The Occasional Asheville Thread

[Matthew]

It looks like my dream of an expanded Civic Center that fills the lots behind it, closing part of one street and closing another, won't happen anyways. A new development was proposed on one of those lots last week. I don't want Asheville to fall behind and never develop. I want skyscrapers! A hotel and expanded Civic Center would be great news for downtown Asheville and the city as a whole.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by glowrock

^^^
LOL at Overpriced Gewgaws. Ltd.!

Aaron (Glowrock)

Thank you. I'll be here all week.

And then some. Remember to tip your servers.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by Matthew

It looks like my dream of an expanded Civic Center that fills the lots behind it, closing part of one street and closing another, won't happen anyways. A new development was proposed on one of those lots last week. I don't want Asheville to fall behind and never develop. I want skyscrapers! A hotel and expanded Civic Center would be great news for downtown Asheville and the city as a whole.

I want skyscrapers too. The more the merrier, in fact. I wish the South Slope area between downtown and the medical district would fill in with enough residential high-rises to make even Vancouver green with envy.

On the other hand, I don't want the things that make Asheville special and unique to be mowed down in the process. There are some cities, like, again, Vancouver, as well as Seattle and Portland that manage to combine dense urbanity and high-rise development with a bohemian, free-spirited populace, and they're praised for it. I don't really trust Asheville's leadership as of now with the task of balancing growth while allowing the weirdos their place in town. I really fear that Asheville will destroy one to encourage the other, and in the end we'll all be poorer for it. There are any number of cities out there crammed with rich retirees and urban expats who live in grossly overpriced condoes and nibble foie gras at the most precious little cafes. There aren't that many that can maintain and nurture the kinds of people and businesses you find here now.

[Matthew]

I don't want those funky stores to leave. I do want to see those empty lots developed. A nice 15-17 storey hotel and convention facility connecting it to the Civic Center and Auditorium would be a great asset for Downtown and the community. It would help downtown complete with the Grove Park Inn for conventions, which means more people on that street. It would bring more events to the city that the whole community can enjoy, more money into the city and give us a new skyscraper, towering over I-240. If you thought the Basilica of Saint Lawrence looked big over the highway, wait until you see a 15-17 storey skyscraper towering over it! I've always enjoyed seeing the Basilica of Saint Lawrence and Battery Park Apartments from 240!

[hauntedheadnc]

The Hammon hotel would be a better fit for someplace west of the Civic Center, not east toward North Lexington. I believe it was orulz who said it ought to be built as the never-constructed Grove Arcade tower, and I agree. The hotel and the established community along Lexington do not in any shape or form complement one another, and one would have to make way for another. It goes without saying that the more money you have the more power you have, which means the hoity-toity hotel set would get their way, and the merchants of North Lexington would get their eviction notices.

Even in the space of a couple of blocks the neighborhood changes completely. The area around the Grove Arcade is significantly more upscale and entirely different from North Lexington, and would be a perfect fit for a fancy hotel. Perhaps it should be built as the Grove Arcade tower, perhaps it should be built as a component of the planned city parking deck there at the planned St. Lawrence Plaza. Either way, it belongs there and not a foot closer to North Lexington. Hippies are skittish creatures and are easily frightened by unusual sounds and sights, and in downtown Asheville there are fewer sights and sounds more unusual than those of new construction. Therefore, to protect our unique downtown vibe, it's imperative to put things in their proper place and leave well enough alone.

North Lexington is well enough. Leave it alone. Build the hotel in another part of town where it will fit in better.

[Matthew]

Building it on top of the Grove Arcade is a great idea, but I think it would cost too much. Think of the stone needed and the skilled craftsmen. They could do it if they could build a tower of their own design, but that would be bad news, architecturally, for the Grove. If only we had major corporations here to give money to the project, it would be great to see that tower built. It would be our tallest skyscraper!

Hippies are skittish creatures and are easily frightened by unusual sounds and sights, and in downtown Asheville there are fewer sights and sounds more unusual than those of new construction.

:hilarious :hilarious

Funny and true. With the new lowrises going-up, maybe construction is becoming familiar to them and it wouldn't be as bad now as it would've two or three years ago? I don't want it too close to St. Lawrence, so what other areas could it go? Asheville's Downtown Footprint is very large, providing lots of places for towers, but I think this one needs to be close to the Civic Center. We also should avoid the wrecking ball if possible. I haven't heard anything about it recently and that is always bad news.

[hauntedheadnc]

From the Mountain X-Press (06/22/05)

The boss
How an autocratic city manager ran Asheville
by Steve Rasmussen

When incoming City Manager Gary Jackson takes the helm as Asheville's most powerful official on June 27, he will oversee the city's thousand-member work force and multimillion-dollar budget (see sidebar, "From Steamrolling to Bridge Building"). But when he begins tackling the issues facing Asheville today – the water system, the Civic Center, downtown development – he'll find the fingerprints of his most famous (and most controversial) predecessor all over them. Weldon Weir guided this city through its hardest, poorest times while building a political empire unequaled here before or since. And in the process, he retooled the local power structure to serve his purposes.

Other public functionaries are often more visible. The police chief, the fire chief, the parks-and-recreation director, the public-works director, the planning-and-development director: These and other key city officials draw the hot spotlight of public attention whenever one of them signs off on a decision that affects local businesses' profits or city residents' lives. But every one of these movers and shakers answers to a single person, whom Asheville's charter vests with the sole power to hire them, fire them, and tell them how to do their jobs: the city manager.

Like a corporate CEO who's supposed to answer to a board of directors, the city manager is himself hired or fired by the men and women the voters elect to City Council. Yet there was a time, not so long ago, when Asheville's unelected boss even chose the folks who would supervise him.

Just about everyone who lived in Asheville during the '50s and '60s has a story about Weir, who served as city manager from 1950 to 1968. His admirers speak of him in near-reverent tones, and even those who opposed his autocratic political machine praise the results he achieved. To a significant extent, modern Asheville is Weldon Weir's legacy.

