Speaker 1: What's going on?
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so yesterday I did not get to this yesterday, and
it's a good thing I did not because there was
an additional development after I got off air a couple
hours later, when my colleague, also a host here and
a reporter at WBT, Brett Jensen, got the North Carolina
State Auditor, Dave Bollock to join him on his program.
You can hear Breaking with Brett Jensen every weekday on
WBT from seven or sorry six until seven p And
Brett had broken a story yesterday.
Speaker 1: I want to say, let me see, I've got his.
Speaker 2: I've got his tweet pulled up here December for a
sorry so about four o'clock on Monday, and Brett, somehow
I'm not accusing him of stealing anything. No, I'm sure somebody,
somebody gave him some of the documents that outline another
payoff to a Charlotte Mecklenburg police chief, although this is
technically not to the chief, it's to her husband. And
we covered this a couple of weeks back when they
made the announcement that Charlotte had arrived at its new
police chief. They had chosen Estella Patterson, former CMPD employee officer,
and she then went up to Raleigh. She worked up
in Raleigh for three years as the chief up there,
and it just so happened that it coincided with a
spike in homicides. I'm not saying she is responsible for
the spike in the homicides. This was also during the
the COVID era and the fiery but mostly peaceful rioting
that era that timeframe. So then she came back to
Charlotte and a lot of the rank and file were
happy to see her return the Fraternal Order of Police,
they were pulling for her to be the next chief.
And then we find we found out that her husband
had been involved in litigation against the City of Charlotte.
Her husband, Battalion Chief Lance Patterson, and he had filed
a lawsuit along with another fire department employee, against the
city claiming racial bias, and this lawsuit was settled just
as the police chief was named. Okay, so the chief's
husband in I think this was like a seven year
lawsuit against the city. She is going through the hiring
process while her husband has pending litigation against the city,
and the city settles it just as they make the
announcement that they're hiring her. And look, just from an
optic standpoint, that does not look good, especially after the
City of Charlotte paid out a three hundred thousand dollars
settlement to the outgoing Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Chief, Johnny Jennings.
More than three hundred thousand dollars paid to Jennings, who
had threatened to sue for defamation, even though the remember
the the internal complaint that was filed found no justification
for the for any kind of action to be taken.
You'll recall Johnny Jennings police chief, he did not want
to purchase the outer carrier vests for Charlotte Mecklenburg police officers,
and a city councilman at the time, Tark Bookari, one
of the only two Republicans on council. Bakari wanted to
fulfill the requests of a lot of rank and file
officers that wanted to wear these outer carrier vests, and
so this created this friction point between the chief and
the councilman, and there were a bunch of text messages
exchanged where you know, Bookari is like, I'm going to
destroy your legacy. These were not public so there was
no public defamation. It was a political dispute, a policy dispute,
and eventually, by the way, Bakari raised money from the
private sector to buy a bunch of the vests and
then the chief allowed officers if they wanted to wear them,
then they could. But this so emotionally scarred the police chief.
I guess that he was going to sue, and he
threatened to sue the city. And then this created a
problem where Okay, the city manager had said that they're
in the city attorney rather had said that there wasn't
any evidence to support an internal ethics violation against Bakari.
There was no evidence of defamation or damages and all
of this, and so it was kind of like, well,
why are you settling this lawsuit. If you were not
going to give him the violation, the ethics violation, right,
if there wasn't enough to get over that low bar,
why would you settle for three hundred thousand dollars? And
then of course, you know they wouldn't release it. Charlotte
City council members, a couple of them, said that they
were not aware of that previous ethics probe and the
results of it. It was all just a mess, right,
And then Jennings announces that he's going to retire, and
they basically are like, well, this was sort of like
a severance deal. It wasn't really a settlement. It was
kind of like a severance retirement package or something. But
also the city council and the city manager and city
attorney did not want to release the terms of the settlement.
They didn't want anybody to know what the numbers were.
So there was, you know, these rumors about what the
figure was, what was all included, and everything else. And
the city maintained this position, which was incorrect, that they
don't have to divulge the terms of the settlement because
it would be a quote, personnel matter. But that's not true.
I was saying it at the time. When you settle
a lawsuit, you're the city government. You settle lawsuit, you
have to disclose you know, the case, like who are
the participants in the case and the amount.
Speaker 1: That was the way it always was.
Speaker 2: I was unaware that there was this shift in thinking
inside the city government during the seven years or eight
years that I was out of Charlotte and before I
came back. So the state Auditor, David Bullock comes in
and he has his people take a look at this,
and they ask for the settlement. And then after the
auditor produces his report or right about the same time,
I would say, probably trying to remember the timeline on that.
