The officials who voted on the RTIC and the sheriff who runs the county camera network are on the November 3, 2026 ballot. This page records each candidate’s votes and statements, with the date a position was last looked for where none was found. If a candidate goes on record after the last update, tell us with a link or recording.
Dates that matter: Friday, October 9. · Thursday, October 15. · Tuesday, November 3.. (NC State Board of Elections) Asheville’s municipal races moved to even years; the primary was held March 3, 2026.
Mayor
Kim Roney. The record: sole no vote on the Fusus interlocal (Jan 2023), the first RTIC grant (Mar 2025), and the RTIC/Axon package (May 2026). Submitted 29 written questions to APD in March 2025; no public answers had been posted as of Sept 8, 2026. Consulted the ACLU-NC and EFF. On Aug 25, 2026 she moved the Flock termination resolution, which passed 5 to 2, and then moved a moratorium on new plate reader purchases during the city’s review, which failed for lack of a second (the record). At the May 28 debate: concerns about “a billionaire-owned, AI-fueled, for-profit tech company… working with ICE and Homeland Security and also the police department to surveil people without a warrant.” On the May 12 process: “21 people were sent home without the opportunity to speak.” At the Sept 18 Radio Asheville forum: “I’ve consistently voted against and opposed automated license plate readers… and I made the successful motion to end Asheville’s [Flock] contract,” and on the city’s technology page, “You can look at the Axon agreements because Axon also provides license plate reader technology in our community” (forum video, 23:07 and 24:43; more on her page). (BPR debate coverage · campaign site)
Esther Manheimer (incumbent, seeking a 4th term). The record: voted for the Fusus interlocal (Jan 24, 2023), the first RTIC grant (Mar 25, 2025), and the RTIC grant and Axon contract (May 12, 2026), and presided over each meeting. At the May 28, 2026 debate she framed the $1.14M as fiscal efficiency, since the city already pays the Sheriff’s Office for Fusus access and the grant lets Asheville “pay for our own,” and answered the transparency criticism: “That’s not a transparency issue. That’s a functioning issue.” (BPR) On Aug 19, 2026 she called for terminating the Flock contract and removing the cameras: “I have heard clearly from Asheville residents” (WLOS). On Aug 25 she voted for the termination, which passed 5 to 2, and confirmed from the dais that the Axon contract covers stationary plate readers: “we did, that is one of the things that we voted for. But we haven’t put them up” (the record). At the Sept 18 Radio Asheville forum: “The mayors I talked to across this nation are working really hard to figure out how to get out of these Flock contracts because Flock has grown so large and their platform is so big… And that’s why I wrote a resolution to terminate the Flock contract” (forum video, 21:15; more on her page). What remains pending after the vote is on Getting Flock Out. (campaign site)
City Council: three seats, six candidates
The March primary cut twenty candidates to six. Three are incumbents who voted yes on May 12. As of Sept 17, 2026, one of the six, Jeffrey Burroughs, had stated a position on the RTIC and the Flock contract in campaign posts. At a West Asheville candidate forum on Sept 16, 2026, five of the six answered a surveillance question; Sheneika Smith is not on the audience recording this site holds. None has yet been asked in a questionnaire.
| Candidate | RTIC record | On the record since the vote |
|---|---|---|
| Maggie Ullman (i) | Voted yes and seconded both motions, May 12 (6–1, confirmed on video) | Council, Aug 20 and Aug 25, 2026; the Sept 16 forum. Their words |
| Antanette Mosley (i, Vice Mayor) | Voted yes, May 12 (6–1, confirmed on video); voted no on the Flock termination, Aug 25, 2026 | Council, Aug 25, 2026; the Sept 16 forum. Their words |
| Sheneika Smith (i) | Voted yes, May 12 (6–1, confirmed on video); in 2025 suggested a community forum on the RTIC, which was not held; voted no on the Flock termination, Aug 25, 2026 | Council, Aug 25, 2026; not on the Sept 16 recording this site holds. Their words |
| Drew Ball (county commissioner) | — | Mountain Xpress interview, Aug 14, 2026 (published Sept 17); the Sept 16 forum; moved the county commission’s Oct 6, 2026 removal of the sheriff’s FUSUS/Axon request. Their words |
| Keith Young (former council member) | — | His DSA questionnaire; the Sept 16 forum; no written statement found (searched Sept 17). Their words |
| Jeffrey Burroughs | — | Campaign posts, May 14 and Aug 25, 2026; the Sept 16 forum. Their words |
The questionnaire gap: not one 2026 candidate questionnaire in Buncombe County (Asheville DSA’s, BPR’s, or the Chamber’s) asked a single question about surveillance. An August candidate forum at Shiloh covered seniors and displacement; surveillance never came up.
