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The Asheville Blade Sharp news and views for Asheville, funded by our readers. Support us directly at patreon.com/avlblade

Supported by its readers, the Asheville Blade is a news site with in-depth, fearless journalism, analysis and perspectives from a rapidly-changing city.

19/06/2025

So, to make something all our freelancers are already aware of (and support) crystal clear...

Anyone who ever uses the plagiarism/scam machine that is "AI" in any capacity, in anything they send to us, will not only have that work rejected outright but will be banned permanently from our publication.

Our budget isn't large, but we pay journalists, columnists, photographers and artists well for their time. Our co-op works with locals at different experience levels to make that happen.

But we're publishing your writing, your research, the photos captured with your eye, the art created by your hand. Not lazily generated garbage. We expect anyone who works with us to act accordingly.

10/06/2025

Asheville city budget with draconian tax hike — to fund cops, high-level staff raises and wealthy investors — passes unanimously

Asheville city council is set to pass this tomorrow.
09/06/2025

Asheville city council is set to pass this tomorrow.

Yes, that's Buncombe County government (annual budget $435 million) using canned "AI" art at a time when there are no sh...
30/05/2025

Yes, that's Buncombe County government (annual budget $435 million) using canned "AI" art at a time when there are no shortage of local artists and photographers in desperate need of work.

This takes place in a context of local governments, including the county's, pursuing cuts to education and services alongside draconian tax hikes. This is meant to preserve the bloated salaries of higher-level officials and a sprawling carceral system, including the infamously deadly county jail. Post-Helene, the facade of local governments being anything other than a racket for those in power at the expense of everyone else — including on the ground workers and artists — has been swept away.

The use of "AI," an environmentally-devastating plagiarism and scam machine, is never acceptable or necessary. While certainly not the worst thing county government's doing, it fits an ugly pattern and signals worse ahead.

A whole new pay scale for cops, including for police officers that only exist on paper. Massive raises for the city mana...
27/05/2025

A whole new pay scale for cops, including for police officers that only exist on paper. Massive raises for the city manager and other high-level officials. Appeasing wealthy bondholders by letting desperately-needed emergency funds just sit in a bank account. The first post-Helene Asheville city hall budget threatens the public with a massive tax hike to fund a laundry list of measures that only benefit the ruling class.

In our latest, The extraction budget, Blade editor David Forbes draws from her 20 years of experience investigating city hall to delve into how these open acts of exploitation are hidden in lines of dollars and projects, and some things locals can do to fight back.

Read it here: https://ashevilleblade.com/?p=5315

While they have a habit of throwing in last-minute changes so the public doesn't have time to respond, the budget up for...
23/05/2025

While they have a habit of throwing in last-minute changes so the public doesn't have time to respond, the budget up for a hearing on Asheville city council's May 27 agenda is still this. They're trying to gouge struggling locals in a disaster zone to shovel cash to city hall higher-ups and the cops.

Asheville city hall: "ok, in the wake of Helene we have to do a major tax hike..."Local: "Oh! To hire more transit worke...
23/05/2025

Asheville city hall: "ok, in the wake of Helene we have to do a major tax hike..."

Local: "Oh! To hire more transit workers and pay them well while reviving our crumbling bus system?"

City hall: "Lol no. To give cops and the city manager another massive raise."

Readers, we have some very good news on the local covid front. After over three years Asheville is no longer in a covid ...
20/05/2025

Readers, we have some very good news on the local covid front. After over three years Asheville is no longer in a covid wave, defined by public health data showing a substantial, sustained spread of the virus throughout our communities.

According to repeated virus in wastewater readings over several weeks, covid risks are now LOW. The Blade is lifting the covid wave alert we first declared in Spring 2022. This time of year usually sees declining covid rates, but previously not enough to take us out of a covid wave. The post-Helene drop in tourism, however, has reduced one of the main drivers of widespread infections in our communities and that has made a clear difference in the risks locals face.

But low covid risk does not mean none. The virus is still here, so it's still worth taking some basic precautions, like wearing an N95 in indoor public spaces (especially crowded ones), using mitigations like nasal sprays and air purifiers, and communicating clearly with those close to you about your risk levels and precautions.

This is a reprieve, not an end. Sadly, the actions of the anti-vaccination fascists at the federal level make future resurgences of the virus (and others) far more likely. So at some point in the coming weeks or months, Asheville will face a covid wave again.

