Parkside: City, County, Coleman, Vigil, More
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{Thanks to David Lynch for the pic}
Drive-by post here kids. After the Parkside resolution was passed by County Commission on Tuesday night, the City’s Public Information Officer, scooted back to the City Council meeting to let them know what happened. Mtn. X:
Council voted 5-1 (Council member Holly Jones voted “noâ€) to encourage Buncombe County to continue to try to resolve the situation, and to postpone further conversation on Parkside until July 15 while it tries to make contact with Coleman.
I’ve emailed Councilwoman Jones to ask her rationale for the “no” vote.
Brownie Newman: “broached the idea of a lawsuit, saying, “I believe the development of that building in its current configuration would be a tragedy. …I am open to the city taking legal action challenging the sale. It would say a lot for the city of Asheville to side with the citizens who started that effort.â€
A Colemanite named Ross Franklin has come out of anonymity to do damage control over Coleman’s meltdown in the Commissioners’ chamber, arguing that since Coleman wasn’t arrested, it couldn’t have been too bad. He’s calling me a liar and continuing to minimize the opposition to the project. He’s also perpetrating the fiction that Coleman reduced his building in good faith rather than in an attempt to dodge City Council. Mr. Franklin evidently works with Mr. Coleman, and one commenter indicated he may be related to “The Fist”.
You can read the questions I put to Mr. Franklin here. His responses are here and here.
A daily vigil is underway on the park land in question. You can join others there each day from 4-7pm. Asheville On The Ground has more.
It looks like not much public is going to be happening between now and July 7th, when Coleman presents his Parkside to the City’s Technical Review Committee. Then we’ll have the July 15th City Council meeting. I think Brownie’s idea of suing Coleman over the property is smart. The governmental bodies are short on options right now. They can buy the property back, seize it through eminent domain, or get Coleman to recognize that if he’s smart and pulls out, he may live to fight another day.
See y’all at Drinking Liberally tonight. Rumor has it that Byron Belzak, the intrepid photographer who drew Coleman’s ire on Tuesday, will be there. A Shuler campaign person or two may show up as well.
9 Comments
June 26th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
So was Tigerswede sent to the land of no vowels?
CS
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June 26th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Ross Alan Franklin is married to xxxx.
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June 27th, 2008 at 8:26 am
From: Maggie Burleson
The Asheville City Council will be holding their next meeting on Tuesday, July 15, 2008. This meeting will be a worksession which will begin at 3:00 p.m. in the Council Chamber, located on the 2nd Floor of the City Hall Building. Please call the City Clerk’s Office at 259-5601 if you have any questions.
Public comment is not taken at worksessions.
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June 27th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Thanks, Tim!
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June 27th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Hi xxxx,
As far as I’m concerned the family should be left out of this. Mr. Franklin is advocating for Mr. Coleman, and it’s only ethical to reveal any associations when advocating. However, you and yours have nothing to do with Mr. Coleman’s poor decision-making.
Someone over at the AC-T forums brought my wife’s name into this, too, and it certainly crosses the line from political to personal. In otherwords, I feel you.
Peace.
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June 27th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Thanks, xxxx.
It’s an interesting ethical question, and I’d like to open it up to the Hooligan community.
Should we take down velmeeta’s comment identifying xxxx? What’s the right thing to do? At one level Mr. Franklin identified himself as a Coleman employee but left out the family association, so there’s some secretive behavior there, but on the other hand, xxxx never asked to be a part of this debate.
What say you?
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June 27th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Hooligans,
I edited some comments to remove the name of someone who was identified as connected with the Parkside fiasco. That person’s comments also identified her, and I am reprinting those here without the identifying info.
Hello Gordon,
Glad you agree.
However, do you not have control over what is posted on your website and therefore could have blocked the post stating my name? I am unclear how that works, just wondering.
Well, now that I have been brought into the fold, I would like to publicly state that I fully support any decisions made by all and every member of the S.B. Coleman organization. I myself worked for S.B. Coleman Construction during the development of 21 Battery Park and am proud and excited for any further developments the company is/will be a part of in the future.
xxxx
Yes, Ross Franklin is married to xxxx. Our 7th wedding anniversary is just around the corner. Thank you for changing the subject away from the “issue†at hand and for some reason thinking that our being married has anything to do with the project being developed or the statements being made. How very professional of everyone to make this personal. You should all be proud. I love how you feel it is your business to know about our personal and private lives. Feel free to let us know your wife/children/sister/brother/mother/father names and background, as they are just a relevant as my name and marriage are.
It’s unnecessary to bring family members into this civic debate, unless, as Mr. Franklin, you walk into the debate under your own steam.
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June 27th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Gordon,
I had no idea that you are married.
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June 27th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
It’s true.
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