At the beginning of his reign, Weir lobbied successfully for building the 36-inch pipeline from the North Fork Reservoir into the city – a key component of the municipal water system that's now being bitterly disputed by Asheville and Buncombe County. Ironically, Weir's diversion of water revenues, which helped keep the city afloat financially while it was laboring to pay off its Depression-era debt, also helped create the crumbling infrastructure that still plagues the system today.

In 1955, county voters rejected a bond issue to build an airport. Two years later, Weir pushed through a city bond issue that gave us the Asheville Regional Airport. In the mid-'60s, Weir helped conceive the plans that led to the construction of the Civic Center a decade later. And in 1964, he secured millions of dollars in urban-renewal funds to redevelop a 75-acre triangle of downtown north of City/County Plaza and east of Market and Spruce streets. This 12-year project left in its wake a swath of sleek, parking-lot-encircled modern structures such as the Buncombe County Health Center and what is now the Renaissance Asheville Hotel – right alongside the blocks of funky, antique buildings that are the focus of today's downtown revival.

But even greater than the mark he left on the city's physical landscape is the way Weir reshaped its political terrain to center on the city manager's office – which many observers say remains the pinnacle of local power to this day.

The problem-solver

Throughout the cash-flush days of the Roaring '20s, Asheville was run by a mayor and two elected commissioners (of public works and public safety). Then came the Great Depression. In 1930, angry citizens forced the mayor and both commissioners to resign after discovering that they had illegally borrowed huge sums of money in a vain effort to keep the bank holding the city's accounts from crashing.

In a referendum held the following year, Asheville voters approved a change in Asheville's charter (later confirmed by the N.C. General Assembly) that placed the city under the council/manager form of government. This relatively new system – pioneered by Staunton, Va., in 1908 – empowered an elected mayor and city council to appoint a professional manager who would serve as the city's chief executive officer – overseeing its day-to-day business, preparing and administering its budget, and hiring (and firing) its personnel.

The new system got off to a rickety start. Asheville's first city manager – R.W. Rigsby, who had previously held comparable positions in Charlotte, Durham and Bristol, Tenn. – retired after only two years. The second, George Hackney, wound up being sued (along with the city council that had hired him) by Asheville's creditors, who claimed that the city owed them its water revenues in payment of its massive debts.

The third city manager was a local Democratic Party mogul and former Asheville Times publisher named Pat Burdette. But he didn't exactly throw himself into the job, as Margaret Simmons, Weir's secretary, recalled years later for local historian Rob Neufeld. Burdette would get to work at 10 a.m., take a two-hour lunch, and leave at 4 p.m. The man who actually got things done was an ambitious 22-year-old whom Burdette promoted to public-works director immediately after his own installation as city manager in 1935. Fifteen years later, Weldon Weir took over Burdette's job in name as well as fact. And in his two decades as city manager, Weir is credited with almost single-handedly pulling Asheville out of the prolonged financial spiral precipitated by the Depression.

This Asheville-born son of a sales executive turned dairy farmer was a tireless worker, those who knew him recall. Weekdays, he would rise at 5 a.m. and show up at the city garage first thing to give arriving employees his version of work orders – slips of paper bearing notes he'd made the day before and stuffed into his pocket. From the time Weir arrived in his office (generally around 8:30), he kept his door open to anyone who wanted to see him, writing down what needed to be done to solve petitioners' problems on more slips of paper. And Weir would often return to the garage at 5 p.m. to check with the returning workers on the status of jobs he wanted finished that day.

"I still hear [this from] some of these old-timers that talk about Weldon: If you went to Weldon with a problem, it was taken care of," says Bruce Peterson, who grew up in Asheville during Weir's tenure and has been active in the Buncombe County Democratic Party for many years. "I mean, you didn't get lip service – you got results."

And not just bigwigs like Democratic Party power broker Don S. Elias (then the publisher of both the Asheville Citizen and the Asheville Times), or the executives at Wachovia Bank (which handled the city's accounts and covered its most pressing bond debts after the Depression crash). What made Weir's name legendary in this town was his genuine concern for the problems of ordinary city residents.

"If they needed fuel oil, if they had a fire at their house, he took care of people – he made sure they had what they needed," remembers Peterson, and published biographies of Weir corroborate this.

Bruce's wife, Carol Weir Peterson, is Weldon's niece. Since her election to the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners last fall, she reports, many locals who recognize her name have told her stories about how her uncle helped them. "So many people said, 'He was more my family to me than my family,'" she recalls.

Weir was even a pioneering force for racial equality, hiring minorities at a time when the South was still mired in segregation.

Meet the machine

But there was another side to the way Weir got things done. In an age when Western North Carolina's mayors and sheriffs often ruled their little fiefdoms like backwater feudal barons, Weir operated a political-patronage machine that would have done Chicago Mayor Richard Daley proud.

It wasn't Weir's creation: He inherited it from Pat Burdette, who for decades had been one of the leaders of an entrenched Democratic Party syndicate that the newspapers called "the Burdette-Greene-Nettles organization." The first partisan City Council elections, held in 1935, were swept by the syndicate's candidates, who promptly hired Burdette – the head of the Buncombe County Democratic Party – as city manager, a post he held until passing the torch to Weir.

Weir ran the machine with a down-home touch. Every Saturday morning, everybody who was anybody – or who wanted to be – came to the basement of the Lance's Produce warehouse on South Lexington to have hot dogs with Weir and his cohorts as they casually hashed political matters. Whether you were a teenager hoping for a summer job cutting grass at the cemeteries or a pillar of the community dreaming of a seat on City Council, the first thing you had to do was meet Weldon face to face and get his approval.

Bruce Peterson, whose first job as a youth was swinging a sling blade for the city Parks and Recreation Department, remembers the experience well.

"First thing they ask you is, how is you registered? How are your parents registered? Do you live in the city?"

If you or your folks weren't straight-ticket Democrats, or you didn't live in town, you didn't stand a chance. And even then, if you weren't a friend or family member of Weir's, a hot dog was often all you'd walk away with.