But while he's you know, pressing the city like you
need to divulge this, this is the law. That's when
Chief Johnny Jennings waives the non disclosure agreement or whatever
was preventing him from you from divulging in the City's like, well,
we'll sign it to in the interest of full transparency.
Speaker 1: No, you got caught, is what happened.
Speaker 2: Y'all got caught and you got a state agency now
with the power to nail you with stuff.
Speaker 1: So now you're going to divulge it. That was a
that was a month ago.
Speaker 2: That was like a month ago where they made the
announcement that the new chief was being hired. Jennings settlements
and stuff came about a month prior to that. All
of this, So this is the swirl going on. And
as part of the hiring process of the new police chief,
we have another one of these settlement deals. But again
this is going to the incoming chief's husband, Battalion Chief
Lance Patterson. This is from October twenty seventh. A Charlotte,
North Carolina fire chief says he has reached a settlement
with the city over his claims of racial bias years
after he brought or rather he thought the deal was
done the first time. This is from Law three sixty
Battalion Chief Lance Patterson of the Charlotte Fire Department, who
was headed for trial in December. So like right now,
they were fixing to go to trial after a federal
court found that the settlement that he tried to have
enforced from twenty twenty two was actually never fully finalized,
and so he told the court now that the parties
have reached another deal. The settlement ends a dispute from
twenty eighteen in which Patterson and another colleague claimed they
hit a glass ceiling in the fire department because they
are black. In November twenty two, they allegedly reached separate
agreements with the department that included early retirements, but claimed
that the city was not honoring their deal by deducting
retirement from funds from their settlement payouts. Okay, so that
was the nature of the dispute for Battalion Chief Patterson,
and that's late October, just as they are announcing the
hiring of his wife. So a settlement would indicate money
has changed hands, right, how much?
Speaker 1: Don't know?
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last a lifetime. Okay, so here is from the Charlotte
Observer story from Jeff Shamer, the reporter. The North Carolina
State Auditor's Office is looking into the legal settlement paid
by the City of Charlotte to a former fire battalion chief,
the husband of cmpd's new police chief. Estella Patterson. State
Auditor Dave Bollock said on social media site x formerly
known Twitter, that his office is looking into the settlement
which was paid to Lance Patterson following a racial discrimination
lawsuit that the City of Charlotte fought for seven years.
Bullock said his office would release a report. Okay, so
this story was broken by wbt's Brett Jensen. This is
what he posted on to Twitter the other day Monday afternoon.
He says, I have obtained documents that show the City
of Charlotte paid out ninety nine thousand, nine hundred ninety
nine dollars, which is a very specific amount of money,
ninety nine nine nine nine. This is to settle a
seven year lawsuit brought forth by Lance Patterson, who is
the husband of new CMPD chief Estella Patterson. The nine
nine nine is a significant amount because City Manager Marcus
Jones does not have to gain city council approval for
anything less than one hundred thousand dollars. So Jones went
to the very limit of what he could approve to
pay without elected officials having to know or vote on
it or sign off on it. I mean, I don't
know if they were they ever briefed in a closed
session about the settlement, or we don't know because the
City of Charlotte, when they go into their closed sessions,
they don't ever feel the need to tell anybody about
what all was discussed, even years later when the case,
the lawsuit is over.
Speaker 1: It's it is. It is a level of obfuscation.
Speaker 2: That when I was a reporter on this beat for
eight years, I never saw this kind of level of deception.
Speaker 1: That's what it is.
Speaker 2: It's deception, Okay, they are attempting to deceive, you know,
to to omit from the public site lines. These types
of settlements. Why, I don't know. Like the juice here
is not worth the squeeze, It really isn't. This is
the behavior of an apparatus that doesn't believe there's any
consequence to behaving this way. Like I'm just I'm at
a loss to understand why they think this is the
better play. Did you think it wouldn't come out? The
stories were already published, right, Lance Patterson's lawsuit has been
going on for seven years. Did you think this wouldn't
come out? There are federal court papers publicly available. Did
you think it wouldn't come out? At some point? It
comes out, and when it comes out, then it looks
like you've been covering it up, which is exactly what
it looks like right now because it all came out.
Speaker 1: I mean, you got I mean, think about this. How
long did you think that.
Speaker 2: You were to be able to avoid this story from
getting out? However long you thought you could avoid it.
I don't think you made it, you know. I suspect
this got out into the open a lot faster than
they anticipated. That's just a guess, because otherwise, why would
you behave like this if you thought that it was
going to get out much sooner than you would have
just said, you know what, let's just just put it
all out there, vote for it, you know, have the
city council vote for it in open session, or at.
Speaker 1: Least make them aware about it. Whatever.
Speaker 2: You would have been fully transparent and disclosed all of
this right out of the gate if you believed that
this story was uncontainable, but obviously you didn't think that.
