For years, people in Asheville have asked for a festival during Pride month.

The city’s largest annual Pride festival, Blue Ridge Pride, traditionally happens in September which has disappointed some people looking to celebrate Pride on the June anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising.

AVL Stonewall Fest debuts this weekend with three days of music, drag performances and dance parties to downtown Asheville.

The festival centers the importance of Pride celebrations at a time when transgender rights are facing renewed political challenges, said Thompson.

“This year, it finally just clicked,” Thompson said. “Many people were asking for it and the political climate that has been going on in the last couple of years has just really taken a turn. I felt it was important that we really show up.”

state lawrestrictfederal inquiry into Buncombe County’s bathroom policy for transgender students.

“This is not a time to be violent but it's a very big time to be vocal,” Thompson told BPR. “We need to educate more people about what’s going on within the political system and how we're, I think, sometimes being used as scapegoats in a lot of ways just to rally up more fear amongst certain people.”

Stonewall Uprisingfirst-ever Pride celebration in New York City the following year.

For Thompson, connecting Asheville’s Pride celebration to Stonewall felt important as both a celebration and a reminder of how much work remains.

“We're actually going to have a banner where people can write messages about Stonewall,” Thompson said. “We'll be reading our Stonewall manifesto that we wrote which is all about taking back control of our voices.”

The activities begin Friday with an opening party at The Radical Hotel, followed by a Stonewall drag show at O.Henry’s. The main festival runs Saturday from 2-8 p.m. at Asheville Yards and will feature local drag performer Devin Divine, as emcee and a musical performance from Lyric. On Sunday, festivities will close out with a drag show and a dance party at Banks Ave.

Thompson said he hopes attendees leave feeling welcomed, included and more aware of Asheville’s LGBTQ community.

“We're trying to be inclusive. We're trying to give people the opportunity to come out and live their authentic lives and not be hidden in the closet, as we say, because of fear,” he said. “You shouldn't have to fear who you are.”

The Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority approved its annual budget Wednesday, outlining how it plans to spend an estimated $34.5 million dollars in tourism tax revenue during the upcoming fiscal year.

a law that puts new limits on the use of such funds, which are paid by visitors in the form of occupancy taxes every time they stay at commercial lodging such as a hotel or vacation rental.

By law, Buncombe TDA is required to spend two-thirds of the county’s occupancy tax revenue on tourism promotion and administrative expenses. The remaining one-third must be spent on community capital projects.

Since the TDA is anticipating $34.5 million in total occupancy tax revenue for the 2027 fiscal year, the budget passed Wednesday puts two-thirds of that amount, or $23 million, toward its operating budget, which includes tourism promotion and administrative expenses.

The TDA is using $4.1 million from its existing fund balance to help fund this year’s operating budget, bringing the total to $27.1 million.

Tourism Product Development Fund (TPDF)Legacy Investment from Tourism (LIFT) fund.

The funds are open for applications for projects in alternating years. With the inclusion of money that was previously allocated to the program, about $12 million in funding is available for the latest round of LIFT projects, which will be decided in September.

here.

New law governs tourism tax spending

Senate Bill 484, bars local governments from spending occupancy tax dollars on traditional government services like public safety and education.

use some of that money for affordable housing. But Vic Isley, president and CEO of the Buncombe County TDA, said that’s currently not an option.

“I think Senate Bill 484 makes it very clear that you can’t use occupancy tax in the state of North Carolina for that purpose,” Isley told BPR in an interview after Wednesday’s TDA meeting.

Isley didn’t weigh in on whether the law should be changed. She noted that over the past 25 years, the TDA has invested nearly $110 million in tourism-related projects benefiting both locals and visitors.

“It’s a very broad use, from greenways and parks to baseball fields and soccer fields that families here use, as well as attracting events from outside the county,” Isley said.

voted on the legislation earlier this month, two Buncombe Democrats — state Reps. Lindsey Prather and Brian Turner — voted “no,” while state Rep. Eric Ager voted in favor.

was the lone “no” vote.

In an email to BPR, Mayfield said she voted against the measure because she believes lawmakers should allow the expanded use of occupancy taxes rather than further limiting them.

“Communities have different needs related to tourism, as evidenced by the variety in local bills authorizing occupancy taxes, and those communities should have more flexibility to use the dollars where they are most needed to support tourism — such as public safety, beach renourishment, affordable housing — than this bill allows,” Mayfield said. “In Asheville, for instance, it would be helpful if some of our millions of occupancy tax dollars could be used to help build affordable housing for hospitality workers or otherwise help reduce their cost of living so they could actually live in the community in which they work.”

state Supreme Court decision last month allowing coastal Currituck County to use its occupancy tax dollars on things like law enforcement, fire and emergency response.

passed a separate measure last week that would grant Currituck an exemption from the sweeping state legislation, allowing the county to spend occupancy tax dollars on public safety and other services — “the very issue that prompted the legislation to prohibit it,” Mayfield noted.

“So you might say, ‘Well, it's easy to get an exception so what's the big deal?’’” Mayfield said. “My answer is that these bills are coming now in response to the bigger bill prohibiting certain uses. I think we will see fewer of these going forward.”

a BPR investigationjust eight eligible homeowners — the city has made a major shift in its plans for federal grant funds.

$225 million disaster recovery grantestimated that the money would cover 55 to 65 additional households. Roughly 150 households are eligible for the program, with a total estimated need of $32 million.

No Council member spoke from the dais prior to their vote. Bo Hess was the only member against the move; in a statement to BPR, he said he supported home repair but had concerns over the specifics of the program.