In an article titled "Asheville Used to be Run Like a Family, and Things Got Done," (May 1, 2004 Asheville Citizen-Times), Rob Neufeld quoted Weir's close friend and right-hand man, Charlie Dermid, who said Weir's motto was, "Never hire anybody if you didn't know his grandfather." Dermid, who attended school with Weir and worked with him early on at what is now Azalea Park, benefited from his powerful friend's patronage for decades. At various times, Weir installed Dermid as parks director, police chief, director of public safety and director of public works.

Throughout the '50s and into the '60s, Weir in the city and Sheriff Laurence Brown in the county controlled access to every local elective office, deciding who would run – and, usually, who would win.

"Many people have told me, 'I wanted to run and I went to see Weldon, and he told me no!'" Bruce Peterson recounts. "He said, 'You can do it ... but you won't get support.' He said, 'We've got somebody in line for that.'

"I think it was a situation where today you'd say the tail's wagging the dog – where the manager controls the [city] council. He approved their running for office, helped them get elected; they were all in this thing together, they depended on each other. It wasn't an adversarial situation at all. That's just the way it was. If you wanted to run, come see me."

In those days, the South was overwhelmingly Democratic, and city employees were expected to vote for Weir's men. But some say the machine was not content just to drive folks to the polls and hope for the best: Rumors still persist of impossibly lopsided precinct counts, and of votes cast by folks who never entered a voting booth (and we're not talking absentee ballots here).

Many Ashevilleans opposed the way Weir operated, even if they liked him as a person. One of his most determined critics was local attorney Bruce Elmore Sr., himself a Democratic Party powerhouse at the state level. His son, Bruce Elmore Jr., is also an Asheville attorney who serves on the board of the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. As a boy, Elmore Jr. saw through the eyes of his father (who's now in his 90s) what a town ruled by patronage looked like.

"You couldn't do much of anything politically without being on the right side. It may even have been more perception than reality, but people would have thought that, 'Oh, if I want to get a loan from [a local bank], I probably ought to be friendly to the machine.' So a lot of folks who weren't political would have given lip service to the machine.

"If you had a business, and you had to have delivery people double-park every now and then to deliver, you wouldn't want to be against [the machine] because folks might get towed. They would have worried, whether it would have actually happened or not."

If your bar had a jukebox owned by a rival of one of Weir's relatives, your customers would be repeatedly arrested for DUI by the police, remembers Elmore – because the city manager controlled the police chief.

But whatever Weir's enemies thought of his methods, his chief critic never believed that the powerful city manager was motivated by greed.

"My dad never thought that [Weir] did it for gain," recalls Elmore, adding, "He just wanted control; power. And he had it."

The end of an era

But in the perennial struggle to stay on top of the political heap, Asheville's alpha male finally lost a key bout with a powerful rival. In 1964, when City Council voted to introduce cable television, Harold H. Thoms, who owned local television stations WLOS and WISE, was one of the principal bidders for the contract. Weir, however, convinced Council that the city should own and operate the cable infrastructure as a public utility (it would have been the city's only income-generating utility, other than water), and successfully fended off Thoms' efforts to acquire the contract.

The next year, Thoms sweetened his deal, promising to direct 20 percent of the cable system's profits to the Asheville Orthopedic Hospital, which he served as board president (it's now known as Thoms Rehabilitation Hospital). Yet Weir and City Council chose an out-of-state cable operator who offered Asheville a smaller cut of the profits than Thoms had, but who promised to turn the whole system over to the city after 20 years.

In 1967, though, Thoms got his way. Weir's own Council turned around and handed the local TV magnate a contract to install and operate Asheville's cable-TV network. The still-controversial document essentially gave Thoms a 35-year monopoly on the city system.

"I think it just sort of signaled that his era was over at that time," says Elmore. On Sept. 1, 1968 – mere days after the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago – Weir announced his resignation as city manager. And in the Council elections the following spring, a slate of outsiders beat the machine, as Republicans took control of City Council for the first time ever. The voters also elected Asheville's first black and first female Council members.

The new Republican mayor was Dr. Wayne S. Montgomery – the director of the cerebral-palsy clinic at Thoms' hospital.

Weir lived until 1987, remaining a respected elder statesman in the local Democratic Party. But he never again held the kind of power he'd wielded as Asheville's city manager.

The more things change ...

Today, as the 11-year tenure of City Manager Jim Westbrook winds down, political parties play only a limited role in Council elections, which have been nonpartisan for years. City officials now run a many-layered, multimillion-dollar bureaucracy, and the Saturday-morning klatches over hot dogs are history.

But what hasn't changed much – because it's built into the city's charter – is the lopsided balance of power that drives Asheville's strong manager/weak Council form of government. While elected officials take the heat for unpopular decisions, it's often the city manager who, behind the scenes, has done much of the actual deciding.

"Any time you have a council/management-type situation, council does set policy, but we're elected people, and we really don't have the background in public administration that a manager does," observes Council member Jan Davis. "So we have to rely very heavily on what they say. If you have confidence in that manager, it helps a great deal."

Brian Peterson (no relation to Bruce or Carol), who served on City Council from 2000 to 2004, was one of several Council members who clashed with Westbrook (and nearly fired him) in 2003. Peterson, who says he has no plans to seek a seat on City Council again, spoke candidly with Xpress about his experience of how the council/manager system plays out.

"It's a bit of an unequal playing field, because – it's like running the military, you know? The president's the commander in chief, but the general actually's got command of all the soldiers on the field, and so the policy might be we're not going to abuse prisoners in Iraq, but the general lets it happen.

"Council's a part-time job," notes Peterson. "Everybody [who isn't retired] has other work, has families; you don't have time to be an expert on everything that comes before Council."

Echoing Davis, Peterson says: "You end up relying very, very heavily on staff, and some have the view that – they'll sort of give staff a huge benefit of the doubt. Whatever staff says must be right, unless there's some overwhelming evidence or reason why you're going to disagree with them."

