EDITOR’S NOTE: The following commentary, headlined “Budget meeting remarks” by departing Asheville City Councilman Vijay Kapoor, was emailed to the Daily Planet — and others, including city officials — on July 30. 

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By VIJAY KAPOOR

This evening, City Council voted 5-2 to approve an interim three-month allocation budget rather than a full-year allocation. 

 I voted against the measure as did Vice Mayor Gwen Wisler because we believe that only allocating three months of funding during a pandemic and a fiscal crisis is irresponsibly risky and will only delay the other critical work that council and staff need to do.

Below are my remarks which also include some farewell remarks as this will be my last regularly scheduled meeting. I will send another email to you before I resign on August 8th.

Given this will likely be my last meeting and vote, I’d like to use my time here to say some thank yous and goodbye remarks in the context of our budget vote since it really encapsulates what I’ve seen in my time on council.

First off, I’d like to thank my family for putting up with the time that this position has taken me away from them both physically and mentally.

Second, I want to thank my fellow council members for serving. You never truly know the pressures of this responsibility until you actually sit in these seats. The world changed quickly in the last two and a half years and we have had to face some pretty incredible problems and incidents almost from the start.

Third, thank you to those who voted for me, who campaigned for me and who sent me words of encouragement. I’m looking at you Pat Deck.

Fourth, I want to thank the staff of this city who have worked tirelessly on residents’ behalf. I’ve said it many times, but I will again – we are lucky to have this high-caliber staff in a city this size. I also want to specifically thank City Manager Debra Campbell and City Attorney Brad Branham for their professionalism. My most important votes on this council, and the ones that I’m most proud of, were the two appointing both of you. If you wanted, you could have jobs in many other cities. I hope the residents realize how lucky they are to have you here.

On a sadder note, I want to apologize to the family of Derrick Lee Jr. Derrick was 12 years old and a rising 7th-grader at Valley Springs Middle School when he was shot and killed on July 1st 2018 – a little over two years ago. 

A child was killed in this city on my watch and that is my responsibility. To this day, we have not found who killed Derrick and that is one of my biggest regrets. While we will name a playground after Derrick at Lee Walker Heights once it’s completed, I know that is small solace to Derrick’s grandparents Rev. and Mrs. Tolbert, Derrick’s brother Darius and to Derrick’s parents. I hope one day to read that his killer or killers have been caught so that his family can find peace.

Let me move now to the budget and specifically to what happened at the council meeting on Tuesday (July 28)which I think was a microcosm of what’s happening in this city.

If you didn’t tune into the almost seven-hour meeting, let me recount some of the relevant highlights for you. City Manager Debra Campbell provided an update on the 30/60/90-day plan to, in her words, “reimagine” public safety in Asheville. 

She talked about how city staff supports a “Divest and Invest” strategy, how racism is a systemic problem which is bigger than the police and that the city cannot solve alone in 90 days, and that the strategy needs to be strategic, attainable and collaborative.

After Ms. Campbell’s presentation, Councilwoman (Julie) Mayfield talked directly to advocates for “defunding the police” expressing support for real change while explaining the reality that just because things aren’t happening exactly the way they want them to or as fast as they want them to that it doesn’t mean the city doesn’t care or isn’t committed to making real change. She also shared her experience and her advice as an advocate who lobbies government officials – quite successfully I may add.

Later on in the meeting, Councilwoman Mayfield was attacked by callers who said that her words were condescending and outrageous as if she as an elected official should not demonstrate the responsibility of speaking to the issues especially where she was trying to find common ground to move towards what these same folks say that they want.

Later, she apologized for her choice of words, but Julie, you had absolutely no reason to apologize, and I’m sorry that I didn’t speak up to say so at the time. Nothing you said was offensive. The only mistake you made was that what you said wasn’t in 100 percent agreement with them. We are elected officials. We have the right and indeed the obligation to speak our minds. No one has the right to silence you, me or anyone else on council.

