Remarks by Kim Roney
39 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 2
- Play at 18:58
“So I have a question before we go that direction. Because it says it's for Wilma, Dykeman, Greenway, Jean Webb Park, Eight River Arts Place. Is there any reason why we can't delay this and get the questions answered so we can have an informed decision?”
City Council · Oct 13, 2026
- Play at 40:00
“Very good debut. I do have a question. Thank you for your presentation. Welcome to this work. I know there have been some concerns from businesses and residents when there are new capital projects going in and it seems that there are therefore new stormwater problems. What is the avenue that someone should use to report it? For example, there was some new residential development in North Asheville. near the lake, and the new development meant that the storm water issues in the back of the businesses facing the main corridor are now flooding. And so what is their recourse? Who do they call? I…”
City Council · Oct 13, 2026
- Play at 41:31
“So is the best path still to use the Asheville app?”
City Council · Oct 13, 2026
- Play at 41:34
“And then it goes to your office? Yes. Because the second example I have is we had that rain this past weekend, and it was a lot all at once. But we had also done a lot of sidewalk and new infrastructure work with NCDOT on the Haywood Road corridor. And the new information we gained was that at the top of the hill at State Street, you would think that that water would move down State Street, and it pulled up on Haywood Road, which seemed new with the new infrastructure. So one would hope that new infrastructure would mean it works more efficiently, and it seemed to work less efficiently. So…”
City Council · Oct 13, 2026
- Play at 53:11
“Oh, no, you don't be doing the motion yet. We've got to do the public hearing. Before that, I'll ask my evergreen question that I ask for every conditional zoning, even though I think I know the answer. Is there a plan for renewable energy or anything that would hinder its future installation?”
City Council · Oct 13, 2026
- Play at 1:16:32
“If they're in Tennessee, it's not as big a deal. I have a question that I'm hearing from the community. I'm excited about this project, but if we can go back to the modifications.”
City Council · Oct 13, 2026
- Play at 1:18:12
“So the question I had also includes Brad. The 15% to 13% tree canopy issue, how many trees are we talking about? And folks are asking, why can't you plant them in a brown field? And there's a reason.”
City Council · Oct 13, 2026
- Play at 1:20:32
“Thank you for that level of detail. I expect we'll hear more of the public comment.”
City Council · Oct 13, 2026
- Play at 1:40:54
“So I know that there are significant concerns with the road and the site and the trees. And we just saw in the presentation there was going to be What was effectively an Amazon distribution warehouse in 2021, which I voted against, it was going to be a lot of traffic too. And so I am curious, what does it look like? What do we want in that location? When I voted against the Amazon and when I think about what it looks like to essentially potentially block a data center here, I want a Costco here. But we do have to work on the roads and we are working on them. So the concerns are valid.”
City Council · Oct 13, 2026
- Play at 1:41:59
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
City Council · Oct 13, 2026
- Play at 2:14:58
“I do have a question. I was talking with the family that applied for the Health and Human Services General Assistance Program. I know that we moved the funding from essentially a homeowner grant to this program, and it's designed for one-time financial hardships. And what I'm hearing is folks are like, by the time I get to the hardship, I need the money quickly. And it's not maybe working as designed to help with eviction prevention. In the past, we have partnered with other agencies because they have more infrastructure set up to move dollars. And the hope was they would move quickly. I…”
City Council · Oct 13, 2026
- Play at 2:16:04
“It is, but it is a program that we fund for emergency, for evictions, for... It can be for rent. It can be for utilities. It's up to $500 per household. It's at gap.buncommancy.gov. I know we need to have a bigger conversation, but it's not the first time that we've... put funds into something like eviction protection, and then the funds got stuck. And we heard from the community that we weren't moving quickly enough for it to function as designed. So maybe it's a follow-up question. I just know that if we're running point on it instead of partnering out, then we'll have even more…”
City Council · Oct 13, 2026
- Play at 2:17:33
“I move to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager.”
City Council · Oct 13, 2026
- Play at 2:18:08
“The city's role is to project management administer funds. So we're going to administer funds to these groups.”
City Council · Oct 13, 2026
- Play at 2:33:01
“But we did have a staff memo in the follow-up documents a few weeks back about where we're at on the updates on the bear carts, and I appreciate that. I understand there's a backlog, but we also cut that budget. So that's on us. And it was never enough.”
City Council · Oct 13, 2026
- Play at 21:46
“Yeah, can you remind me when we're going to talk about the mobile pay app with transit? I feel like somehow that's got jammed up and we're looking for revenue and people want to get on the bus, but they can't pay because they don't have a dollar, but they could pay with their phone.”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 22:20
“I'll say if it can skip committee and go to council, I would support that because I think anything that we do that's tying that up is a waste of time.”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 32:01
“Thank you, Marcus. I'm really glad that I had the conversation with some of our previous small business owners who have worked with the city in this program this week to help me understand some of these questions. So these are elevated community concerns. There was a concern that there's focus on technical support, but there's already technical support available through other partners where there seemed to be a need for more focus for small businesses, especially you named businesses that maybe have smaller operating budgets or smaller staff. um the size of the contracts always comes up when…”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 35:12
“Okay. And then one of the things that's coming up is small businesses locally will see a contract go to the lowest bidder And it's like, the only way they can do that project is they come back and ask for more money later. And then they do. So the question was, what does accountability look like to sort of check receipts so that lowest bidders aren't knowingly going to like have a history of coming back and saying, I'm over budget, I'm over budget. Or let's say they get a contract to do a project at a city park. And then all of a sudden all the money is spent, but the project isn't finished.…”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 37:24
“There's a lot more questions about scoring metrics and stuff, and I won't get into the weeds on that because we do keep seeing that pop up. And I know the community has questions, but thank you for letting me dig in a little bit here today.”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 56:20
“Thank you. I just wanted to echo the appreciation for partnership and enthusiasm for supporting whole neighborhoods. What I'm hearing from our neighbors is the things that would make their neighborhoods more resilient is having things like access to groceries, access to jobs, access to child care and education opportunities, being able to have access to transportation options. So a neighborhood. And well-resourced neighborhoods are often the safest. And so what I hear some enthusiasm for from residents and folks in close proximity is this sounds like a well-resourced neighborhood and it's…”
City Council · Sep 3, 2026
- Play at 6:24
“I have a question about that one, Jade. I talked about this with Brad earlier this week. And it doesn't seem like we're limited in not doing this. I think in 2017, Buncombe County built housing for teachers and teachers live there. And so the question was, could we leverage this site to build housing for workers downtown? So for example, I know we did, the year before I was on council, a study looking at housing for the arts sector. So if you did arts, music, service industry, but also had the caveat of downtown, if somebody started as a dishwasher in a restaurant, but they got hired by a…”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 8:00
“Do we still have that study on a shelf gathering dust somewhere about the art sector housing?”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 10:22
“Jade, I have a question about that one. So in the staff report, it says these funds will be prioritized for pedestrian and sidewalk improvements at intersections with complex geometry, pedestrian facilities and school zones, and to supplement pedestrian improvements administered by DOT. I know we have a sidewalk prioritization list, and we also have the gap plan that has a prioritization list. Are those being incorporated? Because it also says... discrete small-scale spot improvements, and it could be hard for us to communicate outcomes if we're not somehow connecting it to knocking some…”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 11:39
“And then this I guess is for Brad, but it seemed pretty easy to make our sidewalk fee-in-lieu get on the ground. Why is it so hard to get the tree fee-in-lieu on the ground again?”
City Council · Aug 20, 2026