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For the women of Yoncalla, Oregon, “Old Pete” may have been the last straw,and the thing that galvanized their astonishing rise to power.

Drunk on his horse, Pete, barged into a barbershop and demanded the animalbe given a shave. City councilmen laughed. But women saw it as another ex-ample of boozing and mismanagement that plagued the shoddily run westerntown. In 1920, an all-female ticket won the council and, reportedly, made Yon-calla a much more livable place.

Like the few other all-women governments that appeared in the late 1880sand early 1900s, Yoncalla was an anomaly in the male-dominated country.Those eff�orts sprang out of exasperation with ineptitude and a sense that some-one had to do something about it.

It can be hard now to see those early frontier suff�ragette roots in today’s poli-tics. While women still make up only about a quarter of Congress, a female may-or is no longer that notable. When the Nov. 3 City Council elections producedAsheville’s fi�rst all-female governing body it almost slipped by unnoticed — as itshould have, said Mayor Esther Manheimer.

“Since cities were created, having an all-male council was not and is notnewsworthy, so I look forward to the day when the same is true of an all-femalecouncil,” said Manheimer, an attorney and Asheville’s third female mayor sincethe city’s 1797 founding.

Some, like Manheimer, see heavy focus on gender as a distraction from themerits of individual representatives.

“Everyone worked hard to win their seat, and all the new members have spenta great deal of time serving the city through their volunteer board service andcommunity activism,” she said. “That means they come to the position with agreat deal of knowledge and strong relationships and will be able to hit the

All-women City Council:A new viewpoint

Joel Burgess Asheville Citizen Times | USA TODAY NETWORK

Asheville offi�cials ‘will work hard to move us forward’

See WOMEN, Page 10A

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Twenty-fi�ve Asheville Fire Depart-ment fi�refi�ghters are currently in quar-antine after either testing positive forCOVID-19 or being deemed a close con-tact to someone who tested positivefor the virus, according to AshevilleFire Chief Scott Burnette.

Seventeen of them have tested pos-itive for COVID-19, while the othereight are quarantining.

“One (positive test) is one toomany,” Chief Burnette said. “... We areseeing nationally and at a state levelan unbelievable increase in COVIDcases. So, for us to also have an in-crease, unfortunately is not surpris-ing.”

Scott Mullins, president of theAsheville Fire Fighters Association,agreed with Burnette.

“I’m not surprised that there arethat many fi�refi�ghters who have testedpositive for COVID-19 despite takingevery precaution,” Burnette said.“We’re doing what we’re supposed tobe doing.”

AFD held a driver operator certifi�ca-tion Oct. 26 at the Buncombe CountyEmergency Services Training Centerin Woodfi�n. Twenty-four fi�refi�ghtersparticipated in the training - nine ofwhich have tested positive for CO-VID-19. Seven others also are in quar-antine for being a close contact.

The certifi�cation is designed to trainfi�refi�ghters on driving and operatingthe fi�re truck, according to Burnette.Operating the truck includes pumpingand operating the aerial. Burnettewouldn’t say whether the class was thesource for the outbreak within the de-partment.

“Buncombe County Public Healthreviews all of the COVID-19 positivedata within Buncombe County andthey make those determinations interms of sources and things like that,”Burnette said.

“There has been an increase incases all over North Carolina and ourpeople (fi�refi�ghters) are exposedmore,” Mullins said. “It’s hard to saywhere our fi�refi�ghters picked it up frombecause we respond to COVID calls ev-ery day.”

Despite the outbreak, Burnette saidfi�refi�ghters in the training didn’t re-spond to any service calls.

“None of the fi�refi�ghters who werein that training, were on trucks an-swering calls,” Burnette said. “Theclass hadn’t been completed yet andwhen you’re in that training you arenot assigned to a truck. You’re not do-ing both.”

Since the pandemic began in mid-March, AFD has had 29 of its 276 fi�re-fi�ghters to test positive for COVID-19,including 17 since Nov. 1.

Despite the increase in positivetests and the number of fi�refi�ghters inquarantine, the minimum of four fi�re-

25 AFDfi�refi�ghtersnow inquarantine

See FIREFIGHTERS, Page 4A

Some test positive orwere near someonewith COVID-19Eric NarcisseAsheville Citizen Times

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