Okay, everybody, welcome to the City Council meeting. This is the day of January 9th. Happy New Year. First, our first meeting in 2024. If you could just take a moment to silence your cell phones. Also, if you'd like to sign up to speak tonight, there is a desk out in the hall where someone will be glad to sign you up and your name will appear on our list. So we will note to call on you. If you could please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance,

A pledge of Allegiance to the pledge of the United States of America Stand one Nation individual. Liberty. Liberty and justice for all.

Getting turned around in these chairs is hard than it looks right,

Sandra,

We do not have any proclamations on our agenda this evening. Do you have any questions, comments, or a motion to approve the consent agenda? This can moved second. All right. We have a motion to second to approve the consent agenda and we don't have anyone signed up to speak under this item. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, I just think we just set a record for crossing the consent agenda. I, I forgot to mention at the, at the beginning of the meeting that Sage Shena will not be present with us tonight, so we can start without her. She's not able to be here tonight. Okay. I'm gonna turn it over to the manager for the manager's report. We have very exciting manager's reports. Not that they're not all exciting, Deborah. They're always exciting, but they're especially exciting tonight.

Thank you mayor. Appreciate that. Now, good evening everyone, mayor and council and as she said, happy New Year and that's my new friend back there. Now really we are friends. What, what I would like to do to start off the report, I know on the agenda it probably says introduction of Michael Case I knew of ASCO Fire Department Chief. However, I would like for Chris Budzinski and Kelly CLO to just come up and give us an update on weather and our emergency preparedness preparedness measures. And I will turn it over to Chris and Kelly. Thank you. Good afternoon, mayor and council. So this will be quick. We just want to give you a quick update on the past two days and what we've been doing in preparation for today. And luckily it's beautiful out now, but it hasn't been, as you well know. So yesterday we executed our new emergency operations plan and we ran a complexity analysis based on the forecast that we were getting and what we thought could occur if the forecast all came true in worst case scenarios.

So that led us to the complexity analysis, led us to activate our strategic leadership group. So we had a meeting yesterday afternoon of that group and we discussed what the threats were, what the risks were, what we were doing to get ahead of that, how we're going to communicate and set a plan and a cadence for how we were going to move forward This morning. We prised the situation where we were at and had another meeting this afternoon, mid midday today with the information we had and what, what we lived through throughout the timeframe. And we were collaborating with the county also throughout this entire time, starting yesterday, midday yesterday through just a few minutes ago, making sure that we're on the same page with Buncombe County and they're on the same page with us. So we're working as a cohesive governmental unit. So with that, I want to ask Ms.

Clo, our public information officer to discuss how we communicated with our community during this event. Hello. Actually, our communication started as early as last week because we thought we were getting some snow and ice accumulation. So we were very proactive. That's Cape Asheville Fire and Asheville Police, we all coordinated, got together, discussed how we would share on all our platforms that there was not much incident over the weekend as far as that type weather. So we just continued with the next stage of the, of the weather, inclement weather we were receiving. And so we were able to again, take advantage of all of our platforms and push information out on City of Asheville's, Facebook and Twitter X. And then also we, Asheville Fire posted our own information and just all of us shared each other's information and I think it worked wonderfully. We would get coordinate together on some press releases and some media alerts.

I was able to get in front of the camera today and share with our community what the city of Asheville has been doing proactively and what we were doing currently and how we are prepared for any incident that we might encounter. We also are working very closely with the departments to communicate to neighborhoods that have been distinguished vulnerable through the climate justice map and trying to communicate with them on a more regular basis. For instance, today in the Shiloh neighborhood, we were able to reach out and say, Hey, these couple of streets are actually closed in your neighborhood. So that's something that we hope to continue and again, just trying to be as proactive as we can. Thank you. Thank you very much. Really appreciate you. So now I wanna move to something that's near and dear to me, which is employees who are joining our organization. I have a number that I want to introduce to you all the city manager's office is excited to introduce and welcome, as I said, new staff members and some that just have new titles.

Our fire Chief Mike Case joins the Asphalt Fire Department and I'm going to do a more detailed introduction of him just shortly. We have a new director of equity and inclusion mania, Merri and a new interim transportation director, Jessica Morris and a new Interim Chief of Police Mike Lamb. Next slide. And so first up is Mr. Mike Case. He started on January the second, just last week, and he began his journey in Cincinnati and he has over 34 years of public service. He has a bachelor's degree in safety engineering and an associate of applied science in fire science, technology technology. And he also has a, a master's degree in public administration and he's also earned a number of fire related certifications and numerous awards and, and publishing many articles in professional journals. I'd also like to mention that Mike has a number of fans who have come to, to join him and celebrate this day. We would like, let's see, he has a son, daughter-in-Law.

This is my test niece, brother-in-law, sister, friend, former colleague. And our, our little one, it, it's, it's, it's out. But, but I, I definitely want to welcome Mike to the city of Asheville and our organization. We are looking forward to some big things out of you and just thank you for, for choosing Asheville and yep, thank you so much. Next up is I wanted to just take a moment to thank interim Fire Chief Chris Budzinski for stepping into this role for his invaluable support and leadership doing during the transition. So thank you Chief very much.

Next up is exit inclusion director Sal Nalia, Merri and Salala, I'm gonna get that middle name or name right sooner or later. Sal is joining us kind of in the transition because she is taking the place of Brenda Mills who doesn't retire Brenda until January 31st. But what we are trying to do and do better actually, is to see if we can have as much of a seamless transition between our leaders because these are extremely important positions. But Sah just joined us yesterday officially. She's been working with us with the reparations commission for almost two years now. Two years now. And Sah has 25 years of professional experience in government ranging from city, county, and state agencies. You see the number of communities that she has has worked in and we want to welcome aah. Thank you very much again for, for choosing.

Next is our interim transportation director Jessica Morris. And Jessica started serving in this role and she was our serving as an assistant and transportation director and started on January the first. And she has nearly 20 years of experience in transportation, planning, engineering, and operations. She has a lot of degrees, she has three master's degree. And so thank you Jessica for agreeing to serve in this interim role. Next slide please. Next is our interim Chief of police, Mike Lamb. Mike was named in this position on December the 18th, 2004, 2024. Excuse me, Mike likes to say when he introduced himself, I'm a unicorn because he is a native ilian and has a long history of working in the Asheville Police Department with over 25 years of experience. Mike also has a number of, of degrees, mostly in terms of Bachelor's of Arts in Criminal Justice from Western Carolina University and graduate of AC Reynolds High School. He's also a graduate of the Police Executive Research Forum, senior Management Institute for police. So thanks Mike for agreeing to serve in this interim role. And if you would give me a little bit more liberty, I'd like to mention just a few other staff changes and promotions.

