Archive for Buncombe County
Company Town, Regulatory Capture
Posted by: | CommentsI just made friends with this young guy who has been in Asheville for only a couple of years. His sweetheart (he calls his girlfriend his sweetheart) is from somewhere east of Asheville. His sweetheart comes from a working class family that had worked in the textile mills back in the day.
He says Asheville doesn’t make sense to her. It is mostly rich retirees, yuppies and artists. Few of the kind of people she recognizes. That’s because our economy has a great big hole in it. Not much room for people in the middle, and few ways for people at the bottom to get there.
Another friend observes that if people in Asheville are lucky enough to boost their salary into the $30k range, they have to move somewhere else to make the jump to the middle income level. Career-track jobs aren’t plentiful enough here.
In my AC-T column last Sunday I asked people to try a thought experiment involving the word “industry.” Here’s another experiment:
What phrases come to mind when you hear about Asheville’s “high housing costs” or “inflated real estate”?
Very likely the phrase is a familiar one. (Some people — not Gordon, of course — get very testy with me when I use it, so I’ll try to avoid typing You-Know-What.) More likely, the phrase that didn’t come to mind was “better jobs.” I find that really curious, don’t you?
One Vote Wonders?
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The WaPo this morning looks at the Democrats’ $50 million effort to lure the Obama “one vote wonders” back to the polls in a mid-term election where he is not on the ballot. With the Obama brand besmirched with BP oil, it is a gamble to see whether or not 2008 was a fluke, and some are skeptical.
Matt Bai wrote about Obama “surge” voters in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine:
“Let’s be clear — these are not Democratic voters,” Cornell Belcher, the Obama campaign pollster, cautioned me. “They’re Obama voters.” The lesson that Plouffe and his operation took away from the dismal 2009 elections is that Obama can act like a matchmaker of sorts, introducing the party’s candidates to new voters and vouching for their intentions, but it’s only going to matter if the candidates themselves embrace the so-called new politics. What that means, practically speaking, is that the White House is urging candidates to divert a fair amount of their time and money — traditionally used for buying TV ads and rallying core constituencies — to courting volunteers and voters who haven’t generally been reliable Democrats.
Obama’s Organizing for America will drive the effort, Bai wrote, having “virtually supplanted the party structure.” In my follow-up at HuffPost on Monday, I pointed out that in 2008 some local party officials remained skeptical of the Obama effort in Western North Carolina until late in the game, wondering
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Facts is Facts
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There’s going to be a lot of talk about the City of Asheville budget over the next several days. Throughout this process I’ve been very impressed with the work of Asheville’s city staff. They have provided Council with contextualized arrays of options. Council members have been advocates for their constituencies and have also been mindful of the reality of our situation.
We started this year’s budget process with a five million dollar budget gap. Council and staff have worked hard to find ways to minimize service cuts without raising property or sales taxes. The proposed budget holds the line on transit services and a few other items, but you’ll find cuts in every city department.
You may have noticed that the Buncombe County budget didn’t introduce any new taxes or cut any services. How did they manage it? The graphs below may help you get an idea of how this works:
This graph lays out the percentage of sales tax revenues generated by Asheville and Buncombe County. You’ll notice that Asheville’s vibrant economy is an incredible economic engine for everyone in Buncombe County. City sales tax dollars go to funding health care, fire departments and other vital services everywhere from Montreat to Candler.
Asheville’s sales tax revenue doesn’t go directly to the city government. That money is channeled through the County. The county has the power to decide how much of that sales tax money is returned to Asheville’s municipal government. The County can return money based on an ad valorem equation or a population equation. Below you can see how Asheville compares to other NC cities in the amount of sales tax returned to them.
If Asheville’s sales tax were redistributed based on population, we’d still be next to last at 32%, but that gap would add millions of dollars to city coffers. Millions of dollars would go a long way towards building sidewalks, maintaining parks, etc.
I’m confident that Buncombe County Commissioners can appreciate the value that Asheville brings to all county residents. Moreover, as we move forward in efforts to better cooperate on some services, I’m confident that we can leave old divides behind and work from a win-win mentality.
The Value of a Good Ground Game
Posted by: | CommentsA lesson in political campaigning, with a sports forward.
In December 1985, the Atlantic 10 Conference champions, the University of Rhode Island Rams, played the Southern Conference champion Furman Paladins in the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Division I-AA playoffs. The Rams were led by Tom Ehrhardt, first team All-America in 1985. The man with the golden arm had thrown eight touchdown passes against Connecticut weeks before. URI’s “Ehr Force” passing attack had received lots of press, and a Heisman “honorable mention” for Ehrhardt from Sports Illustrated. (Furman’s quarterback was just a straight “A” student in chemistry or something.)
