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And again, thank you so much for your support. Welcome
to the Bonus Hour. It sounds just like the regular
third Hour, but anyway, seven four five sevenho eleven ten. Yesterday,
the wife of former Charlotte City Councilman Tarcboocary, her name
is Christa Bacary. She wrote a very very long I
printed it out as four pages full dnse four pages
outlining details surrounding this scandal that is now engulfing this
Charlotte City government over its payout of three hundred thousand
dollars to the police chief. And she details through a
series of bullet points, basically information that requires more investigation,
and she's urging local media to keep digging into this stuff.
And it is clear that there's information she has and
she put into this post that was not known in fact,
let me do this real quick. This is over at
WCNCTV WCNC dot com. Council Member Tijjana Brown, who represents
District three, issued a statement in response to the news
conference that was held. The news conference that we covered
yesterday on the show. That news conference occurred on Wednesday
at three pm, So right after Dray got off the air,
they held a news conference where they, you know, we
said we're going to go after the leakers and how
dare Victoria Watlington, their colleague on council, how dare she
call us unethical and uh possibly illegal activity that you know,
she basically was alleging corruption regarding this issue, this this payoff.
They held the news conference, they attacked her. They they said,
we're not corrupt, We're totally fine, everything's above board, but
we can't discuss anything because personnel matters. And Tijuanna Brown
was not at that press conference. What she said after, though,
was the following. As a council member representing Charlotte's District
three and as someone with expertise in harm reduction and
trauma informed care, I watched the press conference with deep
disappointment and disbelief. The tone, the language, and the public
nature of the response were not reflective of the values
of restoration, equity, and dignity that we as a body
should embody. She also recalled during the council's retreat when
they went up to Ashville. She said she was the
only member who raised her hand when asked who had
trust among their colleagues. She says, I raised my hand
alone because I believed in building trust. That trust was
damaged yesterday. So back to Krista Bukari's post on Facebook,
she talked about and I covered this at the end
of the last hour. We spoke with Christa at the
beginning of the last hour withholding of critical information. This
was about the ethics complaint that was filed by the
NAACP president. The local chapter president filed an ethics complaint
with the city. The city itself, the city attorney dismissed
it for lack of merit. They dismissed the complaint against
Tark Bakari, who was a sitting city councilman at the time,
dismissed it. They then the attorney and the manager knew this.
The attorney knew this, and the mayor knew this. They
then go into a closed session where the attorney advises
the council to settle with the police chief because the
police chief was threatening to sue. But the lawsuit apparently
had no other evidence in it that was not in
the ethics complaint. So this gets to bullet point number two,
recommending settlement to tax or settlement of taxpayer dollars lacking
a legal claim. Anthony Fox the city attorney interim city
attorney because they fired the last city attorney. They let
that guy go, so Fox has been brought in on
an interim basis. Anthony Fox, despite not actually having a
lawsuit submitted to any court, recommended to council a settlement
was warranted so as to avoid public embarrassment, which I'm
unclear as to why the city or the council members
would suffer public embarrassment if the chief sues the city.
So you think this is you think this is better than.
Speaker 1: A lawsuit would have been.
Speaker 2: Well, you see, they weren't planning on all of this
getting out, so public embarrassment and two a potentially costly
legal fight that they could ultimately lose. So those are
the arguments, and this is one of the valid reasons.
By the way to go into closed session is to
consult with your attorney. And so you're going in there,
you're talking to an attorney. You have privilege, right, so
it's it's private, and the attorney is saying, okay, like
you want to do a settlement. It's warranted to avoid
public embarrassment and avoid a legal fight. Could cost a
bunch of money and we could lose it. And what
Christa Bocari says is that this was a premeditated falsehood
that he presented to his clients that he is bound
to serve. As any attorney would quickly know, there has
to be some valid form of a legal claim. The
only two legal claims that could be argued as relevant
to the situation are defamation or a hostile work environment.
