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Documentary shows how racial covenants segregated Asheville neighborhoods

April 29, 2021Read more

Asheville neighborhoods as we know them didn’t just happen. Racially restrictive covenants that barred the sale of homes to people of color have been among the many racist barriers to Black home ownership here. When Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity discovered such a covenant on a property it intended to develop, it decided to raise the profile of the issue by producing an 18-minute documentary. Watch the film here.

“We hope this film expands peoples’ knowledge of how past laws and practices shaped the current housing landscape,” said Ariane Kjellquist, Habitat’s communications director. The film includes interviews with Buncombe County Commissioner Al Whitesides; Drew Reisinger, of the Buncombe County Registry of Deeds; Kel Compton, a Habitat homeowner; Sophie Dixon, of the Shiloh Community Association; Sarah Judson of the University of North Carolina at Asheville; and Parker Smith of Pisgah Legal Services. — B.D.

Free COVID-19 vaccinations, no appointment needed

April 28, 2021Read more

Buncombe County Health and Human Services is now offering free, walk-in COVID-19 vaccinations at the Buncombe County vaccination clinic located on the campus of A-B Tech. The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is available to everyone 16 years of age and older at the A-B Tech location.

Cawthorn calls Democrats “bastards”

April 28, 2021Read more

Rep. Madison Cawthorn told a Newsmax interviewer last week that “We have got to get Democrats out of power … we’ve got to take the majority away from these bastards.”

Cawthorn,

Rep. Madison Cawthorn told a Newsmax interviewer last week that “We have got to get Democrats out of power … we’ve got to take the majority away from these bastards.”

Cawthorn, who told fellow House Republicans soon after taking office that his priority would be to seek publicity rather than to craft legislation, then posted a link to a Breitbart story about his interview to the Madison Cawthorn Chat channel on the social media platform Telegram. The Madison Cawthorn channel is popular with white supremacists, neo-Nazis, antisemites, QAnon adherents, Big Lie proponents, and other self-described “patriots.”

Cawthorn also agreed with the Newsmax interviewer that he believes Democrats are promoting a surge of refugees at the southern border in order to get cheap labor and register people to vote Democratic. “You know I absolutely think that’s exactly what it is,” Cawthorn said. “I think that the cartels want to make the money. I think the Democrats want to profit off the power. So I genuinely believe that this border crisis is something that they are actually promoting.” — T.F.

Soaring construction costs hammer affordable housing

April 22, 2021Read more

One of the city’s more interesting experiments on affordable housing is dead.

Paul D’Angelo, the Director of Community Development for Asheville, told the city’s Housing and Community Development Committee meeting this week that far higher constructions costs have nixed the project. Construction costs have risen more than 15% in the last year, and as a result the developer cannot go forward with the units as previously priced.

The proposal in West Asheville would have provided one of the few opportunities for the city to address home ownership for lower income residents. It would have built 11 single family homes at $275,000, and 12 condos, six of them one-bedrooms at $199,00 and six two-bedrooms at $239,000.

A $1.1 million loan that was approved for the developer from the City’s Housing Trust Fund will now be returned to the fund. — Barbara Durr

HCA-Mission monitor invites public comments

April 19, 2021Read more

Gibbins Advisors, the independent monitor approved by Attorney General Josh Stein to make sure HCA Healthcare adheres to the conditions he placed on its 2019 purchase of Asheville-based Mission Health System, says it wants to hear from Asheville Watchdog readers.

“The Independent Monitor for Mission Health System encourages comments from the community,” a spokesman wrote to The Watchdog. “The Independent Monitor catalogs all commentary to assist it in its monitoring work. Commentary is also passed along to HCA to be addressed. Respondents can choose to submit information anonymously or include their contact information so that HCA may follow up directly. The contact form is available at https://www.independentmonitormhs.com/contact or you can email the Independent Monitor at independentmonitor@gibbinsadvisors.com.”

Readers are also invited to follow the activity of the Independent Monitor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/independent-monitor-for-mission-health-system/ — Peter H. Lewis

Cawthorn raises nearly $1M for re-election campaign

April 18, 2021Read more

Scores of American corporations vowed after the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection to withhold political contributions from the 147 House and Senate Republicans, including western North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who voted against certifying Electoral College results from states won by Democrats Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. For the most part they have kept their checkbooks closed, according to a Watchdog review of the latest Federal Elections Commission reports.