The forums since the primary: Sept 16, 2026, West Asheville, council candidates only (the record, with each candidate’s answers and audio). Surveillance and the Flock vote was the first question; the others were affordable housing against infrastructure, Patton Avenue pedestrian safety, building four-vote coalitions, whether permitting hinders affordable housing, and three-person council check-ins. Five of the six candidates answered; the forum lines below come from an audience recording this site holds, which begins part-way through the first answer. Timestamps are minutes into it; the file is available on request through Get Involved. Two days later, on Sept 18, the mayoral candidates answered a question on when the city should say yes or no to a public safety technology on Radio Asheville (WPVM 103.7) (video). On Sept 28, WLOS held forums for the council and mayoral candidates (council, mayor). The council panel was asked what the city should prioritize for public safety amid “ongoing questions about the use of surveillance and investigative technology and the protection of privacy and civil liberties”; Jeffrey Burroughs, Antanette Mosley, Keith Young, Drew Ball and Maggie Ullman answered, and Sheneika Smith was not on the panel. Mosley, Ball and Ullman spoke to the cameras; their words are on their pages.
Each council candidate, in their words
Quoted in full, with dates and times; forum times are on the audience recording this site holds.
Maggie Ullman
First public position Aug 20, 2026, at the agenda briefing: supports pulling the Flock cameras now (“I’m happy to move forward on just pulling them now”), but “get rid of Axon… starts to hit a wall where I can’t fathom pulling back on our transparency tools.” On Aug 25, 2026 she voted for the Flock termination: “I will support getting rid of these Flocks. I’m glad to hear the manager lay it straight that we’re going to have a conversation before any other action would happen. This isn’t a bait and switch.” (the record) Sept 16 forum: “I’m okay pausing or stopping this and pulling out from the city’s 11” (0:40); “unchecked surveillance that is networked nationally to companies we don’t know is very concerning” (1:30).
Antanette Mosley
Aug 25, 2026, on the termination: “My general concern is that what we’re attempting to do quite frankly is a bait and switch, and I think we’re not giving our citizens credit for seeing that.” (the record) Sept 16 forum: Housing Authority residents “requested that we maintain the cameras” (2:10); “I happen to not believe that we have to choose between public safety and civil liberties” (3:09).
Sheneika Smith
Aug 25, 2026: “I haven’t heard any resolutions. I haven’t heard about replacements. What do we do?” (the record)
Drew Ball
First position Aug 14, 2026, in a Mountain Xpress interview published Sept 17: “I didn’t think the process of that Council meeting really did anybody justice. It didn’t serve the community well, being unrolled like that,” with a citizen oversight committee as the next step, in the paper’s words (Mountain Xpress). At a West Asheville forum on Sept 16, 2026: audit logs, “control our data so it’s not fed to a national network,” “closed loop systems that we control” (10:09); credited Flock in the paintball case (9:25); “I don’t trust the Trump administration or ICE” (10:22) (audience recording held by this site). On Oct 6, 2026, as a county commissioner, he moved to remove the sheriff’s $290,000 FUSUS/Axon forfeiture request from the commission’s agenda; he stated no reason (Buncombe County).
Keith Young
Closest thing to a stance: his DSA questionnaire calls for a “local firewall” so city government isn’t “feeding a pipeline into enforcement through data, technology, or informal collaboration,” plus “strong privacy and data minimization rules” and warrant requirements. At the Sept 16, 2026 forum: “Can we use this system to make our public safety system stronger? Yes, but should it be the one that they agreed upon? Probably not. I think we should have a community conversation” (7:51); did not name the RTIC, Axon, or Flock. No written statement found (searched Sept 17). (audience recording held by this site)
Jeffrey Burroughs
May 14, 2026, two days after the vote, on his campaign Instagram: “If I had been on council, I would have voted no.” Aug 25, 2026, the day of the Flock vote: “I am against mass surveillance. I support ending our city contract with Flock cameras.” Sept 16 forum: “Could I vote on supporting this tomorrow? We haven’t done the work” (5:24); asked whether a Citizens Police Advisory Committee, “paused in 2020,” would have caught it (4:13). Nothing yet on an oversight ordinance, posting the Axon quote, or a vote before fixed Axon readers go in. (May 14 reel · Aug 25 reel)
Sheriff: the county camera network is on the ballot
Quentin Miller (D, incumbent, seeking a third term). Built the county’s Fusus real-time intelligence center: ~1,800–2,000 cameras including ~1,500 in county schools. Publicly credits it for crime reductions. (WLOS) Also on the record: Miller has also taken documented stands limiting federal reach: questioning ICE detainers on constitutional grounds and barring ICE from county schools without court orders. (Bolts) The county network has no oversight body outside the sheriff’s office (What the Law Lets the County Do).
