Joel Burgess

jburgess@citizen-times.com

ASHEVILLE - A Republican senator's proposal to fundamentally change City Council elections would knock out almost half of the current members right off the bat.

A map of proposed election districts obtained by the Citizen-Times would pit five of seven council incumbents against each other, "double bunking" and even "triple bunking" them into the same districts.

Incumbents who would be facing each other are Vice Mayor Gwen Wisler and Cecil Bothwell in a northern District 3; and Brian Haynes, Julie Mayfield and Gordon Smith in a western and central District 2. That is according to a map Buncombe County Democratic state legislators said came from Sen. Tom Apodaca.

Asked Wednesday if the map was final — or if it would change before being submitted with the bill — Apodaca responded via text, saying he was "looking at a couple of things."

He didn't answer a phone call Wednesday afternoon, but texted back, saying the Senate was in session and he was on the floor.

Apodaca is the GOP chair of the powerful rules committee and represents Henderson and Transylvania counties and a small piece of South Asheville in Buncombe. Almost a week ago, he said he was considering mandating district elections, something that would come over protests from Asheville's elected officials and the four other state lawmakers from Buncombe who represent parts of the city.

City election rules say council members, including the mayor, can come from any part of the city and are elected by all residents.

Apodaca said last Thursday he would tell the Citizen-Times when there was more information on a bill.

Five days later, on Tuesday morning he met with the other legislators representing parts of Asheville, saying he planned to move ahead with a bill for six districts, according to those Democratic lawmakers.

Apodaca couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday.

The Democrats, who are in the minority in the General Assembly, said Apodaca told them he didn't expect them to support the bill and would move forward despite their concerns.

Democratic Rep. John Ager, of the 115 District, said Apodaca told him that there is a “big group of business people in South Asheville that's been clamoring for representation" on council.

Democratic Rep. Brian Turner, whose 116th District covers South Asheville, said he had heard that from constituents and it might be a legitimate concern but few candidates had run from South Asheville.

Since 2005, there have been six South Asheville candidates, none of whom have won.

North Asheville, meanwhile, has had 29 candidates in the last 11 years with five winners.

The south is the strongest Republican area in an otherwise left-leaning Democratic city. Council elections are nonpartisan, though party affiliation often plays a role.

Tuesday evening during a regular public meeting, council members reacted to Apodaca's district proposal, calling it "anti-Democratic" and saying they wanted to stop it or at least lessen its impact. They also reacted to a map they said was provided by the Democratic lawmakers.

The map shows a far-western District 1, a western and central District 2 that includes part of downtown, a northern District 3, a northeastern District 4, a central and eastern District 5 that includes the rest of downtown and a southern District 6.

"We are a small city, and the idea of breaking us up, making us fight one against another, seems ludicrous to me," Councilman Cecil Bothwell said.

Bothwell said he thought the map was created using a specialized GOP redistricting computer program that carved up the city in a "calculated" way meant to weight districts to favor certain types of candidates. That included splitting downtown in half and connecting Haw Creek with the Sunset neighborhood in District 4. The two areas are separated by one of the city's steepest mountain ridges and have different interests, he said.

Councilman Gordon Smith equated the proposal to the legislature punishing Asheville.

"They're saying, 'You don’t get a choice. We’ll tell you what you need. But we’ll let you go pick your switch,'" Smith said.

Mayor Esther Manheimer said if the bill can't be stopped other options might include asking for a referendum to let city voters decide whether to have districts or setting up an independent commission to draw them. Manheimer said she thought the bill would be introduced by Friday.

Asked Tuesday night in an email about the district map, Apodaca's rules committee research assistant Laura Kilian e-mailed back Wednesday morning saying the map has "not been completed" and is "still being drawn."

Later Wednesday after Kilian and Apodaca were sent a copy of the map he gave the Democrats, the senator texted that the map isn't finished "and the bill is still in drafting."

He said he wasn't sure when they would be finished.

Apodaca wants 6 Asheville City Council districts

Council members vote to rezone S. Asheville neighborhood

Asheville gets $161M budget; vehicle, garbage fee hikes