I don’t often think deeply about the inner workings of the Town of Woodfin, a borough of 8,000 people nestled between Asheville and Weaverville.

That changed last week, and the thought that popped up was, “Just what in the bejesus is going on there with the mayor and town manager?”

What spurred my curiosity was a story Asheville Watchdog published about immigration and whether Buncombe County is a “sanctuary” area. My colleague Peter Lewis, who co-wrote the story, interviewed Woodfin Mayor Jim McCallister.

And he quickly heard from Town Manager Shannon Tuch. This paragraph then appeared in the story:

Shortly after learning that The Watchdog had spoken with McAllister, Tuch called The Watchdog to say the mayor was not authorized to speak on behalf of the Woodfin government. “He does not represent the views of the town,” Tuch said.

Say what? Since when does an elected mayor not represent the views of the town? I mean, isn’t that what they’re elected for — to represent the people?

So I dug into this situation, and I found it’s like when you go to the dentist for a tooth that’s bothering you and the dentist says, “It’s just a small cavity.” Two hours later he’s drilled a small calcium mine in your jaw, you can’t feel your face, and you leave with a bill for 750 bucks and a notice that you need a root canal and a full crown.

Oh, what a painful cavity they’ve got in little Woodfin.

“It’s about as bizarre as anything I’ve ever encountered,” McCallister told me last week.

Some of this dates to April 2024 when McCallister confirmed to a local media outlet that the then-police chief was no longer on the payroll. McCallister told me Tuch was out of town, the rumor mill was running at warp speed, and he decided to divulge the simple fact that the chief was no longer employed, as it was public information.

Apparently, that did not go over well with the manager or some members of the town council, according to McCallister.

But the beans really hit the fan last September when  McCallister held two impromptu news conferences at the town hall after Helene. McAllister had also pushed Tuch and the town police department to address road closures that were affecting local businesses, as two owners had reached out to him to complain about lost business.

As you may recall, in Helene’s immediate aftermath, state and local authorities were telling everyone to stay off the roads, as many were washed out or closed. So the Woodfin town council and its manager were unhappy with McCallister for drawing people to town hall, although McCallister maintains most of those townsfolk walked there.

At any rate, on Oct. 15, the town council voted 4-2 to censure McCallister for “repeatedly” violating the town’s Code of Conduct and Ethics. The censure stated McCallister violated the code by holding the news conferences, directly communicating with the Woodfin police department and directing it to take certain actions in the aftermath of Helene, and by providing inaccurate information to a news outlet. (McCallister said he was misquoted on the latter, and the publication updated the article.)

“I asked questions of town manager and police, and I asked probing questions, ‘Why?’” McCallister said. “That’s what a mayor does in a crisis, in my opinion.”

He also told the council and town they should be “ashamed” to be bringing the censure charges, and he noted that Tuch was standing next to him at the second news conference and by the same logic probably should be censured, too.

At the same meeting, the town passed a measure designating the town manager as the sole spokesperson for media inquiries.

You won’t be surprised to hear that McCallister, who spent four decades in corporate management, disputes all of these allegations, although he did admit in the meeting that calling the town hall gatherings “press conferences” was “dumb” and “a mistake.”

I should note that when the council voted to censure McCallister, three of the four who voted in favor of the measure — Vice Mayor Elisabeth Ervin and membersKen Kahn and Hazel Thornton — said they did so “with great sadness.” That’s because, as several noted, McCallister is a high-energy mayor who’s done a lot for the town and cares about its residents and students. 

Councilmember Eric Edgerton simply voted, “Yes.” McCallister noted during the meeting that he and Edgerton have had a “beef” dating back to the police chief matter.

Who should be a town’s primary spokesperson?

During the discussion about making Tuch the sole spokesperson for the town, McCallister stressed that the mayor should be a town’s primary spokesperson.

“The mayor is the person that I believe — I’m very confident that our residents want to hear from, in good times and bad,” McCallister said in the meeting. “It’s hard for me to be that kind of mayor, though, right now, because it is a struggle, and it has been for the last year and a half to know what’s going on.”

