with more than 1,400 outside agencies, including Florida's fish and wildlife. And recent 404 media reporting shows Florida Fish and Wildlife Wildlife shares that data directly with ICE. The we don't share with ice promise is meaningless the moment the data leaves our network. This is the predictable result of our city's hands-off approach to surveillance tech. Here are the questions council should be answering before accepting this money. What is the ongoing operational cost after the grant runs out? Why are we accepting federal funds from Congressman Edwards to expand surveillance infrastructure in our city? And how will that affect our ability to refuse cooperation with federal immigration enforcement down the road?

What capabilities will be enabled? Facial recognition, gunshot detection. The sheriff's office has disabled both at their center, but will the city do the same? And if that changes later, how would the public even know what data sources will feed in? Is it the cameras, flock, fus, you know, is it more? We don't know what footage is retained for how long and who gets access. I do want to note that APD's uh track record on transparency uh is a bit flawed. When we brought drones to our city, there was a promise. The flight logs will be on the open data portal. Here we are years later. It hasn't happened. Um I've helped try to fulfill a records request for audit logs of how flock is used. City won't release it. Um, if we want to have these tools to solve public safety goals, we need to have a community conversation around what tools we use and how they're used. Please don't accept this grant. We need to take a step back. We need to actually have a community conversation around surveillance tech. Get good information out there for everyone and let's talk about what our community actually needs. Thank you.

Thank you, Canyon. Canyon Duca. Hello everyone. So where to start? I guess instead of slaughtering you with information and data and the tsunami of all of that is yet to come because we will be back on this issue and we will not forget. Um so I will talk to you from a different perspective. I was raised by police officers. I was my dad was a police officer. My uncle was a police officer. And one of the things that they taught me or one of the things that my dad taught me when he was he when he was 21 years old, he moved to West Texas in a tiny little town. He came from New York City. He was a Yankee. He was an outsider. The police department he was a part of didn't want him there. And one of the things that he did that he told me was so important is that he joined the local baseball team. He got to know the community that he was protecting and serving. And I can tell you one thing that drones, surveillance technology, centralization, all of that doesn't do that. I think that that is the perspective that I want to bring that it doesn't look good for y'all to go about this in the way that you are. I came here today thinking that it was just ignorance and in misinformation and not understanding what was going on. Today, in this moment, I'm questioning if it's intentional. I don't really know and I think that y'all should take that

seriously. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Ethan Steel. um a little nervous. Um in terms of I'm here to talk about the um security surveillance um systems um that were on item D. Um these uh flock safety cameras, I know that there are um at least um two that I know of that watch me when I go to work. At least two on the way. at least two on the way home. Um, I'm concerned I'm concerned the notion I'm concerned at the notion of investing further into this kind of constant surveillance for a few reasons as highlighted earlier um by uh some of the folks here. Um, our policing being systemically enforced along racial lines being that's one of my issues. Um, but an issue I'd like to raise um that that I want to speak specifically on is is um something that was talked about earlier. It was um it was it was outlined um pretty succinctly by a journalist from Dunwy um that was being highlighted, the city that was being highlighted in the video earlier there. Um it's a town in Georgia and it signed a contract with Flock Safety last year. Um Jason Hun Hunar, he he he writes that that one Flock employee, Random Bluck, who we uh uh saw who lives in Raleigh and is a business development manager for their 911 products, was granted live view access to our cameras, he says, looked at 54 cameras with strange patterns such as clicking through five traffic cameras on July 21st um last year before setting on uh settling on the Dun Woody library camera. The flock data obtained through an audit does not tell us when he

stopped watching that footage, only that he didn't look at anything else for at least 2 hours. 2 days later, Vandy clicked through three private cameras at the JCC, the Jewish Community Center, before he settled on the JCC camera main pool, right? It was over three hours later before his next view on a traffic camera. Um, Randy is still an active user in our system. Jason continues, "Bob Carter, vice president of strategic relations on business development for Flock. Bob spends a lot of time uh, excuse me, Bob spends a lot of time looking through our live footage and recorded footage. Just since uh, the beginning of last year, he has done this 185 times. Also, Bob has some interesting searches. On September 31st, 2025, Bob looked at one camera. This camera is in the gymnastics room of the JCC. I personally am curious at why the sales employee from Flock would be viewing the gymnastics room. He concludes the public deserves to know why Flock employees are using Dun Woody's vlog systems to look at live videos of people and children in the pool, gymnastic facilities, and fitness studios. Um, that's the end of those quotes. Um, just since the start of 2025, 127 uh excuse me, 1,000 that's an old statistic. Um 1,400.

Sorry. Thank you. Thank you,

Dennis Justice.

