Woodfin Mayor Jerry VeHaun set to retire, reflects on 20 years in office

WOODFIN - Mayor Jerry VeHaun sat at his desk in Town Hall and pointed at a black and white picture on a shelf in the corner of the room.

The picture showed Woodfin residents voting on the town’s incorporation during a special election June 29, 1971. It was a vote to escape from Asheville’s tentacles, keeping Woodfin from becoming subsumed by the big city on its border.

VeHaun remembers the election. He voted for incorporation. For the past two decades, he worked to protect Woodfin from becoming Asheville’s outgrowth. According to census data, 8,072 people reside in Woodfin.

“What Asheville has, we don’t want,” is one of his go-to sayings.

But this year, for the first time since 2003, VeHaun’s name will not appear on the Woodfin mayoral ballot. The 80-year-old licensed mortician, former Buncombe County Emergency Services director and lifelong public servant will retire when his term ends in December.

“This being my 20th year doing this, I just decided, enough is enough,” VeHaun said July 6 to the Citizen Times. “Not that I haven’t enjoyed it. It’s not a hard task to be mayor here … like any small town.”

By the end of VeHaun’s tenure, he became part man and part institution. His staff looks to him for history about the town he grew up in. VeHaun’s childhood home was in the middle of what is now Interstate 26. His Rolodex is notorious. It seems like anyone at any level of government is one or two phone calls away.

He has led Woodfin through more than a third of its existence, trying his best to insulate the town from urbanization.

“I don’t like to see a lot of construction or houses built on tiny lots. I think they should all at least be a quarter acre,” VeHaun said.

When VeHaun walks out the door, so will a piece of Woodfin’s history, one of the final guardians of its founding principles.

A career public servant

VeHaun’s introduction to public service started when he earned his mortician license in 1964. “At that, the funeral homes all ran the ambulances,” he said. “Every funeral home had one or more ambulances, and they covered the county.”

The state eventually doled out grant money, and ambulances became government operated. “When the state first took over the ambulances, the only certification you had to have was a Red Cross first aid card,” he said.

VeHaun started working with emergency services when the county took over operation. He became Emergency Management Services director of Buncombe County in December 1972, bringing the program into the modern era. He worked with Buncombe County when they implemented the 911 line. VeHaun retired from that position in 2019.

He says he stuck with the job because he liked the challenge, but VeHaun does not boast. Tell those who know him that “Jerry VeHaun is not a self-expressive man,” and many chuckled in agreement.

VeHaun was a part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response team. As a mortician, he traveled to disaster areas with the federal government and prepared the dead.

VeHaun explained that FEMA has a team that recovers bodies and treats them in temporary morgues.

The first and only time VeHaun visited New York was when planes hit the Twin Towers Sep. 11, 2001. His team set up half a block from ground zero. “They would bring whoever they found in the rubble over to that temporary morgue,” he said. His team treated the bodies and sent them to the city morgue.

At the site of the bloodiest terrorist attack in the nation’s history, VeHaun stayed even. Confronted with the dead fished out of the crumbled towers, he focused on his duty. “You realize that it’s got to be done,” he said. “You don’t think about the downside of it. You could very easily. You just proceed on to do whatever the job required.”

VeHaun remembers marveling at a truck bearing the name of a construction company based in Robbinsville. The truck was a representative of Western North Carolina there to assist during the nation’s darkest moment.

Elected following a scandal

Woodfin residents initially elected VeHaun in 2003, ousting the incumbent Homer Honeycutt with 62% of the vote. Honeycutt earned the ire of locals for suggesting in a taped conversation that he could fix traffic tickets according to previous Citizen Times reporting. Honeycutt had also cut taxes by 12 cents per $100; it was 40 cents per $100 prior to the reduction.

“For us in the Police Department, we didn’t feel we had the support of the mayor at the time,” Woodfin Police Chief Michael Dykes said July 6 to the Citizen Times. He started working with the department as a patrol officer in 2000. His office is just a few doors away from VeHaun’s. “Knowing VeHaun’s work at the county ... we thought it would be a good fit for us, and it has been.”

VeHaun promised more support for the Police Department at the time and ultimately earned the town’s vote. “People wanted a change, and I’m glad I’m the person,” VeHaun said after winning the race.

‘A joker’

The nature of working in emergency services is grisly. Professionals are called during the worst moment of someone’s life, in a time of dire need. It is a mentally taxing job. VeHaun always has his opinions and has no issue voicing them or sticking to them.

“Jerry can be a little difficult to work for,” said Dykes. “But he’s great to work with. He’s demanding. When he wants something, he wants it a certain way, but when you get on the same page, it’s a breeze.”

Even though he asks for a lot, and worked in high stakes situations, VeHaun taught his staff to go about their work with humor.

“That’s one thing Jerry taught us,” said Cathy Coomer, who worked as a safety manager for Buncombe County for 31 years until retiring in 2020. “We work hard and we have to play hard. So you have to put some humor in where you can find it. Sometimes people on the outside don’t understand that. They take that as him not being sincere about those issues. But I think that’s his way of dealing with death and destruction.”