Chris Cairns, 'cause I wanna call him s when Ken Putnam retired, it left a very key position and a role in the city as our traffic engineer. Chris has been named and has agreed to fill the important position of our city traffic engineer as of last week. So thank you. Chris. Jeremy Knighton isn't here. He is teaching a class in Minnesota because it's really cold and I think a lot of snow. So he is our emergency preparedness expert and he was recently named as an assistant of fire chief and I'd also like to formally acknowledge Deputy Monton dah, who was named director of our planning and urban design department actually in, in August of last year. So mayor and council, thanks for your patience and for allowing me to use this venue to recognize and acknowledge the work of our employees. We believe the impact in terms of the changes that have been made in with the number of our personnel, either retiring or resigning or whatever have been both minimal and seamless. So thanks again. And if you give me one more liberty, if you could actually allow them to come up to the podium. Yeah, I was gonna say that would be good so that the that would be great. All the thousands of people watching on TV can't see your face and tell you step up up here. And so Mr. Case, all of you all, Chris, you can come up. Mike, welcome. You also, ma wants to take your picture so Oh, okay. We're take right here.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yay. So that concludes the message report. Very exciting. Bye. And there, yeah, we'll we'll take a minute, let people reshuffle. Yeah, we have somewhat of a, a short, short agenda tonight. We have one public hearing item and I assume that the planner that's trying to do this item is fighting their way upstream somewhere. This is a, a public hearing to consider an amendment to the conditional zoning of 1 41 and 1 47 South Fair Creek Road to make changes to the project conditions to remove a restriction prohibiting drive through facilities. I dragged it out long enough you could get in here. Thank you. All right.

All right, will take it away. Thank you Mayor. Members of council. Good evening Will MPUs Planning Urban Design. I'll be presenting this conditional zoning amendment petition for the property known as 1 41 and 1 47 South Bear Creek Road. So as the title suggests, this is a amendment to an existing conditional zoning. You may remember it from October 9th, 2018 where a conditional zoning for a new hotel was approved at this location here highlighted in red, which is right on Brevard Road off of the I 40 exit at that location. Here you can see some arrow imagery. The hotel is complete and it's been open for a little while now and I'll, I'll just take this opportunity to kind of give a little bit of background of the machinations that have gotten us here this evening. So at either before at the public hearing for this hotel, it was suggested and agreed to by the applicant that while they were planning to basically subdivide this out out parcel of the property to the north of the hotel, which is about one of the three acres, they would agree that while it would be reviewed in the future under the existing highway business zoning district, that that future property or business would not have a drive through facility.

So that was included in the project conditions that got adopted and over time the applicant is now requesting that that restriction be removed and then a future development will go forward with, with a drive through potentially. So it was reviewed briefly by planning and zoning commission about two years ago where they recommended denial of that amendment. A lot of that was due to the fact that there was no site plan or any kind of drawing indicating how the drive through would work. And there's a lot of uncertainty about how the site would be planned. So they've come back with a site plan. We'll get into a little bit more in this presentation here. So as you can see from that conditional zoning a few years ago, lodging expansion conditional zone is where the hotel is located. And then the out parcel portion of the property is zoned highway business conditional zone. Future land use is urban corridor. No change to that would be required.

So this is the site plan that the applicant is proposing as part of this amendment to the conditional zoning. You can see the existing hotel building at the southern portion of the site, the parking lot area around the building. And then in the darker colors is where the commercial use would be proposed. So you can see the driveway located off of the existing driveway for the hotel, which is located off of South Bear Creek Road. The parking around the new building, the new building itself would be about 6,000 square feet. 48 parking spaces are proposed. You can see the drive through facility kind of wrapping around the building there. So this, this site plan would, would be if adopted tonight, have to be adhered to as the project moves forward when they submit their official plans. So I'll highlight some pedestrian aspects, some pedestrian connectivity aspects of the project.

You can see here highlighted in green are the existing sidewalks that were built as part of the hotel project. So a new sidewalk along Brevard Road and South Bear Creek Road was constructed sidewalk leading to the hotel and then sidewalks around the hotel building as part of the applicant's request and consideration. The site plan identifies identified sidewalks that would connect the new future commercial building to Brevard Road, as you can see here located on the eastern side of the site and then also through the parking lot to the existing hotel building. Other considerations include the installation of a high visibility crosswalk at South Bear Creek Road where the driveway cuts in for the existing hotel use to help with pedestrian safety through this area as well.

So essentially the project conditions would be amended relatively mini minimally. So you can see here the condition regarding the future use of the lot, which is from the existing conditional zoning adopted a few years ago. And the amendment would basically strike the clause that no drive through would be permitted on that out parcel lot. As mentioned earlier, some additional conditions regarding the development of that out parcel or would be added including that the access would be off the existing driveway, a new minimum five feet wide sidewalks connected to B Bernard Road and then also to the hotel building. And that the crosswalk of the building's project's entrance on South Bear Creek Road would be improved to a high visibility crosswalk. Finally, the applicant's agreed to a condition that the project will make best effort to minimize potential conflicts between the drive through aisles and the queue and with pedestrians as well. That's kind of as their design moves forward, it's relatively conceptual at, at this stage the project was reviewed by the planning and zoning commission and they recommended approval with those conditions added.

So staff finds that the proposal is, as we were describing it, partially consistent with the future land use map. Essentially acknowledging that the urban corridor emphasizes a refocusing twice actually in this line of their development and land use patterns to be more multimodal with better transit access and also making it safer for pedestrians along that way. So I think the partially consistent recommendation is, I think accurate since the, perhaps the A drive through facility isn't the grand vision of what the B bbar road corridor could be one day. But it, the project does, I think guarantee enough safeguards to make it a, a safer enhanced pedestrian experience throughout that area. The project also supports couple of goals on the plan including to provide infill development in targeted growth areas and to establish accessible and well-connected commercial nodes. For that reason, staff concurs with the planning and zoning commission and recommends approval of this proposed conditional zoning amendment. I'll be glad to answer any questions you may have. We also have the developer here this evening.

I have a question. So this came to council before my time, although I went back and looked at some, the conversation from before. So my sense, and this is a like am I getting this right and then a question is that part of the why behind this contingency on the initial zoning was that there was a desire for just safety and walkability for the pedestrian. The current proposal has additional sidewalks. My, so I'm seeing nodding. So yes, I kind of picked up the gist of the past. Yeah, my question is in the in, I don't know if you'll have all this, but in the context of our plans for greenways and bike lanes and multimodal strategy and we look at the actual map, this is a sliver of land basically in between two 40 and 40.

How does the need for, how does this section fall into our bigger plans around transportation? Like how, I guess part of me is wondering, like it's hard for me, I don't understand why this was a condition in the first place. Like I understand it's important to have walkability, but to restrict the type of business I, I'm just trying to piece out the why from the past and that maybe I've looked to my councilwomen on this more than, you might not have the answers to that, but if it's like a strategic parcel for an impending greenway or something, then like, okay, that could answer. But my knowledge of our transportation plans well was, it doesn't stock into that either. I'm trying to remember, was it a, so a lot was happening back then. Brevard Road had not, the Brevard Road project hadn't happened yet. DOT hadn't done that widening and put in the sidewalks and things like that.