The Blade will continue to monitor the situation and, when the next wave hits, will declare a new covid alert. The more community care we have, the better our odds will be.

In the meantime, we are breathing a major sigh of relief. With all the crises facing us, at least we're getting a reprieve from covid.

Our full announcement lifting the alert is linked in the comments.

The proposed Asheville city budget is out — it'll get officially presented during tonight's council meeting — and in res...
13/05/2025

The proposed Asheville city budget is out — it'll get officially presented during tonight's council meeting — and in response to locals' desperation after Helene they're... pushing a massive 8% tax hike. Combined with a similar move from county government locals are looking at a 14% tax hike in the coming year.

This isn't going to relief and rebuilding either. No, much of what's driving the $4.5 million shortfall, out of a $273 million budget, that supposedly justifies the tax hike is a new, much more expensive payscale for cops and massive raises for city hall higher-ups. City manager Debra Campbell alone is set to get an $8,000 raise as she heads into retirement. Conveniently, she controls what's in the budget.

If the property tax hikes primarily fell upon the wealthy, that'd be one thing. But they don't. In Asheville and the surrounding county property taxes disproportionately undercharge the white and wealthy and hit Black communities particularly hard.

Landlords also pass this kind of tax hike on to tenants, who are already struggling thanks to local governments' failure to offer real rental aid and insistence upon resuming evictions shortly after Helene.

While the budget does finally include considerable pay hikes for some underpaid on-the-ground workers (something officials swore was impossible for years), higher-level officials still rake in far, far more.

Also, the increased raises other frontline workers get don't apply to firefighters, who once again get gouged.

There are other options here. High-level officials could, heaven forefend, go without a massive raise the year after a historic disaster. In the name of shared sacrifice their bloated salaries could even get cut. The APD, which spent much of Helene threatening locals for trying to get supplies, could not get yet another massive infusion of cash. Its creepy (and expensive) surveillance programs could be cut.

City hall even has cash reserves they could still tap into to make up the shortfall. To appease wealthy bondholders they're deliberately not doing so.

But this is Asheville, where the wealthy rake in the cash and the rest of us pay the price. After Helene, city hall has tripled down on making their corrupt quasi-police state more exploitative than ever. This is the point of their government.

The city budget goes to a public hearing at the May 27 council meeting.

— David Forbes

Link to the proposed budget in the comments.

Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer appears in a recent p.r. video supporting for-profit healthcare giant HCA. The company ...
03/05/2025

Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer appears in a recent p.r. video supporting for-profit healthcare giant HCA. The company is notorious for gutting healthcare at Mission Hospitals and its union-busting tactics. Post-Helene its executives raked in massive bonuses while cutting pay for nurses.

There's a link to the video in the comments.

HCA currently faces multiple lawsuits from locals, local governments (including city hall) and even the state of North Carolina itself. In 2022-23 the federal government's Medicare/Medicaid branch designated the hospital system in "immediate jeopardy" for multiple avoidable deaths.

None of that stopped Manheimer from appearing in the glossy p.r. piece, alongside non-profit complex notables, extensively praising the company. Manheimer calls HCA "incredibly resourceful" for its Helene response and asserts that governments, local organizations and HCA "are all on the same team."

That might come as some surprise to the nurses who got their pay slashed, after the company tried to stop them from unionizing, or the families of those who died after HCA badly understaffed emergency services so its wealthy higher-ups could make even more money.

Manheimer gushing about a notoriously terrible company, however, isn't a surprise. During her long stint in office she's repeatedly demonstrated contempt for most of the peole living here while bending over backwards to do the bidding of big business.

This applied to the Helene response, where Manheimer used her first post-storm appearances, after being incommunicado for days, to excuse city hall's catastrophic failure to put aside water stockpiles before the storm hit. She's since played a major role in the city's decision to keep rental aid to locals basically non-existent while prioritizing the recovery of the tourism industry.

Manheimer was also one of the main officials behind corrupt policies badly neglecting the water system while handing out massive rate discounts to major companies like, well, HCA. So her just openly doing p.r. for a corporation so bad even her own government's suing them is a natural next step.

To the rest of us, it's another clear reminder of who those in power are on "the same team" with, and it ain't us.

— David Forbes

30/04/2025

THIS THURSDAY! Join us along with other unions and community members to celebrate International Workers Day (May Day) and demand an end to the Billionaire Agenda! Events in Hendersonville and Asheville. Learn more in the link tree! 🌳

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