Gary Parris (R, Navy veteran, former BCSO). In WLOS’s Feb 24, 2026 primary profile he pledged a “Unified Operations Intelligence Center to share actionable intelligence with all agencies” and said “As the Sheriff, I don’t enforce on behalf of ICE” (WLOS). The county already runs an intelligence center on Fusus; the statement does not say whether his would be that one. At the Oct 2, 2026 CIBO forum, asked whether a warrant is required to detain someone for ICE, he said the office should check for detainers and enforce them, citing H.B. 10 and H.B. 318: “They’re supposed to work more closely with ICE. That’s not happening now” (Citizen Times via Yahoo). No statement found on the Fusus network, Flock, or plate readers; searched Aug 17, Sept 17 and Oct 7, 2026. (WLOS)
Sheriffs across Western North Carolina
The same ballot decides who runs the cameras next door. Henderson: Lowell Griffin (R), unopposed; 13 Flock readers, a sharing list of 2,048 agencies including the FBI, and WNC’s only 287(g) jail agreement. Haywood: open seat, Mark Mease (R) vs Tyler Howell (D), after Sheriff Bill Wilke lost his primary. Both spoke to Smoky Mountain News on Oct 7, 2026: Mease, “If it’s not something the people of Haywood County want, it’s not something we’re going to have”; Howell, in the paper’s paraphrase, that the cameras can be abused and need policy and accountability. Both would honor ICE detainers (Smoky Mountain News). Madison: Buddy Harwood (D) vs Robin Lyles (R), a rematch; the sheriff’s office has refused most records requests on its cameras, as reported in June 2026 (Madison County). Rutherford: Aaron Ellenburg (R), apparently unopposed. Settled in the primaries with no November race: Jackson (Doug Farmer), Macon (Brent Holbrooks), Transylvania (Chuck Owenby), McDowell (Nathan Mace). Commission seats that matter: Macon District 1 (John Shearl, who made the de-Flock motion) and District 2 (candidate Dylan Castle, who campaigned against the cameras); Jackson’s contested chairmanship (Mark Letson) and District 1 (Todd Bryson). Roster with records: Western North Carolina.
The rest of the ballot
- District Attorney: Todd Williams, who wrote a letter supporting the RTIC, is retiring. Martin Moore won the decisive Democratic primary and will be Buncombe’s first Black DA. No public position found on the RTIC (as of Aug 17, 2026). (BPR)
- County Commission (funds the Sheriff’s Fusus network, and holds more levers over it than most people assume: What the Law Lets the County Do). D1: Anna Stearns (D) vs. Rob Stetson (R). D2 (open): Lonnie Israel (D) vs. Greg Parks (R). D3: Al Whitesides (D, i) unopposed. No surveillance positions found for any candidate (as of Oct 7, 2026). On Oct 6, 2026 the sitting board removed the sheriff’s $290,000 FUSUS/Axon forfeiture request from its agenda, on Drew Ball’s motion seconded by Martin Moore, with no reason stated (Buncombe County).
- US House, NC-11: Chuck Edwards, who earmarked the RTIC’s $1.14M, withdrew August 5 after a House Ethics Committee report. The GOP substituted state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom; she faces Democrat Jamie Ager. Neither has a public surveillance record (as of Aug 17, 2026). (BPR · WLOS)
- NC General Assembly (Buncombe). House 114: Eric Ager (D, i). House 115: Lindsey Prather (D, i) vs. Anthony Penland (R). House 116: Brian Turner (D, i). Senate 49: Julie Mayfield (D, i) vs. C.J. Domingo (R). The legislature just made highway plate readers permanent statewide, with every one of these four voting for the budget that did it; all four voted against the ICE-cooperation overrides. In Senate 49, the Oct 7 Citizen Times reports that Julie Mayfield called plate readers an important law enforcement tool, said agencies need stronger safeguards against officers misusing searches for personal reasons, and opposes sharing local data for federal immigration enforcement; C.J. Domingo said local communities should control such systems and keep the data: “While I believe in public safety, I think that the community should own those solutions, and I think that all that data should stay here” (Citizen Times via Yahoo). No position found for the House candidates (as of Oct 7, 2026). Every WNC legislator’s roll calls, with links: WNC Legislators.
Put the question to them
Two questions a voter can ask at a forum, by email, or at the door:
- “Would you vote for an ordinance requiring council approval and annual public reporting for all surveillance technology, yes or no?” (The CCOPS model ordinance, adopted in other cities.)
- “The final Axon contract wasn’t public before the May 12 vote. Will you commit to releasing it and the RTIC’s quarterly audits?”
Get an answer? Send it with a link, date, and context via Get Involved and we’ll add it here, favorable or not.