No one was safe from VeHaun’s pranks, not even the local Police Department. Dykes remembers locking his keys in his car one day and calling the Fire Department so they could unlock the car. Somehow VeHaun got wind of Dykes’ conundrum.

“Anybody that knows anything will call Jerry and tell him because they know he’s going to blow it up,” said Coomer.

Next thing Dykes knows, the Fire Department pulls up to his car with lights and sirens blazing.

“I get back to the office and he’s up here and asking ‘So, did you lock your keys in your car?’” Dykes said. VeHaun doesn’t remember this prank but concedes, “If the thought had crossed my mind, it could have been.” He does not pass up opportunities for a laugh.

But VeHaun’s staff got him back. According to Coomer, former Buncombe County Tax Administrator Gary Roberts bought a chicken and locked it in VeHaun’s EMS office. Roberts wore a three-piece suit to the office. Coomer referred to him as “Mr. GQ.” So when VeHaun opened his door to find chicken excrement scattered around his office, Roberts was the last person he would expect.

Coomer says Roberts kept this from VeHaun for years while VeHaun sought to exact his revenge. “He paid everybody back he thought could have done it,” Coomer said.

Roberts kept the secret until he was about to retire. Coomer implored him to come clean: “I said you have to tell him. And so I made him come to our office and everybody gathered around.” Once the secret was out, Coomer said “Jerry was totally blown away.”

“If anyone tells you Jerry VeHaun is not a joker, then they don’t know him,” Dykes said.

A new brand of politics in Woodfin

Woodfin’s mayor has limited power. The mayor only votes when the Town Council is deadlocked. VeHaun says he has voted only twice during his tenure.

Josh Blade, a Woodfin resident who previously declared his mayoral candidacy, told the Citizen Times July 7 that those limitations caused him to instead run for Town Council.

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VeHaun says that he uses his role to present items under consideration to Woodfin’s residents. He considers the Woodfin Greenway, which will connect Asheville’s greenway to Woodfin along the French Broad River, one of his greatest accomplishments. He needed to convince Woodfin residents to approve a 5.6 cent per $100 property tax increase to pay for the bond that partially funded the project. The money also went to funding for Riverside Park and the Whitewater Wave, a human-made rapid in the middle of the French Broad.

But over the past few years, Woodfin has become younger and its Town Council has become more progressive, departing from VeHaun’s brand of conservatism, which he acknowledges. He has found himself on the opposing side of hot button issues. In November 2022, the council voted to tighten restrictions on short term rentals.

“I don’t have an issue with them. Even though where I live, on the right side of me, the left side of me, diagonally across the street, they’re all Airbnbs. So I have different neighbors about every night,” VeHaun said.

Some Woodfin residents have also been frustrated with two major developments proposed to be built on its steep slope sides.

“I felt like it was their right to do whatever they want to do as long as they met the zoning requirements,” VeHaun said about each development. “I couldn’t fault residents for not wanting any development there. But on the other hand, I had to think about the developer’s rights. I had to look at both sides of the issue.”

Woodfin Vice Mayor Jim McAllister is running to take VeHaun’s spot. The career salesman who grew up in Alabama and moved to North Carolina from Austin wants to be a cheerleader and liaison for Woodfin, but he has ambitions to open the town up for more commerce.

“There is no reason we can’t have other things that towns have,” McAllister said to the Citizen Times July 5. “We don’t have ballfields. We don’t have a public swimming pool. We don’t have a stretch of businesses where I can take my great nieces and nephews to get an ice cream cone. We don’t have a bank. We don’t have a grocery store. I’m not saying I’m going to go out and try to recruit Ingles. We have one on each side of town. The people of Woodfin deserve the kinds of businesses that make up a real community.”

If he wins, McAllister said he plans to serve only one term.

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“I hope Jim realizes that people in Woodfin may be different from people in Texas,” VeHaun said about McAllister. “You can’t come in here and completely change a town or a neighborhood without agitating the citizens, and if it’s not necessary, I don’t think it ought to be done.”

VeHaun said he doesn’t know if McAllister wants to make dramatic changes to his hometown. He also acknowledged that there isn’t a place in Woodfin to buy an ice cream cone.

What comes next

Woodfin’s mayoral filing deadline will close July 21, officially ending VeHaun’s run.

He said he wants to travel during his retirement but isn’t completely sure where. VeHaun mentioned a train trip up the West Coast and into Canada and returning to New York to see the 911 memorial.

VeHaun said he will miss “working with the staff and working with the citizens” as he closes the book on his half century of public service.

Mitchell Black covers Buncombe County and healthcare for the Citizen Times. Email him at mblack@citizentimes.com or follow him on Twitter @MitchABlack. Please help support local journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Woodfin Mayor Jerry VeHaun to retire after 20 years in office