As a candidate, Cawthorn received donations of $1,000 to $5,000 each from the political action committees of more than a dozen major U.S. corporations, led by Home Depot, SunTrust Banks, and United Parcel Service (UPS). Others included Aflac, Altria Group, AT&T, Cigna, Duke Energy, ExxonMobil, Kirby Corporation, Lowe’s, Reynolds American, and Universal Technical Institute.

But in the three months following his actions to overturn the election, none of those corporate PACS has sent him money, the FEC data show. Cawthorn for NC, the congressman’s re-election committee, reported $943,837 in contributions during the first quarter of 2021, all but about $100,000 from individual donors. The rest came mainly from the Take Back the House 2022 Republican political action committee, the records show. — Peter H. Lewis

Update to “Cawthorn’s First 2 Months in Office”

April 12, 2021Read more

Subtitled “Under Attack, He Moves (Far) Right,” our story noted that Rep. Madison Cawthorn had not introduced any original legislation after 60 days in office.

Since our story appeared on March 5,

Subtitled “Under Attack, He Moves (Far) Right,” our story noted that Rep. Madison Cawthorn had not introduced any original legislation after 60 days in office.

Since our story appeared on March 5, Rep. Cawthorn has introduced nine original pieces of legislation. The first was a resolution “Commemorating the 100-year anniversary of the fall of Kronstadt [Russia], which took place on March 18, 1921.” It attracted no co-sponsors. Another of the first-term Republican congressman’s bills would permanently abolish Daylight Savings Time.

Rep. Cawthorn also introduced what he called the “Donument Act” to honor former President Donald Trump by establishing a “Southern Border Wall National Monument.” The bill, which has no co-sponsors, would give federal protection to the 400 miles of border wall built during Trump’s term along the 1,933-mile-long border with Mexico, endowing it with the same protected status as the Statue of Liberty, the Lincoln Memorial, and Mount Rushmore.

“We’re going to turn the border wall into a national monument so Biden can’t touch it!”, Rep. Cawthorn wrote to his followers on Telegram. — Peter H. Lewis

Mission-HCA Healthcare Public Meeting April 7th

April 12, 2021Read more

Gibbins Advisors, the independent monitor hired to oversee HCA’s compliance with terms of the Mission Health System sale, will hold an informational online meeting open to everyone in Western North Carolina served by Mission Health.

This will be the first public meeting with the independent monitor since last year’s seven pre-pandemic community meetings. In the webinar, the independent monitor will provide an update on its work, and take questions from the public.

Anyone interested in participating can register at this link.

The presentation will be recorded and posted for viewing after the event on the Independent Monitor’s website. — Peter Lewis

Contract Negotiations Begin For Mission Nurses

April 12, 2021Read more

The National Nurses Union, which in September 2020 won recognition at Mission Hospital for 1,800 Registered Nurses, is in the throes of negotiating its first contract at Mission with HCA. It took four months before negotiations actually started in January, and the NNU isn’t putting a timeline on finishing. While patient and staff safety are prime concerns as the pandemic continues, the NNU says that the nurses want HCA to make real changes at the hospital and to address “a wide range of issues”, including staffing, which many nurses say has been cut to the bone. The NNU has successfully negotiated contracts with 19 other HCA hospitals around the country, though Mission is the first for-profit hospital in North Carolina that the NNU has unionized. — Barbara Durr

Cawthorn Mingles With Far-Right Fringe

By Sally Kestin, Tom Fiedler and Peter H. Lewis (August 25, 2020)

Cawthorn Mingles With Far-Right Fringe

Conservative congressional candidate Madison Cawthorn, scheduled to speak Wednesday at the GOP national convention, traveled to Texas last month to visit a private border wall and echoed discredited child sex trafficking claims promoted by the extremist conspiracy theory movement.

The July 30 event, billed as a “political seminar,” was held at the border wall built by the crowdfunding campaign whose organizers, most notably former Trump-adviser Stephen Bannon, were charged last week with defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors.

In a campaign video posted on Instagram, Cawthorn invoked an unsubstantiated claim popular among fringe conspiracy theorists.

“Sure, there are children being human-trafficked across our border north into our country for sex slavery and many things that are unspeakable and terrible to think of,” a somber Cawthorn said. “But what’s really going on is we are having a large group of cartels coming into our country,

Candidate’s claim creates false impression

By Tom Fiedler (August 11, 2020)

Candidate’s claim creates false impression

The narrative created by Republican congressional-candidate Madison Cawthorn paints a picture of a bright, young man headed to the U.S. Naval Academy until he was severely injured in an auto crash.