Good evening. I'm Dennis Justice again. Thank you for having me. For a little bit lighter subject, I'm going to bring pickle ball. Um, I want to thank the city of Asheville for having public input sessions at three different locations for pickle ball courts. Um, I started a group called Blue Ridge Pickle Ball in Henderson County where I'm from and it had to go away because I have work commitments, but the pickle ball community has been trying to get dedicated courts and Henderson County just like some people in the community here are trying to do so here in Asheville. Um, I'm from Fletcher and we had built four pickle ball courts. um at the Billmore Community Park, the old Fletcher community park. Um even though there's not tons of acreage there, there's only a very limited amount of land on there. So what they did is they made four smaller courts. And what I want to do is sew a seed in your mind in this process to look at the positive components of the complex in south of Atlanta, in Griffin, Georgia, and in Appelica, Alabama. try to integrate things that could bring in uh sound deafening u maybe an overhead uh roof but mainly when we talk about court size everybody wants to settle on 30 by 60 ft because it's like taking a tennis court and cutting it into four sections like it's a cake I am admonishing you to look at the idea of bigger courts particularly wider and longer courts to help handicap players there are actually handicap regulations for pickle ball 36 by 66 6 feet would make it easier for wheelchair players to uh use those courts. It' also be good for adaptive sports. There was actually accommodations for players who receive kidney transplant or even a heart transplant. They the handicap players and the transplant players, they get two bounces instead of one, but you need a bigger court for that. So, I'm asking to look at the idea of fewer courts but better courts. And I will ask you to

look at this uh travel fund that I mentioned earlier tonight. um the that the wine family would not apply for or likely to not apply for and look to your state leadership because there's potential talk of expansion of gaming in the state of North Carolina and I don't think we got our fair share in this region from sports band. We got a couple of really good things but we're not really getting our fair share and look for ways to improve your parks and I want to say briefly to the pickle ball community um and it's something to think about with your parks. Make sure your parks integrate the pickle ball courts with the other things you offer at that park. Um because too many pickle ball players just play pickle ball. They need to be playing other sports. If you dedicate to one sport, you're going to get injured. You need to be looking at the other positive aspect aspects of these potential parks. Thank you.

Sports fanatic. Thank you.

Um Jessica McClean. Good evening, mayor, vice mayors, and council. It's good to see y'all. I'm Jess Mccclelay and I live in Oakley and I work in Bisgue Apartments where my office is. Um, so today I wanted to talk briefly about the role of the council and some of the stuff that I'm seeing as someone who works there every single day, who has for five years that you might not know about and that you'll know about. And I want to invite you to come hang out with me and walk around sometime. Um, so let's start with this. Poverty is violence. Poverty is violence. It sounds like we are concerned about violence. That's one reason to think about keeping an eye on people, increasing the presence of uh police force. Were interested in violence and poverty is violence. And we have 15% of children in Asheville living in poverty. And the majority of folks living in poverty in Asheville are people of color. And a large amount of them live in our local housing communities. So our council is tasked as representatives um to mitigate harm that our city can cause to our residents of this city. I would say that is a responsibility of council to mitigate harm that can happen to residents as a result of our city and our city's systems. And unfortunately, here's some of the harm that I'm seeing. Um, increased poverty. We have recently had the housing authority of the city of Asheville also exit uh a memorandum of understanding or an agreement with an afterchool program leaving our youth and children nowhere to go necessarily until partners pick up the pieces and there are partners that are doing that. But if we think about a

pattern of events that are happening we have an increased presence of APD. We have the idea of a real-time intelligence center coming together to surveil us. We have more students and youth who don't necessarily have somewhere to go where they would have otherwise access food and academic support um as well as enrichment and a safe safe place to be. We also have parents and caregivers and auntes and grandmas trying to figure out what they are going to do because they have to work, right? They had child care before and they don't anymore. And largely this has happened in our housing communities where we have immense concentrations of poverty. And I'm just now realizing after all this discussion has happened that working in housing has probably put my car on my license plate on plenty of cameras that are accessed by folks all over this nation. I got a letter from Columbia University that I applied to 20 years ago saying that they had had a data breach. My social security number was out there that came to my dad's house two weeks ago. I've had a team member black pulled over two weeks ago. A neighbor, black, pulled over today and I kept an eye out while I was sitting outside of my office. It's a disturbing pattern and I appreciate you asking good questions. Thank you,

