Joel Burgess

jburgess@citizen-times.com

A Republican who was vying to be first woman chair of Buncombe County's top elected body and who was the center of a recent political firefight for her role in an unsuccessful brewery economic development deal said she will resign and pull out of the November election.

Miranda DeBruhl announced late Monday that she was resigning from her position as commissioner to pursue a business opportunity.

"Over the past few weeks and months, a business opportunity for my family has slowly developed from a small probability to a near certainty," DeBruhl said in an e-mailed announcement.

She did not respond immediately Monday night to an interview request.

She characterized the opportunity as an "exciting prospect" but gave few other details.

"It will create meaningful jobs and have significant economic impact. However, it will not be located in our county or even our state," she said.

The new work will require her to spend a significant amount of time away from Buncombe, she said.

"Therefore, I strongly believe it would be irresponsible and disingenuous for me to continue this campaign. I firmly believe that elected officials should reside in the same jurisdiction as their constituents."

DeBruhl, a first-term commissioner, lives in Leicester and is one of two commissioners representing the western District 3.

She and her husband, Kelly, have two children and run a Fairview convenience store and an RV dealership in Fletcher.

She took 60 percent of the March 15 Republican primary vote to beat opponent Chad Nesbitt and was set to face Democratic Board of Commissioners Vice Chairman Brownie Newman in the Nov. 8 general election.

The Buncombe County Republican Party will work to select her replacement in a timely manner, an official release from the party said.

"While we are sad to see her move on, we thank her for her service and the steadfast conservative voice she brought to the commission," the party's announcement said.

In March of 2015, DeBruhl took a lead role in opposing the county's $6.8 million purchase of land in Bent Creek in an economic deal to lure an East Coast outpost of the Oregon-based Deschutes Brewery. Deschutes planned to spend up to $200 million on the brewery and create up to 154 jobs, according to records obtained by the Citizen-Times. But the company instead chose to go to Roanoke, Virginia.

Democratic commissioners blamed DeBruhl for spoiling the deal by disparaging it on social media and contacting the Deschutes president. DeBruhl said she opposed the land purchase because she saw it as "speculation" since the county bought it before any deal had been signed with the brewery.

That fight happened in an ususually public way with Democrats and Republicans trading verbal blows and accusations during an April 5 board meeting.

Trained as a registered nurse, DeBruhl grew up in the county and entered politics only recently, unseating fellow Republican David King in a heated 2014 primary for District 3. She went on to defeat King's wife, Nancy Waldrop, a Republican who became an unaffiliated candidate to run against DeBruhl in the general election.

As a member of the board's minority party, she was the loudest critic of Democrat-backed animal welfare rules that she said overreached. They included limits on dog tethering that also mandated social interaction for animals and a requirement that horses have man-made shelters. Commissioners later voted unanimously to reverse some of the measures.

In running for chair, she said the possibility of being the first woman to lead the county's elected body was not a motivation or necessarily a campaign issue for her, but that being female definitely informed her politically. That included her support for education, she said. Otherwise her issues mirrored many classic conservative views, such as lowering regulatory burdens on businesses.

Recently, she supported HB2, the state's ban on local rules allowing transgender people the right to use bathrooms of their choice. DeBruhl said she agreed with GOP state lawmakers that such local rules about bathrooms opened the door to sexual predators. Other portions of House Bill 2 ban local rules protecting LGBT people from discrimination in private businesses such as hotels and restaurants. Another measure of the law makes it harder for people who felt they had been discriminated against because of race, sex or other characteristics to sue.

More recently she and other Republicans on April 19 voted against a Democratically supported move that eliminated the question of criminal history from county job applications.

Voters narrow county races; DeBruhl wins chair primary