And I can't remember if it was a staff requested restriction 'cause things weren't flu. I don't remember exactly. That might have been where it originated. I don't know the exact origination or all the thinking behind the condition. I do know that Brevard Road is on the county's greenway plan for potential greenway along along that section of road. And that's why in the original conditional of zoning there is a condition that the project would provide an easement to the county if so requested to prior to the CO of the hotel and that that hadn't happened. Although the county is in the process of updating their greenway plan and it probably will still include Brevard Road as a major greenway connection. So that's still on the table. So I don't know if that was a consideration that was going on at the time and, and that was kind of part of it as well. You know, obviously Brevard Road is a major transportation corridor. I don't know if this parcel is strategic more so than any other necessarily.

But yeah, that's, thanks. Hope that helps a little bit for me, I think one of the concerns when I was an audience when this happened was the future of how we move as a city in general. And I have some of the same concerns are drive-throughs the best for our tax base, for safety, for traffic concerns, for the way that everyone, including people driving cars move at this intersection. And so that's why among the reasons why I won't be supporting it tonight is because I'm not sure that this type of land use is in the best interest. How does that square up though? Are we allowed to say we don't like this type of business design? I'm just reading that suggested motion to approve.

The best way I can probably answer this question for the council is to say that your authority lies in deciding both the consistency and the reasonableness of a land use, not a land activity. So let me further define that. A land use would be a general characterization like residential commercial, whereby a specific land use might distinguish between a condo as an ownership of residential or apartments. The council generally does not have the authority to dive down into land specific activities, whether or not someone's renting or owning property. All residential property would be treated the same. But you are in conditional zoning situations such as this allowed to look at the specific plan and determine what if any impacts it might have that are or are not reasonable in terms of how they affect the surrounding area and the community at large. So it would be beyond your authority to say a specific business or business type, but a specific design of a business, whether it be inclusive of a drive through or have a tremendous amount of parking that I think is within the purview of a land use in the context of a conditional zoning with a specific site plan.

Great. Thanks.

Other questions? So I moved to deny the conditional zoning amendment request for the property located at five 11 Brevard road zone. So we have to open the public hearing. Right. Okay, well we can do that first for a second, but, so let, let me just open the public hearing. We only have one person signed up to speak and that is Claudia Nicks, who is a seasoned speaker at city council. You'll know to watch the lights on the lectern and you'll have three minutes to speak. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. I am presently the chair of the active, our new active community, excuse me, active transportation committee. And my feeling, my opinion is that this prohibitation should continue. I don't feel that it is going to be in the best respect for active transportation to allow drive-through, through here. Typically drive-through restaurants, have long car, long trails of cars waiting and spewing their emissions, which is not appropriate for people who are walking and biking.

This area is planned to be a major corridor to connect our recreational area in Ben Creek, the farmer's market and the Asheville Greenway system, which presently stops at the Ho Creek Park. With the new I 26 improvements, there will be the, the greenway continuing out to Brevard Road. And with the improvements that already have been made over the bridge on Brevard Road over I 26, there are I claims and sidewalks. This present area does not have sidewalks on Brevard Road and they need to be and they probably will be coming. So I think it is very important that we think about the future and the conditions that we're going to be putting people in as they travel using active transportation through this area and perhaps bringing their children as well through this area. And we need to make sure that it we're not compromising people's health going through here. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. We don't, lemme just make sure we don't have anyone else signed up to speak under this. So I will close the public hearing. Good evening, mayor. City council member staff. My name is Derek Allen. I represent the applicant here since development partners. Jesse Carter is here representing the developer on this particular parcel that they have under contract. They were not the hotel developer, they do have it under contract. And I did want to answer and put some context on the question from 2018 that Councilwoman Oman brought up. And that was, why did this get brought in? And, and those comments that we made back then were still applicable now. And that this is on I 40, it's in between I 40 and I two 40. If you look at these photos here, you can see it's actually kind of tucked into the clover leaf of the exit system for a major interstate.

I was out there this past week dropping the car off at six lanes from this particular piece all the way back up to the, where Brevard crosses, again, it's very much A-A-A-A-A vehicle corridor. At the time when that prohibition was entered, you'll see the way it's placed in the conditions. It wasn't in the initial conditions when it went through in 2018 to planning and zoning past six one without the condition that prohibited drive-throughs. It came to city council. And this was the last zoning project that involved hotels that went through right before the moratorium. The moratorium was coming down the, the pipe. There were these particular projects that were in contract, under contract and ready to go. And at the time there was a push for conditions from, from staff folks that just got added in. You can see where this was, was added in.

It made no sense to me. Then it makes no sense to me now, particularly as it's developed here. And particularly in light of the fact that we're on the back side of a pandemic and folks simply want to go through, drive through to pick up a cup of coffee. They don't want to get out. They don't want that human interaction specifically when they are on an interstate like, like I 40, the project has not been able to, to be sold. The parcel's not been able to be sold with this prohibition on it. And that's specifically why we're here. That that's it. Everything else stays in place. The conditions related to funds given to the housing trust fund are in place. The conditions related to lining it up with whoever the county may or may not be doing are still in place and they will remain in place.

We think that this condition was not well thought out the time that it was originally added in. And it makes even less sense now. Thank you. Any any questions? I just wanna ask, is this talking about one, so with this particular request, it's just for one drive through, right? Yes. So it's not multiple drive-throughs. It's not no. And it is tied specifically to this, this site plan layout. And this site plan layout is now the result of staff requested conditions, which we added all of those in as well as conditions that were suggested as part of the approval from planning and zoning, which was a unanim approval provided that we add the conditions in and we've added in all the conditions that they suggested as well. Okay. And as far as I'm concerned, that is the area I live in and I travel that road every day. And, and like you said, it's a, it's a, it's a sort of area that it's almost, it needs to be activated where it sits there sort of by itself. Does that make make sense? Absolutely. It, it does. And so therefore, I will say that I will be supporting this condition though only, so, but thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. We, we don't have anyone else signed up to speak? If there aren't any other questions, I'll entertain a motion. Mayor can officially close the public hearing. I'm sorry, I'm officially closing the public hearing. Okay. I would like to make a motion to improve the conditional zoning amendment request for the property located at five 11 Brevard road zone lodging expansion, conditional zoning and highway business and conditional zone highway business for the modifications to the site plan and the project conditions. And find that the request is reasonable, is in the public interest, is consistent with the city's comprehensive plan and meets the development needs of the community in that request. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please raise your hand. All those opposed, please raise your hand. Okay. Thank you. Okay, thank you. That concludes our public hearings agenda tonight.

We have no items under unfinished business and we're gonna turn to new business, which is the topic of our boards and commissions. And then before I turn it over to the vice mayor, I just wanted to note that the appointment of the Metropolitan Sewage District have a lot of interest and we're gonna move that one to, I would suggest we move it to the February meeting when Sage is able to join us again. 'cause she, she's, she, she won't be able to be at our second meeting in January either. And I, I did want just to, I was talking with Sarah who helps manage our boards and commissions. Just to clarify the appointment. I, 'cause I think there was some confusion because she was soliciting a council member as to whether or not they were interested in this position. It is not specifically designated for a council member.

