Ashville leaders are making plans to celebrate the city’s 200th anniversary next year. At the City Council meeting Monday, Mayor Derrick Mostella expressed interest in forming a committee of businesses and citizens of the community who would like to participate closely with city events like this.

Mostella is also hoping to set a schedule at the beginning of the new year of all of the events within 2022. He shared that he believes it will lead to more citizens planning to stay in Ashville to celebrate holidays, instead of them leaving to go celebrate in other places.

The council is considering clearing off a field that is owned by the city. They are interested in seeing what sort of recreation it could offer. Mostella shared he believes that building more outdoor recreational areas might bring in more families to live within the city.

“Some new ball fields would help the resident growth that we crave. That residential growth will then spur the retail and commercial growth,” said Mostella.

Also at Monday’s meeting, the council approved purchasing an Automatic External Defibriallator (AED) for $1,625. It will be placed in a sports complex within the city. They are also hoping to provide training to use the device to board members, coaches, concession workers or anyone else who might need to use it.

The council discussed the need for another police car, but the conversation was tabled for the next meeting. Mostella believes the issue can wait, but he is hoping to gather more information about what the exact current conditions of the police cars are.

Finally, the council approved the creation of a separate bank account for the American Rescue Fund. Mostella would like to do this so the city can carefully plan what they would like to do with the money, in hopes they will find the best opportunity possible to spend it.

“We’re not hurting for anything, we don’t owe anybody, so we want to take a long term approach to figure out how to maximize every cent of this that we can,” Mostella.

The next Ashville City Council meeting will be on Aug. 2 at 6:30 p.m.