From the boardroom of RiverLink to the desk of Carl Mumpower, and back

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Here’s a fun back-and-forth between RiverLink exec Karen Cragnolin and Asheville City Councilman Carl Mumpower. The set-up is that several weeks ago, Councilman Jan Davis organized an event at Carrier Park to raise money to put up a memorial to the racing that used to occur there. As you know, the old Asheville Speedway drew race fans from near and far for years. Amid controversy, the speedway was sold to RiverLink, which donated it to the city to be used as a city park for ever and ever amen. Davis’ event featured old race car drivers and even a parade of some race cars around the track, which now only serves rollerbladers and bicyclists.

Well, looks like Cragnolin’s peeps didn’t like the ceremony, which included the parade around the track, something they say violated the spirit of a restrictive covenant on the property that expressly prohibits racing there.

In return, Mumpower didn’t appreciate the tone of Cragnolin’s chastisizing note. Read on…

Dear Mayor Bellamy,

In June, the city participated in a fund raising event at Carrier Park on Amboy Road. The purpose of this fundraiser was to raise money for a memorial to commemorate the old Asheville Speedway. You may recall that RiverLink purchased the old speedway in 1999 for $1.1 million dollars and raised additional funds totaling $1.6 million to develop the park into what has become the most used recreational facility in the citywide system.

On the advise of legal council, after numerous protest phone calls from the public and the donors who made this gift possible, and a vote of our board of directors, I have been asked to write to you to request that in the future the City of Asheville respect and enforce the conservation easement which was placed on the property before it was given to the city of Asheville. We made this gift to the city in trust for the visitors and citizen of this community in perpetuity. This property has a restrictive covenant that requires that no motorized racing occur on this property ever again under any circumstance.

This covenant was agreed to by a former city council as a condition of the gift, recorded with the deed conveying the property and runs with the land. Photographs on the Asheville Citizen Times website document racers on the track. In addition, a WLOS TV interview with drivers attending the event document that racecar driving was allowed on the track.

The City, by allowing racecars and racers to speed around the track, has violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the conservation easement and gift. We request that this not be allowed to occur again in the future. Should this occur in the future, RiverLink would be required by the terms of its agreement with the donors and the terms of the conservation easement to take legal action. We hope this was an oversight on the city’s part as a result of your enthusiasm for raising funds for a racing memorial.
Karen Cragnolin
Executive Director of RiverLink

Dear Karen:

I am in receipt of your recent letter to the Mayor referencing concerns with inappropriate use of Carrier Park at a recent racetrack memorial event. I would be amiss if I did not share my disappointment with the insensitivity of your communication and the evident support for such by RiverLink’s governing board, legal counsel, and others.

As you are aware, a large number of folks were disenfranchised by the loss of the New Asheville Speedway and the process surrounding that transition. Councilman Davis has made a yeoman’s effort to heal some of that rift, including the creation of a memorial to the speedway and the related fund raising effort you reference in your letter. As an attendee to that event, it was apparent that progress was being made in moving to a new day and new realities for what is now Carrier Park.

The spontaneous revisit to days past by a measured parade of the display vehicles around the track represented a final wave of good-bye to a place that had been a central focus for a large segment of the community for many years. To aggressively challenge the legality and judgment of this effort and threaten future action on a recurrence lays a heavy hand to a concern calling for a soft word.

The elitism and arrogance of perspective in your letter are, for me personally, a pause for concern Any organization with that attitude of superior entitlements and indifference to others represents a threat versus support toward the balanced evolution of our community.
Carl Mumpower

7 Comments

Ash August 21, 2007 - 12:10 am

Holie, to respond point by point:
1. The letter was not written amicably. Language like: "Should this occur in the future, RiverLink would be required by the terms of its agreement with the donors and the terms of the conservation easement to take legal action" is not friendly terminology.
2. RiverLink could have pressed some kind of charge, but what would it have been? Sauntering around an oval?
3. Mumpower emailed the letter exchange, but any and all correspondence to the mayor, by e-mail or written letter, is a matter of public record by state law.
4. Who cares.
You’re the fool.

Hole-ier than thou August 20, 2007 - 9:07 pm

1 – The letter was written amicably
2 – Riverlink could’ve pressed charges, but didn’t
3 – Mumpower released all this to the press HIMSELF
4 – Karen Cragnolin Park was dedicated to her, not by her

Ya’ll got too much angst, fools.

marc August 17, 2007 - 12:55 am

I hate it when I’m so "amiss" as to be in agreement with Condescending Carl. I’m a cyclist and enjoy the fact that the Mellowdrome is available for its current use, but in no way does a parade lap of motorized vehicles qualify as "racing," either in spirit or in letter. Imagine how much more effective Riverlink could be if it could just find a way to get the idiots at the top to take a "big picture" view for a change.

In the Know August 16, 2007 - 8:38 pm

Has anyone seen the sign on the old Edaco Site on Amboy Rd? "Future home of the Karen Cragnolin Memorial River Park" Kind of full of herself, isn’t she.

Jodi August 16, 2007 - 3:36 pm

Two examples of the self-absorbed narcissism that saturates Asheville. I suppose we’re all guilty of it when we wildly overestimate our place in the world…a habit of AsheVail for the past 10 years or so-

I WasThere August 16, 2007 - 2:15 am

I was at the event and there was no "racecars and racers to speed around the track" as Mrs Cragnolin writes. It was three cars maybe doing 15-20mph in a line for about 3 laps. Riverlink is getting a little to high on themselves.

Weather Watcher August 16, 2007 - 1:33 am

"Any organization with that attitude of superior entitlements and indifference to others represents a threat versus support toward the balanced evolution of our community."

Sounds more like the Asheville City Council to me!

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