A council member can certainly serve and it, that's, but it's similar to any other boards and commissions vacancies. So that was a little bit confusing. And I think she did that because there had been a council member who already had expressed interest in it. So she wanted to, of course be fair for, for everyone, which is what we would expect no less. So we will, we will move that one to, to, unless anybody feels passionately otherwise, if we could move it to the first meeting of February. Of February. Okay. Alright. I'm gonna turn it over to you, Sandra, or our vice mayor for board and commission. Okay. Well, board and commission met earlier today and re-reviewed the 28 possible appointments. Six for due to resignation. And three were eligible for a reappointment, but we're not interested moving, sorry.

The first committee would be the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee. There is one vacancy and the boards and commissions recommend the appointment of Alvarez. Abernathy. Can I get a second? Second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Okay. Motion passes. The next board will be the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board and the boards of commissions recommend the reappointment of Robin. Kate. Is there a second? This is Kim second. And I'll also add that as a liaison to the A, BC, I can speak to Robin's experience for statewide leadership and her positive relationships with the board, the staff, and the public, which engages regularly at our A BC meeting. Okay. Thank you, Kim. Second. Okay, great. All in favor A Aye. All opposed? Okay. Motion passes the board of adjustments. We're looking to fill four vacancies, two regular seats, and two alternates. The board and Commissions committee recommend the reappointment of Susan Goly and the appointment of John Michael CLE to the regular seat and the reappointment of Anna.

Annette Wise and appointment of Julian Ballard as alternates. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. All in favor? I mean, I'm sorry. All in favor? A those opposed A motion passes the design review committee. There were three vacancies, one of the for downtown commission seat and two at large seats. Since there's no applications received for the downtown commission members, the board and comm commission committee recommends moving Ricardo Sjo, who serves on the downtown commission from his current at large seat to the vacant downtown seat. And then moving Steven Lee Johnson to the at large seat vacated by Mr. Sergio.

In addition, we recommend the reappointment of Brian Moffitt to the downtown seat. And Michael McDot to the at large seat. And can I get a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion passes. Excuse me. Vice Mayor, just for clarity, were we voting now on the downtown commission appointments or the design review committee appointments? That was Divine Review. Okay. I'm sorry. Not at all. Okay. I'm sorry about that. Thank you. Okay, now let's, okay, in addition, we recommend, so we're gonna do that separately? No, you did it all together. Okay. Altogether. Okay. Okay. So were the Downtown commission. Yeah, the downtown commission. The board and Committee. Commission Committee recommends the reappointment of No Edwards and the appointments of Stu Hem and Michael Cooney. It would be Bill Cooney. Bill Cooney. Bill Billy Cooney. Yeah, Billy Cooney. Can I get a second? Second? I have a question.

I noticed that Hayden Plemons was also an applicant and she's serving as the new head of our downtown association. I was just wondering if there's any consideration of her as a candidate. I think that, you know, Megan Rogers has served on this committee for a really long time. She's now in a different role. I feel like that's a pretty critical partner to our work. I might suggest her as opposed to Nurse Edwards. I second that. It was, it was never discussed today. Okay. Well we could break apart the motion. Who were the other two you had? We had Billy Cooney and, well, I believe in, in the meeting though, we felt really strongly in support of noir, given the fact that she's a storefront owner and the seat that she initially took was specifically for that purpose.

Is it restricted to that? No, it's okay. I wasn't sure. I I'm, I would do, I don't, so no, we did also talk about that n is no longer living in the city limits, but brings bringing the experience of a business owner to our downtown commission. So there's, you know, we don't have to prioritize folks living outside the city limits, but it was the recommendation of the committee. The only thing I would suggest is, is we also, I'll note that Billy Cooney brings experience, a vast experience with land use planning and data analysis that seems the wealth of information we need of our downtown commission. Agreed. Especially with our downtown commission has sub appointments across committees. And, and what was the thinking with Stu Helm? Well, stew Helm I would say works with our local restaurant committees, works in the tourism industry and with local, I think he knows our downtown inside and health and a downtown business owner is, is do a downtown business owner.

That's where his business functions. Yeah. Tricky because I was just meeting with Hayden today and I know they're gonna be working hard around efforts around the bid and partnering with the city on other downtown down efforts and does seem like a little bit of a, a almost hostile off thing to do. Not to put the downtown association executive director on this committee commission if historically they've served in that. Another way to look at it is that because they will already be working on downtown issues, they can work with the downtown commission instead of having a potential conflict of interest of being on it. I don't know that it's a conflict of interest. I mean no more than moaning of businesses downtown. If we're gonna break it up, I would suggest the conversation about the reappointment could be handled first and Ner was the reappointment, right? Yeah. But then we would have different openings if the reappointment were to fail. The other two were new appointments. Right.

And the the recommendations were also moved.

Which one was no. Was Yeah. Re Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Gosh, I wish Sage was here. Give us a little insight on this one. But Yeah, since she's a liaison. Yeah, I mean I I I'm sure she would have some thoughts about it. Do you,

We could appoint the two and then postpone the reappointment more until, well until two 14. Try

And then nerve would still stay in that seat because Yeah, that would be fine. That's a good suggestion. I mean that two sound great. So what you'll do is recommend the appointment of Billy Edwards. No, recommend the appointment of St. Helms and Billy Cooney. And we wait on RA's reappointment so the nurse would stay in her seat until the appointment until next month or in, wait until Sage comes back. So I would move to appoint Sue Helms and Billy Cooney to the downtown commission. Okay. Got a second. Can we get a second? Second? Okay. I'm sorry Maggie, wait a bit. Maggie. Maggie.

And we need a motion to

Withdraw. Wait, we got a vote on that one. Okay. So all in favor? Aye. Those opposed?

And now you need a motion to approve the first

No, we're just continuing. We're we're gonna consider continue consideration of nurse reappointment to the next meeting. Okay.

I thought there was a motion.

Motion. And second to do your very beginning there was Vice mayor, if you could just as the maker of the motion, if you could just withdraw the initial motion, which you now voted, honor placement. Then we'll have the record clean. Okay. Okay. So what I'll do is withdraw the original motion for downtown commission. She's got it for the boards and committee. You don't need this. Say anymore. She's got it. She cross her ts. Alright. The next appointment were the Human Relations Commission and the boards and commission committee recommends the appointment of Andy Bosky. Can I get a second?

Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All in all opposed. Motion passes. Next board will be the neighborhood advisory committee and the clerk's office did not receive any applications for the 2 8 8 0 1 zip code. And so that vacancy will be readvertised the north no advisory board. The clerk's office did not receive any applications for the restaurant industry. Vacancy will be readvertised. Both the Noise Advisory Board and the neighborhood advisory committee seats have been open for several months. So now I encourage anyone to reach out who has someone or know someone that may qualify for these positions. And the Public Arts and Cultural Commission, there are two vacancies and the board and Commissions committee recommends the appointment of Alexandria Monique Al and Rachel Hanson Second. Okay. Got a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Those opposed? Okay. I I would just note that's a Oh I see.