And it's clear to anyone operating with a legal license
and a cursory review of the details of the case
that they have no merit so defamation, she says. Legal
standards for defamation require public false statements of fact communicated
to a third party, but private messages like the text
messages between Jennings and Bokari do not meet that standard.
There wasn't anything that Bookari said in public either that
was defamatory, there was no justification for recommending a settlement
or getting counsel to approve a settlement for defamation because
defamation did not occur. What are the merits of this
phantom lawsuit you know, that was never drafted, never written,
never filed whatever.
Speaker 1: Maybe there were.
Speaker 2: Bullet points and evidence that was presented to council, But
considering how much we have now learned about what occurred
in the council meeting, I suspect we'd have the bullet
points by now. Somebody would have said, here was all
the evidence as to why we thought we might lose
the case. We haven't seen anything like that. Hostile work
environment another only other potential cause for action, and she
says such claims require evidence of discrimination based on protected
characteristics like race or gender, policy disagreements, even personal criticisms,
even intense personal criticisms, do not meet that threshold. Jennings
is a public figure, as a public figure, not a
public elected official, not like that, but just somebody in
the public eye. When you are in the public eye,
the standard for defamation libel, slandered. It's higher than against
just a private individual. You are expected to take slings
and arrows when you enter the public arena, and when
they come you don't get to sue anybody because they
called you names, which Bokari, by the way, did not
do next violating rules of procedure to subvert the council's will.
This gets to the original vote that was held on
April twenty eighth, and it went five to two to
do the settlement because the council members did not have
all of the information, namely that the complaint that had
the same charges in it was rejected by the city
government by the same city attorney.
Speaker 1: They said, no, it's without merit.
Speaker 2: Then they turned around and recommended it as the reason
for a settlement of three hundred K. That's why I
say it smacks of just a shakedown, because if you
had enough evidence that made you so scared to litigate
against this thing, to defend yourself against a frivolous lawsuit.
If you were so worried, why wouldn't you have Why
wouldn't you have upheld the complaint? So they go into
their closed session. The vote is five to two, but
it doesn't have a majority of the eleven members, so
it fails. When the Council members then reconvene for the
second closed session on May fifth. She says they walked
into a strategically designed trap based upon a technicality because
at the first meeting they apparently did have enough members
for a majority, but one of them them left. And
when you start a meeting and then leave, every vote
of anything that comes up is a yes vote. That's
what council was unaware of. When they show back up
on May fifth, they think they're going to try to
vote this thing again, and they're told it already passed
because of this rule, which I guess nobody knew about,
which is odd because y Lyles, the mayor, has been
in city government for thirty years.
Speaker 1: I knew this rule. How could she not?
Speaker 2: All right, if you're listening to this show, you know
I try to keep up with all sorts of current events,
and I know you do too, And you've probably heard
me say get your news from multiple sources.
Speaker 1: Why.
Speaker 2: Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is
why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an
app and it's a website, and it combines news from
around the world in one place, so you can compare
coverage and verify information. You could check it out at
check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the
link in the podcast description too. I started using ground
News a few months ago and more recently chose to
work with them as an affiliate because it lets me
see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The
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ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Alrighty,
So back to Krista Bacari's rite up here, and just
to finish off one last detail on the previous bullet
point about violating rules of procedure. This was the you know, oh,
we didn't have enough votes to pass, and then you
come back a week later and it's like, oh, actually
we did, and so it already passed. They go in
there thinking they're going to cast a vote on the
settlement deal, but because the lawyer then says, well, we
already passed it because of this rule that if you
show up and then leave, you get counted as a
yes vote. And apparently a council member showed up and
then left the closed session, and then they took a
vote and it counted as a yes. But nobody said that.
Nobody knew that. We are to believe that nobody knew
this rule until a week later when they show up
to vote again on the settlement because they all thought
it didn't pass. They are then informed it did actually pass.