“Madison was homeschooled in Hendersonville and was nominated to the Naval Academy by Rep. Mark Meadows in 2014,” according to the 11th district candidate’s website. “However, Madison’s plans were derailed that year after he nearly died in a tragic automobile accident that left him partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair.”

But in a 2017 sworn deposition obtained by AVL Watchdog, Cawthorn admitted his application to the Academy had already been rejected before the crash. The campaign did not comment, despite repeated requests over several days.

The Naval Academy reference is a key part of the 25-year-old’s public portrait, featuring prominently in his campaign speeches and interviews.

Cawthorn Takes a Hard-Right Turn

By Tom Fiedler (August 8, 2020)

Cawthorn Takes a Hard-Right Turn

When then 24-year-old Madison Cawthorn easily defeated a Trump-backed rival to capture the GOP nomination in Western North Carolina’s 11th congressional district, he declared that his mission would be to rescue his party from a “generational time bomb.”

Charismatic, telegenic, social media-savvy and deeply rooted in the region, the Hendersonville native reveled in the national news reports that, if elected, he would become one of the youngest people ever sent to Congress and a bridge to his party’s future.

“Move over AOC,” asserts a cartoonish video on his campaign website where his smiling photo shoves aside one of New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 31-year-old favorite of the Democratic left known widely as AOC.

GOP congressional candidate aspires to be the conservative alternative to New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, widely known as AOC.

Cawthorn told a New York Times interviewer that he was motivated to seek office “because I believe there’s a generational time bomb going off in the Republican Party…

Come Back Tourists; Oops, Never Mind

By Sally Kestin (July 28, 2020)

Come Back Tourists; Oops, Never Mind

Buncombe County’s Tourist Development Authority began advertising for tourists to visit Asheville again – on the same day that the county’s top public health official said coronavirus cases were “rising at an alarming rate.”

The ad campaign, designed to promote “the safe and responsible return of visitation,” featured social media posts like one picturing a young couple picnicking on the bank of a river. “We invite you to pack your bags and masks, and safely experience our mountain oasis.”

On July 14, just five days after the ads began, the TDA pulled the plug. The reason: a viral surge – both of the pandemic kind, and of a social media variety.

The TDA had planned for the first scenario, monitoring Covid-19 trends in the target area, a 300-mile radius considered drivable to Asheville. When the campaign launched, large metropolitan areas like Charlotte and Atlanta were excluded because of a high viral caseload.

Asheville Police calls: Roadmap for Defunding?

By Sally Kestin and John Maines (July 14, 2020)

Asheville Police calls: Roadmap for Defunding?

Of 911 calls and requests for assistance to Asheville Police, less than 1 percent involve a violent crime, an AVL Watchdog analysis of police dispatch data shows.

Much of the time, police are summoned to routine calls such as traffic accidents, domestic disputes and loud parties or non-violent crimes like shoplifting, trespassing and prostitution, according to the analysis of more than two years of 911 calls.

“The reality of policing is that the majority of their time is spent on things totally unrelated to crime,’’ said Matthew Robinson, a professor of criminal justice at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. “We know that 75 to 80 percent of an officer’s time is spent providing social services and routine administrative tasks like filling out reports.”

The role of law enforcement and questions about whether some police functions are better delegated to trained,

Travel industry controls North Carolina’s room tax laws

By Mark Barrett (July 10, 2020)

Travel industry controls North Carolina’s room tax laws

A bill that would have changed the distribution of Buncombe County’s controversial hotel tax to better benefit local government is likely dead until at least next year.

The change would have reduced the share of room tax money to market and advertise Asheville as a tourist destination and increase the amount that could be used for local projects benefitting visitors and residents – a hot-button issue before Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter protests.

As it is, the local share of the tax revenue is smaller in Buncombe than most other North Carolina places that levy a tax and tourist destinations like Charleston, S.C., Charlottesville, Va. and Pigeon Forge, Tenn. And unlike in the neighboring states, no hotel tax money is available to pay for indirect costs of tourism, such as increased policing and maintenance of streets and sidewalks.

Sen.