Okay. We have and the reparations commission there is one VAC vacancy and the board and Commissions committee recommends the appointment of a current alternate of Du Mc Peters. Can I get a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Those opposed? Okay. Motion passes the sustainability, the advisory committee, the boards and commission Committee recommends the reappointment of Tim Orman and Steve Baron. Can I get a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Those opposed. Motion passes. And last but not least is the Urban Forestry Commission. There are three vacancies and the boards and commission committee recommends the reappointment of Karen McNeil and the appointment of John Michael Henson and Patricia Grays. Is there a second? Second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Those opposed? Okay. Did I miss hearing the riverfront may, hold on. I may have motion passes. Let's see here. The commission. So the, the suggestion was to delay the appointment because Black Mountain and Explorer Asphalt get to appoint their members first. And Black Mountain did make a appointment. Yes. So there's technically not still an opening. Got it. Thank you. Okay.

And other boards and commission council committee business, the February boards and commission council committee meeting will be canceled. So the next meeting will be March 12th. Okay. So that concludes our boards and commission update for the today. So I guess when we were saying we were gonna move the MSD board, we gonna have to move that appointment to March, right? Because our February meeting is canceled. Maybe council, it'll just come back to council directly. Yeah, it'll just come back to council directly because we won't have a board commission committee meeting in February. Oh, okay. Well that may be the effect of it then. Huh? So it'll be March, right? I, oh, I guess we don't have to, but unless, you know, unless y'all work it out, then yeah, I think, you know what I'm saying. I mean we could put it on in February, but, but we could all wait till March if we, if we, I'm just gonna, I know that it doesn't have to be a council member that we have, the city has three seats on our MSD, but we have so many issues happening with infrastructure in our community and I would feel better having some more council appointment in addition to gratitude for service mayor and our previous council members are the other members on the MSD.

So when I think about staggering and having long-term council connections, it makes sense to me that we would, if someone's willing and able, which I appreciate that so many people are willing and able, then I think we should have more council representation there. I think, and a couple of things on that. One is this board meets a minimum of one time a month in person, sometimes as many as three times a month in person. There's no virtual option. So whoever wants to do it will. And, and the attendance is pretty strong. I mean, it's not, wouldn't work well to be, to be missing, you know, half the meetings or whatever. The, the other thing is historically, sometimes we've had a, a staff member serve and because of the thing that you, that you mentioned around infrastructure. So for example, Kathy Ball used to serve on, on this board and right now for the county, Nate Pennington, their planning director serves.

So like someone like Ben, Woody, Ben might, might actually be appropriate for, I mean I'm just throwing that out there because of the Yeah, think that was all. Yeah, I, so I I mean councilor would be great. Yeah. Someone who's, who ties us into planning even and our planning director Step Al or whatever. But, but I, I did want to just let you know that Nate Pennington does serve and it's definitely come into play from time to time and, and I would agree with that. I spoke to Kim earlier and I do understand the need for someone active, you know, on council as we deal with these issues. So I, like I said, I agree with both Kim and and Esther on this particular item.

Okay. So more on that to come. Okay counsel, we're we, we are moving along this evening and we've reached our general public comment. We have a few people signed up to speak under general public comment. You will be invited to the lectern when I call your name and you'll have three minutes to speak. Just watch the lights on the lectern. A green means go and the orange one means you're getting close to the end and red means a stop. I do, you know, I think generally speaking, the public comment goes pretty smoothly here in Asheville. And, but I I will say at our last meeting we had some speakers who essentially yelled at us. And i I, I have heard from a couple of council members that it can be somewhat triggering and slightly traumatizing because we can't say anything to you and we can't go anywhere.

And we, you know, just being yelled at is sometimes hard. And I don't think you necessarily mean to yell at us 'cause you're really kind of yelling about an issue that's important to you, which I recognize is, is how, how some people express themselves. It is also a violation of our rules, however, to yell at us. So, so if you feel yourself getting there, maybe just try to, try to keep that in check so that we can hear your words and not be, you know, having our heartbeat through our chest while you're speaking. So with that, thank you.

Good evening. My name's Bill Robinson. The times that I've come and spoken before this council have mainly been to stand up for the homeless in this, in this city. It hasn't gotten any better. It won't get any better until people start to understand that throwing money at the problem is not the way to solve it. I'm not here to talk about that tonight. The last time I was here, I was, I'm afraid I was one of those people yelling at you all. It was two Christmases ago during the water crisis, which had a, a really serious and and terrible effect on minorities, low income people and the elderly. That didn't work out very well, but everybody was on top of it and did the best they could. I'm here to talk about prime right now. And this is another issue I feel like yelling about, but I won't. Obviously this crime problem in Asheville is serious and ongoing, getting worse all the time. In contrast to the mendacious disinformation put out that the crime problem here is getting better. It is not. I live in a small apartment complex, mostly for low income, mostly for HUD subsidized, mostly for the elderly and disabled in South Asheville. And last week we had nine cars in the middle of the night. Windows smashed ransacked. People had their belongings stolen. I know that doesn't sound very serious, but it's a, it's a quality of life crime and it's just one indication of a personal experience that I have with the crime. Perhaps the best place you can find a real quick and good experience of what the crime is like in Asheville is on next door an online community service. And you can really put your finger on the pulse of what's going on in your city. There are regular reports of late night gunshots in quiet, well resident, you know, residential neighborhoods and the police don't respond. When the management of my apartment complex approached the Asheville Police, they were told there was nothing they could do. They were understaffed. This is unacceptable. I'm not yelling, I'm just making a point. This is unacceptable. The primary role and the generally acknowledged role of government from whether it's federal, state, county, or this city, Asheville, is to protect its citizens. And if you can't do that, all the new, you know, equity and inclusion directors, all the repatriation commissions, none of that matters. That's all rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. So we have to get the police department together. Again, every, all officers have flea. What's remaining is the bottom of the barrel. It's gonna be hard to recruit new police officers to a city that took a need of the riots in 2020. So the best thing that you could do is issue a public apology for defunding the police.

The next person signed up to speak is Paul Paddock.

I have not yelled since I got married 34 years ago. I want to thank council, mayor, city manager for your time on December 5th. I wrote all of you a letter with probably, probably about 10 photographs. Any primarily the rank in parking. I could say a lot, but that's really the issue. I just would like to have your feedback and see where it might be. Can you, can you do me a favor sir and give your name to Rachel or Ben Hossain? There are two assistant city managers and make sure we've got some way to follow up with you. Of course it's also on my letterhead, but I'll be more than happy to do that or give them a copy. So Sure. Thank you.

Making sure we've got that. The next person signed up to speak is Paul. Ladies, I think we need a levity. This the light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine. This the light of mine. I'm going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. That it shine. Forgive me, I've had stroke cancer and sometimes my vocal cord just close up. And so if you can't understand and ask me a question. I'm a son of Asheville. I was born 77 years ago, right on the hill, on the corner in Mission Hospital. You don't know where that building is. It is right over there. Well I've been a teacher, my wife and I, I was 42 years as a teacher. I've taught everything my wife for three years now. What's the problem with God problem? I want to say first I appreciate every month of you and the work you do and the time you spend to help Asheville be a wonderful place to live.