“We have an obligation to make sure we’re using limited disaster dollars where they create the greatest long-term impact,” Hess wrote. “As taxpayers, we have to ask not only whether a program is well-intentioned, but whether it delivers the greatest return for our community. Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per single-family repair through a federal program may not be the most effective use of these scarce disaster funds.”

Many residents and community groups also opposed the shift. To support the single-family repair program, Asheville would take $10 million of federal funding away from infrastructure work and $9.2 million from multifamily construction.

As previously reported by BPRaccording to a city staff reportHousing Recovery BoardInfrastructure Recovery Board, two citizen advisory bodies established by the city in the wake of Helene, supported the move.

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development must now sign off on Asheville’s reallocation. The city estimates that final approval will come sometime in July.

Asheville approves one-year moratorium on data centers

a moratorium on their development.

told Councilhotel moratoriumduring which the city crafted public benefits requirements for new hotels and a specific hotel overlay district.

previously reported by BPRCantonSwain County. Residents have shared concerns over the facilities’ water usage, electricity needs and limited economic benefits for local residents.

Speakers at the public hearing on Asheville’s moratorium largely echoed those worries. Rob Campbell, an energy policy analyst for consultancy EQ Research, added that residential ratepayers often end up shouldering the costs of increased power generation to meet data centers’ demands.

“Data center construction is incentivizing the buildout of additional gas plants in particular,” Campbell said. “Which is not only going to increase rates, but of course it’s going to lead to increased pollution and all sorts of other issues.”

Collins estimated that city staff would begin public engagement on data center regulations sometime in the fall.

Other tidbits

• Threeseparateprojects$3.1 million contract$4.6 million contract amendment authorizes additional spending on a consultant to help manage recovery efforts. The city expects the Federal Emergency Management Agency to cover the bulk of these expenses.
• a 3.72-acre property and a $1.6 million low-interest loan$113,500 for a family of fourAs explained by Sasha Vrtunski, the city’s affordable housing officer, the developer’s loan repayments will be repurposed to provide down-payment assistance for homebuyers; when those owners sell, the city will then recoup those funds for further affordable housing work.
• final conceptual design for the reconstruction of Asheville’s riverfront parks. In response to the impacts of Helene and extensive community input, the plan focuses on “nature-based strategies” such as stormwater wetlands, floodable lawns and open structures to “restore floodplain function, strengthen habitat systems and support long-term stewardship.” Initial estimates place the design’s construction cost at nearly $63.5 million, which could be substantially defrayed by federal grant funding. More detailed design work will continue through at least early 2027. 
• up to $900,000 for the installation and upkeep of Axon Fleet camerasreal-time intelligence center, which has sparked major community pushback over civil liberties and data security concerns.
• passed a resolutionkilled by a vehicle collision in Madison Countyunanimous support of Woodfin’s Town Council in April. It has yet to be formally introduced at the General Assembly.

full recordingdocuments from the June 23 meeting.

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy is celebrating ten years of its ash tree conservation program. The program gives these trees a chance to survive a parasite infestation that would otherwise wipe them out. Since 2016, the organization estimates that ATC has treated 1,398 ash trees.

Across the United States, tens of millions of ash trees have fallen prey to a parasitic beetle called the emerald ash borer.

first found in Michigan, it’s eaten its way through the white ash population in 38 states, including the majority of the trees in North Carolina. It burrows into the tree’s bark, effectively starving it. The ash borer is even more of a threat now because climate change allows the parasites to survive warmer winters.

Ash trees are a vital component of deciduous Blue Ridge forest ecosystems, according to Matt Drury, the lead scientist of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. They’re not the most imposing tree in the forest, but they’re a constant and, prior to the borer, were a dependable part of the ecosystem. White rabbits, porcupines, and white-tailed deer depend on ash trees’ lower-hanging leaves for food, as do 286 species of invertebrate, including many beetles and butterflies. Forty-four of these species depend on ash trees exclusively.

If the ash tree were to disappear, so would the other species that depend on them, Drury said. “And that's kind of that ecological cascade effect.”

Ash aren’t the only trees in danger. Hidden in the shady green canopy of the region’s forests is a desperate struggle for survival for many native tree species, and the creatures that depend on them. Appalachian trees have seen multiple climate threats over the past century, including the oft-told story of the chestnut blight, which nearly eradicated the American chestnut tree in the first half of the twentieth century. There’s also the ongoing, dire threats facing the Eastern hemlock, the American beech and the American elm. Fighting parasites is often a matter of tree-by-tree treatment which has been the ATC’s approach.

Drury has been spending the past decade injecting trees with insecticide, a process the ATC hopes will help the tree survive into the future.

enormous tree blowdowns.

“We actually kept these ash trees alive to throw seed into these areas of canopy loss,” Drury said. “And so they'll be ash trees as a part of this next generation of forest.”

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy works in concert with other agencies and organizations, including MountainTrue and the Forest Service, to treat these trees from Georgia to Vermont. Asheville-based Appalachian Arborists help locally with some of the finer points of tree treatment in both rural and urban settings.

costs about $150 to treat under current methods.

“It's incredibly effective, but it's very expensive and just not sustainable on the large scale,” Blozan said. But, he added, it’s good enough for now. “We have the tools to keep a population alive and in weight and holding for a better solution to come that's not chemical based.”

He hopes that this work proceeds into the future, and will continue to grow and change. He hopes to continue to find cheaper and less chemical-dependent ways to save the trees, such as using biological controls like finding and breeding beetle-resistant trees, or finding and releasing the beetle’s natural predators.