Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer presented what she referred to as her annual “the State of the City” report on Oct. 6 to the (Asheville-based) Council of Independent Business Owners.

Tragically for Asheville, she’s incompetent. She keeps trying to make Asheville like other cities. Plus, she lies so much. 

Ultimately, the mayor’s “the State of the City” report ended up being just a gloss-over to try to make it (the state of the city) look good, because she knows people are on her case about the crime and homelessness crisis in the city...

Just look at what she did — at the anti-crime summit — to our congressman (U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-Flat Rock) over there. She snatched the microphone out of our congressman’s hands as he was talking at the summit that he was hosting in Asheville that was based on concerns about the city expressed by his constituents. The way he was treated by our mayor... I doubt he will come back — and he would have been a valuable ally in battling both the spike in violent crime, as well as overall crime, in our city.

Also, someone’s lying. At a recent CIBO meeting, the city police chief and his top assistant were talking about police leaving the Asheville Police Department — and that they hoped to rebuild the APD through better compensation, recruitment and retention..

But Mayor Manheimer, in her “State of the City” address on Oct. 6 said a key to rebuikding the police force is something along the line of lateral hiring. But when the police chief (David Zack) came to CIBO (month or two earlier), he said he was not too enthused about hiring “laterals.” So who’s telling the truth?

I was born and raised in this town. This has been a tourist town since I was a baby. They (top city officials) talk about losing tourism. It’s because of what they (the elected officials) have done.

For instance, in recent years, they (anarchists with the support of the elected officials) tore down — illegally — the Vance Monument and Confederate markers on Pack Square and outside the Buncombe County Courthouse in downtown Ashevile.

The mayor didn’t say a whole lot about the $3.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. The Mellon Foundation has gone around the South supporting anything that erases the Confederacy. We in the Southland of America, especially in Western North Carolina, resent that. The Daughters of the Confederacy even wanted to build a monument to black folks,” but that was not supported by the mayor or other elected city officials. 

The mayor noted in her “State of the City” presentation that the water problem would never happen again…. But Mr. Mike Holcombe (former city water director) told CIBO recently that council was totally incompetent. And that the key to avoiding another system outage is recommissioning the East Asheville pump station.

The city is in serious trouble. We’re starting to mirror some of those cities around the country in crime and homelessness — Chicago, New York, Portland… People are sleeping in doorways. People are defecating anywhere. There’s trash everywhere...

“This used to be a clean, beautiful tourist town — now we’ve got traffic jams, crime and homeless folks everywhere.

I’d like to have somebody from the housing department address CIBO... Some of this housing doesn’t belong in the historic district. They’ll just be raggedy ghettos in a few years... For my black family, we don’t need to be in the projects anymore. The New Deal  is over... They (poor blacks and whites) instead need to go to school, get an education, get a job and be able to buy real affordable housing. To hell with the shelter beds. By building more and more shelter beds, people are going to come to Asheville — and bring crime… These people are from somewhere else — and they need to go back to where they came from. I don’t care where they go...

The drug cartel is the one in charge of the panhandlers, the police told CIBO. So if the police tell you that the cartel is in charge of panhandling, why are so many Ashevillians helping the cartel by giving cash to panhandlers?

What grade would I give Asheville? I’d give it a “D-minus.” What saves it from an “F?” Well, Sandra Kilgore wants to do something good. I truly believe if she were surrounded by some better people, then she could lead Asheville forward.

Again, this City Council is incompetent. We won’t dog you out. But it’s time to go. Just as with President Joe Biden, it’s time for the mayor and City Council — except for Kilgore — to go!