I'm going to take my hat out to you and the work you do now What's up Rob? Mr. Robinson already expressed that my wife and I live in Givens, not given the statement. There's a big different, we live in Gibbons River Park A week ago last week we had eight cars vandalized with windows broken out to gain access. They're very smart in what they're doing because they know if they break out of the window they can reach through and the alarm won't come off on the newer cars. Now fortunately, my daughter had borrowed my car and it is my time up. It is, it is. I'm sorry. You you are welcome to come back. Anytime we, we'd like, I would say we're not safe. Yes, please help us. We are just not safe. And I know there's a lot y'all can do to help us. It doesn't require a lot of money. Maybe a private security company to help us, but we just don't feel safe over that. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Ly. Thank you. I'm sorry you had that experience And I know our police department's working hard to crack the crack the case on all of the, no pun intended on all the broken windows. I didn't mean to.

Okay, the next person signed up to speak is Nicole Lopez. Hello. Thank you counsel. I'm here today to support the ceasefire resolution. Before you all just wanted to give a little bit of why I am supporting that. Over 23,000 people in Gaza have been slain by Israeli bombs. And those are conservative estimates with thousands of people trapped under rubble. Nearly 60,000 people have been injured according to save the children. 10 children per day have had one or more limbs amputated, most of them without anesthesia because of the blockade of supplies a humanitarian crisis is already in effect and continuing to escalate. And I'm inc sensed that my tax dollars go to this. And at the city level I know that we don't inform that we, we aren't, you know, affecting national policy. But I know that every single thing that we are doing counts. And I think that it would be wonderful if our city could take a stand against a genocide. I don't see how mass murdering civilians makes anybody safer. I don't see how that could make if even if we are, you know, not thinking about Palestinian lives, I don't see how that sowing seeds of us drop us bombs dropping on civilian population. That's not,

It is, aside from being vastly unethical, it's not going to make the US safer. It's certainly not going to make Israel safer. And I really don't want to see this escalate into a regional war, which is if this we continue down this path, that is what this appears to be. I was born and raised here in Asheville, North Carolina. I went to AC Reynolds High School and I was an Arabic major in college and I lived in a mon Jordan for a year. And I have visited Palestine, I've been to the West Bank and I did not fully comprehend the scale of US support and how the US really upholds a vast system of oppression. Palestinians, just like Israelis deserve to live with basic human rights and with basic dignity and self-determination. And I think we in Asheville, North Carolina are small mountain town could still not city for city. Yeah. But I think that we could take a stand against this. So that is why I'm here. Please take a stand against genocide and against escalating famine and disease and against a increasing refugee crisis. Thank you.

Thank you

Keith Duncan.

Good. Can everyone hear My name is Keith Brent Duncan. We're owners of a corporation that's very unique and we're coming to Asheville. We're bringing a $40 billion group of non-government organizations to literally have Asheville be the center of what they call a reformation revolution of using technology and education that we had developed in 1976 to actually stabilize the economy so that everyone benefits. So we're asking, this is a very brief request that we have a additional face-to-face meetings. We've already been meeting with Clark Duncan, we've been meeting with people all over the southeast for many years and it's all based upon technology and funding and supporting the efforts of the existing leaders to actually do things right the first time. And the bottom line is we have a voting system called Evo one that's gonna benefit everyone in the world. So we'll no longer have people at the very top of the society causing problems. So at this point in about six, probably four years, we'll have no poverty, no drug addiction, none of these basic fundamental issues. So we're the one group that are providing funding, technology and education to literally stabilize the economy from now going forward. So my name again is Keith Brent Duncan. Thank you sir. Thank you. Thank you Mayor

Celestial Pennington.

Hello there. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I'm also here to support the resolution for calling for a ceasefire. And I know it might feel almost like a drop in the bucket to be a small town when there's so much that needs to be done to stand up and put a bit of a target on your back. But you know, when I was doing my research, actually going to vote for some of you actually, I was so impressed by how many of you talked about justice when it was difficult. And I know that politically right now it's hard to be at the forefront in the south calling for what is right and what is just, but I think that Asheville has been at the front of that sort of justice and I think that it is a difficult position to be in. But I think that this council specifically can add our voice and add to this growing tide of recognition and understanding.

And I know it's scary to stand up because nobody wants to be accused of antisemitism when you're saying that a government is doing something bad. But this is really the only government that I can think of that when you say that they're doing something bad, that you can sometimes be misinterpreted as standing up against a full group of people. But if we look at right now what's going on in the international criminal courts with this South African case of genocide, there is, there is a likelihood that they could be found officially responsible for a gem site. And it would be wonderful for asphalt to be one of those cities that stood up when it was difficult to say that 11,000 children should not be dead right now. That we should not be standing silent. While there is a government that is halting aid trucks and if they find one thing in those aid trucks, sometimes they're putting tents in the aid trucks because we're looking at so many houses that have been destroyed and they say, oh no, these tent poles could be used for weapons.

They make the entire aid truck go back, get unpacked, started over again. People are starving. There are more people starving than not. People are drinking seawater to try and survive. This is such a significant loss of life to stand by and be silent. It is not really an option. And I know that you specifically, that Asheville specifically has been such a beacon of hope to do the right thing to speak up for the people who cannot speak. This conflict has actually been the most dangerous conflict for journalists in history. We are finding credible reports that journalists have been targeted. We are finding credible reports that there has been torture going on with detainees. We have had hostages who came out with Israeli hostages, who came out with white flags. Okay, my last thing and they were shot. So this is not helping the hostages. Thank you. This is not making them mistake. Courtney Rose, if it's to Maggie, she'll say

That

Revolution. Hi, my name is Courtney Roche and I'm an organizer with the party for Socialism and Liberation and a 10 year resident of Asheville. A month ago, myself and some 20 other community members addressed this council demanding a vote on a seat on a resolution for its cease fire, peace, and international law. I have presented to you again this document. And then also in that month the PSL community members, anti-war organizations, Palestinian, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, people from all walks of life have been out in the streets saying no to business as usual. No Christmas, no New Year's, no shopping while bombs are dropping while a genocide takes place. The genocide with the full backing of our government, of the US government bombs and bullets paid for with our tax dollars to kill civilians, men, women, and children. Your tax dollars. Actually you are all in the position, however small you may think to make clear that Asheville and its citizens stand in full solidarity with Palestinian people who are being slaughtered and ethnically cleansed by Israel with US weapons, some of which now will be and are maybe currently manufactured in our backyard at threaten Whitney that we do not agree with the illegal passing of a bill without congressional approval by the Biden administration to fund more weapons just a few weeks ago that will kill maim and starve the other 2 million Palestinians still alive, doctors, journalists, teachers, and to erase Gaza and snuff out any form of resistance for you all to sit idly by and not use your position to save cease fire.

Now, not one more dime for genocide is a crime in and of itself. Your silence will be heard in the depths of history over the screams and cries of the thousands being murdered. We demand you vote on a resolution for these fire presented here and stand with other cities such as Greensboro and Carbo and on the right side of history, genocide is a crime and connected even to the local issues that other people have brought up earlier today. When we don't put money towards the needs of people towards housing, education, food and safety, we see people on the streets. I have to go to work every day and I walk over people sleeping on the streets, not because you know, because they couldn't afford rent, because they didn't do anything wrong besides be poor and we can't let tax dollars that could be used to fund housing and house people and give them opportunities and instead that money goes to kill children. So, and on the right side of history, vote on a resolution for ceasefire now and free Palestine. Thank you. Thank you Jonathan. Wayne. Scott,

Very nice.

