Asheville – It was a season for riots and the toppling of statues when, on July 16, 2020, the New York Times ran a headline, “North Carolina City Approves Reparations for Black Residents.” The article began, “The measure passed by the city council of Asheville, NC, would provide funding to promote homeownership and business opportunities, but stopped short of stipulating direct payments.” The resolution, passed two days prior, included apologies as well as a call to state and federal agencies to help foot the infinitely unpayable bill for reparations.
It also set in motion the formation of a joint city-county commission, and it took a committee to figure out what this commission would look like and what its mission should be. This was met with skepticism from both those who, having yet to see a committee do anything, viewed it as pure official foot-dragging, as well as those who thought that, by definition, reparations should take the form of cash payouts.
It would be two years before the city and three years before the county got around to, respectively, making a $2.1 million and $2.0 million budget allocation for reparations. As it turned out, the city and county have taken the tack of addressing racial disparities through funding government programs to reduce, if not eliminate, historical black disadvantages. Among these would be widely-supportable and legally-defensible programs to get all preschoolers ready for kindergarten and assist all arrestees with navigating the criminal justice system. The city and county have each since created recurring budget line items for reparations starting at $500,000 with a 2% annual escalator.
On November 21, one of Buncombe County’s assistant managers, DK Wesley, provided the commissioners with an “update and extension request.” According to Wesley, county expenditure highlights to date include $88,000 for an audit to make sure city and county governments were complying with laws and codes for nondiscrimination. They have also provided project management, leadership, expertise, research and data analysis, public engagement, legal counsel, and security for the commission meetings via 23 members of staff. The City of Asheville has provided additional staffing.
Other expenditures include $124,000 for a documentary prepared by black student unions and $100,000 to support information storage and retrieval for reparations research. Funding for virtual meetings, “engagement activities,” and “summit activities” came out of the county’s general fund. These included the Information & Truth Telling Speaker Series, a Community Reparations Summit, a presence at events like Juneteenth 2023, and quarterly reports to the city and county.
As for the extension request, Wesley explained that “an individual member” put forward a resolution to extend the life of the commission by two years. No action was taken, but at the next meeting, staff shared that they needed more details to justify the extension when proposing it to city and county leadership. Two meetings later, commission members asked staff to present a request for an eight-month extension without justification. Staff agreed to present the proposal, but Wesley said it was their contention that prolonging the life of the board another eight months was not necessary. They could support no more than a two-month extension. She added that the language used to create the commission did not define terms of service.
When the floor was opened for questions, Commissioner Al Whitesides said, “I’ve watched these meetings as much as I could, and my patience allowed me. The question I have is, what will we get for eight more months? … If they can’t justify it, let’s end it when it was supposed to end…. Frankly, I don’t think the group is capable of bringing anything to an end, and I’ve watched it. It’s a waste of time going forward. Look, this is an insult to my ancestors to see what’s going on. To think how people have fought and died for us to be where we are today….
“I think the idea that we came up with from the council and from the commission is great. We can get something done, but now I think that group has become a barrier, and it’s time to move them out of the way. Okay. They have done a good job turning the sausage, so to speak, but now let’s let the staff and the chefs take over, and that’s the commission and city council because we’re the ones that the people have voted on and put us in place to get something done.”
Chair Brownie Newman and Wesley concurred that the board was created to be an ad-hoc task force. No action was taken, as Wesley’s report was informational only.