This speaks to a profound lack of judgment in the
city manager's office, specifically the city manager Marcus Jones, who
works at the pleasure of the city council. Okay, if
I'm on that council. I'm starting to have some serious
concerns about what else he hasn't disclosed to me. And
now you know what other kind of poop sandwiches I'm
going to be forced to eat in the public domain
because he's not telling me stuff that I should know about.
It's really unfair to the city council members.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: It's unfair to these people who have may have no
idea what this guy is doing, and now they're going
to be asked to defend or disavow if they are
in fact asked to do so. I'm asking you know.
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payout according to Brett Jensen from WBT News also breaking
with Brett Jensen right here weekdays from six till seven.
He posted on Twitter that of the ninety nine nine
ninety nine dollars, that's divided into two parts. So Patterson,
Lance Patterson, who had sued he will get forty thousand dollars.
His legal team at JMD or James McElroy and Deal,
the law firm, will get.
Speaker 3: Nine.
Speaker 2: So they're getting like sixty thousand. Lance Patterson's getting forty thousand. Okay,
that's the settlement amount. Let me jump over here and
let's chat with Pete. Hello, Pete, welcome to the program.
Speaker 1: How are you.
Speaker 3: Hey, Pete? Good?
Speaker 4: To be here.
Speaker 3: By the way, it's no cash bond, Pete. It took
not what I was going to talk about, but it
took Rina's death to get somebody in jail with no
cash bond. I think it's a start. Anyways, what I
was gonna mention the city or county budget, whichever is relevant.
They have a ledger item for set aside for lawsuits,
whether it's somebody slips on a sidewalk or something like that.
I think if somebody could investigate that, and it's got
to be public records, somebody get investigate that and figure
out how much they set aside, how much they've paid
people over the years, I think that that would open
a can of worms that they just don't want open.
Speaker 1: Well, so they so a couple of things.
Speaker 2: Number One, there could be insurance payouts, so that would
not come out of the city budget.
Speaker 1: For example, right if you've got.
Speaker 2: Insurance for like a slip and fall or something like that,
and then the insurance company pays it out, so that
might not be reflected in whatever that whatever those expenses
might be. But you say, you would think that it's
public information. And here's the problem, and that's what these
last two cases are really about, whether it's the payout
to Jennings or now the payout to Patterson. It's that
the city management does not believe that these things are disclosable.
They don't They don't think they should have to tell anybody.
The Charlotte Observer asked for copies of the settlement and
the city refused.
Speaker 3: But isn't last year's budget and what was up or
down against budget? Actual expenses against budget? Isn't that public record?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the budget is, but you don't know what like
if and I have not checked to see if they
you know, put all like lawsuits, settlement, money payouts or
something in one category. It may come from individual agency budgets.
It may be buried somewhere in there, could be just
under legal right, could be just under the management's city
manager's office, right, who knows where it is. But even
then they're not going to break it down per case,
you know what I mean. They're not going to say,
here's a payout for a lawsuit brought by John Doe
or whatever like. They're not going to have it all
broken down like that, especially when they don't believe they
need to tell you if the you know, the lawsuit
is coming from somebody who's employed by the city. They're
not going to say they don't believe it's it's public record.
They think it's it's personnel.
Speaker 3: Well, they may be right and they may be wrong.
Speaker 1: They're not right.
Speaker 2: No, no, yeah, like the state auditor says, they are
not right, and that's why he launched this investigation again
on a settlement from the City of Charlotte to an employee.
First it was Jennings they probe that got that settlement
information released, and now they're going after this settlement.
Speaker 3: And I get the insurance is probably a liability insurance,
but they probably retain retainage. I think it's the word
up to a certain limit, just like a deductible on
a health insurance plan. You pay that first. But I
think that some interpped investigator could find that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Pete, I appreciate the call. Great name too, by
the way, I appreciate the call. All right, man, SA, No,
it's it's a good question. Like I said, I have
not gone into the budget to divulge it or to
discover that. But the problem here is that the city,
even when the settlement is done. I understand during negotiations, right,
they go into closed session. They're talking about legal issues,
personnel matters.
Speaker 1: I get all of that.
Speaker 2: I'm not unreasonable, right, you want those attorney client discussions protected.
Speaker 1: I get that.
Speaker 2: But when the settlement is agreed upon and the order
is entered, and the money starts changing hands, like that's
our tax money, we should we should know. You know
how much that settlement is for and what the case
is about. Right, if people are filing a lawsuit, that's
all public information. We've known the allegations brought by Lance
Patterson for seven years. They've been going back and forth,
they've been going through mediation all of this. We haven't
been privy to all of those details, as.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't be.
