Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
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your support. Alrighty, so full disclosure. I did not watch
the public comments or the forum for the various people
who were looking to get the appointment to the Charlotte
City Council. It occurred yesterday. It occurred during the show,
and at one point I thought, oh, it's starting at
two o'clock, which is super convenient to you know, lots
of people to go down and address the city count
for two minutes right there in the middle of a
work day. But I said, you know what, maybe I
should take it live. And then I said, you know what,
I'm not going to take it live. I'll go back
and watch it maybe later. And then I just decided,
you know what, I don't want to because it's not
going to be up to me. You got I think
there are ten people that are interested in the seat
that is open, and the city council gets to pick.
So there have been recommendations, endorsements that have come from
like the Mecklenburg GOP for example, a couple of state
lawmakers they've said they want ironically all the same person.
They've all endorsed the same person. But it's up to
the city council. And you've only got about six months
left because you've got the election for this seat coming
up in November. And this is the seat that now
former Councilman Tark Bokari occupied and barely one re election
two years ago and barely wanted two years prior, or
maybe it was a year prior, I forget because the
COVID screwed up their election cycles and stuff. But this
district drawn by Democrats on city council. They Democrats have
tried to make this another seat that they can flip
so there will be only one Republican on council, which
is what Democrats call fair districts. That's fair districts. See
when they do the gerrymandering when they draw the districts,
and they can shut out as many Republicans as possible.
That's a fair map. Okay, those are fair maps people. Now,
if Republicans do it, that is gerrymandering and a threat
to the democracy. Okay. So just so we're clear, So
they're going to try to in the next election cycle,
they're going to try to win it again. This is
the district sixth seat Southeast Charlotte area, and it has
been growing more Democrat and as has the entire city.
But if you actually broke down the and I did
this math back when they were doing the redistricting, and
I actually joined the virtual news conference and I asked
city Councilman Malcolm Graham and former city attorney Mac McCarley
who now works for a law firm, and he was
doing the assistance they were helping to draw the maps.
And I asked Malcolm Graham, like at the state level,
the Democrats are always talking about the district lines being
drawn to effectuate an outcome of essentially proportional representation, which
would be you take all of the registered Democrats in
the state and all of the registered Republicans in the state,
and then you draw districts that ensure that the proportion
of the registered voters by party equates to a number
of legislative seats, whether it's at the General Assembly or
at the national level with Congress. And of course they
argue this because it is the only way that they
are going to have a chance of winning power. I mean, well,
unless of course they change their message. So oh, sorry,
their messaging. It's never the message. It's never the policies, right,
it's never their ideas and what they do. It's just
they haven't done a good enough job of conveying it
to everybody else. So I asked Malcolm Graham at the time, well,
is that is that an ethos or you know, a
philosophy that you should follow at the state, at the
local level when you're drawing the maps, right, Because if
it's a principled stand by Democrats that this proportional representation
model is the only way to ensure the democracy, then
shouldn't you be looking to do that at the local level?
And by my math and I ran the numbers, and
I gave him the numbers, said city council should there
should be on the Charlotte City Council. I believe, if
I remember correctly, it was about three seats, three to
four seats I believe based on voter registration in Charlotte,
but Republicans only control two and they don't win any
of the at large seats, which is also, by the way,
why Democrats don't want to get rid of the at
large seats. The at large seats were actually a way
when initially created. It was a way that well also
Democrats could prevent black people from getting on city council.
When you have at large, it dilutes minority representation because
it's at large, everybody in the city votes, and then
the top four votainers, right Painters, they top four, they
win the seats. And so it's very difficult for minority
populations in any jurisdiction to win a seat on the
at large body. And that's why Democrats prefer that model.
