Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles and a handful of City Council members held an extraordinary news conference Wednesday afternoon at the Government Center.
Their message: The city is not corrupt.
They were responding to an email City Council member Victoria Watlington sent to constituents Monday night in which she blasted the city’s handling of a six-figure financial settlement with police Chief Johnny Jennings. Watlington wrote the city’s actions were “unethical, immoral, and frankly, illegal.”
All Things Considered host Nick De La Canal spoke with WFAE’s Steve Harrison, who attended the news conference.
DE LA CANAL: Steve, this news conference was remarkable in a lot of ways. Catch us all up.
HARRISON: OK, quick recap: The city reached a financial settlement Monday night with Jennings, the police chief. The chief was upset about threatening text messages he received last summer from former City Council member Tariq Bokhari, who was feuding with the chief over whether officers should be allowed to wear new protective vests.
As WFAE reported at the time, Bokhari texted him that he would work to get him fired and cripple his legacy.
DE LA CANAL: And Jennings threatened to sue the city. And so council members agreed to reach a financial settlement with the chief.
HARRISON: That’s right. They met twice in the last two weeks. WSOC-TV was the first to report some of the details of what happened inside the closed session, and we have also confirmed some of the controversy.
In the first meeting, one council member who left early was counted as a yes vote in favor of paying Jennings. At the second meeting, one council member asked if they could change their vote from the previous week and was told nope — too late.
DE LA CANAL: And that angered Watlington.
HARRISON: It did. In her email to residents, she wrote “I have witnessed the brazen disregard for dissenting opinions and the rule of law … but nothing like what happened in the last week” regarding the chief. And she titled her email “Power Corrupts” and then said the city was immoral, unethical and illegal.
DE LA CANAL: And that prompted the news conference. Mayor Vi Lyles came out swinging in defense of herself, the council and the city.
HARRISON: With a half-dozen council members behind her, she started the briefing like this:
LYLES: I could not let it go with the allegations made by council member Watlington against this organization. They are serious and they damage the reputation of this organization. To be clear these allegations are unfounded, and she, if she has any proof, she needs to provide that to the city attorney’s office who is duty bound to investigate,
HARRISON: And it continued from there, with other council members defending the city and the process: Malcolm Graham, Dimple Ajmera, Dante Anderson, Marjorie Molina, Ed Driggs.
DE LA CANAL: And I assume Watlington was not there.
HARRISON: Right. I did speak to her earlier in the day and she stood by her comments. She said the reference to corruption was figurative, but the rest of it — unethical, etc — she stood her ground.
DE LA CANAL: And doesn’t one City Council member want to launch an investigation into who is talking to the media?
HARRISON: Yes, Malcolm Graham says he wants to shut down leaks as he calls them. I don’t know what that would entail — possibly going through city council member’s phones, emails.
And Nick, one more thing: The interim City Attorney Anthony Fox also made a declarative statement about all closed sessions — that’s when elected officials have the ability to meet behind closed doors to discuss things like litigation, or economic development, or personnel issues.
He said if any council member discloses anything from a closed session it’s a criminal offense.
FOX: The law also provides that when you go into closed session that information is confidential. It’s not to be shared. It also imposes criminal sanctions against anyone who has been found to violate that law.
DE LA CANAL: And Steve, is that correct?
HARRISON: Nick, I have covered the city of Charlotte for nearly 20 years. And that was not how the law was interpreted under the previous city attorneys: Mac McCarley, Bob Hagemann and Patrick Baker.
State law prohibits the disclosure of information from someone’s personnel file. But Fox’s assertion that anything released from a closed session on any topic is not correct.
In fact, a former Mecklenburg County commissioner, Bill James, used to record closed-session meetings and release the tapes to the public.
And the city is using that idea of criminal penalties to not discuss any part of the closed session with the chief.