Hey, my name is Jonathan Wayne. Scott and I came here to talk about Newton Shepherd. This is from the ribbon cutting ceremony, I guess for the black cultural heritage trail that we just put here in Asheville. And I was pretty excited about it because this is the first place that celebrates Newton Shepherd's service here in Asheville. It even says this on the market says this market is the first to celebrate shepherd's achievement. And what I'd like to point out a few things here though, it says that the service was in 1892 and in 1893, but it's actually 1882 and 1883. And in addition to that, there are a couple things that are said on the sign and on the website it says Newton Shepherd became the first black person to win an election in Asheville in 1882. And that's incorrect. And in 1883, newspapers reported that re voters reelected shepherd to a second 12 month term.

And that's also incorrect because the receipts are right down the hall courtesy of Maggie Burson, our vault master who has let me in there. And I brought these minutes. Yeah, I did. And so anyway, this is from May 3rd, 1881. This is when the new board was sworn into office that year at Sony was the mayor and Newton Shepherd was commissioner and again on May 2nd, 1882, this was when BSS Lusk first was Mayor Newton Shepherd was elected to his second term in 1883. Newton Shepherd was elected to his third term here in Asheville as a commissioner on the board of Alderman. And in addition to that we've got Maggie who's the foster of the roster. This is the roster of elected officials that Maggie maintains. And in you can see here, 1881 at semi reelected Mayor Newton Shepherd Commissioners 1882 Bs plus Mayor Newton Shepherd of the commissioners.

And in 1883, again Newton Shepherd one. So he was kind of shorted out on our sign on the trail. So 1883, this is the year that Asheville was incorporated as a city here in the state of North Carolina. Therefore, Newton Shepherd can be considered a founding commissioner for the city of Asheville Board of Altman in 1883. So I'd like hopefully to see these corrections made the sign on the website and you know, it makes me wonder if we've actually accounted for all of the black elected officials in the first place if we've overlooked this one individual's service to begin with. I mean, who's to say that there aren't others? But anyway, happy 2024. I'm sorry that I ever yelled at you in the past and I'll try not to do it ever again, but I can't necessarily promise that.

Well, I hope you let them know about this correction and my name was sold wrong on the plaque at the new firehouse. So we we continue in our strong tradition of, yeah, win 'em all. Okay, Yasmine Dejani, you'll tell me if I pronounce that incorrectly. Hello everyone, my name is Yasmine and I'm here today to talk about the ceasefire resolution. As a Palestinian, I'm appalled by the genocide currently unfolding over 30,000 Palestinians. More than 11,800 of which are children have been massacred in Israel's genocide. I think about children's shattered dreams, I think about the mothers holding their loved ones corpses that will never come back. I think about the agony of Palestinians losing their limbs. I'm here today to urge you to demand a ceasefire. US tax dollars are funding this genocide bombing hospitals, schools, churches, mosques, refugee camps in addition to cutting off food, water, and electricity are all war crimes. Under international law. These atrocities have absolutely no justification against anyone. The racism and double standards could not be more apparent. Your silence is deafening. Never again means never again. Jared Wheatley,

Good evening counsel and Mayor, appreciate you taking the time to hear us all out this evening. What I've come to, oh, not as planning and zoning or anything, just regular old citizen here. What I wanted to speak about a little bit is anti-displacement and the missing middle housing study. I sat in on the pre-meeting agenda review for this meeting and really appreciated council focusing on anti displacement. What I thought was kind of interesting about the conversation was that it needed to be brought up at all in the sense that fundamental to the missing middle housing study and housing production supply is anti displacement. So just working towards housing production is an anti displacement strategy and that may seem overly simplified, but when I moved here as a recent vet in 2009, the bank and the lenders that they sought fit to gimme a subprime mortgage pre-approved at $165,000.

That was awesome because what it allowed me to do was look for housing in West Asheville, like along Michigan Avenue and along South French Broad where I had real estate agents who probably weren't supposed to tell me this, but were basically like, those are high crime areas, they may not be your people around there, that sort of thing, which led me to buy a home in Candler, which is cool. That house still serves my family very well, but I do not own a home in Asheville. And I guess the moral of the story is if you look at housing lots in Shiloh now, just a quarter acre, lot's gonna run you about $150,000. A condo in Shiloh's gonna cost you 300 grand, a single family home, less than a thousand square feet can be got for 300 grand. End Valley neighborhood's gonna cost you at least 500 grand to get into South French Broad 600,000 to get into. And in Oakley you can get sub 1000 square foot homes for $300,000. Otherwise you're gonna be looking in the mid 500 thousands. So anti displacement really is about allowing people opportunity to live in spaces. It's about increasing density to give people different types of housing options, which include, you know, smaller homes than maybe what you would want or smaller yards maybe than what you would want if you had an affluent wealthy family supporting you could look like a duplex or a town home. And so thank you so much. Thank you.

I'm Monica Buckley. Hello. Thank you council members and every support staff. I'm here to address the demands for the referendum of an Israeli cease by I have questions. Where are Palestine Jews, where are palestines Christians? Where are Lebanon's Jews? Where our Syria Jews, where our Yemen's Jews, Iran's Armenians, Afghanistan, they are murdered if they survived the genocide of all of these countries. They were displaced and sought refuge in Israel last month. Someone stood before you and preached in the matter of Kimberly Gilfoyle in the furor himself shouting about Israel. It was an emotional and hateful outburst that offered no facts, only platitudes and no behind on a wildly misinformed viewpoint, she told you that the death toll is something that hasn't been seen since the Holocaust. This is a blatant lie. These people do not care about children. I hear nothing about the children in Yemen, Sudan, Syria adding who are killed and starved by radical Muslim terrorists every single day.

Almost half a million people in the alone. They care about putting Jews in their place. Every Middle Eastern country is a totalitarian violent regime that mistruths its own citizens, including Palestine, who use their children to hide behind where they commit a trust except for Israel. Let's not be not getting labor justice Asheville. Let's not demand that Jews stick their necks out for execution so that some white Americans can feel like they've done something with their lives. Palestine is under bombardment because they started a war that they promised to continue by ending a ceasefire with the clear intent to the genocide of the Israeli people. A call for an immediate, unconditional and permanency fire is in fact a call for the genocide against Israelis including the 2 million heroin Muslims that live there. The absolute lie that this is about white versus non-white people is a joke. Of the 80% of Israelis that are Jews, 75% of them are Arab, another 9% are African and Asian, and only 20% of Israel's Jewish population is European white colonizers.