McCallister said he’s been shut out of updates and that Tuch will not keep him informed on town projects and actions. After the storm, McCallister said, residents literally were banging on the town hall doors seeking any information, and he was just trying to provide help.

Other than Councilmembers Philip Cohen and Johanna Young, who voted against censure, McCallister lacked support. Cohen expressed concerns about the timing of the measures and suggested an investigation would be appropriate, while Young said her vote spoke for itself.

Councilmember Kahn chastised McCallister for complaining about “not getting an update on schedule you’d prefer” during the storm, saying that did not entitle him to circumvent a then-casual agreement they had to let Tuch speak for the town.

“The second thing is, we are a body, a collective body, and we are supposed to move in one,” Khan said. “We are supposed to be able to trust each other that we are being up front with each other.”

Ervin, the vice mayor, said during the meeting that no one liked the timing of measures they were taking up, as the town was in the midst of responding to a major disaster.

“But as town council we must ensure we speak with one voice,” Ervin said. “As a council we may not all agree, but we are one body, working for and with the Town of Woodfin staff.”

Young said she prefers the town communicate with the media only through news releases.

“It’s not that I don’t trust anyone speaking one way or the other,” Young said. “I just feel press releases are the best way to go.”

Kahn noted that the key is “that everything that you’re able to say to the public is accurate and factual and has been vetted internally, unless it’s matters of pleasantry or non-consequence. To the extent that we can get there, I’ll be a happy councilman.”

The measure to make Tuch the sole media spokesperson for the town passed unanimously, 6-0. As mayor, McCallister votes only in tiebreakers.

I reached out to Tuch via email for comment.

“I’m not sure I’m the best person to speak with on this matter given that it was a council decision,” Tuch responded. “I’m copying our town attorney who may be able to help you.”

I replied, “You are the point person for town communications, though, right?”

Hey, I can’t help myself.

Let me pause to note here that I find the town council’s approach to communicating with the media stilted at best, ridiculous at worst. Since when are individual members of an elected body not allowed to have differing opinions? And are discouraged from speaking their minds? Should councils really move in lockstep on all issues?

One council member suggested reporters should have to submit questions in writing 24 hours in advance. To which I say, “Have you not heard of breaking news?”

As a journalist, I can tell you that emailed questions submitted in advance often lead to contrived answers, or just no replies. Live interviews are always best.

For this story, I’ll admit that I emailed a list of questions to all six councilmembers, as I suspected none wanted to talk about these matters. None replied, although the town attorney did.

McCallister saw the censure and the ensuing designation of Tuch as official spokesperson as a way to “muzzle” him. He told me last week that this whole matter “appears to be a very, very personal issue, in my opinion.”

“I can’t find anything else that would be behind it,” he said. “I am a nice guy, but I am a Scorpio, and I do piss people off from time to time. I do my best to be a team player. I’ve got a pretty good 40-year-plus track record of doing that in the corporate world, so I’m a little taken aback here.”

I’ll note that town council members said their votes were not personal. They just want the town to give out accurate, appropriate information.

A festering problem, according to some

For his part, Councilmember Edgerton explained in the meeting why the censure measure and media spokesperson issue were being brought up just a couple of weeks after a historically damaging storm.

“So the answer to that question is because we’ve been dealing with the problem for a year now,” Edgerton said. “We’ve been dealing with a specific problem of the mayor making statements or taking actions that are either inaccurate or inconsistent with the guidance of the subject matter experts.””

Edgerton said encouraging people to attend a news conference right after the storm endangered the public and contravened official dispatches.

In an interview last week, Edgerton stressed that the town took the steps it did to ensure the public safety, and the accuracy of statements coming from the town.

“In my view, the two biggest goals that we need to be fulfilling in any town official communications are, 1. Being accurate. And then, 2. Making sure that our communications further would fit strategic interests,” said Edgerton, who works as an attorney for the city of Asheville. “And based on those two goals, I felt that it was appropriate and necessary to have our town manager serve that role as spokesperson.”

