2011: The Year in Review

President Obama wants to put citizens back to work. Photo: Micah Mackenzie/Urban News

by Moe White

The big story of 2011 might be titled, “How the president got his spine.”

After two years of being battered by Republican opponents in the Senate and House of Representatives, and two years of reaching out to those opponents in a sincere, if misguided effort to find common ground, President Obama finally hit the wall at the end of August.

After huge fights in the spring that led to a first-time-in-history downgrading of the nation’s bond rating by Standard & Poor, and another in August that brought the country to the brink of defaulting on its bonds—another first in history—the mild-mannered Obama finally realized that Republicans in Congress are not his political opponents, but his avowed enemies, as determined to bring him down as Al Qaeda and the Taliban. And he decided (at long last, in the eyes of many) to fight back. 

Having successfully taken out Osama bin Laden and nurtured the “Arab
Spring” collapse of one North African autocracy after another—Tunisia,
Egypt, Lybia—the president discovered that by going out on the stump,
demanding action on jobs and taxes, he could force the recalcitrant
Republicans to back down just as they had forced him. He discovered that
the levers of power are, in fact, power—if properly used—and he began
to learn to use them.

Along with the president’s own awakening came a public awakening in the
form of the Occupy movement, which sprang up almost spontaneously in
September in New York. Occupy Wall Street demanded that the needs of the
99 percent of Americans who have been hurt or overlooked during the
past three decades of growing plutocracy be addressed.

Their other great demand, though rarely articulated, is that the 1
percent that controls the nation’s money supply, industrial might, and
political influence, and that uses those weapons to further enrich and
entrench themselves at the pinnacle of aristocratic privilege, be forced
to return to participation on the same basis as everyone else—by paying
a fair share of taxes, being prohibited from abusing their power, and
sharing their vast reserves of wealth with the citizens from whom they
have taken it, often unjustly.

The movement quickly spread to other cities across the United States
and around the globe, including Asheville, and unlike the astroturf Tea
Party funded by billionaires and relentlessly promoted and reported on
by Fox News, Occupy has maintained a constant presence despite an early
blackout on media coverage, lack of support from organized groups
including the Democratic Party, and frequently violent antagonism from
local power barons.

The “moderate” billionaire Republican mayor of New York, Michael
Bloomberg, has allowed or instructed his police department to use pepper
spray on peaceful marchers on the Brooklyn Bridge and violently to
empty Zucotti Park of its camping occupiers. The supposedly progressive
mayor of Oakland, California, Jean Quan, sent police in after a
conference call among 18 city leaders about how to deal with the
occupations.

While the Occupy message my still be muddied, the impetus behind the
movement is clear: the fabric of American society has been ripped, torn,
and frayed by the refusal of the one percent to play by the same rules
as they impose on everyone else; and the people are tired of the
resulting inequalities and injustice. That fact alone might well help
propel Obama into a second term—as long as he, too, fights back against
those who are more interested in their own privilege than the wellbeing
of their nation.

In Raleigh, meanwhile, the same crowd of Republican radicals that
occupied the U.S. House last year took over both the NC House and
Senate, and they have proceeded to turn the state’s well-deserved
50-year reputation as “The New South” on its head. They have followed
their counterparts in Wisconsin, Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, and
elsewhere in voting to abridge the rights of the poor, African
Americans, students, and the elderly to vote; to restrict the federally
guaranteed right to a safe, legal abortion; to skew the redistricting
maps so as to disenfranchise as many non-Republican voters as possible;
and to slash the budget and push the state down to 49th in the nation on
spending per pupil in the public schools.

While Democratic governor Bev Perdue vetoed a number of bills, the
Republican legislative majorities successfully overrode her on several
key votes. At press time the governor is deciding whether or not to veto
a bill that would repeal the recently approved Racial Justice Act,
which allows death-row inmates to challenge their death penalty
punishment if they can show that their convictions were tainted by
racial bias in the prosecutorial or judging process.

Selective prosecution by district attorneys—for example, seeking the
death penalty against a black person accused of killing a white person,
but not against any white accused of killing a black—and bias on
juries—for example, a black defendant being convicted by an all-white
jury and judge—are two factors that can be considered under the present
law, passed only in 2009 after many years of a growing awareness of the
likelihood of unfair prosecutions.

The Republicans, after intensive lobbying by the state District
Attorneys Association, passed a repeal bill in November; the DAs claim
that guilty murderers convicted before 1994, when life in prison without
parole became an option to the death penalty, might be freed on parole
or probation if they can prove bias. (Those same DAs oppose the
Innocence Commission as well, though for a slightly different reason;
see the next section.) The governor will decide whether to uphold or
veto the bill before the end of December.

Innocent, Dead or Alive

Meanwhile, two huge stories of innocent men in prison caught the public
eye this year, but only one had a happy ending. Robert Wilcoxson and
Kenneth Kagonyera were released from NC state prisons after serving more
than 10 years for a crime they did not commit. The NC Innocence
Commission, in its first action of the kind, overturned their
convictions, pointing out egregious violations of due process by the
District Attorney’s office.