When they have the majority in a jurisdiction like they
do in Charlotte, they get to control all four of
the at large seats, they don't want to move away
from that model. And then you've got seven district seats,
but those should be split up if you're looking at
the total body, those should be split up in a
way that make it possible not you know, not likely
or anybody make it possible for Republicans to win three seats,
maybe four, but they don't want to do that. So
I suspect they're going to pick somebody for this seat
that is just going to be a placeholder, and city
council has in the past preferred this option. They don't
want to put somebody in a seat for you know,
an unexpired term and basically give them an inside track
to running as an incumbent. So they because once you
get on the body, then you'll be able to start,
you know, making networking connections with donors that you know,
like developers and stuff. So they usually just like to
go for somebody who's a placeholder. And my bet is
that that's probably what they're going to do. However, there's
a bit of a there. They're going to be in
a bit of a bind, a little bit of a
bind because one person who has thrown their name in
the hat and then the hat into the ring. They've
got endorsements from the Mecklimer County GOP as well as
two state lawmakers, and the City of Charlotte really needs
good relations with the state legislature for its transit plan,
and the two people at the state legislature who have
endorsed one of these applicants have a lot of sway
at the state level on transit. What is a city
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make memories that'll last a lifetime. Former council member Tark
Bakari vacated the seat last month representing South Charlotte's District
six when he stepped down for a position in the
Trump administration. Charlotte Observer story by Mary Ramsey says he
was one of just two Republicans on the eleven person council,
So now you've got one left, and that's at Driggs.
A pair of former elected officials pitched themselves yesterday at
a candidate forum as stopgap solutions who could be value
able to the city on a sales tax referendum for
transportation needs that could be on the November ballot. Right,
So in order to get this on the ballot, they
need legislative approval. The city wants this on the ballot.
They want to ask us to raise our sales tax
again for transportation needs. And the legislature what two years
ago told them no when they last attempted this, because
the plan did not have any road funding, and the
legislature said, you can't do a transportation plan and not
have more road funding. So they went back and they
changed the formulas around and stuff, and I think it went.
I think it's like a I think fifty percent goes
to rail and forty percent or so goes to roads
or something like that. It's a pretty even split. And
then some you know, bike lanes thrown in greenways, maybe
others announced plans. Oh and so these so two of
the candidates for this slot say they will help sell
this basically to Republicans. So pick me, we can help
you with your transit campaign. I assume that would be
Andy Doolin and Edwin Peacock, both of whom formerly served
on the Charlotte City Council, both Republicans. They have to
appoint a Republican, Okay, that's one of the criteria. Got
to be twenty one, got to be a registered voter,
got to live in the district, and you have to
be a Republican. The appointee only will finish out the term,
which ends in like the first week of December after
the election, when all the new council gets sworn in.
The very first person to publicly announce their intention to
apply for the seat, though was not present yesterday, and
that is former Councilman Tark Bacari's wife, Krista Bakari. She
made her first official foray into politics last year. She
ran as a Republican for the General Assembly House District
one oh four. She lost to Brandon Lofton by about
what eleven points. Next up, Christap Bacari was quickly endorsed
by her husband, which I mean, I should hope so right.
I mean, gosh, you know, I would not want to
be Tark in that situation if you don't endorse your
wife for the post. So she had that one sewn up.
The next endorsement, though, came from the Mecklenburg County Republican Party.
I have their endorsement here as well, they say. Christa
Bacari is a respected community advocate with a deep commitment
to the people and neighborhoods of District six. Her honesty,
civic involvement and unwavering dedication to her values make her
uniquely qualified to repris the district with distinction and consistency. Quote.
This is from Kyle Kirby, the chairman of the mech GOP.
Krista Bakari's direct approach to addressing the recent controversy involving
the city Council and the CMPD chief demonstrated her dedication
to public service, fiscal responsibility, and common sense leadership. We
believe she will continue the work of Councilman Tark Bakari
with the same energy, insight and commitment to the constituents
of District six. So the Mecklenberg Republican Party has like
right out of the gate, very first sentence here points
to what the police chief payoff scandal that the Charlotte
City Council would very much like you to ignore. Christa
Bakari went onto Facebook. We had her on the program
last week. We read through a lot of the Facebook post.
It was a very lengthy post, so I couldn't do
the whole thing. But they have cited her willingness to
step forward and call this out as the reason why
she should get the appointment, and that stands in contrast
to the others who are going down and asking counsel
for the appointment and are not trying to litigate this matter.