With a staff of 20 and the entire city work force to command, the city manager has far more resources at his or her disposal than Council members, who are lucky to have a handful of volunteers to help them out.

"There are certain duties that Council legally has to do – you know, approving a rezoning – that actually takes a vote of Council. But the process of getting it to Council is controlled by the city manager, and what staff recommends is controlled by the city manager. The information that comes to Council is controlled by the city manager.

"Council in the vast majority of cases is going to follow what staff recommends, and the city manager can tell staff what to recommend," Peterson emphasizes. "So even though the city manager – maybe it's a big rezoning – sits there and doesn't say a thing, he probably has shaped what staff has recommended. And sometimes he plays sort of coalition-building politics to put together a majority of Council to vote for something that he wants.

"Council gets the blame for stuff, but it's typically the city manager who's been really running stuff. Or [if] not him directly, then staff under his direction. But he stays out of the limelight – doesn't talk much at Council meetings. He talks before Council meetings; he talks with members one to one, or in groups of twos and threes. And he very much stays out of the limelight, so if there are people who are unhappy, they're unhappy with members of Council and not with him."

From Weir to Westbrook, Asheville's unelected bosses have exerted a tremendous influence on the city we live in. Now it's Gary Jackson's turn to put his stamp on the Asheville of the coming years. And though it remains to be seen what his impact will be, in the end, notes Council member Davis, "You just have to have a lot of faith that person is going to do what you want them to do."

[hauntedheadnc]

And now, for a mention of the hotel proposal that has downtown all in a dither, we turn to...

From the Mountain X-Press (06/22/05)

From steamrolling to bridge building

"'Road-roller' methods were employed by the city council in the Rigsby election," the Asheville Citizen observed back in 1931. The city's influential unions complained that R.W. Rigsby, Asheville's very first full-time city manager, had acquired a reputation for being unfair to organized labor while serving as Charlotte's chief executive. Council, however, ignored labor leaders' pleas to delay his confirmation vote until more could be learned about him.

Three-quarters of a century later, disputes between developers and neighborhoods have replaced labor/management strife as the leading source of conflict in City Council's chambers. And earlier this year, neighborhood activists unhappy with the list of criteria Council drew up for screening candidates to replace retiring City Manager Jim Westbrook griped as bitterly as the labor unionists once had about the lack of opportunity for public input. But on May 25, in a precedent-setting break with the old ways, City Council introduced the three finalists to Asheville residents at a public forum in the Civic Center. For more than two hours, those in attendance probed the candidates with questions, and Council members solicited feedback from the public to guide them in making the final selection.

Gary Jackson – the former city manager of Fort Worth, Texas – declared right off the bat that one of his strongest suits is his ability "to bridge business interests with neighborhood interests." That statement clearly struck a chord with at least one city official. Immediately after the unanimous June 9 vote to hire Jackson, Council member Terry Bellamy told Xpress that she'd made the motion to hire Jackson because she was impressed by his comprehensive background and his "ability to bridge the needs of both the business community and neighborhoods."

At the forum, Jackson also gave an unambiguous answer to a question about whether he supports the concept of "smart growth": "Yes, wholeheartedly. I not only talk the talk, but walk the walk – I have a lot of experience with it."

That experience may have influenced conflicting views about Jackson turned up by Xpress in the course of researching his tenure in Fort Worth. A Web site for a Texas-based real-estate-development firm opined that Jackson had been forced out of his position there because "he slowed growth" in the city. Yet a Web site for a taxpayers' watchdog group criticized Jackson for cutting a deal with a hotel developer that involved public bonds.

The latter point seems of particular interest because the developer, John Q. Hammons, is the same man who – introduced with considerable fanfare at a city press conference last month – expressed a desire to build a hotel/conference center behind the Asheville Civic Center. That announcement has generated concerns among some Lexington Avenue merchants and property owners about gentrification and fears that the city might resort to eminent domain to secure needed parcels.

If the project proceeds, Jackson's bridge-building skills may be put to the test – perhaps illustrating what the Asheville Citizen had in mind when, in a 1931 editorial condemning Council's flattening of dissent, the paper reminded its readers, "Under the managerial system of city government the selection of a city manager is ... the most important duty which the council is called upon to perform."

– Brian Sarzynski and Steve Rasmussen

[hauntedheadnc]

From the Asheville Citizen-Times (06/26/05)

Successes, a few concerns define city manager’s past
Jackson will have broad power as Asheville’s top administrator
By Rebeccah Cantley-Falk
and Julie Ball
STAFF WRITERS

ASHEVILLE — A city manager who was visible, customer service-oriented but who may have been in over his head in his last job are some descriptions given of Asheville’s new city manager, Gary Jackson.

Jackson, former city manager in Fort Worth, Texas, will take over Monday as the top administrator of Asheville, the unofficial capital of Western North Carolina. A power broker for the region, Jackson will oversee 1,000 city employees and a budget of more than $100 million. He will be expected to carry out the mandates of Asheville City Council and will be paid $140,000 annually.

Under Asheville’s council-manager form of government, Jackson will have broad administrative powers to hire and fire department heads. He will also take the reins as the city and county continue the battle over the Regional Water Authority agreement, which expires Thursday.

So who is this man, and what is his track record?

One thing those who know Jackson say: He’s likely to be connected to the community. In Carrollton, Texas, where Jackson served five years as city manager, Pat Cochran saw him at the soccer fields and at barbecues.

“People in Asheville can expect a man that’s going to come in and try to understand the people first, understand who they are and where they want to be in 10 years,” she said.

Residents in the communities listed on Jackson’s resume seemed pleased overall with his performance when contacted recently by the Asheville Citizen-Times. But tensions between Jackson and elected officials in Fort Worth eventually led to his resignation.

Here’s a look at Jackson’s three most recent career stops before Asheville:

Fort Worth, Texas

Jackson resigned in August 2004 after 3 1/2 years as the top administrator amid news reports of tension between him and City Council. Council gave him a less-than-stellar performance review, but neighborhood leaders said they were surprised when he left.

