ASHEVILLE — Buncombe County does not own the Vance Monument or the prominent downtown spot on which it sits, but elected county leaders said April 6 that they have a stake in what will replace it. Buncombe's Board of Commissioners voted 6-1 at a regular meeting to pay half the estimated $70,000 to gather community input and plan for what will go on the western edge of Pack Square Plaza, the spot now occupied by the monument to locally-born Civil War governor and slave owner Zebulon Vance. Asheville owns the site under the 75-foot granite obelisk, and after a March 23 City Council vote, plans to remove the monument. The decision came after years of calls by activists and unprecedented racial justice protests in 2020.