When URI lined up against Furman at Paladin Stadium, what struck me from the end zone was that the Rams’ offensive and defensive lines were a helmet taller than Furman’s. This did not bode well.
But then things got almost comical.
One thing about Furman — just when they seem to be outclassed they often give the other guys a schooling. They make up for their size by doing their homework and playing smarter.
Possession after possession, Tom Ehrhardt threw pass after pass after pass into tight, double coverage by Furman’s pygmy defenders who swatted down footballs like flies. The Paladins’ double coverage cut down URI’s receivers the instant they touched the ball. Ehrhardt threw a record 78 pass attempts, completing 39 for 494 yards, and still the famed “Ehr Force” never got off the ground.
Rhode Island didn’t even attempt a running play until late in the third quarter. The Rams had no ground game. At all. Furman trounced them 59-15.
Now, here’s the political lesson from this week’s House District 115 Democratic primary:
Incumbent Rep. Bruce Goforth threw four times as much money into mailings and media than his opponent and still lost 60% – 40%. Coached by Obama field campaign vet, Drew Reisinger, Patsy Keever ran a 21st century ground campaign, a good one. Goforth had none.
These days, boots on the ground can trump money in the bank.
The Definition of Insanity
Posted by: | CommentsAlbert Einstein once famously said that the definition of insanity “was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” It seems to be a concept that Don Yelton — and the Buncombe County Republican Party — simply don’t understand. Don is an angry little man with an enormous ego: he runs for office every year because he has a captive audience of Republicans who are either too afraid to stand up to him or too stupid to realize that he’ll never win an election.
I’ve seen Don operate behind the scenes, too. His illiterate email blasts are full of vitriol and backstabbing. He constantly sows seeds of discontent among his fellow Republicans and will stop at nothing to personally destroy a perceived enemy.
I’ve heard Don Yelton described many times as the Democratic Party’s secret weapon. I agree. As long as he’s around, the GOP doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning a damn thing around here. If he truly loved the Republican Party, he’d step aside, go back to Jupiter and never run for any office again. There. I said it.
Fringe is In
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©2010 David Cohen • david@cohencidents.com
Chad Nesbitt elected GOP Chair
Posted by: | CommentsFrom the Buncombe County GOP website:
Congratulations to the Buncombe County Republican Party for an upbeat and productive County Convention! Today, Republicans elected a new Chairman, Chad Nesbitt, who has plans for major fundraising and organizational goals.
We also elected a 1st Vice Chairman, Chris Eck, and Secretary, Miah Siemion, both of whom have been serving as interim officers up until the Convention.
Our previous Chairman, Robert Malt, plans to continue his volunteer work with the BCGOP. In particular, he will continue coordinating volunteer training efforts for our voter database tools. Robert is leaving the party with many more precinct chairs, new volunteers in key positions, a full slate of Republican candidates for the 2010 election, and thousands of dollars in the bank account. We sincerely appreciate all of his efforts and are thrilled that he will continue to play an important role in our local party.
For those of you who may be new to the area or who have perhaps been living under a rock for the last few years, the intrepid David Forbes profiled Chad a while back in the Mountain XPress. Chad is a long-time conservative activist and founder of the Carolina Stompers.
What do you Hooligans think? Does Chad’s selection as BCGOP chair bode well for the future of the Republican Party in Buncombe County? Not that I really need to ask.
Friday Reading and Open Thread
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve seen so many things to share with you, gentle readers. They’re after the jump. More importantly, I want to know what you’ve seen that you’d like to share with the world. It’s your thread.
The State of Downtown
Posted by: | CommentsAt the State of Downtown Luncheon hosted by the Downtown Association, I learned a lot about what’s what. One of the people who did the educating was a virtual Joe Minicozzi in a video piece prepared for the occasion. Here’s Part One; go to the Downtown Commission site to view the rest. You may want to tape your jaw shut to keep it from hitting the floor when you see the facts within.
If you like what you see, please think about becoming a friend of the downtown, $35/year for a family membership! The Downtown Association would love your support. They’re doing the yeoman’s task of advocating for Downtown, and they could use the validation and support.
Resources and Financial Capacity
Posted by: | CommentsThis post is ripped directly from Asheville, NC 2010: A Financial Crossroads, a report prepared by Asheville City Staff to put our current economic position in perspective. I’ll be featuring excerpts from the report from time to time. Click here to read all eleven pages.
Through their ability to spread the tax base over a greater portion of a region’s wealth, many growing cities in North Carolina have been better positioned to match resources to service demands. However, tax base sharing alone is typically not the only resource cities have to balance the cost of services, infrastructure and capital investment required to maintain an economically competitive and vibrant city and region. Other forms of revenue diversiï¬cation are used to provide tax relief to citizens who reside within the municipal boundaries.
