From Staff Reports

The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners voted   6-1 on April 6 to give $35,000 toward the revisioning of the Vance Monument site in downtown. 

The dissenting vote was cast by Commissioner Robert Pressley, the board’s lone Republican member.. Pressley contended that the commissioners never agreed to the razing of the obelisk.

“I will not be supporting it if we give one dime to tear it down since we did not have a say so in it,” the Asheville Citizen Times quoted Pressley as saying. He lives in the Bent Creek area.

On March 23, Asheville City Council voted 6-1 to remove the monument, a 75-foot-tall obelisk that was built in honor of former North Carolina governor and slaveholder Zebulon Vance.

“Buncombe County is entering into a cost-share arrangement with the City of Asheville to determine what comes next for the space,” Asheville television station WLOS (News 13) reported. “The city and the county are putting in $35,000 each. The funding will be used to secure a consultant, who will facilitate the revisioning and create a community vision document that guides the repurposing of the site.”

The $35,000 appropriation will be spent to “‘create a comprehensive Community Vision Document that guides the future re-purposing of the Vance Monument site,’ according to a report by Assistant County Manager D.K. Wesley,” the ACT reported.

The county’s $35,000 allocation constitutes half the estimated cost to revision the site, with the city covering the remainder. While the Buncombe does not own the Vance Monument property, the board decided to approve the expenditure because “elected county leaders said April 6 that they have a stake in what will replace it,” the ACT reported. 

Besides the revisioning aspect of the Vance Monument project, other expenditures will include demolition, which is “expected to be finished by the end of summer, is estimated to cost $114,150 with another $25,535 for landscaping and temporary site restoration,” the ACT noted.

Despite the lack of a unanimous vote by the commissioners on the $35,000 allocation, board chair Brownie Newman was quoted by the ACT as saying, “For myself, when I accepted it — it was a unanimous recommendation — that means I accept this as the direction I think this is going.” Newman stress that the money would not be spent on the demolition..

“The visioning process is to start by the end of spring,” the ACT stated. “By the end of 2021 the consultant selected is to deliver a ‘community road map to a more inclusive plaza in the heart of Asheville,’ according to city plans. 

“Those plans say the consultant should present such questions as ‘should a new monument be installed in this area?’ Or ‘should this area include more accessible public/green space?’” the ACT reported.