Speaker 2: But when you come to a resolution and part of
the resolution is to take my money and give it
to some disgruntled employee in order to make the lawsuit
go away, well then you know I would like to
know what that cost is. But from the Observer's story,
says the city refused to provide copies of the settle
to the Charlotte Observer, leaving its details unknown. But a
WBT news reporter, just some random reporter. They couldn't they
know his name. By the way they know Brett's name.
I think Brett used to work for them, like they
know his name, but at least at least they put
the call letters in there, so you know, small victories.
A WBT news reporter posted screenshots and details about the
settlement on x on Monday, and then yesterday Brett had
on his program, State auditor Dave Bullock to talk about it.
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as they make the media landscape more transparent. All right, So,
North Carolina State Auditor Dave Bullock was on Breaking with
Brett Jensen last night, This is on WBT at six
till seven, and they were talking about this investigation now
and the requests for information from the City of Charlotte
regarding this settlement, and Auditor Bullock explain why they started
to look into this matter.
Speaker 4: We saw already that the City of Charlotte had created
and completed one behind closed door settlement with the previous
police chief, and then news reports indicated that they had
entered into well, actually entered into a settlement because the
city decided prior to trial not to try the case
with the battalion fire chief. And so we said, well,
and the indication in the federal court documents was that
the case had been settled, and we could find no
evidence or indication that the public had been made aware
of any monetary payment to the battalion chief, and a settlement,
you know, sort of indicates that there's likely some dollars
that have been paid out. So we initiated an investigation
to find out how much or whether the City of
Charlotte taxpayers had paid the battalion chief money in response
to a lawsuit.
Speaker 2: And we had just under one hundred thousand dollars. He
said that the City of Charlotte appears to be playing
some gamesmanship when it comes to disclosing these kinds of settlements.
Speaker 4: I was very clear when we initiated the investigation on
the behind closed door settlement with the former chief of
Police that the position of the State Auditor's Office is
that any expense of taxpayer money is the business of
the people who pay taxes. So it's the people's business
with how much money is spent. Now, not to move
forward with any additional comment on this ongoing investigation, but
the previous findings that we made in the chief of
police settlement, the former chief of police's settlement case that
we looked into, the city responded that they would think
about and I'm paraphrasing, but that they would think about
it or give it some consideration as to whether they're
want to release dollar amounts expended to settle lawsuits that
they believe were personnel related. I've just got to tell you,
from the position of the State Auditor's office, I'm going
to repeat myself for the third time. Any expense of
taxpayer dollars is the business of the people of North Carolina,
no exceptions. And the gamesmanship that appears to be being
played in the City of Charlotte is not acceptable in
my opinion, to the taxpayers of Charlotte. They deserve to
know how their money is being spent. After all, this
is not the city council's money, it's not the city
manager's money, it's not the city attorney's money.
Speaker 3: It's the people's money.
Speaker 1: Right, So what he's talking about there is in the report.
Speaker 2: So when the auditor does these types of reports, these audits,
they will compile the information. They'll put together a draft
report highlighting the deficiencies or problems whatever. They then send
it to the government or the agency or whatever it
is that they're auditing. They'll send it over to them
so they can then respond to all of the problems
that have been identified, saying Okay, we'll fix that, we
disagree with that, we agree with that, whatever, and then
those responses get included in the final audit report. So
that's where we are sort of in this case. They
sense these questions over to the city, and that's what
he's referencing there, is that the city's response was that
they don't like, Okay, we'll think about giving you information
about other settlements that the city manager has done. And
you just heard him say, like, that's not acceptable. This
is not up to you to decide to disclose taxpayer
funded settlement amounts. That's not up to you to decide
that you have to disclose it. Let me jump over
to the text line here. This is from seven oh
four number Pete. You might be misreading the payout situation.
Staying under the one hundred thousand dollars limit provides the
council with plausible deniability, does it not?
Speaker 1: It does?
Speaker 2: See, So this is the question that now every council member,
except for the new ones that just won their election,
they wouldn't have any information on this. But all of
the members of council at the time this settlement was reached,
did they know did they know what the settlement was
did they know that the city manager had done this
or does he get to do these things? Like with
the he can award contracts they changed this also, like
in twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen, he has the ability. Yeah,
twenty eighteen. In December they voted nine to two, the
council did to allow him to spend up to half
a million dollars on contracts without any public notice or
any public vote. And so with the settlements it's one
hundred thousand. So the city council just like blind to this.
They're like, we got better things and bigger things to
worry about, like this isn't Meanwhile, they gave themselves a
pay raise to like over fifty k a year because
there's a full time job. How is it a full
time job? You're not even looking at all of the
contracts and settlements anymore. All right, that'll do it for
this episode.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening.
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