AVL Watchdog

06/12/2026

A reader asks Answer Man John Boyle about illegal drug use and “unpermitted” food sharing at Aston Park, one of the two locations the city of Asheville is considering for a new pickleball complex. First of all, there’s no such thing as unpermitted food sharing, Boyle writes; a city attorney told him the city doesn’t require a permit for that activity. The park is a convenient location, a leader of the pickleball community told Boyle, but might not be the first choice for several reasons. Another reader asks what former Blue Ridge Public Radio reporter Matt Peiken is up to these days? Quite a lot, Boyle was able to write after some exhaustive reporting that required him to share a beer with Peiken.

Today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies and the real answers: Question: Concerning the pickleball facility that the City of Asheville is planning: With one of the locations potentially being at Aston Park, has there been any questions or discussion about the unpermitted food sharing tha...

06/10/2026

An Asheville attorney criminally charged in alleged fraudulent real estate schemes is facing another arrest after a judge determined she was at risk of fleeing the country with her young child.

Ilesanmi Adaramola missed three hearings in her Buncombe divorce case and at least twice defied District Court Judge Robin Merrell’s orders to surrender custody of her 3-year-old daughter in court, records show. A warrant for Adaramola’s arrest was issued Monday on a charge of criminal contempt.

Asheville Watchdog reporter Sally Kestin, whose year-long investigation uncovered the Equity Erased scandal and sent another local lawyer to prison, has the latest details.

An Asheville attorney criminally charged in alleged fraudulent real estate schemes is facing another arrest after a judge determined she was at risk of fleeing the country with her young child.  Ilesanmi Adaramola missed three hearings in her Buncombe divorce case and at least twice defied District...

06/09/2026

Answer Man John Boyle’s “smart-aleck reply” to a question about barbed wire near the Hi-Wire Brewery location in the River Arts District suggests it “was a bad marketing double-entendre on ‘Hi-Wire.’” The real answer is a three-parter. The wire does not technically violate city of Asheville ordinances. It’s not on land owned by Hi-Wire. And it’s coming down soon. Another reader wants to know if Mission Hospital preserved the cross that once sat atop the former St. Joseph’s Hospital, which is currently being demolished. Yes, it did, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies and the real answers: Question: Recently, someone complained on an Asheville page about an unsightly barbed wire-topped fence surrounding a River Arts District brewery’s parking lot (Hi-Wire Brewing). I looked up the Asheville municode ...

06/08/2026

Spring is here and newly independent juvenile bears are active — and armed with foraging skills that often bring them into developed areas, John Boyle writes in today’s Opinion Column. “They will try to replicate whatever methods mom taught them to find food — dumpster diving, natural foraging, finding bird feeders, etc.,” a North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission spokesperson said. The column includes videos sent to John from local residents, one of whom nailed the source of the problem: “It’s our fault for taking their habitat.”

We’ve ordered the bear straps. Not the kind where you strap a bear on your back and use the bear for security while walking downtown. That seems ill-advised. And made-up. I’m talking about the bear straps you put on your big rolling trash bin. After getting hit twice in the past six months, we.....

06/07/2026

On Sept. 27, 2024, swollen by Tropical Storm Helene’s deluge, the French Broad River overflowed the levee and filled the Silver-Line lot in Woodfin like a bathtub, lifting bales of plastic pipe like so many rubber duckies. Part of the d**e gave way, and the pipe rushed into the French Broad.

More than 20 months later, the incident represents one of Helene’s unhealed wounds. Snarls of pipe and leeching plastics still threaten wildlife and rivergoers downstream from Silver-Line. But Silver-Line and its parent company, IPEX by Aliaxis of Ontario, Canada, have basically disappeared from efforts to clean the river of what one environmentalist calls “an insane amount of plastic” — and local taxpayers are footing the cleanup bill.

Asheville Watchdog investigative reporter Jack Evans has the story.

The town of Woodfin’s largest employer, Silver-Line Plastics, sits snug on the eastern bank of the French Broad River. For years, a grassy embankment separated its inventory — tight curls of black tubing and ramrod lengths of white PVC pipe stacked in chunky rectangular piles — from the wate...

