I want you to join me in imagining what this park will look like when it's finished. The barricades are gone, there's a beautiful amphitheater stage over there, there's fountains and benches and sculptures. The opening day concert is a huge draw; the excitement is palpable; we've been waiting for this park to be completed for over 5 years. It's a great day for everyone, the type of event that brings a community together around their shared spaces, their commons, and everyone anticipates having many years of cultural events in this shared space... and then, in the days that follow, it comes out that a group of downtown residents have filed suit to stop any more events in this space. The decibel level is just too high, the traffic and crowds around their front entrance is an unacceptable inconvenience, and they can afford the kind of lawyers that will make the city miserable for years, so the city quietly scales back on large public events in the park, until eventually it's once or maybe twice a year, and these wealthy condominium owners can enjoy their views in quiet seclusion.

A few years ago, when we were fighting to stop the Grove Park Inn from putting condominiums in the park, right over there, I was standing on a street corner with a petition. A woman had stopped to talk to me; she was related to a former City Councilman. I was arguing that it wasn't right that such a major development project had been discussed and moved forward by City officials without any public hearings whatsoever. When we, in the public heard about it, it was presented almost as a done deal. She said, and it almost felt like she was patting me on the head, “That's the way we do things here. You'd better just get used to it.” We won that fight, but it was tough getting past that sense of entitlement, inevitability. It was just the way things were done.

Going back even further, time was, there wasn't a lot of competition to build in Asheville; downtown was little more than a ghost town just 15-20 years ago. The City officials were happy to talk to anyone willing to invest. If you were a developer, things were easier. You had an idea, and the money to make it happen, you found the right guy, sat down for drinks, and the necessary votes and permits just happened. Those days are over – we don't have to bend over backwards to get people to build here anymore. In fact, the challenge is how to manage growth. The current City Council has taken some care to move more openly, more deliberatively, when it comes to major developments, especially if they involve City-owned land. Trouble is, some people got used to doing things the old way, and some people got used to making money without having to ask permission from anyone. This Parkside deal has it's roots in that same mentality.

To sell us on the GPI condominium project, it was linked to a massive development proposed for this land behind me, the so-called Site B. The projected tax revenue and jobs to be created were the cherries dangled in our eyes, in order to get us to part with a massive chunk of our park for private condominiums. When the GPI pulled the plug on the condominiums, surprise ,surprise, they lost interest in the massive development for Site B, as well. Unfortunately, the dinner bell had already been rung. Once they pulled out, developers all over the country were interested in taking up the apparent invitation to build here, on the edge of Asheville's downtown park, and City officials began a long process of setting priorities for this land – what would be the best use to benefit the public? The Performing Arts Center was always first on the list; incorporating the Eagle/Market Street revitalization, perhaps an affordable housing component, there were many things discussed. One thing that was absent from that discussion was giving the prime chunk of real estate, the area fronting the park, entirely to luxury condominiums.

Enter the County. It was known that the Hayes Hopson building was up for sale; it was also rumored that the County was in talks to buy it. It was assumed that if the County was seeking to purchase it, it was to protect it from development, while the City was deciding how to proceed in developing the Marjorie St. lot. Well, as we now know the exact opposite was true. Emails released by the County staff show that they were intending to buy Hayes Hopson specifically to hold it for a private developer, and then sell it AND the park land under our feet away from the public. Enter Stewart Coleman. He purchased H&H, and then the park land, in a secretive deal that barely had a fig leaf of public notice in the back pages of the Citizen-Times, and didn't even appear on the County's agenda until minutes before the sale actually transpired.

Anyway, the City went on with their hearings, assuming that they were in charge of deciding how to develop their own property, unaware that the County had moved to undermine them. In July 2007, Stewart Coleman went to them in closed session with a deal: let me develop a prime chunk of Marjorie Street, and I won't build on the park land I just bought. At least one Council member has called this exactly what it was: blackmail.

They turned him down, but with the invitation to wait for the process to go forward, and then submit a proposal like any other developer. Mr. Coleman was not interested in waiting. He immediately began pumping thousands of dollars into the campaigns of sympathetic Council candidates, and started preparing the proposal to build right here, inside the boundaries of the park. In the months that followed we witnessed he and his associates insult and misrepresent everyone who opposed his plans, including the Pack Square Conservancy, the City Council, the Downtown Association, and of course, the public. His allies on the County staff threatened the Conservancy with their future funding if they did not support Parkside. And when it became clear that Council would not support his plans, he took advantage of loopholes to get around them, and he's actually trying to keep City Council from having any say over a gigantic building which will be built literally on their own doorstep. The City can and should do everything in their power to prevent this building from dropping onto the park, but the fault is not theirs.

The County staff and Board of Commissioners have helped Stewart Coleman every step of the way, and they could stop this madness, but have apparently chosen not to. If Stewart Coleman got a clear signal from both the City AND the County that the jig is up, he would take the 2.8 Million dollars he's reportedly been offered, and live to fight another day. As long as either the City or the County dangles any talk of a swap, or of issuing the easements he needs to go forward, there is no reason for Stewart Coleman to give in. We need to urge and support all our elected officials to close this sad and embarrassing spectacle, and return our park to us, for the entire community to enjoy. This isn’t just about this one building, or this one piece of land. This is about our right as citizens to have an open discussion about valuable public property, and it’s about sending a signal loud and clear to other developers: schemes to manipulate or undermine that open process will not be tolerated. Our Council members and Commissioners better take notice: we will be watching and we’ll remember in November who acted in our interest, and who acted to support wealthy developers. We beat back this type of development before, and we can do it again.

Thank you.