Sooner or later, the destroyers will figure out that their tactics don’t work.
Or maybe they won’t, and they’ll keep on spray-painting volunteers’ cars with nasty words or slashing the tires of public officials’ vehicles. But it’s not going to work.
If I’ve learned anything in covering this area for 30 years, it’s that local folks who really care about this community are not cowed by cowardly acts of vandalism. Such attacks seem to stiffen their resolve to work for a better Asheville and Buncombe County.
The latest attacks come after Asheville City Council this month approved the creation of a Business Improvement District, or BID, for the downtown area. The local BID, which required two separate council votes for passage, will rely on a tax increase downtown to generate more than $1 million annually for increased cleaning, public safety and, potentially, “ambassadors” to help with directions and other services.
This being Asheville, the BID got contentious, with critics stating those ambassadors could easily become narcs facilitating the arrests of the unhoused or those experiencing a mental health crisis. More than 60 people spoke at the April 23 City Council, with a solid majority opposed to the BID, although several business owners and residents spoke in favor of it.
Council vigorously discussed the BID, citing the need to flesh out details and to ensure it would not result in a mad rush to push vulnerable people out of downtown. In the end, council generally supported the concept for downtown, where some business and property owners have been vocal about the need for increased safety and cleanliness.
Ultimately, the measure passed 6-1, after a year of planning, discussions, and tweaking.
That bothered some folks, apparently anarchists, who took to spray-painting cars belonging to two members of the BID steering committee, including Eva-Michelle Spicer, co-owner of Spicer Greene Jewelers downtown. The vandals spray-painted Spicer’s vehicle, at her Haw Creek home, with a vulgar expression and a circled letter “A,” a symbol of anarchists.
A couple weeks before that, they hit another steering committee member’s vehicle with a spray-painted anarchist symbol and the words, “No Bid.”
The Asheville Police Department, via spokesperson Rick Rice, said it is “investigating both instances of targeted vandalism to vehicles.” Anyone with information is asked to call the APD at 828-252-1110. You can also send an anonymous tip using the TIP2APD smartphone application (search “Asheville PD” in your app store), or by texting TIP2APD to 847411.
‘They want us to be afraid’
Spicer told me last week that she’s “disheartened that people resort to this terrorism approach,” but she’s not giving up her zeal to make Asheville a better place.
“They want us to be afraid,” Spicer said. “I’m from Asheville — my family has been here for seven generations. I’m not going to stop trying to make Asheville a better place. That would be true of anywhere I lived.”
While Spicer’s resolve is steady, she is concerned that others may look at this scenario and decide to stay out of the public eye, to not work to make things better.
“I don’t want for the folks who really care about our community to stop fighting for a great community,” she said. “So, the fear mongering, it will not work.”
Last August, City Council Member Maggie Ullman was in a similar emotional place. After Ullman signed an open letter promoting more public safety, someone slashed her vehicle’s tires and broke its windows at her home.
The attack upset Ullman. She said it has made her rethink engaging in public conversation over social media, as she started to find it unproductive because of trolling and generally disrespectful behavior. As she says, “Why would you walk into target practice?”
Extremism on both ends of the political spectrum is worrisome for our nation and Asheville, especially in this already tense election year, Ullman said.
“I worry for society but also for local service, because if we can’t figure out a way to have dialogue and we have to resort to vandalism and political intimidation, it’s worrying,” Ullman said. “But, as a leader, it just reinforces my commitment to effective dialogue and open communication.”
She will not be retreating from her duties on council, or in a larger sense, as an American living in a democratic system.
“So I see this as emblematic of a larger concern in society, and then as a local leader in our community it just reinforces why I want to be involved in public service,” Ullman said. “If we are too frightened by these political intimidation attempts, we’re going to lose really good servants to our community, people who want to volunteer and good public service folks.”
Ullman pointed out that this year’s crop of candidates for City Council was lower than normal, and she said she’s heard from people who say they had considered a run but backed off after her experience.
Spicer, who continues to serve as vice chair of the Downtown Commission, says she believes those opposed to the BID got more than a fair hearing, but at the end of the day the measure passed easily via a democratic process we’ve got to accept. She says sitting down over coffee with those who are angry about the BID to hear them out would be far more productive than hauling your car to a body shop to get ugly messages removed.