Jackson developed good rapport with the neighborhood associations and was available to meet with them, Gary Kidwell, president of the Hallmark/Camelot-Highland Terrance Neighborhood Association said.

“His response was immediate in every single case, and his mode of correcting problems was responsive,” Kidwell said.

But Jackson received sharp criticism in a February 2004 job review, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which obtained a copy of the evaluation through the Texas open records law. Mayor Mike Moncrief did not return telephone messages from the Citizen-Times.

Jackson received a 3.63 rating on a scale of one to five. One was considered unacceptable, two indicated a need for improvement, three was competent, four excellent and five outstanding.

Council members’ comments included that Jackson was “a good man doing a good job during very demanding times” and conversely that he seemed to be “in over his head.” Councilors praised Jackson for being passionate and committed, but one said he was “inconsistent in his ability to make decisions.”

Residents suspected the problem was rooted in personality conflicts.

“You’ve got to blame somebody, and I’ve always felt to a degree that Gary was the person to pin something on at that time,” Patti Crabtree, a neighborhood leader in Crestwood said.

Fort Worth residents reported overall satisfaction with services in a survey taken during Jackson’s tenure. But one area that saw decline was residential trash collection. The percentage of residents rating trash collection as a four or five on a scale of one to five fell from 82 percent in 2002 to 61 percent in 2004.

Jackson took criticism for the trash problems. Fort Worth contracts trash collection to a private company, which then has subcontractors. Council members said in July 2003 that they were bombarded with calls about missed collections, forgotten recycling pickups and piles of brush.

Removal of brush and other bulky waste was the major difficulty, and within two years, Fort Worth tried at least two different ways of addressing it. A call-in program for residents to request pickup was replaced by weekly pickup of brush and monthly pickup of bulky waste. The change included a fee increase.

“We still have that (trash) headache, so I can’t say Gary was the one that instigated that problem,” Crabtree said.

Crabtree is a charter member of a cleanup program initiated under Jackson’s watch. The program, called Code Rangers, uses volunteer residents to patrol the streets looking for code violations such as tall grass and debris. The residents report problems to the city’s compliance division, which then follows up.

Carrollton, Texas

Before Fort Worth, Jackson served as city manager in Carrollton, Texas, a Dallas suburb that has grown from 4,000 people in 1960 to more than 115,000. Jackson came to the city in the wake of political turmoil.

Members of Carrollton City Council had been the focus of a voter recall, and six of seven were either recalled or opted not to seek re-election. Voters were unhappy with an amortization plan city leaders put in place for an area of Carrollton known as Old Downtown. Under the plan, property owners were given a certain amount of time to come into compliance with zoning changes or stop using the property.

“The new council very much wanted to do things differently. Gary came in as very much the change agent,” said Bob Scott, Carrollton chief financial officer and assistant city manager. “(Jackson) is a team builder. He likes consensus.”

Jackson built a reputation as a city manager focused on customer service.

“He was very business-oriented. And he felt the city was a business, and the taxpayers ought to be treated as customers,” said former Mayor Milburn Gravley, who was a member of the board that hired Jackson.

During his time in Carrollton, Jackson worked on two successful bond packages in 1998 and 1999. One was to build parks, rebuild a couple of fire stations and build a municipal court facility. The second was for large infrastructure, including drainage and streets.

“Gary was instrumental in getting that process started,” Scott said.

As part of that process, Jackson recommended council set up a citizens advisory committee to review capital projects and establish priorities. That committee still exists, Scott said.

Jackson also pushed for higher pay for police officers and other city employees.

But his time in Carrollton wasn’t without controversy. He was criticized in 1998, when city workers, responding to complaints from neighbors, bulldozed an egret nesting area. Neighbors had complained about bird droppings and noise.

The work killed hundreds of birds. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigated, and the city ended up paying $70,000 in fines plus more than $126,000 to a local wildlife rehabilitator for the care of hundreds of injured birds.

“Gary took a little heat off of that because it was one of his managers who made the decision,” Gravley said.

Liberty, Mo.

After a stint in Coon Rapids, Minn. — Jackson’s first city manager job — he became city administrator in Liberty, Mo.

Those who worked with Jackson in Liberty agreed he had one trait: professionalism. Jackson initiated a push for service excellence, Coni Hadden, a 14-year council member, said.

“He wanted to raise the quality of standards for all employees as they dealt with the public so that service was uniform and consistent,” she said.

Jackson was successful in strengthening teamwork, Hadden said. But his intense personality conflicted with certain folks. On the other hand, his drive was what made him effective, she said.

“From some people’s points of view, he was expecting too much for everybody to be up to bat all the time and take on new projects,” Hadden said.

One of Jackson’s lasting impacts was developing the Heartland Meadows Industrial Park, Patty Gentrup, current city administrator, said. Developing Heartland Meadows required bringing several entities together, including a private college and the industrial development council. The project was the first in Missouri to use tax increment financing, a development incentive whereby tax revenues generated by a project are put toward debt retirement on public infrastructure.

Heartland Meadows, which has 11 tenants, exceeded community expectations, Gentrup said.

“It took less time than expected to pay off the debt, and it’s a clean industrial park that we point to with pride,” she said.

Jackson’s leadership style should serve Asheville well, Bo Ferguson, assistant town manager in Black Mountain, said. Ferguson, originally from Charlotte, came to Black Mountain in May and served as an intern under Jackson in Liberty.

“He was well-respected in the organization, and to the best of my knowledge was well-liked and respected by the leaders in Liberty,” Ferguson said. “He was extremely approachable. He always took opportunities to help me learn and get me exposed to new things.”

Contact Falk at 232-2938 or RFalk@CITIZEN-TIMES.com.

Contact Ball at 232-5851 or JBall@CITIZEN-TIMES.com.

[hauntedheadnc]

From the Asheville Citizen-Times (06/26/05)

Jackson strives to build relationships, learn about community
By Rebeccah Cantley-Falk
STAFF WRITER

New City Manager Gary Jackson spoke by telephone Tuesday from Fort Worth, Texas, to Asheville Citizen-Times city government reporter Rebeccah Cantley-Falk. Here are excerpts from the interview:

Question: Why did you get into public administration?

