Title: Mayor, City of Asheville · attorney, Van Winkle Law Firm · manheimerformayor.com In this role since: Dec 2013 (elected Nov 2013; council member 2009–2013; re-elected mayor 2017 and 2022) Current term ends: Dec 2026 Next voter decision: Nov 3, 2026: seeking a 4th term against Kim Roney; March 3 primary: Manheimer 42.27%, Roney 33.43%, top two advanced (BPR) · Election 2026
Surveillance record
Voted for and presided over every stage of the buildout: the 2023 Fusus interlocal, the 2025 consent-agenda grant, and the May 12, 2026 RTIC/Axon package, a meeting run so that the item came up near midnight and 21 signed-up speakers never got to talk. After the April 14, 2026 public turnout forced a delay, she acknowledged the issue “warrants a full conversation before moving ahead” (BPR); the conversation that followed was a committee work session with Axon and Flock sales reps and no public comment. Then, on August 19, 2026, the reversal below.
The Flock statement (Aug 19, 2026)
Midway through the Week of Action, two days after Sage Turner publicly documented that the city’s Flock cameras were still up despite the conditions on her vote, Manheimer issued a statement calling for a vote at the August 25 council meeting to authorize city manager D.K. Wesley to terminate the Flock contract: “I have heard clearly from Asheville residents, and I’m calling on Asheville to turn off the Flock cameras and remove them, which requires terminating the Flock contract.” She rejected a half-measure on plain contractual grounds: “After careful review and consultation, I have determined it would not be enough to call for a moratorium on the use of Flock technology, because our contract does not allow for the removal of the technology unless we terminate the contract.” She also called for a transparent policy on handling and deleting the data already collected, and praised Interim Chief Stepp by name for having “already begun this work.” (WLOS, Aug 19, 2026 · 828newsnow)
The true thing first: this is what residents have demanded for over a year, and if council votes yes on August 25 and the cameras verifiably come down, it will be a real win that residents forced: the people who kept showing up, Turner’s public documentation, the Week of Action, and the reporting her own statement leans on. Her statement credits “Asheville residents.” That acknowledgment belongs on the record, and so does the rest of it.
What changed between May and August is pressure, not information. Every fact the statement cites (Flock’s data reaching ICE, the misuse cases, the national reporting) was put in front of council before May 12: residents presented it on April 14, Roney read ACLU-NC and EFF concerns from the dais, and 21 signed-up speakers were sent home unheard at the meeting where she voted yes. “I have heard clearly from Asheville residents” arrives fifteen weeks after the vote that declined to hear them, and eleven weeks before Election Day in a race where surveillance is the headline issue and her opponent has voted against every stage of the buildout since 2023.
What the proposal covers, and what it leaves standing. Scored against the four-part exit: it asks for termination (part 1, correctly) and gestures at data policy (part 4, as a city policy rather than vendor certification), but names no removal deadline, and says nothing about APD’s Flock search accounts and National Lookup enrollment, the part that actually ends network access; Austin removed every camera and kept searching. And it touches nothing else: not the 7.5-year Axon contract (still unreleased, with fixed Axon plate readers already authorized under its terms), not the RTIC, not the county’s cameras. Removing one vendor’s poles while the architecture stands is the swap this site has documented since May.
The Aug 21 framing. Previewing the resolution: “It is really confusing… But to me, there are some legitimate concerns around Flock to the degree that I think it’s time that we terminate the contract and regroup.” The resolution would end a $72,000-a-year contract otherwise running to January 2027, remove 11 readers, and bar city employees from accessing, searching, or sharing Flock data afterward (BPR/WHQR, Aug 21, 2026). “Regroup” leaves the Axon plate readers in the pipeline untouched (Getting Flock Out).
On ICE, November 2025. When federal immigration operations were expected in Asheville, she said “APD does not have the authority to enforce immigration law” and “we stand with all residents” (WLOS, Nov 2025), and signed the joint city-county statement that APD and the sheriff “do not participate in ICE or CBP operations.” Neither statement addresses data; state law bars the city from restricting what immigration-status information reaches federal agencies (What the Law Lets the County Do).
When statements met outcomes before
A long tenure means the follow-through is checkable. The record on Manheimer’s pressure-responsive statements, each dated and sourced:
- The check-in meetings (2023). The cleanest instance, detailed in the check-ins section below: a January 2023 pledge that “we need to move away from that process,” a unanimous February 14, 2023 council vote replacing check-ins with public work sessions (Watchdog), then documented continuation into 2026, now defended as “permissible.”