Speaker 1: She says.
Speaker 2: Then they spent the remaining time threatening council members on
what the consequences would be of leaking this information. On
May fifth, one council member who had voted in support
of the settlement the previous week then learned from the
media the stuff that they were not told before they voted.
That council member named stated that they wanted to change
their vote. They were then told they were not going
to be allowed to, and she says, they were I
guess this was aggressively told you.
Speaker 1: Cannot do that.
Speaker 2: Next bullet point advising knowingly false legal advice with the
intent of intimidating a whistleblower. City attorney Anthony Fox during
the May fifth closed session and then subsequently to the
media that week, told council members leaking closed session information
was a criminal offense and he would be launching an
investigation and there would be consequences. She Christa Bakari says,
there is only one nuanced situation where leaking closed session
information is potentially a criminal offense, when a person shares
a personnel file publicly. This does not apply to talking
about a personnel file either. It's the physical sharing of
the file. She says, not only was there no personnel
file involved in these closed sessions, making his claim technically impossible,
there was actually no personnel content included as any part
of the closed sessions. There was Bacari's text messages, There
was jennings threats of a lawsuit and requests for a settlement.
At no point was Jennings's performance history or any other
personnel categorized information discussed. The absolute worst outcome that can
occur if the council votes is if the council votes
to censure. That's a far cry from a criminal charge.
There is no scenario any city attorney would not know this.
Speaker 1: She says.
Speaker 2: This is grounds for an ethics complaint to be sent
to the North Carolina Bar Association for review with potential disbarment.
I got an email here from John who says one
of the three council members that voted against the settlement,
especially the one who's claiming illegal activity, should file a
complaint with the bar over the lawyer for not fulfilling
his duty as the counsel's lawyer and representing them in
this case by intentionally leaving out key information. Yeah, this
is a very big no no for lawyers. You're not
allowed to do that. If you get a like a
plea deal or something, you have to bring it to
your client. You don't get to hide stuff from your client,
because they need to be the ones that call the shots.
You work for them. Next up, ignoring clear workplace retaliation instances.
In addition to Chief Jennings' top aids working behind the
scenes to attack Bokari via the NAACP complaint, the same
theme was playing out for Officer Daniel Redford in the FOP.
I covered this yesterday. He got hit with a lawsuit
from one of the aids to Jennings. The chief spokes
person for CMPD sued the Fraternal Order of Police president.
That lawsuit was denied by the court. I believe she's
now filing an appeal for it. But Redford, the FOP president,
was brought to the Civil Review Board on allegations that
he used his role in the FOP to comment negatively
about the chief during the battle over the vests. And
he got a suspension for that. And she says he
was exercising his First Amendment right as a private citizen
to voice his opinion. When he returned to work, he
was then demoted from the post that he had earned
over a career keeping cats safe the Charlotte Area transit system.
I guess, well not, I guess it is like the
Charlotte Area transit system. They busted him down to patrol.
That's retaliation. That's actually illegal. Next, making false public statements
while not properly investigating employee Code of Conduct violations.
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Here's a message from Russ. He says, every scrap of
new information on this payout looks worse. The mayor, the chief,
the attorney all look really bad, possibly criminal, and council
members seem either naive or incompetent at best.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So there comes a point where people need to people
need to make a decision. You know, there comes a
point where the elected officials are going to have to
make a decision on whether to keep pushing forward with
this current narrative hoping it just goes away, or they're
going to have to turn right.
Speaker 1: And I make no predictions.
Speaker 2: I don't know who's going to decide when, but I
can say that this story, like, this story is not
going away for me, and there's blood in the water.