“If we all could have a conversation and realize at the end of the day we all want to live in a peaceful, safe, and welcoming world,” Spicer said. “And we can accomplish that more together than by attacking one another.”
A ‘communique’ about the vandalism
A statement about the most recent two incidents of vandalism appeared last week on Abolition Media, which bills itself as “an online news source for revolutionary movements, with information about militant actions, analysis, and features about local struggles from around the world.” The site “intends to be a tool for movements dedicated to anarchist, abolitionist, and revolutionary perspectives.”
In a “communique” about the incidents, the organization said Spicer and another BID steering committee member “had their homes visited and vehicles disabled” because of their affiliation with the Business Improvement District.
“The proposal of this business improvement district seeks to position wealthy property owners in absolute positions of power to assist the state and capital in tightening their grip of social control by ‘cleansing’ the streets of ‘antisocial-behaviors’ and ‘anything deemed out of the ordinary’ via increased surveillance and private security,” the communique stated.
Well, we could have folks roaming around in polo shirts giving directions to the parking decks or maybe calling 911 when someone is having a mental health crisis, but I don’t think anyone wants to see downtown’s quirkiness scrubbed clean.
Human poop on the sidewalks? Yes. Someone dressed as a fairy and skipping through Pritchard Park? That’s not a problem.
I reached out to Abolition Media but didn’t hear back by deadline.
Kit Cramer, president and CEO of the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, said the idea that those in favor of a BID want to station some kind of stormtroopers downtown to facilitate arrests is absurd. She told me previously the idea is “actually to relieve the police department of calls for nuisance behaviors or issues that can be better addressed by a community paramedic.”
It’s worth mentioning 66 other cities in North Carolina have BIDs, and I haven’t heard of these downtowns becoming hom*ogenized dens for modern-day Stepford wives.
Cramer told me last week that the property damage the BID steering committee members have endured is troubling, but the picture is much bigger than spray-paint on a vehicle.
“I think it’s damaging to the fabric of community involvement, because it means somebody is actively trying to squelch someone else expressing their opinion,” Cramer said. “I think it’s bad for us from a community perspective. If we truly think we’re this welcoming place that is open to everyone’s ideas, then there should not be intimidation of individuals and intrusion at their homes, which I find particularly troublesome.”
What I see here is one side that lost this argument, after having its say and then some, and then refusing to accept that the majority of stakeholders and others in downtown want to see a BID. Yes, I know those opposed greatly outnumbered proponents at public hearings, but I have to suspect a lot of folks didn’t want to draw the ire of a group that will deface your vehicle when you try to make a point.
To most people, the BID plan seems like an opportunity to make downtown better — cleaner, a little friendlier and probably safer, too. City Council will maintain ultimate control over the BID committee, and it can shut the whole thing down if it’s not working out as anticipated or how it wants it to work.
Of course, it’s hard to know exactly what some groups want, other than, well, chaos and anarchy. I’ve got to suspect that this kind of dog-eat-dog world, one with few or no rules, appeals to a tiny fraction of the population.
Cramer said the vandalism this time was ineffective, and it very likely will be again. People around here don’t just give up their convictions, toss their backbone aside, and give in to thuggish behavior.
As I said in a column last year after two police cars were torched in West Asheville and Ullman’s vehicle was vandalized, you’re not changing hearts and minds with these tactics. You’re just hardening the shells of your opponents.
People around here dig in when threatened. Still, none of this is good for our world.
“It’s hard enough to get people of good will to run for office, to serve, to work in governmental roles, and to get volunteers to speak up on behalf of community initiatives,” Cramer said. “To think you’re going to be endangering your family, or your livelihood or that there’ll be retribution against you in some way, shape or form, is just disturbing. I just think it’s wrong.”
While I doubt this is going to happen in these recent cases, such behaviors could also lead to some kind of retaliation or escalation and even more damage, to physical property or even people, because of our super-heated political climate. It’s just not how we want to live, folks.
Our elected leaders — including those who voted for and against the BID — need to speak out against this vandalism, this low-road approach to dialogue. And police need to catch the people who did this and charge them with the appropriate crimes.
Most importantly, though, those who did this need to realize just how unproductive their messaging is.
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go toavlwatchdog.org/donate.
