Five of the six candidates for Asheville City Council answered questions at a forum in West Asheville on the evening of Sept 16, 2026: Maggie Ullman, Antanette Mosley, Jeffrey Burroughs, Keith Young, and Drew Ball. Sheneika Smith is not heard on the recording this page is built from.
The source. An audience member’s audio recording, 59 minutes, which this site holds. There is no public video that we know of. The recording begins part-way through the first answer to the surveillance question, so that question’s wording is not captured. Times below are minutes and seconds into the recording. The words are a machine transcript with ums and repeated words removed and nothing else changed; where a word was garbled, the sentence is described and not quoted. Each candidate’s own answer can be played below, and the whole file is available to anyone who asks through Get Involved. If a host recording exists, it will replace this one as the source.
Two of the questions bear on what this site tracks: surveillance and the Flock vote, and the three-person check-ins council holds out of public view (the pre-meeting check-in sessions). The others were affordable housing against infrastructure capacity (10:28), Patton Avenue pedestrian safety (22:55), building four-vote coalitions (35:17), and whether permitting hinders affordable housing (46:13). A tree canopy question was skipped for time.
Surveillance and the Flock vote
The question was already under way when the recording starts. From the answers, it covered the Aug 25 vote to end the Flock contract (the record of that meeting), whether the candidate supports surveillance, and neighborhoods that experience violence.
Maggie Ullman (0:00 to 1:40)
“I think people should be safe from crime, safe in a crisis, and safe from unchecked government surveillance. That’s where I start. I also think that we need to maintain the priority of preventing and solving crimes in cases where people are harmed.” (0:00)
“So jumping into the Flock dialogue, I voted and was happy to vote for ending Flock because the tool can solve crimes but it can still go too far. And that’s what it feels like at this point.” (0:22)
“Even though we have a lot of stop gaps and measures in the police department to control it, I think that the national conversation needs to keep evolving. We all need to learn a lot more about this. And I’m okay pausing or stopping this and pulling out from the city’s 11 so that we can have a lot more time to discuss this.” (0:40)
On the word surveillance, she said body cameras are called surveillance too, and that “now both the public and officers think it’s the safest way for officers to engage” (1:06). She closed: “I think that unchecked surveillance that is networked nationally to companies we don’t know is very concerning” (1:30).
Beside the record: she voted for the Axon contract on May 12 and for ending Flock on Aug 25. On Aug 20 she said dropping Axon “starts to hit a wall where I can’t fathom pulling back on our transparency tools” (2026-08-20 Agenda Briefing). The city’s 11 Flock cameras were still up pending removal as of Sept 8.
Antanette Mosley (1:43 to 3:27)
She thanked the moderator for framing the question to include “neighborhoods that often deal with violence” (1:47).
“I’m the liaison for the Asheville Housing Authority on City Council. And those folks in those neighborhoods requested that we maintain the cameras. I think it’s very important who represents whom, and that even dissenting voices are heard. With that in mind, I’m willing to support those vulnerable neighborhoods.” (2:10)
She described asking a prior gathering of Democrats how many had heard of the mass shooting on Biltmore, and how many knew people or families involved: “very few” (2:42).
“I happen to not believe that we have to choose between public safety and civil liberties. I think we can do both. And I think where we landed is a good indication that we can do both.” (3:09)
Beside the record: she voted no on ending Flock on Aug 25. No document on this site records a resident request to keep the cameras; the Sheriff’s access log shows 58% of logged camera views on public housing (the log · Cameras in Public Housing).
Jeffrey Burroughs (3:37 to 5:49)
“We’re in a pivotal time and it’s an important moment to reflect on how did we get here? How did we get to this place where neighbors are talking to neighbors in a way where we’re not able to find common ground? It’s because if you look at it systemically, the pipeline is broken.” (3:40)
“If CPAC or Citizens Police Advisory Committee had been enacted, and it was paused in 2020, would this have been something that came through the pipeline that would have enabled our community to be able to lead and have conversations about this? So that instead of it getting passed, we were able to have a conversation about this maybe within the last two years as this grant was being worked through.” (4:13)
“There are community members who want this technology and there are community members who don’t. And the reason we’re at this pivotal time is because we didn’t do the work ahead of time.” (4:47)
“Could I vote on supporting this tomorrow? We haven’t done the work. We haven’t sat as a community and felt and realized what is important and what we value.” (5:24)
He cited a Texas case of a woman seeking reproductive care who was subpoenaed and jailed “because of these systems” (5:39), and was cut off for time while referring to state troopers and ICE. The committee’s history is on Police oversight in Asheville, 1991 to 2026.
Keith Young (6:03 to 8:10)
He described his day job as a deputy clerk of Superior Court handling search warrants (6:14).