Israel is the only country in the world that has successfully decolonize white European colonizers as well as its Muslim colonizers. Judea and the Jews exist in Israel way before Hamadan, way before he went on to conquer and murder hundreds of communities himself. The Jews have never done such a thing and they aren't starting now. Israel is a speck. 8,000 square miles in an ocean of 1,000,011 million square miles of Muslim countries. On October 7th, the world watched as Palestine and got invaded Israel and committed violent planned mass gang rape, dismembering Jewish bodies, torture of children, forced to watch their parents burn alive and vice versa, as well as the kidnapping taking of hundreds of hostages, including many Americans. Where is your referendum on this atrocious violence? Asheville, where is the I in your DEI department as where are you Jews? They are not here because they are afraid. Thank you.

Gabrielle Masser. Hi, my name's Gabrielle. I'm also a Palestinian American part of the Asheville community. I've been here for about six or seven years and I want to also or support for the ceasefire relu resolution being that a ceasefire prevents the loss of life on both sides. I also realize that our city has no sway in national and especially international affairs on this matter, but I feel it's up to all of us to do everything that we can do to fight this. And as you already know, South Africa has already brought charges of genocide against Israel to the International Court of Justice and that case is pretty much open and shut. They've laid out the international law regarding what constitutes a genocide. This is international law that all parties involved have agreed to. This is not, this is all about to mention the history of Israel's crimes against humanity, including the mass incarceration of Palestinians with no charges, no court date, no release date. This includes Israel's legal settlement in the West Bank that are not recognized by international law. This includes the illegal siege Israel has had on Daza for over decades, meaning they've controlled how much food, water, and everything else can go in and out of Daza as well as who can leave, which is why a lot of human rights organizations around the world refer to it as the largest open air prison. People are not allowed to leave and their water sources are controlled by Israel.

Now a term that South Africa uses throughout these charges often expressing why they feel morally obligated to bring these charges is arga amez, which means in relation to everyone, its a term recognized by the UN is valid ground for why a party with no direct connection to a genocide can bring charges against those C committing it. And the idea is that if we as human beings can stand by while such heinous atrocities are committed against our fellow humans, then we are accepting a world in which those same atrocities can be justified against anyone and that is unacceptable. I also want to mention that when it comes time for Israel to be held accountable for the genocide, so two will all complicit parties and that includes the US after Biden just sent millions more dollars worth of bonds to Israel a couple weeks ago that will be dropped indiscriminately off civilians. It is clear in the eyes of the entire world, if you saw the last ceasefire vote that took place at the US that our federal government's on the wrong side of history. Not that that's anything new, but regardless of the lack of political sway of our regional city governments here, I think it could be a powerful symbolic message that the federal government of the US does not represent the people of the US in this discussing genocide. Thank you. Thank you.

And VNA Mao. Hello, this is Mike. First time doing this speaking voice. Awesome, great. And it's 1991 memoir close to not. David was a gay activist during the AIDS pandemic epidemic. He said, Ms. Memoir, what would be like if each time a lover, friend or stranger died of the disease, their friends, lovers or neighbors would take a dead, take the dead body and drive, drive a bit in a car, a hundred miles an hour to Washington DC and blast through or get to the White House and come to a screeching halt before the entrance and dump their lightless form on the front steps.

It is hard to rationalize the figures and statistics that come at you 21,000 death to ignore the national defense against comfort uncomfort, but that's avoidant coping and far from unproductive, far from productive. I understand that you guys of officials from high enough are supposed to make decisions relevant to the citizens of Asheville. And you may be, and you may be asking this, what's the conflict or maybe if you're more astute, a genocide occurring across the sea, how to deal with this? The decisions that I make for Asheville, it has everything to do with it. Notice the disparity between the, the benefits that Israel receives from America and what is happening in your backyard. I see these council meetings that you have and I, as naive as I am, I wonder what kind of funds can be allocated to the issues we talk about within the city. Your black neighbors are getting displaced, the homes are facing to death. Along with the bench abroad, you have the infrastructure of a third world country and prioritize the justification of poor neighborhoods in the name of tourism to generate the income we can't generate otherwise, I'm not sure. I'm not use again.

And yet we still manage to fund the functioning of the warm machine, putting blood on our hand. We are all complicit that God led us into believing. There are some reasoning behind the murder of 22,835 Palestinians of the year. I saw in the Guardian, I said yesterday, the commit war crimes unchecked, the disrespect, the very laws of the Geneva Convention establish to prevent a genocide from happening and claim victims. They bombed not only Palestine, but also Lebanon and Syria and stoke Syria and stoking victims. They walked the road of humanitarian, they walked the roads which would allow humanitarian humanitarian aid to come in and provide policy. Did a client make it a law to have soldiers shoot unarmed citizens or did client to make it a law against to not to make it not legal for soldiers to shoot unarmed citizens, which is kind of something to register because why would you not make that a law?

Thank

You. Sorry. Thank you, thank you. Good job. That concludes our public comment for this evening. So counsel, we are adjourned. Oh, mayor, if I could just add one thing, I need to clear up something. I made a mistake when I was introducing Chris. Chris SI said that he was going to be a traffic engineer, but he actually will be serving as the interim city engineer. So I apologize to Chris and apologize to to you all for that mistake. It doesn't take away from the atory momentum. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Okay, we are concluded. Thank you.

We are live. Okay. Good afternoon everyone. I'm Sandra Kilgore, the chair of the Planning and Economic Development Committee, and I'd like to welcome you all to the January 8th, 2024 remote meeting. All council committee members and staff are participating virtually and to help our audience follow along, I'll state each section of the agenda allowed. And we also are streaming live on our virtual engagement hub, which is accessible through the virtual engagement hub link on the front page of the city website. We also have the option for the public to listen live by phone. And for those of you out there, we'd like to welcome you today and for today's meeting, we have the option for people to call in and comment live during the meeting, to call in and comment live. Use the same number, 8 5 5 9 2 5 2 8 0 1. Meeting code eight one eight seven. At that time, your phone will be muted and you'll hear the meeting live. And at this point, speakers will need to push star three to enter into the speaker queue.

And at this time, I'd like to do roll call. I'd like to go through and introduce all the committee members and staff who are participating virtually Councilwoman Sage Turner will not be joining us today. And councilor staff as I call your name, please say a quick Hello, Councilwoman. Maggie Oman. Hey everybody. Happy New Year. Assistant City manager, Ben Woody. Good afternoon, assistant City attorney, Janice Ashley. Hello everyone. Planning and ex an Urban design director, Stephanie Dah. Good afternoon everyone. Assistant Director of Planning and Urban Design Design. Chris Collins. Good afternoon everyone. An interim transportation director, Jessica Bars.

Hello and Urban planner too. Haley Burton and join us. Okay. Okay, and joining us today we have the Chair of the Public Arts and Cultural Commission, which is Johanna Haggerty. Hi there. Thanks for having me. And Barry bi Blac. I know I messed up your name. Barry. Yeah. Also here as petition for the agenda item. Sorry. Yes. Hello everybody. Thank you. Thanks Barry. Okay, the first thing on the agenda today, we'd like to, I'll get the approval of the minutes. Can I get an approval, make a motion to approve the minutes from our last meeting. Thank you. And Sandra, I'll second and at this time, roll call Councilwoman Oman. I and myself,

Everyone else has left the call.