Asheville – One couldn’t help but flash back to the era when Black Lives Matter and Antifa were monopolizing public comment. Kids dressed like aspiring anarchists would hurl accusations and bestow an aura of unrest in the public chambers. They were so expert at disturbing that COVID, when it sent everybody into their Zoom rooms, came as a saving grace.
Cookie-cutter protests usually need a cause and a trigger. The trigger for the December 5 turnout was a public hearing for a rezoning request. Biltmore Farms was requesting a change in zoning for a tract adjacent to the new Pratt & Whitney plant. The staff reports didn’t say so, but many protesters were pretty sure the rezoning would be to accommodate training facilities for plant workers.
As Buncombe County Chair Brownie Newman spelled out later in the meeting, the commissioners can only look at enumerated land use criteria and decide if the applicant is compliant. They do not have the power to, as some activists had argued, force Pratt & Whitney, a subsidiary of Raytheon, to make windmills instead of war machines. And yet they protested.
The cause celebre selected to frame the marching, signs, and chants for the angst this time was the Israel-Hamas war. It’s as easy to see why some citizens were disgusted that the commissioners awarded the multimillion multinational $27 million in subsidies from the public coffers in 2020 as it is to see the big, white roof of Pratt & Whitney from the otherwise largely pristine Mountains-to-Sea Trail. It was more of a stretch to see how the protesters, some of whom denied the existence of any opinion contrary to theirs, expected the commissioners to act beyond their proscribed powers and save Palestinian babies from slaughter by preventing what was expected to be the construction of a training facility for a turbine factory because the turbines are used in a couple of fighter jet models that are used by Israeli armed forces.
That said, it is hard to criticize young adults for wanting to save babies and stop atrocities. The beat goes on as one side cries, “War is terrible!” and the other cries, “That’s why we must defend ourselves!”
The public hearing began with an unremarkable presentation by former Asheville City Attorney Bob Oast, who, along with former Asheville Mayor Louis Bissette, is representing John F.A.V. Cecil and Biltmore Farms. The overflow room had been opened to accommodate the crowd eager to speak about the war. Several identified as members of Reject Raytheon AVL, Party for Socialism and Liberation, or both. The former is the local branch of a national protest engaging in street theater against Raytheon’s participation in the Military Industrial Complex, and the latter wants to end capitalism as the root of all worldly ills, from gender identity repression to climate devastation.
Comments repeated zinger phrases like “military industrial contractors,” “blood money,” “apartheid state of Israel,” “genocide,” “occupation,” “blood is on your hands,” “colonizers,” “the people’s voice,” “war profiteers,” “where’s your humanity?” and “selling your souls.” Several also called for support for the pseudo-legal documents the groups are presenting throughout the country. After the second speaker took a moment of silence, Newman said that although he appreciated the sentiment, people who signed up for comment would have to use their time to articulate something. As the commissioners approached the one-hour limit for public comment, Newman cut the speaking time from three minutes each down to two, and then one.
When it came time for a vote, shouts rang out. It began with multiple chants of, “Free! Free! Palestine!” At that, Newman called a five-minute recess, during which the commissioners went into the room behind the dais. As they stood to do so, the chant changed to, “Buncombe County, you can’t hide! We charge you with genocide!” Only County Manager Avril Pinder remained on the stand.
Newman said after the meeting that the commissioners had received intel by way of the sheriff’s department that some of the protestors were likely at the meeting for more than public comment. So, the chants came as no surprise, and the commissioners were calm and collected as they went backstage.
During the break, sheriff’s deputies asked the disruptors to leave, and they reassembled in the elevator lobby. Once the commissioners returned, their commotion could still be heard, so officers saw them to the door, after which they continued their protest in front of the building. After Newman spoke of the economic advantages of broadening high-paying industrial job opportunities, the commissioners approved the rezoning unanimously.