Remarks by Esther E. Manheimer
143 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 6 of 6
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“Okay, welcome to the city of Asheville agenda review. Today is August 20th, 2026. We are doing the agenda review for the city council agenda for this coming Tuesday, August 25th. And I'm gonna turn it over to the city manager.”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“That's not really so much a Brad question.”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“It was really to bring them up to baseline. That's right. hopefully get us on a rolling maintenance schedule. Thank you.”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“I'll tell you why they did it. The reason they did it is because the, I think the ADU movement, if you will, is seen as a very... and there are a lot of more moderate to conservative towns that lobby against the allowance of ADU proliferation. And so this was a way to limit their ability to be constructed. It's a reflection of our state arguing with itself about this.”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“I assume that's being legally challenged. someone will challenge it. I mean, because it's such a bizarre.”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“You know, for the state legislature to attempt to restrict a building size like that seems somewhat challengeable.”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“This was all in the. Wasn't it all in the budget?”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“Okay. So for all the topics under this public hearing item B, this is our moment. So if there's anything else that, right, there's anything else council wants to say about it or any questions about before Tuesday, this is our opportunity. Just try to clarify that. Yes.”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“So on that note, we are going to hear about the parking minimums. This is another topic that's out of our hands because the legislature has now eliminated parking minimums, so all we're doing is amending our ordinance to conform to the requirements under state law. One thing I did want to mention, and I hope there's a way to communicate this to the broader community, but a lot of Ashevilles, residential neighborhoods are actually subject to their own private restrictive covenants. So we're getting a lot of emails from folks in South Asheville. In fact, I was responding to a person who emailed…”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“And on that note, if there are other things that this council wants staff to look at before we revisit this, please speak now or let DK know pretty quickly so that they can do that work. So this is our opportunity to kind of do that deeper dive.”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“Council, I sent you all an email with a copy of the resolution and I think it's attached to your agenda as well. And this is under new business. So there are a lot of community concerns regarding the use of the flock system and I have released some messaging myself around this issue. I think In hearing from the community and studying the issue, FLOC is standing out as a different type of technology than other technologies used for public safety and law enforcement, and of particular concern, as reported in a lot of news outlets, is the way that the system is scanning every single license…”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“And I should have said at the beginning, and this is another point of confusion, the city has 11 flock cameras. That's it. And they're all stationary, meaning they're mounted somewhere. They're not in a vehicle. They're not on a person. They're mounted somewhere. And there are other flock cameras all throughout this community that are either owned by other public entities like a university or the sheriff's department, or they're owned by private individuals or private companies. And we don't have any control over that, whether or not those other groups want to operate flock cameras. We just…”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“And just to clarify, the chief is working with someone with the ACLU on that?”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“We could meet at the Civic Center. I don't know what's going on at the Civic Center, though, maybe if they have.”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“Yeah, Axon has a lot of different. Axon has the body cams, the dash cams. I mean, they're a company. They even provide tasers, all kinds of things.”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“That's right. So I think what Councilwoman Monroney is citing is if we were to move ahead with replacing flock-style stationary license plate readers with axon stationary license plate readers, the question around constitutional protections would come back into play. So in this resolution... Oh, outside the car. Yeah, like if you were to put up the...”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“Which is why this resolution that we have an opportunity to vote on Tuesday night not only cancels the flock contract, but asks for information and policymaking around the collection of this type of data. It could be that we land in a place where there's not a resolution to a replacement that's a same for same. Or we could even get a court opinion between now and then that says, you can't even use this technology. I'm just saying there's a lot of things that could happen. We're not about to pull down these cameras and right at this moment put that new technology up, but it is something that…”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
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“We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026