Answer: My true love has always been to do something to better man. My religious upbringing (the Methodist Church) has been that each of us has a gift, and my gift has always been to work with people. After undergraduate school and getting a practical business degree, I chose to do social work in the central city of Dayton, Ohio, in an impoverished area. … The social work led me to believe I could have a greater impact by becoming city manager.

Q: What are your first impressions of Asheville?

A: It has been well-led and well- managed in the past, and I look forward to building upon a strong foundation. I’m impressed with the character and diversity of the community. I’m impressed with the sound financial management of the city. I’m impressed with the caliber of city staff, and the vision and strategic plan that the mayor and council have adopted are superior among cities.

Q: How will you spend your first days, weeks and months on the job?

A: I’m going to concentrate in three areas. … First, making a special effort to get to know the mayor and City Council and establish a close working relationship as the chief executive. The second is to get to know the organization, what its strengths are so we can continue to build upon those and what areas need improvement so I can support continuous improvement.

The third area is to become knowledgeable of the diverse community. My objective would be to meet and visit with as many neighborhood groups, business groups, community organizations and other government partners to establish working relationships that will build into partnerships.

Q: What issues do you think are most important in the city?

A: The council has done an outstanding job of establishing the strategic goals from community development and community building to preserving the natural and as-built character of the community, as well as addressing affordable housing issues. … The underlying challenges nonetheless are always relationships. … Asheville does not live as an entity unto itself. We need to work with everyone from the school districts to the neighbors in the community.

Q: How would you describe your leadership style?

A: I like to delegate. I believe that everyone has something to contribute. Every job or position in the city is important, so I really focus on empowering individuals, empowering teams.

Q: What happened in Fort Worth that led you to resign (as city manager in August 2004)?

A: After accomplishing much of everything I set out to accomplish in the role and with the change in mayoral leadership, I decided it was an appropriate time to find another balance, where my family would be raised higher on a pedestal in balance with my work. It was necessary to resign from my position to achieve that. It was also necessary to resign to satisfy the mayor’s desire to change quarterbacks to have someone that he had a hand in selecting.

Q: What is your perception of the water debate?

A: I certainly don’t have a silver bullet. I’ll be the first to say that. My objective would be to listen and learn as much as possible from the mayor and council and negotiating team for the city, but I will also reach out and make a special effort to get to know the other side of the issue, and I’ll always be supportive of open and continuous dialogue.”

[hauntedheadnc]

From the Asheville Citizen-Times (07/07/05)

Grove Park Inn gives up on downtown, for now
Statement says development not ‘economically feasible’
By Mark Barrett
STAFF WRITER

ASHEVILLE — The Grove Park Inn will not build a large mixed-use development that might have contained as much as 1 million square feet of space on the south side of City-County Plaza, citing economic reasons.

“After extensive research and consulting, it has been determined that any projects would not be economically feasible at this time,” President and CEO Craig Madison said in a statement released last week.

The inn said in January 2003 that it was looking at two sites downtown for development. One, at the corner of College and Market streets, sparked controversy because of concerns that putting residential condos and some retail space there would take away too much green space.

The inn dropped that idea in December 2003.

Madison said at the time that the inn would turn its attention to about 3 acres of mostly city-owned property located to the southwest of City Hall on Marjorie Street, often called Site B. Inn and city officials discussed the project last year and an inn official said earlier this year that the inn’s consideration of the project was continuing.

Building on Site B could have represented a huge influx of new retail, residential and office space downtown. The project might have cost $225 million and contained 1,000 parking spaces, the inn said in 2003, although Madison later said a smaller project was possible also.

James Geter, who is involved in efforts to revitalize the historic African-American business district nearby at the intersection of Eagle and South Market streets, had a mixed reaction.

In August 2003, at a meeting with residents and business owners from the Eagle and Market streets area, Madison said inn officials hoped “our building may be a bridge between (Pack Square) and the Eagle/Market streets community.”

But critics of the plan worried that a large development by the inn could negatively affect the district, called The Block, by erecting a barrier between it and downtown park space.

“There were a lot of concerns as to what would go there, how would it look,” Geter said.

Madison’s three-sentence statement, issued June 30, said the inn “has withdrawn its immediate plan to pursue land options in downtown Asheville for proposed development” but said the inn would “continue to consider downtown development opportunities if and when those economically feasible opportunities arise.” The Citizen-Times was unable to reach him for comment Wednesday.

Pack Square Conservancy President Carol King said Grove Park Inn representatives told the conservancy that officials at the inn’s parent company, Dallas-based Sammons Enterprises, decided, “They could invest the money elsewhere.” The move may have been related to changes of views or personnel at the corporate level, she said.

The conservancy is planning a major renovation of Pack Square and City-County Plaza. While the inn’s decision does not affect those plans, it is “a big disappointment because it would help to build the edges of the park,” King said.

The development would have brought more people to the park and vice versa, King said.

But, she said, there have been questions from the start whether downtown could absorb all at once the huge amount of space the inn proposed to build.

Geter, King and Weaverville resident Julie Brandt — a leader of opposition to the inn’s plans to develop the first site — all said they wouldn’t be surprised to see other developers take an interest in the property, given the high level of development activity downtown.

“It’s a prime location,” Brandt said, although it’s hard to predict how long it might take for the property to be developed.

The inn won approval last year for expansion plans that call for construction of 57 additional guest suites and 50 condominiums on its roughly 150-acre campus in North Asheville. Those plans are unaffected by last week’s announcement, inn spokesman Phil Werz said.

Contact Barrett at 232-5833 or mbarrett@CITIZEN-TIMES.com.

---

Well, this just fucking sucks.

[orulz]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

Well, this just fucking sucks.

I blame the nimbys. Damn them!