Saurin Peterson. Hello, council. Three weeks ago, several cost of living adjustments to the city's compensation plan were presented as options to the city council with the most generous to low salaried employees being $22,000 a year or roughly a dollar an hour increase. While this was the best of the options presented, it is still woefully inadequate and fails to grow close the growing cap between city pay and local cost of living. As recently as 2019, city employees were making roughly $1,000 above a living wage as defined by just economics. That took effort, but we got there because fair and just wages were made a priority by our city. But lack of maintenance and failure to keep up with local living factors, not just national inflation, have made it so that this year employees are now making $10,000 below a living wage. And because Asheville has gotten rid of every form of longevity and performance-based raises, even experienced longtime staff will see that gap grow if no additional adjustments are made. The cost burden of subliv wage positions is expensive to workers both financially and mentally, but it is also expensive to the city. It might not appear on the line item budget or it might even look the opposite where one less salary is saving the city money, but it costs us in the long term. We fix potholes even though doing so costs money because the decrease in maintenance of roads and the decrease in wear and tear on vehicles makes our roads safer and less expensive overall. The state has found that they pay the state government pays $500 million a

year in turnover costs and clearly the city is not paying that same rate. But we are facing the same factors in the private sector. They have found that hiring new positions for fired or vacant positions cost between 150 and 200% of a position's annual salary. And while I am not aware of a local study to that same effect, again, we still have those same things. I work as a laborer. My expectations are to lift 40 pounds and to communicate in English. But if I quit or if the person before me quit, that means that someone who has the experience of serving their community, of knowing their other positions, of having the supervisor come in and oversee their hiring process is no longer there. and those supervisors have to take over positions rather than focus on the work that they are hired to do. It is a question of priorities and I make two requests. First, for the departments that do not already do so, make exit interviews a common practice. We need to approach this with an informed position of what needs to be done. And second, make living wages a priority. Even if we don't get there this year, get us closer. We funded McCormack Field. That money was there. It was a good program, but we made a priority. And I asked you to do the same for workers. Thank you.

Um, we don't have anyone else signed up to speak under public comment. Is right there. She's on the list. Oh, I'm sorry. I just checked it. Was that just added? You read her name. I don't know where it came. Yeah, maybe it got deleted. raised my hand earlier. Come on up. Let's do it. Yes. Sorry, Nicole Lopez. Oh, yeah. I remember. Yeah. Um Oh, did I skip somehow? I'm sorry. Anyway, correction. Yes. Thank you. Please.

Okay. Thank you. Hi, city council. First, please ensure that access to records of city council and committee meetings are preserved as you strive to meet ADA web compliance. Secondly, I come to you today as a technologist with over a decade of experience building software and securing organizations in the abortion access space where we have long been concerned about the use of state and corporate surveillance systems being used to target and criminalize pregnant people, abortion patients, and people seeking gender affirming care. Back in 2019, I was in a meeting with state lawmakers in Illinois who were seeking strategies to proactively ensure that the ALPR reader tech and other law enforcement tech would not be a tool for states with health care bans to criminalize people traveling to Illinois for care. As the only city in western North Carolina with an abortion clinic and as a regional haven for queer people in an increasingly criminalized environment, I wish that our local governance would take the same type of proactive and protective approach to toward our own deployment of surveillent tech to surveillance tech like the second Fus realtime intelligence center that we're considering accepting funding for. Whenever building, deploying or configuring new tech and systems, we should always be asking how can this be used to harm people? How could the system be abused? Essentially, who can this harm and how? We already know that tech like this is being abused by by law enforcement and abortion ban states trying to criminalize people accessing care, by by ICE agents, and by abusers stalking their exes or others. We also know that sometimes the system gets it wrong. How do we know things like this? Typically, it's either because something has gone wrong or because of audits. It's worth mentioning that the city of Asheville has refused to release a network audit of our flock camera fleet that could have proven whether our network has been searched by unintended actors like rogue prosecutors tracking abortion clients. Having previously escalated concerns about Fus and Flock to city council, having reviewed the

July 31st public safety committee presentation by APD about their security approach to the policing tech like Axon Flock, the drone program, and um the most recent public safety committee meeting that brought up the acceptance of this funding. I do not feel that y'all are asking sufficient questions to consider the the potential harms of this tech. Why do we need another separate FUSA system for APD? I understand that APD already has access to the county FUSA system, but why is this access insufficient? We're essentially doubling our threat surface exposure. We now have two systems to secure that are only as secure as their weakest or most unethical users. Two systems of potential for false hits and misuses. Two systems to secure an audit. Now, is this something that could be shared? it could be uh better addressed by a negotiation and a data sharing agreement and extra seats to the FUA system so that we are still only dealing with one system and is there a way for me as a citizen to know if uh facial recognition is going to be deployed by APD or Bunkome County. Now there are two entities where my data where my face might be in a database or my car might be in a database. How is that being secured? Thank you.

Thank you. Apologize for that um deletion there. All right. Um that now concludes the public comment for tonight. All right, council. We're adjourned. We're going to be back here on the 28th. Thank you. I'll give it a good knock.