They don't want they don't want the Council to be
worried about them. That's what it seems like. So, you know,
you're trying to get on the board, you don't want
to agitate the board members. And I said to Christa
when I was talking to her last week, I said,
you know, you posting this big thing like that might
actually jeopardize your chances of getting the appointment now. And
she said, well, if that happens, then so be it, right,
And it's really politically the strategy is smart because it's
not a big deal. If she doesn't get the appointment
and she still wants to run for the seat, then
she still can do. So it's just a five or
six month delay right in getting onto the council. If
she wins the election, of course, and she has you know,
drawn her you know line in the stand, she planted
her flag there and said, this is what I am
going to run on accountability, transparency, physical prudence. Why are
you know and calling into question this kind of activity,
which again the Charlotte city Council, the city attorney, and
the city manager would very much appreciate everybody just looking
away from So she picks up amazingly the endorsement of
her husband. She also, I'm just kidding. She also picks
up the endorsement from the County Party that cites this
scandal and her willingness to uh, you know, to speak
about it and confront it as the main reason why
they are endorsing her over these other candidates. She has
also picked up endorsements though from state Representative Tricia Cuff,
who you'll recall has introduced and we covered this a
couple of weeks ago with Andrew Dunn. As a matter
of fact, Andrew Dunn, publisher of long Leaf Politics newsletter,
who has also thrown his name in the well in
the hat and then the hat in the ring, he
has also applied for this open position. We talked to
Andrew about this on Tuesday, and you know, Andrew said that,
excuse me, his primary focus was not going to be
the scandal, which that's obviously an attractive thing for the council,
and they're going to have to weigh this now. They're
going to have to weigh whether or not they want
somebody in there who's not going to confront them over
their actions regarding the chief's payout, or do they jeopardize
relations with state lawmakers. Trisha Cotham has introduced a transit
plan that Andrew Dunn was on board with. He liked it.
She has introduced a legislation in Raleigh that seems like
the best way forward, as Andrew Dunn described it, the
best way for Charlotte to get its transit plan going.
So maybe he is actually a bridge builder, if not
Krista Bakari, maybe he actually gets the assignment because he
is a fan of Coffam's plan. But then there's another
endorsement that came down, and that is State Senator Vicky Sawyer.
And Vicky Sawyer is a very powerful lawmaker, particularly on transportation.
She is the chair of the Transportation Senate Committee. And
if you want your transportation plan to win, well, I
won't say approval, but if you want the ability to
go to voters to ask for a tax increase for
a plan, the legislature has to sign off on that.
And both of these, you know, powerful transit oriented state
lawmakers have endorsed Krista Bakari and How bad do Democrats
want their transit plan? How badly do they want it?
That's the choice they're now confronted with, because Krista Baccari
probably gives you the best chance given these endorsements. But
on the other hand, she's going to be a bur
under the saddle for your What I would submit is
unethical at best behavior in paying off the police chief
over his hurt feelings. What do you do, city council?
What do you do? 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,
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Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it
also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape
more transparent. Here's a message on Twitter from good Wahoo.
It's a Pete tweet. Pete with another request for higher
taxes from Charlotte Mecklenberg. I think it is time the
taxpayers of Charlotte Mecklenburg demand an outside Doge type audit
of Charlotte Mecklenburg and all its agencies. And we should
require this type of audit at least every five years.
Who would object and if so, why bureaucrats would object?
And so then Democrats would object. There is actually legislation
moving through the state legislature called the Dave Act, which
would empower a Doge like kind of examination, but it
would be done by the state auditor whose name is Dave.
So yeah, it lines up pretty well there. Yeah, because
the audits. The audits are kind of a joke. Like
I remember when I first started covering city council and
county commission way back in like two thousand, and they
would come out, you know, once a year, and you know,
the finance department would be there or an assistant city
manager and be like, oh, we passed our audit, and
the auditor would come down, we looked at all your systems. There,
ay a plus a plus and eh. Yeah. You know,
it's like that scene from a Christmas Story when Ralphie
gets the A plus plus plus plus and everybody is celebrating.
