From Staff Reports

Contrary to assertions by Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer during her Oct. 6 “State of the City” address to the Council of Independent Business Owners, CIBO member and long-time city government critic Mac Swicegood said afterward that the city is wallowing in utter “chaos.”

Furthermore, Swicegood also said in a telephone interview Oct. 7 with the Daily Planet that “the grade (he would give) would be ‘F’” for the city government’s performance.

When pressed to elaborate on his viewpoint on the city’s failure, he asserted, “Because they’re not providing what they promised they would do. The core services are law enforcement, sewers, streets, sidewalks... How well- prepared are you (the city)?” Asheville is ill-prepared, Swicegood emphasized.

Swicegood added, “Until the citizenry gets involved and, makes government — city, state and federal — accountable for their promises, nothing is going to happen.”

Among Asheville’s elected officials, “The only one I see who’s trying to do things right for the city is (Vice Mayor) Sandra Kilgore. She grew up here. Her family is invested in this community. She’s also a realtor. She’s also trying to do the right thing for the community.” 

As for his one-word description of the “state of the city” as “chaos,” he told the Daily Planet, “It’s based off the decisions that are made .. They have to go out and buy a motel or hotel for 575 people who have ‘a problem’… That’s ridiculous...

“If the truth were known, this ‘problem’ has been worked on by another group since 2004....”

As an Asheville native and lifelong resident at age 77, “What’s going on right now is, you’ve got ‘termites.’ You kick the nest and you see how far the termites spread. You need to treat them, so it doesn’t spread.”  

So does Asheville compare to Chicago with its violent crime and homelessness problems? the Daily Planet asked.

“In comparison to Chicago, if it get ever gets that bad, we just need to set it (Asheville) on fire and turn out the lights,” Swicegood answered, succinctly.

“When you allow chaos to be in charge of your city, then something’s wrong.”

He added, “The night before (the mayor’s ‘State of the City’ address to CIBO, “We had that vagrant downtown knocking out the store windows and the (same) vagrant threatening people with a knife… then a major (alleged) drug dealer they caught on Walton Street.

 â€œNo, things aren’t good. But the citizenry needs to get involved. If you continue to vote for people who aren’t going to do anything, this is a pretty good example of what happens.

“I think she (the mayor) really feels what they’re doing is right — in her mind. But facts speak for themselves. The people who pay taxes are being extorted for their money in paying their taxes to clean up the mess” created by council’s poor governance, he said.

 â€œThe only thing I learned (from Manheimer’s address to CIBO) is that she still has all of her focus — and City Council’s focus — on trying to push through the bike lanes on College Street and Patton Avenue — and to exacerbate the problem even more for food-handling trucks. Right now, they don’t have enough space.

”Also, for fire trucks, you’ve got to be able to shoot the water up to those tall (downtown) buildings — or your fire insurance goes way up. Also, it (the bike lanes and resulting narrower city streets) will be a problem for the big crowds downtown.”

On the bright side, Swicegood said, “She (the mayor) also finally has recognized that, per capita, we (Asheville) have the highest drug problem in North Carolina.”

As for a separate report on the French Broad Metropolitan Planning Organization at the CIBO meeting, Swicegood said he learned that “one in 10 people who work in Buncombe County don’t want to work in Buncombe County because of the taxes. Or they’re going to other areas” that are more lucrative,” such as Charlotte.

Speaking of the top local issues the mayor should be addressing, he added, “The largest revenue producer for the city right now is the water — and it has been, historically. But if you go to Hendersonville, they’ve already put a drought restriction in their county,” while Asheville, with its many problems, including the Christmas water crisis, has put no water restrictions in place.

Swicegood also lambasted the mayor for  “indicating that, for the Jeff Bowen Bridge, the city is going to do all this wonderful stuff. Then, when you asked where the money is going to come from, they admit they don’t have that in the budget.”

Further, he stated, “As far as the core services for neighborhoods, they’re not doing that. They’re not providing the water, the sewer. As for storm water management, they’re letting a lot of leaves blow into that. In the Beaver Dam area, they have traffic issues not being released....

“The first responders — they’re not really being supported the way to need to be supported. When we had to call them and wanted them to be there,” they arrive as fast as possible, “but if they have to go to a fire down Patton or College, there’s no way they’re going to be able to get out of the way for some bicyclists.”

Continuing, Swicegood said, “As for the APD, for more than the past 20 years, we’ve either had four or five chiefs in that time,” indicating successive failures by the current and previous city councils of Asheville.

As for “the delay of getting I-26 (widened to two four-lanes each way between Asheville to Hendersonville) built — we’ve been working on that since 1990,” delayed in large measure by elected city officials, Swicegood noted. 

In one last jab at the mayor’s policies and her “State of the City” address, Swicegood said, “The other thing that she (Manheimer) went on and on about was the (dilapidated) Thomas Wolfe Auditorium... 

“How many more studies do you need before you make a decision?” he asked, rhetorically. 

Tragically for Asheville, it appears that the mayor and council will request endless studies of the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium — costing bundles of taxpayer money — before finally making a decision on whether to do a major overhaul of the building, or to build another auditorium elsewhere, Swicegood said, as the interview with the Daily Planet concluded.