Cecil Bothwell told Marc Hunt exactly what he thought of him in a Sept. 12 email.

“You make me want to puke,” Bothwell wrote to his fellow Asheville City Council member following a vote on a controversial downtown hotel proposal.

“I am so totally embarrassed that I endorsed you. What a total loser on matters that concern Asheville citizens,” Bothwell wrote. “Are your ears totally plugged with developmental money?”

That note and a few others Bothwell sent after City Council’s approval of the contentious hotel plan were particularly sharp. But they were not out of character for the former editor and reporter.