Minutes before the start of the session Asheville City Council On April 14, with dozens of people registered to comment, local authorities announced that they had decided to remove the controversial item D from the day's consent agenda.
The item involved voting on more than one million dollars coming from the federal government, through the congressman's office. Chuck Edwardsto finance a real-time intelligence center which would integrate different surveillance technologies.
“We want to make sure we address all the questions and fully understand this issue before taking any action,” Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer said during the session.
Criticism of proposing the topic for a vote without community discussion was evident. Despite being removed from the agenda, dozens of people decided to remain until the end of the session to voice their opposition during the public comment period.
The next step will be a review of the issue by the Policy, Finance and Infrastructure Committee, in a working session scheduled for April 28 at 3:00 pm at Asheville City Hall, which the public may attend, although comments are not permitted.
What does the intelligence center project propose?
According to Official document included in the agenda of the City Council on April 14The proposal to create a Real-Time Intelligence Center in Asheville stems from a request by the city's Police Department, which in 2024 responded to a funding call promoted by the office of Congressman Chuck Edwards.
The project includes more than $1.14 million in federal funds allocated through the Community Project Funding program and administered by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The document describes the center as a “centralized space” for collecting, analyzing, and sharing information in real time among officers, with the goal of improving coordination and police response.
“It’s not free money: there are costs involved.”
According to councilwoman Kim Roney, one of the main criticisms of the project is that the primary risk is that the data collected by the system could end up in the hands of federal agencies.
“The surveillance equipment would not be accessible only to our local police personnel,” he said in a conversation with Enlace Latino NC , originally in English, while warning that in other parts of the country this type of information has been used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security.
Roney pointed out that once this type of database is created, local control over the information can be diluted.
“The problem starts when the database is created,” he said, adding that state law limits the ability to restrict access to that information.
The councilwoman also questioned the decision to request federal funding for this type of technology in the current context.
As he explained, there is concern in the community about accepting funds that could expand surveillance tools at a time when other priorities—such as the recovery after Hurricane Helene or access to housing— they remain unresolved.
“Why not accept money that seems free? Well, because there are costs involved,” she stated, referring to what she is denouncing: the loss of civil rights, in addition to the future expenses for infrastructure, contracts, and personnel that the city would assume.
The voices of the community
During public comments, several residents expressed concern about the project's impact on privacy and data use.
Anne Craig, 75, an Asheville resident for nearly five decades, warned that the proposal represents “a slippery slope toward increased surveillance of our population” and called for any decision to be made with more public debate.
Other participants were more direct. One resident questioned the collaboration with the federal government and the use of technologies that, he said, could facilitate access to data by immigration agencies.
“The Council claims to be progressive, but continues to collaborate with the federal regime… considering accepting money to build a network that integrates personal and business chambers into a surveillance system "Ready for ICE," he stated.
Patrick Cogut, an Asheville resident, focused his comments on how tech companies handle data. “The business model… isn’t public safety, it’s the data,” he said. “We, the people of Asheville, are the product.”
The surveillance technology that is already in operation in Asheville and Buncombe
In North Carolina, 108 law enforcement agencies use ALPRs, according to the “Surveillance Atlas”, an EFF database.
According to this data, these systems are already widely implemented in Buncombe County and the city of Asheville.
The Buncombe County Sheriff's Office operates at least 20 license plate readers from the company Flock Safety, while local police departments also use this technology: Black Mountain has five devices and Biltmore Forest has two.
In Asheville, police also use automatic license plate readers that store data for up to 30 days, in addition to body cameras, drones, and other surveillance systems.
Added to this is the real-time monitoring infrastructure :
- The Sheriff's Office has been using the FUSUS platform since 2022, a system that allows the integration of images from public and private cameras into a single network.
- The Asheville Police Department, for its part, has already invested in equipment for a real-time intelligence center, with approved expenditures of around $325,000 in 2025. as reported by BPR.
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