Top priority is the safety of our community
and to minimize the spread of COVID-19
while conducting City business
The May 26 Asheville City Council meeting will be held remotely. Due to the locally declared State of Emergency and the State Phase 2 Safer at Home order, there will be no public attendance at this meeting. This includes news media.
The agenda is posted at this link.
City Council wants our residents to still have the opportunity to participate in the decisions of your local government. There are three options for providing public comment.
Public comment directions
Voicemail
All voicemail public comments must be received by 5 p.m. May 25 by calling the City’s Toll-Free Public Input Line at 855-925-2801, meeting code: 8914. Before commenting, please state your name, City of residence and the item you are commenting on (Examples: Consent Agenda Item A, Public Hearing Item B, Open Public Comment).
Calls will be played during the Council meeting in the order received and alternated with live call-in comments for up to an hour for each agenda item. All comments will be limited to three minutes per person per item. All comments must conform to City Council rules of decorum. Those comments that do not may be excluded.
Live call-in
Public comment will also be taken from a live speaker queue. For this option, community members should listen to the meeting by phone by calling 855-925-2801, meeting code: 8914. Your phone will be muted and you will hear the meeting live. At this point callers will hear, “for more options please press *.” Pressing * will allow callers to continue to listen live, leave a comment as a message or join a speaker queue. Callers should only join the speaker queue during the time the agenda item on which they would like to speak is being discussed.
Calls will be played during the Council meeting in the order received and alternated with voicemails left prior to the meeting for up to an hour for each agenda item. All comments will be limited to three minutes per person per item. All comments must conform to City Council rules of decorum. Those comments that do not may be muted.
Comments can also be submitted by emailing AshevilleCityCouncilMay262020@PublicInput.com. For the public hearing items, emails will be accepted for up to 24 hours after the close of each public hearing. City Council will receive the emailed comments electronically and the comments will be posted, but they will not be read during the Council meeting.
How to follow the live meeting
- Call toll-free to listen to the meeting on your phone: 855-925-2801, meeting code: 8914. Your phone will be muted but you will be able to hear what is happening in the meeting.
- Watch the live stream through the City of Asheville Public Engagement Hub at https://www.publicinput.com/hub/88.
- Watch on Charter Cable channel 193 and on AT&T U-Verse channel 99.
If you are watching the meeting through your television or the live stream while you are listening to the meeting by phone, please be sure to turn down the volume on your television or computer. Please also be aware there is a broadcast delay of 4-10 seconds. Television has the least delay at about 4 seconds.
This is a temporary measure for the health and safety of everyone, as we collectively work through social distancing techniques to prevent the spread of COVID-19, taking into consideration guidance from the CDC, N.C. Department of Health and Human Service and Buncombe County Health and Human Services.
Please be aware that this guidance could change, as this is a rapidly evolving national and local health emergency.
The top priority is to slow the spread of COVID-19 and avoid overwhelming our healthcare network.
Toward that end, City Hall and other municipal buildings were closed to the public as of March 17. Employees who are able to complete their work offsite during this COVID-19 public health emergency are working remotely in a telecommuting mode. Staff have remote access to hold meetings, respond to phone calls and emails.
All essential services continue with some services, such as permitting, sanitation and transit, being modified.
We continue to coordinate City response with Buncombe County and State officials. These actions are all designed with public health in mind, as we pull together to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.