[Matthew]

I could give you a list of buildings in the past ten years that have gone nowhere. I haven't heard anything on this 180 footer in months, so I was expecting the worst. I also posted a few times on the opposition to the building and how I thought that would cancel the project. At least the hotel is still an active proposal. It's good to read news on it. I am excited about the possibility of a pro-growth City Manager and his ability to push something through anyways. However I don't want to see businesses pushed out for growth. I want to see lots filled and towers rise. A return to the 20's.

Opinion:
I'm not a huge fan of the Grove's idea of architecture. They are destroying their so called campus. They have no problem swinging the wrecking ball and adding ugly additions to a major historical landmark. If Edwin where here today, he would be angry at what has become of his dream. An inn similiar to what he saw in Yellowstone.

[hauntedheadnc]

If the hotel harms the established neighborhood along North Lexington Avenue, I don't support it. I want a high-rise hotel in downtown, but I don't want it to obliterate any neighborhood it settles in.

In other news, I received an email today saying that the New York Times is preparing to do a series of articles on Asheville that explore how it became a haven for gays and lesbians. While this won't appeal to everyone, I hope it helps to cement our reputation as the San Francisco of the South.

[hauntedheadnc]

From the Asheville Citizen-Times (07/18/05)

City landmark sells for $2M
New owners say downtown’s Miles Building will be preserved
By Dale Neal
STAFF WRITER

ASHEVILLE — When Elwood Miles decided to sell the downtown landmark that bears his family name, he wasn’t just looking for the top dollar, but for someone he could trust to preserve the historic Miles Building.

On July 8, Stephen and Mary Ann West paid $2 million for the Miles Building, in a deal that honors tenants leases until 2007 and prohibits any condominiums in the prime downtown property for at least the next 10 years.

“He entrusted the building and the tenants to us,” said Mary Ann West. “We feel the building belongs to Asheville and we want to preserve it.”

Miles had about 12 contracts to consider within a week of listing his building with Whitney Commercial Real Estate back in May. The firm had never before seen such interest and activity on a listing, according to Kenny Jackson and Tim Harrison of Whitney.

With the opportunity to match his building with a new owner, Miles personally interviewed potential buyers about their plans for the property.

He talked for about half an hour on the telephone, separately with the Wests.

“It was hairy, waiting for his answer,” Mary Ann West said.

Miles said he didn’t go with the top bid, but favored the Wests, who had family in town.

The Wests plan to keep the character of the building, adding air-conditioning and sprucing up the interior.

“The building has beautiful bones. It just needs some cleaning up,” Mary Ann West said.

Owner honors history, but ready to move on

The building was constructed in 1901 and was first known as Battery Park Hill. Herbert D. Miles, Miles’ grandfather and a financier, moved to Asheville from Chicago in 1912 after his wife contracted tuberculosis. The couple built Breezemont, a large house behind The Manor Inn on Charlotte Street. Later, Miles bought the downtown property from the Coxe Estate in 1919, which he improved into the Asheville Club, an exclusive social organization.

In 1927, Herbert Miles extensively remodeled the clubhouse into an office building with dark brick and white terracotta facings, based on buildings he had seen while visiting Italy. After Herbert Miles died in 1958, the building went into an estate for his heirs. Elwood’s father served as the estate’s trustee until his death in 1997, leaving Elwood as the last trustee. The last primary beneficiary, Marjorie Miles Jackson, lived to almost 102 years, dying in 2003.

With no children of his own to pass the building onto, Elwood Miles decided he wanted to retire as landlord and handyman after 37 years.

Elwood Miles recalls his father hired him in 1971, saying “I can hire you or a janitor, but I can’t hire both.”

“I used to tell people, I collect the rent and the trash,” he said. “I’ve changed the faucet washers, put tar on the roof.”

Nick Kirpalani opened up his Chicago Hi-Fashion clothing shop in the Miles Building along Battery Park Avenue in 1978.

“He’s been a wonderful landlord. I couldn’t get better than him,” Kirpalani said of Miles.

With a lease set until December 2007, Kirpalani is pleased to still be in business while downtown shopping habits have changed over the decades. But he’s isn’t sure about the future.

“If they do renovations, the rents will probably go up. I’m not sure I can survive if the rents go up.”

Mary Ann West said she hoped that all the tenants would stay on.

Meanwhile, Elwood Miles is looking forward to retirement, traveling more on his motorcycles and working on his “microfarm” in Beaverdam.

“I feel very pensive, letting go of something that’s been in the Miles family for so many years. On the other hand, I have the freedom not to be tied to the building.”

Contact Neal at 232-5970 or dneal@CITIZEN-TIMES.com.

[hauntedheadnc]

From the Asheville Citizen-Times (07/18/05

EDITORIAL: Still lots of irons in the fire in downtown Asheville
By Mark Barrett
STAFF WRITER

In some cities, news of the loss of a potential downtown development that could have cost up to $225 million and involved up to 1 million square feet would have business and government leaders worried sick.

In Asheville, downtown is attracting so much money that people shrugged their shoulders when the Grove Park Inn said recently it was ending study of property to the southwest of City Hall known as Site B. Many were skeptical whether the project would ever happen anyway and some said, sooner or later, another developer will come along.

Sammons Enterprises, the Dallas-based company that owns the inn, is primarily involved in life insurance, the inn and heavy equipment. It isn’t surprising the company would pass on the chance to sink big bucks into a real estate deal downtown, especially when it already has plans to build on property around the inn itself in North Asheville.

It isn’t a foregone conclusion that someone else will find the same parcels downtown attractive. The site’s uneven topography would make it expensive to develop and the property is not in the heart of downtown activity.

Still, the general point about downtown holds true: Someone else will come along, somewhere.

There has been so much development activity downtown the list of downtown buildings that have not been redeveloped in recent years is dwindling, but there is some empty or underused property that could be built on in downtown and more on the fringes.

Some developers are turning their attention to the Merrimon Avenue and Broadway corridors to the north of downtown and the “south slope” along Biltmore, Lexington and Coxe avenues. There have been fewer signs of activity immediately to the east or west of the center of downtown — with the notable exception of a proposal to put a 10-story office building on College Street near the county courthouse — but that could change over time.

