Asheville mayor admonishes councilman for Haywood 'Pit' email

ASHEVILLE - Mayor Esther Manheimer took the unusual step of publicly admonishing City Councilman Cecil Bothwell at Tuesday's council meeting for an email that she said amounted to him exerting "undue influence" over a council-appointed advisory team.

"We had a lot of online discussion about our task force, our Haywood Street task force," Manheimer said. "I have a little bit of concern about council communication with our task force members and consultant who is running that task force.

"And I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to interfere with the task force and their work."

She was referring to a March 8 email from Bothwell to Haywood Street Advisory Team Chairman Andrew Fletcher and moderator Chris Joyell, the director of the nonprofit Asheville Design Center hired by the city to help officials resolve what to do with a troublesome piece of city-owned land downtown, jokingly derided as the "Pit of Despair."

Bothwell wrote the email after attending a March 8 public meeting, the stated purpose of which was for the advisory team to tell residents and others what it had gleaned after almost a year of meetings and public input on the land across from the U.S. Cellular Center. The team is set to make a final presentation to the council March 28.

The email with a subject line "FAIL," started with "What the hell? You promised people a 'vision' and delivered a pile of crap." He went on to call the process "really utter b------t."

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The Citizen-Times got the email through a public records request, but it was also posted on Facebook. Bothwell said it was meant as a private message.

Bothwell is one of three members of the seven-member council strongly supporting a park as opposed to a mix of private development and public space, as some have proposed.

Tuesday, the mayor said she raised the point because she felt some advisory team members "may not feel they can say anything about it."

Bothwell responded that his primary concern was bullying on the advisory team, something worse than what he called "strong language" that he used.

"One of the people was so bullied that she was in tears after those meetings," the councilman said.

"The bullying was brought to the attention of the person moderating that task force and the moderator said he didn’t want to shove anybody under the bus. So nothing was done about it."

Bothwell said that concern was "lost in the wash on the news reporting" about the email.

In the email, about a third of the way through he talked about Fletcher's "representation of the calm, collegial atmosphere" being an "interesting fiction."

Bothwell wrote that Dean Pistor, the team's representative from the city recreation advisory board, beat his fist on the table and whispered in his ear, “Why did you appoint that b---h? She is f-----g up everything.”

Pistor pointed to fellow team member Julie Nelson, Bothwell said. Nelson is a supporter of a park.

Asked about the description of the encounter, Pistor said he meant it in joking way and was trying to describe how dogged Nelson was about her point of view.

"Obviously poor choice of words for a friendly exchange about the conviction she had during this process as a committee member," he said.

"I tried to contact (Bothwell) to clarify I was commenting on the strength Mrs. Nelson has for her cause and the constituents she represents — in no way was I discounting her."

He said he did think Nelson was being "overwhelming at times" and felt Bothwell himself was being a bully by trying to influence and "attack" the team's process.

Nelson did not respond to an email Tuesday night seeking comment.

Fletcher, a representative of buskers on the team, was present Tuesday but didn't speak during the meeting. He responded to questions from the Citizen-Times afterward, saying he had to be "very careful" because he wasn't representing himself but instead the 17 team members who elected him.

The team chairman said he appreciated "that the concern was aired" and wasn't asking for an apology for himself.

"For the really hardworking members of the committee that have put in a lot of time and brought their integrity to this advisory team, I would like to see more respect."

As for Bothwell's bullying charge, he said "there was a really brief outburst."

"No one asked for my approval to have an outburst," Fletcher said adding that he's asked the team member to apologize.

He and Joyell have described the process as one that included compromise. Joyell said public input gathered wasn't a poll but showed the biggest number of comments supported a park or "passive" and "active" civic spaces, but "there wasn't a plurality or a singular voice." He noted recent input that included a person who said "give us a beautiful park" and another who said "anything but a park."

Bothwell has said the vision presented by the team didn't advance the process. He said Tuesday that he will "try to refrain from interfering with task forces in the future. And I will frankly vote against having task forces of this nature in the future."