“If you follow my tenure on council between 2015 and 2020, there was some controversial issues that pertain to public safety, one of which was a consent to search requirement that we asked our police to have. And that was basically a protection of your Fourth Amendment right.” (6:26)
“I think some of the larger questions about the hearing from residents is privacy issues. Who controls the data? When is it used? When are the cameras being turned on? We hear every day on the news about these systems around the country where officers are not using it correctly.” (7:23)
“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, bring people to the table, and figure out what works best for Asheville, what works best for our public safety.” (7:51)
He did not name the RTIC, Axon, or Flock.
Drew Ball (8:16 to 10:24)
“As folks are seeing these cameras pop up more and more all over the place, folks have some serious questions and concerns. People are concerned about their privacy, they’re concerned about what’s appropriate. Are we being tracked? Is this a nationwide system that’s being built here? Those are really important questions.” (8:40)
He said he had recently completed the Asheville Citizens Police Academy, a 30-hour training, and a ride-along in West Asheville, “and that has helped me see how police are using this technology and what it can do” (9:11).
“Do you all hear about the folks that were riding around shooting people with a paintball gun, particularly targeting homeless people? Flock cameras helped police find out where those kids were and stop them from doing that.” (9:25)
“There’s aspects where technology can be useful, but at the same time, you really need to think about how much privacy we’re willing to give up.” (9:43)
He said that if police are to have a system that reads license plates there need to be audit logs (the word is garbled on the recording), then:
“We need to make sure we control our data so it’s not fed to a national network. We need closed loop systems that we control.” (10:09)
He said he trusts APD, and: “I don’t trust the Trump administration or ICE” (10:22). He sits on the county commission, which funds the Sheriff’s Fusus network (Buncombe County); he did not say whether the closed systems he described include it.
Three-person check-ins out of public view
The moderator’s question (51:50): “Many residents are under the impression that the Asheville City Council conducts a lot of business out of the public view through three-person check-ins among council members, with the implication being that they are making advanced decisions before public input and the council vote. What are your thoughts on council holding three-person check-ins that are not open to the public?”
What the record holds on the practice is on the pre-meeting check-in sessions: council voted in February 2023 to replace the check-ins with public work sessions, and reporting in 2025 and 2026 documents that the practice resumed.
Jeffrey Burroughs (52:27)
“If this is the work that’s happening to leading to the result of the vote, it just needs to be done in public. It’s not that difficult.” (52:27)
“So maybe just have that meeting once, maybe go ahead and tape it, put everything down. If it’s going to be said out loud, if there’s nothing to hide … then there’s no reason that it can’t just be done out in public.” (53:05)
Maggie Ullman (53:39)
“In advance of every council meeting, we would do three-by-three. So we did that for, and then we stopped … So that actually hasn’t happened as a routine, routinized practice since early 2023.” (53:50)
“The last three-by-three I was in was around the budget process this spring … We have had ad hoc ones that have come up.” (54:19)
“The three-by-three I participated in around the budget was when our city manager, early in the budget, was giving us numbers that were really scary … As someone who stewards a $250 million budget with 1,400 people and their families, I thought that was appropriate to have that as a private conversation instead of on the headlines … I think that felt appropriate to be more discreet.” (54:40)
Keith Young (55:20)
“This started when I was on council. Nobody’s ever asked me, but I’ll tell you why. When I arrived on council, there was no information hub. Nobody said this is how you do the job. Nobody said this is the information that’s coming up. I actually had to go to staff.” (55:20)
“In a 2017 UNCA council retreat, we talked about how we would bring that information in, and everybody would get the same information at the same time … That was supposed to be for information purposes.” (56:04)
“What has transpired to now, I don’t know.” (56:30)
Antanette Mosley (56:33)
“There is no formal 3-by-3 process at this point with your city council … What we do now is we do regular agenda briefings, live, on air.” (56:50)
“I understand why we don’t want 3-by-3s. I’m willing to forgo them, but also keep in mind that some parts of our community will suffer if we do forgo them.” (57:21)
Drew Ball (57:39)
“3-by-3s have been permitted by law. Typically, the city or county will be looking for guidance on an HR matter that can cause concern if it’s discussed in public or a legal matter. But at the county level, I’m always really quick when we have a 3-by-3 to say, is there any reason we shouldn’t be doing this during the briefing?” (57:39)
“I think doing these things in public is really critical.” (58:40)
What is not on this page
One passage on the recording is attributed to no one. From about 24:26 to 24:49, during the Patton Avenue question, a voice that matches none of the candidates speaks about APD dash cameras and plate readers. Until the speaker is identified it is quoted nowhere on this site. If you were in the room and know who spoke, tell us.
Related: Election 2026 · The pre-meeting check-in sessions · Getting Flock Out · Asheville’s officials
Region: Asheville · Last verified: September 17, 2026