Local media is they are swarming. Let me see here
I had, Oh, well this is our h pub said
more Democrat corruption. Yeah, let me get to the remaining
bullet points here from Chrysto Bucari's Facebook post. The next
one was making false public statements while not properly investigating
employee code of conduct violations. When the bombshell proof dropped
from WSOCTV that Jennings two top aides used their personal
emails to direct the local NAACP president to make the
Foyer request and the ethics complaint against tark Bakari. Within
an hour, the City of Charlotte released a statement saying
that they had completed an HR investigation and found there
was no violation by those two employees. They were acting
in their capacity as private citizens voicing their opinions, and
so no action would be taken. The only reason that
these emails were discovered was accidental because the NAACP president
Corin mac accidentally forwarded that email to Joe Bruno at WSOCTV.
Accidental forward of an email, she says, and so Christa
Bakari says. It is reasonable to believe that if they
had used their personal emails in this one instance, there's
likely additional evidence of violations in their personal emails, which
certainly would have been deleted by them by now, but
can be recovered from the carrier with the proper authority.
It is difficult to believe that the city manager, the mayor,
and the city attorney and the HR department all completed
a comprehensive investigation covering all these aspects, plus interviews and
potentially questioning people under oath, and they did this all
in under an hour before they publicly cleared the two
CMPD officials of wrongdoing. Breaking like that, that does not
sound like a thorough investigation to me. Okay, maybe it was,
but it doesn't sound like it to me. Next, breaking
confidentiality rules of closed session with knowingly false statements, The
Mayor vy Lyles made the following statement to the media. Quote,
the chief was publicly attacked by a former council member
who stated his intent was to damage his reputation and
end his career. But Bakari actually did not publicly attack Jennings.
Speaker 1: That did not happen. This information.
Speaker 2: Was only made public by the strategic efforts of the
two top aids of Jennings. The text messaging was that
was sent to Corinn mac at the NAACP that wasn't public.
Butkari is saying, you know you need to you need
to compromise with me on this. You need to meet
me halfway and I you know, I will go after
you like it's not personal. And but he never he
never attacked or defamed the chief. And what Christa Bakari
says is that the mayor's actually breaking the confidentiality of
closed session publicly talking about the content that was discussed
in that room and relaying the sentiment that the Chief
was indeed inappropriately attacked. Vy Lyles is only exposed to
censure for these actions, though that's not even a criminal
criminal behavior, because just like the threats of criminal charges
for any leaker, the worst you'll get his censure, she says.
In summary, the City of Charlotte had no legal exposure
to a claim by Chief Jennings. Yet the Mayor, the attorney,
and the manager relied on an improperly used procedural technicality
and these additional tactics to approve taxpayer dollars for their friend,
and in doing so performed the unethical, immoral, and potentially
illegal actions they are now exposed to. Councilman Bacari's advocacy
for outer carrier vests can be viewed as part of
his legislative duties, which are protected under legislative immunity. There
is no public evidence indicating that Bacari made any false
statements about Chief Jennings. His criticisms focused on policy disagreements
his actions. The Councilman's actions did not involve misuse of
his official capacity. The text messages in question were private
communications between the councilmen and the Chief. Defamation claims require
that false statements be made publicly to third parties. Since
these messages were private, they were not disseminated publicly Bible kari.
In fact, they were released publicly at the direction of
the Chief through his top aids to the NAACP. It
doesn't make the standard of criteria for defamation. Were council
members advised on any of this? In the closed session?
Tijuana Brown, one of the council members, said, I was
not aware of any of this. That's a problem, all right.
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on WBT here? So Brett, welcome, Sarah?
Speaker 1: You do all right? It's good to be here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh absolutely, yes, I'm ready, all right, I'm ready
big time.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm going to read to you something big lely.
Speaker 2: I've given him no notice, no, so this will be
raw and unfiltered, well with an FCC guidelines, of course.
I saw a girl on reels the video shorts on Facebook,
right the reels or whatever?
Speaker 1: What are you doing?
Speaker 2: I saw a girl on reels say that she incentivized
people to RSVP to her wedding by making the order
in which people RSVP the same order that they get
to stand up and go get dinner at the wedding.