Contact Barrett at 232-5833 or mbarrett@CITIZEN-TIMES.com.

[hauntedheadnc]

From the Asheville Citizen-Times (07/20/05)

Council unhappy with DOT over I-240 plans
By Rebeccah Cantley-Falk
STAFF WRITER

ASHEVILLE — City Council wants to talk with state Department of Transportation officials about DOT’s steadfast support of widening Interstate 240 to eight lanes in West Asheville.

Council members expressed frustration with DOT’s position during a discussion Tuesday with city Traffic Engineer Anthony Butzek of the latest study of travel time projections done for the state.

The study showed little travel time difference between six and eight lanes and considered traffic projections through 2030. Opponents of eight lanes say the large highway would devastate West Asheville neighborhoods. Proponents say they are needed to move traffic.

The widening would be part of the I-26 Connector project, which would involve widening I-240 between Westgate Shopping Center and the I-26/Interstate 40/I-240 interchange in West Asheville and building a new crossing of the French Broad River west of downtown. Construction is to begin in 2012.

The recent study was done at council’s request and Butzek said it is the most comprehensive and detailed analysis to date. The state, however, still says eight lanes are necessary.

“I credit them for doing this analysis, but the results came back, and they (DOT officials) say, ‘Oh no, this changes nothing,’” Councilman Brownie Newman said. “It seems like in their minds a decision was made, and facts are just optional.”

Council members decided to request a meeting with the DOT to go over the study again and hear the state’s position. Mayor Charles Worley said he would schedule the meeting.

Contact Falk at 232-2938 or rfalk@CITIZEN-TIMES.com.

[hauntedheadnc]

From the Asheville Citizen-Times (07/20/05)

Officials buy rail depot site
Passenger train service planned for Biltmore Village land
By Mark Barrett
STAFF WRITER

ASHEVILLE — State and city government bought 3 acres on the edge of Biltmore Village last month that officials say will eventually be home to the city’s passenger rail depot.

Don’t pack your bags just yet. Officials say they don’t know when the depot will be built on the site, much less when passenger trains will visit the depot.

The state plans to someday run passenger trains between Asheville and Salisbury, where connections could be made to Raleigh and the rest of the Amtrak system. But an estimated $135 million in improvements to crossings and the 139 miles of track between the two cities are needed first, and a state official said it is not clear where that money will come from.

Train service would add some life and customers to Biltmore Village, merchants there say, although there was some disappointment that the site at 81 Thompson St. is not closer to the center of the village.

The property, currently home to MC Communications, is on the south side of the Norfolk-Southern tracks a little to the east of Biltmore Station, a collection of retail and office buildings.

Officials considered a site closer to the middle of the village than the Thompson Street property but it was taken off the market, said Bruce Black, director of transit and parking services for the city.

Putting the depot near the French Broad River would have required passengers trains to creep through the Norfolk-Southern freight switching yard, adding significantly to travel time, Black said. Another site to the west of Biltmore Village would have involved a long walkway from the depot to trains, he said.

The site chosen has plenty of room for parking and connections to city buses, Black said, and its location next to a rail junction means it will be easy to turn trains around quickly. Julia Jerema of the state Department of Transportation’s Rail Division said that, unlike much of the village, the property stayed above water during last year’s floods.

Laura Mahan, owner of The Compleat Naturalist, a nature store and art gallery in the village, said the site “might be a little far away for affecting our foot traffic here. It would help us more if it were right in the village.”

But Mahan and others said it would still help the village to have the station located in the area, in large part because it would increase the odds that visitors coming by rail will have some contact with Biltmore Village.

“We’re very positive about the concept of the train,” said Stan Collins, president of the Biltmore Village Merchants Association.

Black described the purchase as one step in a long process.

“These rail projects are very big and they’re very long and they tend to go in incremental amounts,” he said.

Jerema said it made sense to go ahead with the purchase, which was funded 90 percent by the state.

“We know (passenger service) is coming and land generally doesn’t get cheaper,” she said.

The site and the two-story metal building that sits on it have been leased to MC Communications for three years, Black said. The property had been owned by a Fairview company, Granieri Properties.

Oteen resident Judy Calvert Ray, head of a group pushing for passenger rail service, endorsed the choice of the site and said its purchase is yet another sign that DOT will establish service.

Riding a train from Asheville to Raleigh may not be as fast as driving, but Calvert said service would still be popular.

“If you can take a train and sit there and do your work … and get there refreshed instead of getting there with your teeth nearly bitten off from the stress” of driving, the train is attractive, she said.

Sidebar: Rail connections

Rail mileage: Asheville-Salisbury: 139
Rail mileage: Asheville-Raleigh: 270
Passenger rail travel time: Asheville-Salisbury -- 3 hours, 45 minutes
Passenger rail travel time: Asheville-Raleigh -- a little less than 6 hours

Source: N.C. Department of Transportation

---

Excuse me while I quiver.

[Matthew]

So the city has finally given-in and helped purchase the property! That's good news. The preferred site had options renewed twice, while council debated spending the money the state said was needed to bring service back. Too bad we don't still have the original 1894 Southern Railroad Depot on Depot Street, with it's beautiful gold dome. That was a huge station, but it did flood a few times. It was unfortunately lost to urban renewal in the East Riverside Renewal Project, planned to clean-up Depot Street of old run-down buildings. If only they knew then what we know now...

I heard through a good source in West Asheville they were going with 6 lanes, instead of 8? 8 is a real surprise! From the the info I recieved it was clear 6 was preferred. I guess it's like I said, the DOT will build whatever they want, no matter what the locals think or how many public meetings are held. Too bad GPI doesn't have that same attitude and power.

[hauntedheadnc]

I think you mean they're going with 8 lanes, despite the fact that everyone wants 6. The city is fuming over that now.

On the brighter side though, I just heard on WLOS that a major urban village project is planned for the river. Which river? They kept saying the French Broad, but showed footage of the Swannanoa, so I don't know. I figure that, like last time, it'll be in the paper in a few days.