For now, McCallister says he’s being more careful about what he says to the media, but the town’s actions do not prevent him from speaking his mind. 

“All I have to do, and all you can make me do, legally, is say the words, ‘I’m not the official town spokesperson. Shannon Tuch is,” McCallister said during that Oct. 15 meeting. “But if they said, “Well, can you still answer some questions?’ I am free to say, ‘Yes. What are your questions?’ And that’s how this is going to work. Because that’s what the people want.”

The legal perspective

John Henning, the town attorney for Woodfin, said McCallister is not being muzzled in any legal sense, and he noted the censure essentially recognizes a formal disagreement and “really doesn’t have any further legal teeth than that.” The town council has its own speech rights, and it has the legal authority to appoint designated spokespersons, as many municipalities do.

“I understand a lot of folks assume a mayor to be elected to speak on behalf of the town,” Henning told me. “That’s not really true as a legal matter. Mayors in the state of North Carolina, unless their charters say something different, don’t have a lot of inherent authority to do many things.”

This is true. Most local governments in North Carolina are council-manager systems, and just about all mayors in the state are “weak mayors,” meaning that they largely have ceremonial powers and conduct council meetings. In North Carolina, town and city councils set policy and priorities for the professional managers to carry out.

Kristina Wilson, an assistant professor of public law and government at the School of Government at UNC-Chapel Hill, said that in North Carolina, “no individual is empowered to represent the town.

“Individual council members and the mayor on their own have no legal power whatsoever,” Wilson said via email. “In other words, no single council member or mayor can do anything on behalf of the town without a majority of the board authorizing that action. So, the mayor is not legally allowed to be the town spokesperson or speak on behalf of the town, unless authorized by formal majority vote of the council.”

Council members’ and the mayor’s power “comes from their ability to vote as a collective. They have zero individual power,” Wilson said.

Regarding free speech, Wilson said the Supreme Court “has long held that the government can limit its own speech.

“The First Amendment is designed to limit the government’s power to restrict the public’s speech,” Wilson said. “It fully allows the government to limit its own speech, and by extension, the speech of public employees and public officials to some extent.”

But what about democracy?

Still, the town’s actions bug me, as a journalist and a free speech advocate. I like to be able to call up a mayor and ask questions, or text and email them.

I’ve been doing this for three decades, because they are the elected representatives of their community, and they and council members should be held accountable to voters. It’s good for democracy for towns to sometimes (or often, really) speak with multiple voices, especially before deciding on an issue.

Chastising elected members for speaking their minds or insisting on a monolithic response to media questions smacks of Big Brother. And it’s bad for democracy.

“It is bad for democracy,” Western Carolina University political scientist Chris Cooper told me. “It’s OK to have disagreement, and it’s unrealistic to think everybody who’s elected is going to have the same voice.”

Cooper noted that Woodfin’s town charter states the mayor “shall be the official head of town government.”

In a way, designating the town manager as the only official media spokesperson also turns the organizational chart onto its head, Cooper and I agreed. As with most towns and cities in North Carolina, Woodfin’s org chart shows the mayor and council above the town manager. In short, they’re the manager’s boss, with the power to hire and fire that person.

Yes, McCallister is technically a “weak mayor,” but that doesn’t mean town residents don’t look to him for information and leadership. Mayors certainly have a right to express their beliefs and opinions, Cooper said, “as long as they don’t overstep their bounds.”

“Mayors do this all the time,” Cooper said. “Click on social media and (you’ll) see small town mayors weighing in on everything from Donald Trump’s presence at the race the other week to immigration policy.”

Of course, the vote is the true power over who will be able to speak to the public, and McCallister notes that three town council seats are up for election in November.

“And all I’ve been telling people is I need two of you to step up and run for council,” McCallister told me. “We can fix this in November. Between now and then, I’m a stand-by mayor. I’ve been blocked from doing anything and saying anything.”

Woodfin had a sea change in its last elections, and McCallister rode that into office on what was an exceptionally high turnout for Woodfin. He’s not up for reelection for another two years.

I suspect this November’s election will be a hot one.

Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.

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