Entwined With Slavery: A Brief Local History

By Peter H. Lewis (June 30, 2020)

Entwined With Slavery: A Brief Local History

By 1860, about 15 percent of the population of Western North Carolina was enslaved. Only a small percentage of the White settlers, who had pushed out Indigenous Native Americans, owned slaves — about 2 percent of households, according to Katherine Calhoun Cutshall, collections manager, North Carolina Room, Pack Memorial Library — and of those, most owned one or two. The majority were owned by a handful of elite families, whose names are commemorated throughout the region.

They used their wealth and influence to help build Asheville and surrounding communities, supporting government, schools, healthcare, infrastructure, parks and other civic improvements, for which they were honored. But the wealth that lifted them to prominence was derived in large part by the enslavement and exploitation of Black people, entwining their many good deeds with the evil of racism.

Asheville:

Originally Morristown,

What’s In a Name? For Asheville, Signs Point to History of Racism

By Peter H. Lewis (June 30, 2020)

What’s In a Name? For Asheville, Signs Point to History of Racism

Vance, Patton, Woodfin, Henderson, Weaver, Chunn, Baird — their names are familiar to anyone living in Asheville and Buncombe County today. All were wealthy and influential civic leaders honored by having their names bestowed on statues, monuments, streets, schools, parks, neighborhoods, and local communities.

They were also major slaveholders or slave traders and white supremacists who amassed their wealth and influence in part through the exploitation of human beings they treated as property. Of all the slaveholders in Buncombe County, no one enslaved more African Americans than Nicholas W. Woodfin, James W. Patton, and James McConnell Smith, according to census records and slave deeds.

Asheville itself was named for a major slaveholder, as was Buncombe County. The fortunes that propelled Samuel Ashe and Edward Buncombe to prominence were wrung from the suffering of hundreds of enslaved Africans on their sugar and cotton plantations.

How Tech Can Help Asheville’s Economy

By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (June 26, 2020)

How Tech Can Help Asheville’s Economy

In 2019, if you were to ask anyone what drove Asheville’s economy, they’d tell you beer, arts and crafts, outdoor recreation, hotels and restaurants. In short, tourism.

Today, with those businesses only just beginning to ramp back up and tourists staying home, talk of diversifying Asheville’s economy is picking up. Local technology businesses and the rise of technology-based work-from-home jobs may be part of the solution.

Asheville already has a tech sector, albeit a small one with only 1% of the job market and approximately 1,900 jobs. But with an average salary of nearly $58,000 a year, according to ZipRecruiter, Western North Carolina tech jobs are good ones. And, more jobs are coming.

Charles Edward Industries (CEI), a minority-owned electronics manufacturer, in concert with the Buncombe County Commission, Asheville City Council, and the Economic Development Coalition for Asheville-Buncombe County (EDC),

The Race For The GOP Nomination In The 11th Congressional District Could Embarrass Trump

By Tom Fiedler (June 20, 2020)

Editor’s Note: On June 23rd, Madison Cawthorn defeated Lynda Bennett to become the Republican candidate in North Carolina’s 11th congressional district race. Cawthorn will face Democrat Morris (Moe) Davis in the general election Nov. 3.

When then-Congressman Mark Meadows stunned his constituents last winter with plans to abandon his seat to become White House chief of staff, he was already secretly assisting family-friend Lynda Bennett of Maggie Valley in getting a running start to succeed him.

In the predawn of December 19, before most folks in Western North Carolina had rubbed sleep from their eyes or learned of Meadows’ overnight announcement, Bennett issued a press release announcing her candidacy and boasting of endorsements from Meadows and his loyalists in the Asheville Tea Party. She went live with a campaign website that the Smoky Mountain News later found to have been two months in the making with the assistance of Meadows’ brother.

What We’re Reading

Asheville is North Carolina’s priciest spot to live (Citizen Times)

The Asheville metropolitan area’s cost of living is 106% of the national average, according to price data collected by the Council for Community and Economic Research (CCER). On the flip side, pay in the Asheville area is lower than the state’s major metro areas and only 84 percent of the United States average. Driving the high cost of living are a spiking housing market and medical costs, said Jennie Allison, senior program manager at CCER. — P.L.

