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ASHEVILLE - Former high-ranking Buncombe County elected official Ellen Frost has been sentenced to six months in prison for corruption.
The sentence was unexpected following a plea deal with prosecutors who recommended no prison time. U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Conrad imposed the punishment April 28 for the former Buncombe County Board of Commissioners Democratic vice chair, saying the case was unusual in that she did not gain monetarily, but that it had the very serious nature of local government corruption.
In the plea deal reached earlier this year, Frost admitted to conspiring with ex-County Manager Wanda Greene to misapply more than $575,000 of taxpayer s funds toward equestrian enterprises. In return, prosecutors agreed to recommend home confinement. They also agreed to give her a special avenue to appeal, though it was not clear after the hearing if she would.
ASHEVILLE - A former lieutenant governor candidate, a long-time top county elected official and an influential racial justice scholar are asking a federal judge for leniency in the sentencing of ex-county Commissioner Ellen Frost, who was convicted of corruption.
The dozen letters from former lieutenant governor candidate Terry Van Duyn, ex-Buncombe County Board of Commissioners Chair David Gantt, UNC Asheville political science professor emeritus Dwight Mullen and others were submitted by Frost s attorney in advance of her April 28 sentencing by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Conrad in Asheville. Ellen Frost ran for the right reasons and worked hard to make Buncombe County a better place. I hope during your deliberations, you will find it possible to take into consideration the good she did while serving Buncombe County, said Van Duyn, who served seven years as a Democratic North Carolina state senator from Buncombe.
ASHEVILLE - The city s nationally recognized initiative to repair more than a century of harm done by slavery and discrimination will begin in earnest this spring with a first phase dedicated to truth telling, according to a timeline laid out by City Manager Debra Campbell
The first phase of Asheville s reparations initiative, one of three planned by Campbell, is integral to the process, Vice Mayor Sheneika Smith said March 3. Smith urged patience and grace by community members who have called for a quicker start. I believe a lot of community members are self-performing because they feel that we have taken so long to come up with a process, Smith, one of three Black City Council members, said a week after Campbell set the timeline.
Juanita Wilson / Buncombe County Special Collections, Pack Memorial Library, Asheville, NC
Six months ago, as part of a reckoning on racial injustice, the City of Asheville and Buncombe County both passed resolutions to consider reparations to the Black community as a way to begin making amends for slavery and generations of systemic discrimination.
The votes were hailed as “historic” by The Asheville Citizen Times, and ABC News asked, “Is Asheville a national model?”
Since then, local officials concede, little has been done. Some in the Black community see zero progress.
“From my understanding, they’ve done nothing,” said Rob Thomas, community liaison for the Racial Justice Coalition.