During public comment, the overwhelming majority called for an immediate 50 percent defunding of the police department. This was a well-coordinated effort and I think we all know that. Organized groups have every right to do this, but we would be making a mistake if we took that public comment to mean that everyone in the City wanted an immediate 50 percent defunding of the police department. Two other things about that public comment struck me.

First, there were many callers – nearly all of whom who were white by the way - who said that they were speaking for the “community,” who were incredulous that we weren’t doing what the “community” wanted. 

Again, as if there were no other people in this community who had a different view from those callers. So, what does that mean – if you have a different view, are you not considered part of the community or does it mean that if you have a different view your view doesn’t count? 

I’m always skeptical when people on the right or the left say that they are speaking for the “community” or the “people,” implying that those who see things differently are the “other.” Maybe it’s because I grew up a brown child of immigrants in the South that I’m particularly attuned to this kind of language. I heard it a lot here in Asheville during my time on council.

The second thing that struck me was a particular comment directed to Mayor (Esther) Manheimer and Councilwoman Mayfield angrily chastising them for somehow putting themselves “in front” during the reparations discussion. I have no idea what this caller was talking about. 

Each council member has a right to speak on any matter that we are deliberating and every council member made comments on the reparations vote. Again, it’s the problem of trying to silence or intimidate people from actually being part of the conversation. I can’t help but note that the caller sounded like a young white man. 

The irony in Asheville – a white male telling two elected female representatives which topics are off limits for their comments or how they should conduct themselves.

Finally, this morning. Three different signs were put out by an anonymous group or person at the homes of the mayor, the city manager and Councilwoman Mayfield that had their name and the words “Defund Asheville PD.” 

Those signs had a bigger message than to just innocently advocate for a budget vote tonight. That gives cover. It was a message that we know where you live. It was done to intimidate. Think about that, an anonymous sign with her name on it shows up in front of the house of our first African-American female city manager.

All of this bring us to tonight’s vote on the budget. The key question is whether to allocate funding for essentially three months of operations or for the full year. There is no disagreement that the budget should be revisited in September based on recommendations from the Reimaging Public Safety effort. There is no disagreement that City Council has the right to amend the budget at any time, and could specifically amend the budget in September when the Reimagining Public Safety recommendations are in hand.

I believe that the best and most responsible path forward is to allocate funding for operations for the entire year now and then to amend the budget in September. 

Only allocating three months of funding during a pandemic and a fiscal crisis is irresponsibly risky and will only delay the other critical work that council and staff need to do including developing and implementing the Reparations Plan, addressing the Vance Monument, filling my council seat and responding to any other emergencies that come your way not to mention addressing the backlog of items that have delayed due to COVID. This is going to be hard enough on you and staff without having a budget hanging over your head. And it’s also an election year.

There is no guarantee that you will come to a consensus on my replacement which may result in a deadlocked vote on the budget and a hasty, careless defunding of the police which is exactly what one group wants, but I suspect very few of the residents of Asheville truly do. 

I trust that all of you are approaching replacing me in good faith, but even with good faith, you can still deadlock. My guess is that the group will push a litmus test for any replacement that they must commit to immediately defunding the APD by 50 percent.

Furthermore, you are not going to have a plan to cut APD’s budget by 50 percent by September. We all know that. You’ll likely need to lay off over 100 officers to do that. Passing a three-month budget with no realistic chance of making this happen is going to once again set expectations sky-high and fall short. It will be a repeat of Tuesday (July 28) all over again.

Fellow council members, if you believe that passing a three-month allocation is the right thing to do for the city, I absolutely respect that. But if you are doing it because you think doing so will gain the respect or trust of these same people who monopolized the public comment on Tuesday (July 28)  and who have engaged in a pattern of intimidation against anyone who isn’t 100 percent in agreement with them, please think again.

They have made it clear that they will accept nothing less than laying off half of our police department and they do not care whether there is a backup plan or not.

Please don’t reward this kind of behavior. It needs to stop right now. Know that there are many more people out there who are looking at us to do the responsible thing.

Please, let’s pass a full year allocation tonight so that we can keep our city steady and allow the Reimagining Public Safety process to work.

Thanks,

Vijay