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City passes measure to fight drugs in public housing |
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Tuesday, 23 January 2007 |
By DAVID FORBES
The city is developing a comprehensive plan to fight illegal drug sales in public housing, as Asheville City Council voted 5-2 in support of developing such a plan on Jan. 16.
The resolution included a call for easing the economic plight of residents in public housing and attempting to increase child care as well as police activity.
"Police alone are not going to address this," Councilman Bryan Freeborn said before amending the resolution to address child care. "We‘ve heard that we also need to deal with poverty, to deal with child care, to deal with the issues feeding this."
That
led to the dissenting votes from councilmen Carl Mumpower and Jan
Davis, who felt that the clarity of the resolution was diluted by
adding more facets to it. The original resolution focused more on
studying how the police are functioning in drug efforts — and what they
could do to eliminate drug markets in public housing.
"I have a
problem with adding this. We‘re swamping this resolution ‚Äî that‘s
taking away its clarity and creativity," Mumpower said.
Mumpower has
been at the center of a recent controversy over the city‘s efforts to
stamp out illegal drug use after he initially requested to ride along
with the police weekly on drug raids — and has criticized the
effectiveness of the Asheville Police Department in combating drugs.
"About an hour
before this meeting, I received an e-mail from the city manager and
police chief accusing me of endangering the safety of our officers when
I stopped at the West Asheville substation to report drug activity in
Pisgah View (Apartments)," Mumpower said.
"If I was doing
that, you should arrest me and charge me. We are struggling with a
problem of corruption — the corruption of indifference to open air drug
markets."
He recently
ended a "30 visits in 30 days" effort to log 30 instances of open-air
drug transactions in the city‘s public housing. After 10 days, "it was
that or my wife was going to leave me," Mumpower noted, adding that he
found 25 transactions in that time.
"The activity is
visible and blatant — we cannot maintain police substations in public
housing because they keep getting vandalized, but we ask people to live
there," Mumpower asserted. "Illegal drug activities are an example of
Asheville‘s diversity. Black males deal most hard drugs, white males
and females purchase most hard drugs and illegal Hispanic aliens are
the distributors of most hard drugs."
But Police Chief
Bill Hogan asserted in remarks to council that the Asheville has a
higher drug arrest rate than many larger cities such as Charlotte and
Winston-Salem.
"In 2005, we
made 127 drug-related arrests per 10,000 residents," Hogan said. "If
you look at the national average, it‘s 62 arrests per 10,000. We‘re
nearly twice that. That represents that we‘re doing twice as much. I
want to assure the council that we‘re committed, we‘re dedicated and
we‘re ready ‚Äî the statistics show that."
He suggested
that the city increase ties with residents in public housing and also
investigate increased policing for Asheville‘s public housing, ranging
from one unit all the time, which would cost about $870,000 — to a
"saturation plan" of $6.7 million that would involve a much larger unit
to patrol the areas constantly. The police department, Hogan noted, is
currently investigating the ways it conducts patrols and how resources
are allocated.
Mumpower‘s
proposals also suggested that Asheville should look at targeting users
as much as dealers, push for more funding of the state court system and
make public housing conditional upon "responsible behavior."
He also noted in
his presentation that he believed Hogan had been "well within his
rights" to refuse his earlier request to accompany police.
"I have no
problem with our police — my confrontation was with our city and police
administration," Mumpower said. "I do not believe our city and police
administrations are taking the steps necessary to protect all our
citizens."
At the end of his remarks, Mumpower received applause from some members of the audience.
Residents of
public housing pleaded with council to find some way to address the
problem, including Kara Dilworth, president of the Deaverview
Residents‘ Association.
"When you‘ve got
people who are going out there to buy crack and aren‘t buying clothes
for their children ‚Äî it‘s a problem," Dilworth said. "It‘s not just one
problem. It‘s not just the drug dealers, it‘s not just the buyers, it‘s
not just the police, it‘s not just the management, it‘s not just the
housing ‚Äî it‘s all of it."
She said that she has received threats and feels in danger from drug dealers in her apartment complex.
Earlier, Jon
Haynes, a resident of Hillcrest Apartments, directed his ire at "a
system that is making money off the misery of others. It‘s not force
and programs that change people ‚Äî it‘s people that change people."
Haynes also
praised council‘s recent decision to take over and demolish McCormick
Heights to make way for a mixed-income housing development.
But Chad
Nesbitt, a member of the neighborhood watch program in Leicester, said
he had smelled meth labs in Hillcrest — but not seen any police.
"South French
Broad Road is a haven for drug dealing and prostitution — if I know
this and we‘re seeing this, then why doesn‘t the police department know
this?" Nesbitt said. "People, we‘ve got a serious problem with our
police department."
Meanwhile, Gene
Bell, director of the housing authority, said that if he were "king for
a day," the major steps he would take to reduce drug use in public
housing would be full employment and child care.
"The problem is
that the people we‘re losing aren‘t the people who are making the
decisions," Bell said.
"I would make sure that everyone is employed and
that there‘s day care. If that happens, part of the problem dissolves.
It‘s not normal in a capitalistic society not to be employed.
However, Bell did note that the Housing Authority was requesting more funds for police protection.
Councilman
Brownie Newman noted that Asheville‘s goal "shouldn‘t be to entirely
eliminate drug use ‚Äî that‘s not realistic. Our goal should be that
mothers in public housing feel that it‘s safe for their children to go
out and play."
Later, Mayor
Terry Bellamy noted that she had felt media coverage of the earlier
controversy over Mumpower‘s requests had improperly portrayed their
e-mail exchanges to be adversarial.
"He was asking
for clarification — and we were giving it," Bellamy said. "The media
made it out like it was some sort of fight ‚Äî it wasn‘t."
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