Asheville’s downtown, River Arts District, South Slope and other cultural areas are not simply visitor destinations. They are workplaces.

Artists, performers, venue employees and other arts and hospitality workers frequently work evenings and weekends. Cultural organizations and creative businesses also depend on audiences and visitors feeling comfortable attending performances, exhibitions and events.

Public safety can therefore affect attendance, visitor spending, employees, business operations and the continued recovery of the local creative economy after Helene.

The Asheville Police Department remains significantly below its authorized staffing level. As of March 2026, APD reported 172 sworn officers against 232 authorized positions. Staffing affects not only emergency response but investigations, proactive policing, downtown presence and community policing.

At the same time, Asheville is using approaches beyond traditional policing. The Asheville Downtown Improvement District (ADID) provides supplemental services funded by downtown property owners, including a Community Ambassador program focused on hospitality, cleanliness, public-space monitoring and connecting situations to the appropriate responder. ADID does not replace APD; it reflects the idea that not every problem in a public space requires a police response.

ADID and its partners have also developed a “Who to Call, When?” guide that helps downtown businesses, workers and residents distinguish among situations requiring 911, APD’s non-emergency line, Community Ambassadors, City services, homeless-service resources and behavioral-health crisis support. The guide reflects a broader approach to public safety in which different types of problems are directed to the responders best equipped to address them.

Public safety has also become intertwined with a significant debate over surveillance technology and privacy.

APD has used Flock Safety automated license plate readers to capture vehicle and license-plate information that can be searched during investigations. Police argue that the technology helps locate stolen vehicles, identify suspects and find missing or endangered people. Critics have raised concerns about tracking people’s movements, data sharing, government surveillance and whether locally collected information could ultimately be accessed for purposes such as federal immigration enforcement.

On August 25, Asheville City Council voted to terminate the City’s Flock contract, stop accessing or sharing data through the system and remove the cameras.

But ending Flock does not end the larger debate. APD uses other technology, including Axon automated license plate readers, leaving Asheville with an unresolved question:

What investigative technologies should police be allowed to use, and what privacy, data-sharing and oversight safeguards should govern them?

Buncombe County plays a major public-safety role that extends well beyond the Sheriff’s Office and County detention facility.

Buncombe County Justice Services manages programs spanning pre-arrest diversion through reentry, including Pretrial Services, Treatment Courts, the Justice Resource Center, and Jail Diversion and Reentry Services.

Behavioral health and substance use are particularly important parts of this work. The County’s Jail Diversion and Reentry Services connect people whose mental-health or substance-use needs contribute to justice involvement with treatment and community services. The County also supports overdose response, recovery services and programs intended to reduce repeated involvement with the criminal-justice system.

This matters because many issues experienced as public-safety problems on Asheville streets eventually intersect with County systems—detention, behavioral-health and substance-use treatment, diversion, courts, pretrial services and reentry.

The City and County therefore have different but interconnected responsibilities. Asheville is largely responsible for policing and conditions in City public spaces; Buncombe County operates or supports many of the systems that determine what happens when people enter—or can be diverted from—the criminal-justice system.

Public safety is not simply a choice between more policing and more social services. Asheville and Buncombe County are grappling with how to rebuild law-enforcement capacity and reduce gun violence while also strengthening behavioral-health, substance-use, diversion and other responses that can prevent repeated involvement with the criminal-justice system.

At the same time, Asheville must determine what role surveillance and investigative technologies should play—and what privacy, data-sharing and oversight protections should accompany them.

Underlying all of this is a regional challenge: the City and County control different pieces of the public-safety system, so many of the most difficult problems require them to work together.

For the arts and cultural sector, the goal is a community where people can live, work, gather and participate in cultural life safely, while public spaces remain welcoming and accessible.