And then I would see the same sort of performance
unfold when I went to Ashville and Bunkham County and
they got all of their audits passed with flying colors
to yay yes and all this, and then of course
it turned out that the county manager was siphoning money
out of the county till for years, paying for trips
and doing all sorts of purchases and such a couple
of our assistant county managers also went down with the bust,
and a former county commissioner and a current county commissioner
and all of this, and it's like, how did we
pass all of those audits then? Right, because they don't
go that deep. These aren't forensic audits. So yes, I'm
all for actual auditing of expenses, going in there and
looking for now feasins, going in there, looking for systems
that are obsolete, identifying things like well why are you
doing it this way? You know? And I mean I
don't think the local and state governments are nearly as
bad as the federal government because the federal government doesn't
have to comply with like any kind of accounting laws
apparently so and also the states and the local jurisdictions
they're actually required to balance their budgets. But as far
as like rooting out the waste, fraud and abuse, yeah,
there would. I think there would absolutely be a role
for the state auditor to play, and they do actually,
Like if you know of something in local government that's
that's corrupt, you can file complaints up to the state
auditor and at the office will then you know, look
into these tips. That's how they you know, that's how
they get their their audits and some of their probes initiated,
and then depending on what they find, they can refer
it for you know, criminal prosecution or something like that.
A tweet from the Hellion who says counsel wanting to
do the Chuck Schumer move on, Let's move on, which
is really the that's really the Bill Clinton move on strategy, right,
I mean, yes, yes, yes, I know everyone's talking about
all of the the affairs that I've had, but I
think it's time we just move on. That's actually an
older Bill Clinton. That's like a seventy year old Bill
Clinton impression. I used to do a better, younger one,
but I was younger and he was too, so I
don't do it anymore. But yeah, that's just that's just
the standard deal with the Democrats is like, okay, okay,
scandal erupted, we got cawed, let's just move on. Now
we have to move on. And Democrats are doing this
actually with the whole Joe Biden and you know, was
cognitively impaired, they're still trying to get past all of that.
And the media is too, so they're roll in the
same boat. And it's hilarious to watch that happen. Did
you hear, by the way, regarding that, did you hear
that Jake Tapper has hired a crisis public relations firm
for his book rollout. So you know it's going well
when you have to hire a crisis PR team to
come in and handle your book launch. Yeah. Oh, it
couldn't happen to some nicer guys. But now the Democrats
are saying, we need to move on from all of
this the Democrat Party. I saw Martha McCallum was interviewing
some Democrat lawmaker. I forget who it was, and you know,
she keeps trying to point out, like, what did you know?
When did you know it? You kept going on all
of these TV shows and news programs saying that Joe
Biden is fine, and you look at it now, do
you want to like apologize for any of that? And
he's like, the Democrat Party's got bigger problems right now.
We need to focus on moving forward, and we need
to focus on winning the next races and stuff. Yeah,
they don't want to talk about any of the behavior
before right now. You know that's the nice thing. It's
the Democrat privilege. You know, Democrat privileges. You get to
move on very quickly from any kind of a scandal,
and a scandal that involves a single Democrat is never
tainting any other Democrat. That's just that one guy over there.
Don't ever ask me to defend or disavow him. That's
the game you play with Republicans. One Republican in you know,
Sheboygan does something disgusting or legal, and every Republican across
the nation has to now get a mic stuffed in
their face and there is a demand that they defend
or disavow this, you know, deviant or criminal from Sheboygan.
So again, Democrat privilege. You don't have to do that
as a Democrat. Now, that may seem very beneficial to
Democrats and at first blush it is the problem though,
is that resistance to pressure builds strength, and Democrats by
not having this kind of pressure really ever applied to them,
they've gotten weak. They've gotten weak. They're intellectually flabby. They
cannot debate right. You don't see them engaging in debates,
and if you do, it's it doesn't usually go very
well for them. They like to protest right, they like
to do press conferences and such with compliant media, but
when it comes to actually debating the policy and the
philosophy that animates that policy, they've grown intellectually flabby because
they are never pressed to do so, so they get
to just say things like I'm for reproductive justice, and
the media says, oh, okay, all right, I'm for reproductive justice,
and that's enough. That's all that goes into the news story.
I read the other day wral piece and all it
was was just quotes from Democrats without any kind of pushback,
without any kind of you know, fact checking or anything.
When they held their silly little bill funeral performance, and
it was just quotes and quotes and quotes from Democrats
lamenting that they're in the minority party basically and they
don't know how to work with the majority to get
anything done. That was it. So again, Democrat privilege right now,
the Democrat privilege is to select a Republican to fill
the unexpired term on the Charlotte City Council. Oh and
also to try to repair some processes to improve council process.
