Trial Continued to 2024

Hey y’all! We’re writing with some updates on the “felony littering” trial, a chance to communicate with Parks and Recreation, and updates on Asheville’s criminalization of asking for help, aka “the panhandling ordinance.”

The “Felony Littering” Trial: Late January at the Earliest

Last month, a trial date of November 13 was tentatively set. This week, a motion for continuance was granted, and the trial is now expected to start between late January and early March of 2024. This motion to continue was filed by the defense, because one of the two attorneys representing the first two folks to face trial had only just received discovery. “Discovery” in this case is about a terabyte of data, because of the intensity of police surveillance and the huge number of community members targeted (though 16 of us were charged, many more than 16 people were targeted, and the discovery includes records of these investigations).

January 2024 will also mark a full two years that we as community members have been facing criminalization, retaliation, and bans from public parks.

“The Panhandling Ordinance”

Since first we shared about this, we have watched members of City Council and the City Attorney clearly realizing that most of the criminalization measures they were proposing are actually illegal, as well as wildly unpopular with everyone except the extreme pro-police/anti-care group. At this point, they are left doing what they always do, which is relying on the police department to take data that by their own admission shows nothing in particular and make it look like asking for money causes car crashes. You can read about it all here.

Parks and Recreation Would Like Your Opinion

Asheville Parks and Recreation just launched a “Recreate Asheville” initiative, and they are asking for public input on the future vision for our public parks. Let’s join together and remind them that PARKS ARE FOR EVERYONE! There is a survey and will be several open house events that give us an opportunity to tell the city to lift the unconstitutional park bans, and let us utilize our public parks, which are supposed to be hubs for everyone in the community, to meet community needs.

Not only have we as mutual aid workers who’ve received felony littering charges (but not been convicted of anything) been banned from all city parks for three years, but we learned that many other of our neighbors have been banned as well. If it’s anything like what happened to us, they may not have even have been made aware of their bans and likely did not have the opportunity to appeal them. 

We believe parks are part of the commons: land and resources that belong to all of us.

Many neighborhoods in Asheville have parks and community centers that should offer all an opportunity to gather in community, play together, and share our resources so that everyone can have their needs met. This will offer us all a safer, healthier, and more deeply interconnected community.

Asheville, as always, has prioritized our well-resourced neighbors, making parks a place in which it’s illegal to sleep, even when there are no other places to go. They’ve made it illegal for some people to be there at all.

Let’s “recreate” our parks into an environment where community care can thrive.

Some asks when you’re filling out the survey (which is long but you get a chance to actually say real things in Question 24, and you can skip any of the ones before that):

• Designating supported camping locations

• Lifting all unconstitutional park bans and removing the park ban policy

• Making our parks a hub for meeting community needs (as you see them! please feel free to add your dreams and reply to share those with us if you want!)

We can imagine food distribution, connection to health care resources, places where parents and caregivers can find resources to support our youth, youth programs, community gardens, a place for healers to share, a place for art to be built…and on and on. Public space is for the public good!