The hottest commodity on the planet today? Dead trees. (The Atlantic)

From 2015 to 2019, lumber traded at $381 for 1,000 board feet, according to Fastmarkets. (A typical new house uses 15,000 board feet.) This month, it reached an all-time high of $1,104 for the same amount. “There are people who say, ‘Climate change isn’t affecting me,’ ” said Janice Cooke, a forest-industry veteran and biology professor at the University of Alberta. “But they’re going to go to the hardware store and say, ‘Holy cow, the price of lumber has gone up.’” — P.L.

Police body cam recordings are not public records in NC (New York Times)

Police body cam footage is considered a public record in most states. In North Carolina, a court order is required, even if a police chief or sheriff wants it released. Bills have just been introduced in the General Assembly to require body cam recordings to be released within 48 hours of an incident. Police departments would have the option of going before a judge to argue that release could jeopardize someone’s safety or hinder an investigation. — S.K.

“News deserts” are real. Here’s one in eastern NC (The New Yorker)

The U.S. has lost 1 in 4 of its newspapers in the last 15 years. Around 1,500 American counties have just one paper; another 20 counties are without a newspaper altogether. These latter areas are what researchers call news deserts, and Jones County, North Carolina, is a classic example. Here’s what happens to the community, and to democracy. — P.L.

NC Senate committee votes to keep minimum age for marriage at 14 (WLOS.com)

North Carolina has the lowest minimum age marriage in the country at just 14. A proposed bipartisan bill to ban child marriages would have raised the minimum age to 18, but state senators on Wednesday watered it down to leave it at 14. In a compromise, they voted to restrict marriages for anyone under 18 to someone who’s no more than four years older. “North Carolina has become a destination place for folks marrying children and for sex trafficking,” said Sen. Danny Britt (R-Robeson). — P.L.

NC to gain a 14^th seat in U.S. House. (Carolina Journal)

North Carolina has grown enough over the last decade to earn a 14^th congressional seat, the U.S. Census Bureau announced this week. Complete data is expected to be released Aug. 16, paving the way for the General Assembly to begin creating new maps for the 14 congressional districts, all 120 N.C. House seats, and all 50 N.C. Senate seats.

Although the state is nearly evenly divided between Republican and Democratic voters, Carolina Journal says the “Best case scenario for Democrats would be a 9-5 GOP map that leaves all Democrat incumbents with blue leaning districts, and the GOP protecting all 8 of its member districts, while drawing a GOP friendly 14th seat. Worst case would be a map in which voters select 10 GOP members of the U.S. House and 4 democrats, to represent N.C.” — P.L.

Delayed census puts pressure on NC redistricting ahead of 2022 voting (Brennan Center)

The much anticipated, fraught process of North Carolina’s U.S. congressional and state legislative redistricting is coming up. Redistricting occurs every 10 years based on the decennial census but was delayed by the pandemic. The count that would have been delivered to the state at the end of 2020 is now expected for the end of September. This will put pressure on the state’s electoral processes and, while legislative leaders in Raleigh have said they believe they will be able to execute the redistricting in time for candidates to file in December, it is possible that they may need to adjust the primary elections schedule in 2022. Notably, if the state does not complete its redistricting in a timely manner, the courts could step in and draw temporary maps to ensure legal compliance with the schedule of 2022 elections. — B.D.

Veteran NC lawmaker punished for trying to stop backroom deal (WRAL)

State Rep. Julia Howard (R-Davie County) learned that money is thicker than GOP blood. Citing ethical concerns, the 17-term chair of the North Carolina House Finance Committee tried to stop a bill that would financially benefit dozens of lawmakers, including House Speaker Tim Moore. Moore (R-Cleveland County) stripped Howard of her leadership post and kicked her off the Finance Committee. — P.L.

NC-11 Congressman Madison Cawthorn marries Cristina Bayardelle (People)

They were legally married in a private civil ceremony in December, and held a religious ceremony in Hendersonville on April 3. “I ran for Congress because Cristina and I didn’t want to raise a family in the America many on the left seek to create,” the newlywed congressman said.

Evanston city council approves funding for reparations to Blacks (NPR)

The Illinois city plans to use the first $10 million from taxes on legal marijuana sales to finance housing assistance for African Americans. Asheville and Buncombe County voted last year to consider reparations but plans are still undefined.

Amid mass shootings nationwide, gun sales soar in North Carolina (Raleigh Observer)

“They talked about more gun laws, and people read into it that ‘I better get my gun now,’” said gun dealer Larry Hyatt. “And then they sent out $1,400 to buy one,” Hyatt said of federal stimulus checks deposited in taxpayer accounts.