Government Accountability Project Asheville

The Buncombe County Commission meets this Tuesday, February 7th, 2022 at 5 pm. You can attend the meeting at 200 College Street, Suite 326 in downtown Asheville. You can watch the meeting online at the County’s Facebook page. The full agenda is here.

URGENT

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PROBLEMATIC

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CONCERNS

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POSITIVE

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EMAIL TEMPLATES

Use our prepared email template to take action on this week’s item.

GREEN:

Things that sound like a step in the right direction

Buncombe County Agenda – New Business: Resolution Authorizing Additional Staff Work to Develop a Scope of Work for an Official Audit to Ensure Compliance with Applicable Regulations, Statutes, and Local Requirements to Cease Harm Impacting the African American Community

The Buncombe County Commission plans to vote on the Immediate Recommendation “Stop the Harm” that was unanimously passed by the Community Reparations Commission (CRC) at their December meeting. (You can view the Staff Presentation here and the text of the resolution here.)

We’re glad to see the County join the City in moving forward on this matter, and to do so without significant delay. We hope that this represents a new standard of urgency for Reparations Commission recommendations and that we’ll see similar responsiveness when proposals emerge from the Commission for returning land and money to Black communities.

Things to do

We encourage you to reach out to the Buncombe County Commission staff and express support for the adoption of the Reparations Commission’s Stop the Harm recommendation. You can use our template link to open up an email to adapt, copy and paste the content below, or write your own message and paste it into the County Commissioners’ Contact Page or use the email addresses listed below.

EMAIL TEMPLATE TEXT

You can open this email in your own email program by clicking here. To proceed manually, you can copy and paste the text below into an email and then address it to the County Commission.

Send to: brownie.newman@buncombecounty.org, jasmine.beach-ferrara@buncombecounty.org, alfred.whitesides@buncombecounty.org, amanda.edwards@buncombecounty.org, terri.wells@buncombecounty.org, martin.moore@buncombecounty.org, parker.sloan@buncombecounty.org

CC: Avril.Pinder@buncombecounty.org, Dakisha.Wesley@buncombecounty.org

Subject: Moving the Reparations Process Forward

Dear County Commissioners and Staff,

I am encouraged to see that your February 7th agenda includes a resolution approving the Immediate Recommendation “Stop the Harm” put forward by the Community Reparations Commission (CRC). I trust that you will vote to approve it, and that you stand ready to support the additional CRC recommendations that will emerge later this year.

Thanks for your leadership,