So in other words, you send out the invitations and
the order in which you receive the rsvp's back, that's
the order that you get your food at the reception.
Speaker 3: So if if the brother in law came in first,
he's going to get to get the primary.
Speaker 2: First first, right, So because people you know, don't because
they don't RSVP fast enough. And you're you, you know,
I don't know if you're like, we had lists. We
had I guess I shouldn't say this, but we had
a list B list. Oh really, yeah, because well we
had a we had a small venue, so we wanted,
you know, every seat full, and makes sense we needed
to invite the you know, certain people you have to you.
Speaker 3: Know, yeah, yeah, there are the mustavs.
Speaker 2: Right, and so this is and so when you're not
getting the RSVPs back, now you're cutting down on the
time that you have to email or mail out the
invitations for the B list.
Speaker 1: This is the same.
Speaker 3: I'm guessing she's a.
Speaker 1: Virgo.
Speaker 2: I don't know who the person is, but I like
this idea because I have been to a wedding where
they ran out of food because they called the table
all you can eat?
Speaker 3: Was it?
Speaker 1: And all you can eat?
Speaker 2: No, obviously not because they ran out. So we but
we are at the table, and we thought because we
were so hungry. It was like an afternoon wedding and
so we were so hungry for dinner. We sit down
at the table, We're thinking, we're right next to the food.
We're like, this is good the buffet line, but it
was self serve, right, And then they said we're going
to go for old people first. I was like, okay, fine,
I can't object to that. Christy's mom gets up and
gets her plate of food, brings it back, and it's
just she didn't even think. Like we were like, Betty,
what are you doing? Why didn't you bring like a
whole mountain of food for the whole table? And she's like,
oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. And then they ran
out because they started at the other end of the
other end of the room. I was literally the last
one in the line. Wow.
Speaker 3: See if I can I critique it? Yeah, yeah, okay.
If if I'm the last one on the line, I'm
just not gonna eat.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I'm just gonna know.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna stay in the seat I'm just gonna
be like, I'll grab a burger later on dead air
at the night or tomorrow.
Speaker 1: You would you.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't even get up, No, I think if I'm the
last person there. There was a little bit of mashed
potatoes left, but there was no toppings, so I did
get a little bit of mashed potatoes.
Speaker 3: Did you get wedding cake?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: They had.
Speaker 2: This couple had to sue their caterer.
Speaker 1: Wow, but no kidding.
Speaker 2: I am amazed at how many people know of this
kind of thing, like where people serve, and so it
raises this question, do you ever remember the food at
a wedding? And I would submit you only remember the
bad food.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 2: I haven't really had bad food at a wedding.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean really, I can't think of it
like where I hate it And I was like, oh,
this is the worst thing ever, right, mostly because there's
a lot of alcohol being consumed, true, true, and the
bubbly and right, you know, the parifs.
Speaker 2: And then the dancing. It takes up a lot of time.
Speaker 3: Here's one thing I hate, I mean capital h at
the lack of manners. Everybody has just become a savage.
Speaker 1: I mean it's awful.
Speaker 2: I used to just call it inconsideration. It's beyond a
lot of it's beyond that.
Speaker 3: It's because people are too lazy to teach their kids
any sort of manners. And he sort of met Please,
thank you, How are you any of that.
Speaker 2: While demanding quote respect from everybody else. Correct, Yeah, it's awful,
Yeah it really is.
Speaker 3: I mean it.
Speaker 1: I blame COVID.
Speaker 2: Oh no, it's and sexism and racism. I blame Obama. Okay,
I don't blame Oma. Oh no, I was just going
with Joe Biden's blames. I'm going, all right, Brett Rennevill
stick around because he's uh, he's coming up next, and
I'm gonna hang around with him too.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much
for listening. I could not do the show without your
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thepetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening,
and don't break anything while I'm gone.