- “Warrants a full conversation” (April 2026). Said after 40+ residents forced the RTIC vote off the agenda; the conversation delivered was a committee session with Axon and Flock sales reps where public comment was not allowed.
- “Reimagining Public Safety” (2020). After the George Floyd protests, she voted with a 5–2 council majority on September 22, 2020 to cut APD’s budget by $770,000, billed by the city as a “first step” (Mountain Xpress · city release). There was no second step: the cut was reversed within two budget cycles, and by FY2023–24 APD’s budget was $33.8 million, roughly 14% above pre-cut levels, followed by raises, a new pay plan, and the RTIC. Fairness requires precision here: she never personally pledged to defund APD, and said so plainly in 2022 (“I don’t support defunding the police,” WLOS); the commitment that evaporated was the council’s own “first step” framing, made under pressure, that she voted for and presided over.
- Reparations (2020–2025). The July 14, 2020 resolution made national news; Manheimer: the city is “grappling with addressing historical and continued structural racism” (WLOS). The follow-through: the commission first met 21 months later, delivered 39 recommendations on September 9, 2025, and was dissolved that October 14 (Urban News); as of February 2026, none of the 39 had been acted on, about $780,000 had gone to consultants, staffing, and audits, and $6.4 million sat unspent (BPR). Her words to the commissioners: “it’s been a much longer process than you probably signed up for in the beginning” (BPR). In fairness: $2.1 million was genuinely appropriated in 2021, the fund still exists, and the 2025–26 stall is partly attributable to documented federal scrutiny.
- The medic station (2020). After APD destroyed a volunteer medic station during the 2020 protests, her words were strong and immediate: it was “senseless,” it was “wrong,” and “those in power will not abuse their positions and cause others to suffer” (Citizen Times). The accountability trail: a 303-page report in March 2021 with a 60-day pledge to complete investigations of identified violations, a $2,156.88 reimbursement check, and then nothing; no officer discipline over the medic station was ever publicly disclosed (WLOS).
- Kept, for the ledger’s honesty: the Vance Monument removal was voted in March 2021, executed that May, and defended to a win at the NC Supreme Court in 2024 (BPR). When she commits and the machinery follows, it finishes.
The next day’s briefing filled in the mechanics (full write-up). Presenting the resolution on August 20, she disclosed that Flock now requires ten cameras for system access (ending the one-camera plan), that removal requires termination because “the cameras are technically not ours,” and, pressed by Roney on a staff memo describing “expanding and integrating Axon’s automated license plate reader capabilities,” she confirmed Axon stationary readers are “in the pipeline” while allowing that “the question around constitutional protection would come back into play.” That exchange, engaged rather than deflected, is to her credit; what she does with the pipeline is the next test.
So the question for August 25 isn’t sincerity, it’s structure, same as every row of the Promise Tracker. What would distinguish this statement from the pattern is checkable and dated: a yes vote August 25; a removal deadline in the motion; termination of APD’s Flock accounts, not just its poles; written data-deletion certification; and answers on the Axon side the statement skipped. The agenda posts Friday, August 21 at noon. Track it at row 11 and Getting Flock Out.
In her words
- The fiscal framing: the city already pays the Sheriff’s Office for Fusus access: “we received a grant from the federal government to be able to pay for our own.” (BPR debate coverage)
- On the transparency criticism, at the same debate: council members need to be able to talk privately: “That’s not a transparency issue. That’s a functioning issue.”
The check-ins
Manheimer is the constant in Asheville’s private “check-in” system: three separate small-group sessions before each council meeting, each legally sized (two members plus the mayor) to stay outside the open meetings law, with no notice and no minutes. She attends all three, privately canvassing the full council before every public meeting. When the Watchdog exposed the practice on January 17, 2023, she said: “If these check-ins are a barrier to folks having confidence that they’re getting all the information that the Council is receiving before it makes a decision, then I think we need to move away from that process” (Watchdog, via Mountain Xpress). On February 14, 2023, council voted unanimously to replace check-ins with public work sessions (Watchdog). The practice continued anyway: by 2026 the city acknowledged holding budget check-ins with no agendas (WHQR/Mountain Xpress, June 30, 2026), and she now defends it as “permissible” per legal counsel, noting every member besides Roney supports it. Her debate formulation: “That’s not a transparency issue. That’s a functioning issue.”
Context
Her May 17, 2026 campaign launch at The Marquee drew RTIC protesters (WLOS). Faces Kim Roney in November. Open questions she has not answered publicly: whether the executed Axon contract will be released, and whether she’d support making APD’s promised safeguards binding by ordinance; see Promise Tracker.
Region: Asheville · Last updated: Aug 22, 2026