06/05/2026

Answer Man John Boyle’s response to a question about the fate of the Vance Monument stones includes not just that information but the history of the obelisk’s construction and of former Gov. Zebulon Vance’s positions on race and slavery that seem to fully justify its demolition. Be advised: They’re hideous. He also digs into the pros and cons (mostly cons) of a reader’s suggestion that the city of Asheville issue alerts about potential turbidity in its water supply, which as you might remember was a major issue after Tropical Storm Helene. And he provides updates about the very expensive work to limit the chances of this happening again.

Today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies and the real answers: Question: A few years ago, you wrote that the removal of the Vance monument cost us $240,000, and that it was being stored in Fairview by the contractor who removed it. I’ve been thinking about how the monument, regardless ...

06/04/2026

It’s a recurring conflict in neighborhoods across Asheville: Facilities working to reduce homelessness by offering shelter, counseling, medical care and other services are blamed for attracting homeless residents and the problems they are seen as creating, including trespassing, assaults, and open drug use.
The availability of resources for unhoused people has contributed to the disorder downtown and in West Asheville, nearby business owners said recently.
Now a new group of homeowners and business people, the Tunnel Road Corridor Coalition, has been formed to combat a clearly documented surge in reported crimes east of downtown since the opening of Homeward Bound of Western North Carolina’s Compass Point at 201 Tunnel Road in 2023 and, the following year, the adjacent Sunrise Community for Recovery and Wellness drop-in center.
“Things have just exploded,” said Nora Daniel, a Kenilworth Forest resident and one of the coalition’s organizers.

The pre-lunch quiet at the Panera Bread near the Asheville Mall on South Tunnel Road was suddenly broken by explosive curses from an apparently homeless woman being ushered out the front door. She had spent a Wednesday morning sitting in a booth, napping, with her arms pulled inside her baggy blue T...

06/04/2026

It’s a recurring conflict in neighborhoods across Asheville: Facilities working to reduce homelessness by offering shelter, counseling, medical care and other services are blamed for attracting homeless residents and the problems they are seen as creating, including trespassing, assaults, and open drug use.

The availability of resources for unhoused people has contributed to the disorder downtown and in West Asheville, nearby business owners said recently.

Now a new group of homeowners and business people, the Tunnel Road Corridor Coalition, has been formed to combat a clearly documented surge in reported crimes east of downtown since the opening of Homeward Bound of Western North Carolina’s Compass Point at 201 Tunnel Road in 2023 and, the following year, the adjacent Sunrise Community for Recovery and Wellness drop-in center.

“Things have just exploded,” said Nora Daniel, a Kenilworth Forest resident and one of the coalition’s organizers.

https://tinyurl.com/y5k9mvj8

06/02/2026

In today’s Answer Man, John Boyle takes on a question – or several questions – about the Asheville Police Department’s substations and especially the sometimes-empty one in Oakley on Fairview Road (above). Yes, it and the five other substations located around the city do serve a purpose, Boyle writes. Officers use them to write reports, stop for breaks and meet with residents. They “serve as kind of a home base for officers,” he says.

There’s a question about the seemingly out-of-control growth of grass and weeds along some roads and Interstate interchanges. Believe it or not, some of it has to do with a law passed by our nature-loving state lawmakers intended to encourage pollinating plants. And a question about various colored trash bags covering traffic lights in Arden sets up Boyle for the best line of the column.

https://tinyurl.com/y5sced56

06/01/2026

The first Asheville mayoral debate was a bit of a yawner, John Boyle writes, but his Opinion column about the event definitely is not. Because of the restrained tone, some of his best zingers were about the lack of same from the candidates:

“No veiled barbs about the other’s competence. No sly dig from Manheimer about Roney voting against bulletproof vests for the police. No backhanded compliment about how passionate Manheimer sounded while unwittingly making a commercial that praised HCA Healthcare for its response after the hurricane.

“So many missed opportunities. So much daggone civility and professionalism."

https://tinyurl.com/368vmcej