Charlotte City Council member LaWana Mayfield on Tuesday night pushed for a leak investigation to try and figure out which council members might be sharing information from closed sessions with the media. Mayfield also asked if City Council members can be barred from bringing phones into closed sessions.
"Can there be language to say no cellphones, no smartphones, no nothing in our closed session so that we can have a meeting that doesn't be reported to the media immediately afterwards? Because there are a lot of important discussions that we have," she said. "There has to be a level of accountability when we are having very sensitive conversations and that information is then being reported to the media, either verbatim or in some cases incorrectly. And we do not know that which one of the members is providing this information."
Mayfield was speaking after the city was jolted by the revelation that City Council voted last month in closed session to pay Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Johnny Jennings a $305,000 settlement, over threatening text messages he received from former council member Tariq Bokhari, in which Bokhari threatened to get Jennings fired and ruin his legacy.
The city initially refused to release details of the settlement, but Jennings decided to do so himself on Sunday.
City Council didn’t take action on Mayfield’s request, but Mayor Vi Lyles said they could discuss it further in a closed session.