In Georgia, however, Troy Davis was put to death after two decades on
death row, despite growing mountains of evidence that he was innocent.
Seven of nine witnesses against him recanted their testimony, while one
who held to it was also a suspect. Despite the clear likelihood of a
travesty of justice, “Justice” Clarence Thomas denied a stay of
execution for his fellow Georgian, and Davis was put to death on
September 21.

North Carolina’s district attorneys hate the Innocence Commission as
much as they do the Racial Justice Act, and it’s no wonder: under the
Innocence Commission, more of their own transgressions will likely be
exposed, and more of the innocent men they put away will be freed.

The Sacrifices of our Public Servants

But some of our public servants are worth the community’s endless
praise and gratitude. Two of these hard-working men lost their lives
just days apart this summer, both, ironically, while working on jobs
that impacted the medical community. On July 28 Asheville Fire
Department Captain Jeffrey Bowen was overcome by smoke inhalation while
fighting an arson-caused fire at the former MAHEC building on Biltmore
Avenue at Victoria Road. On Aug. 2 John Crowe, an employee of the
Metropolitan Sewage District, was killed when a backhoe broke and fell
on him at a job site on McDowell Street, where Mission Health Systems’
new cancer care center was under construction. We mourn the loss of both
dedicated public servants.

On the Other Hand…

The sheriff of Henderson County, Rick Davis, is under fire from the
Henderson County Commission, voters, and the media for his reticence
about his recent behavior and the problems it has caused. Davis took a
leave of absence for medical reasons in November, asserting that he
suffers from manic bipolar disorder that had caused him to behave
erratically and inappropriately during the past year.

Rumors that the departmental insurance policy had paid out a $300,000
settlement to a woman in the department have not been addressed, with
various departments and businesses claiming that they are not authorized
to disclose anything, despite North Carolina’s strong laws requiring
public disclosure of public documents.

The Henderson County commission, which has tried to get information
about the sexual harassment accusations and any settlements, is
powerless to do anything about Davis, who is independently elected.
Referring to his self-described medical condition, Davis has claimed the
right to withhold information about his “private life” including public
money used for insurance payouts on claims against him in his public
capacity.

It seems likely that the sheriff’s continued tenure in office will be brief.

When Will They Ever Learn?

Another familiar name, Curtis Canty, was forced out of his cushy job as
CEO of the Asheville ABC Board after allegations became public that he
had illegally accepted gifts from liquor distributors. He was also
accused by the NC ABC Commission of using ABC credit cards for personal
purchases, accepting tickets to NFL football games, and other gifts.
(Gifts of any sort from liquor distributors to ABC management have been
prohibited since at least 1996.)

While denying wrongdoing and insisting that he had accepted gifts only
in the years before taking them became outright illegal, Canty stepped
down in late October.

Two prominent Asheville communication experts found themselves in big
trouble after they mis-communicated. Longtime Mission Health Systems
spokeswoman Janet Moore resigned after it was made public that she had
spoken at a national symposium in a way that portrayed the hospital and
the community in a bad light. And Asheville Police Department Community
Relations specialist Melissa Williams resigned after Facebook postings
that were disparaging and dismissive of the Occupy Asheville
participants: her relations with the community were irrevocably frayed
after dissing her fellow citizens for exercising their First Amendment
rights of freedom of speech and the right “to peaceably assemble and
petition the government for redress of grievances” as guaranteed by the
U.S. Constitution. Her colleague and fellow Facebook poster, forensics
specialist Lynn Fraser, was demoted after a three-week period on
administrative leave.

Local Elections

After the political wipeout of 2010, liberal candidates staged a
comeback in the area’s municipal elections this November. Two strong
progressives, Marc Hunt and Chris Pelly, won seats on Asheville City
Council previously held by middle-of-the roaders Brownie Newman and Bill
Russell, while moderate Democrat Jan Davis squeaked out a reelection
bid over liberal Lael Gray by a 35-vote margin.

City voters also were instrumental in putting a tax issue over the top,
when they came out in force to support a quarter-cent countywide sales
tax dedicated to planned construction at A-B Tech. City voters supported
the measure by much wider margins than their county counterparts, and
it took more than $40,000 in pro-tax advertising to overcome the
opposition.

In other municipalities incumbents, mostly, were returned to their
seats, but the tea party-led conservative tide of 2010 seemed spent, at
least locally.

City Council concluded an agreement in November on behalf of the
Asheville Civic Center to sell naming rights to U. S. Cellular
Corporation in exchange for a fee that will provide $810,000 over five
years. U. S. Cellular will have its logo on staff attire, promotional
materials, and signs facing Interstate 240 and downtown. The total
revenue could reach $1.35 million over eight years if the city agrees to
a three-year extension.

A few blocks away at Pack Place, the Asheville Art Museum took over the
space vacated by The Health Adventure when the hands-on learning museum
moved to Biltmore Square Mall. The Health Adventure had filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy after overextending itself on property along
Broadway Street north of downtown. With its new status as the only major
tenant in on the main level of Pack Place, the Art Museum became the
effective landlord for other organizations that have long rented space
on the mezzanine level, including the Diana Wortham Theater’s business
offices, the Asheville Lyric Opera, and this newspaper. The Pack Place
complex was built by the City of Asheville, but for many years the Pack
Place has received substantial annual subsidies from Buncombe County.
Ownership of the building is unclear, but the land the building sits on
belongs to the City of Asheville.