Because that was really what happened when they decided to
pay off the chief of police when he said he
was considering a lawsuit. No lawsuit ever filed. An ethics
complaint violation that was filed was dismissed for lack of merit,
but for some reason, the same facts warranted a three
hundred thousand dollars payout. Oh and also them not telling
other council members about the ethics complaint being dismissed. It's
the process, you see, all right. So Spring is here
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all the details that create avideo dot Com. Charlotte Observer
reports a pair of Charlotte leaders will team up to
look at ways to improve city council performance. Mayor Viylyles
announced at the city council meeting this week that she
will partner with councilmember Renee Johnson on efforts to change
and improve the council's processes, which is so very Charlotte,
so Charlotte. We're gonna set up a commission, a blue
ribbon commission, even We're gonna have some people, maybe some
breakout groups, get some stakeholders involved. Mayor said, this council
has an opportunity to stop and think this is her
above the fray. I'm not part of any of this.
I'm gonna help. I'm to help fix the process. Now,
this is kind of interesting because Renee Johnson, when she
was up for reelection in twenty twenty three, she was
challenged in her primary in her Democrat primary, and her
challenger was endorsed by the mayor, and so Johnson said
that she and the mayor do have some healing to do,
quote unquote, but she is eager to help the council
find a way to do things differently. I think we've
done enough talking and I look forward to making some changes.
So good luck with that. Meanwhile, I find myself in
a very unique position. Not unique, I find myself in
a very unusual position for me. I have found myself
agreeing with the deputy opinion editor for the Charlotte Observer,
Page Maston. The headline on this piece, Charlott leaders made
a mess with the CMPD chief settlement. It's time for answers. Correct.
I agree, it is time for answers, she writes. The
decision to settle this threatened litigation that never was actually
filed naturally raised questions, including why the city would choose
to settle a lawsuit that has yet to be filed,
or whether it was even right to settle it at all.
The exact details of the settlement remain unclear, and council
members have said they are not able to speak about
it publicly. Not true, they can. Things really went off
the rails when Charlotte City Council Member Victoria Watlington sent
an email to supporters alleging corruption and illegal activities within
city government. The accusations were vague, and Wattlington did not
specify what exactly she was referring to in that email,
but she wrote that she was quote ex extremely concerned
with the level of unethical, immoral, and frankly illegal activities
occurring within city government and accused her colleagues of brazen
disregard for dissenting opinions and the rule of law. The
interim city attorney after he was threatening criminal investigations for
anybody who leaks anything out of a closed session, which
actually that's not actually the case. You can talk about
stuff out of closed session, but he then said that
that could trigger an investigation into Watlington or into her complaint, like,
if she has evidence, bring it forward. If not, then
maybe we investigate her. Just how about we just investigate
everybody just to be safe, you know, just to cover
all the bases. Krista Bakari claimed that the settlement was
recommended without legal grounds and agreed upon using improper procedure.
So yeah, I don't know what legal grounds they had
to settle this. It seems like they did not want
the chief to file a lawsuit, now would he? I
don't know, anybody can file a lawsuit, but the pr
of it is the key. I think they did not
want there to be an embarrassing pr story, public relations
story of the chief suing the city if he would
even do that, because I don't even know if he
would do it. He had his ethics complaint that was
filed via a third party dismissed. It seems from what
the reporting is so far, and I could be wrong
on this, right, just want to lay that on the
table here, but all I'm going by is what's been
publicly reported in that it does not appear as anything
other than the chief coordinating with two of his his subordinates,
a major and the comms director, so like a right
hand and a left hand. I called them the chief's hands.
That they coordinated with the local chapter president of the
NAACP to file that ethics complaint. They traded emails, they
worked on the language for the complaint, and then that
got tossed out. The city attorney tossed it out and
then told the city council pay the chief. Why would
you like why would the standard of proof be higher
in an ethics complaint versus litigation? That's what tells me
it was just about pr Masden goes on to say
that Watlington also said leaders may have misled or withheld
information from council members ahead of the settlement, namely about
the complaint being dismissed. It's unclear if the accusations in
the post were what Watlington was referring to in her email,
but it raises serious questions that city leaders must now answer.
Watlington has since attempted to backtrack, sort of. She now
says that her reference to corruption was figurative. That was
according to a report by Steve Harrison at WFAE. Then,
in a second email to supporter her she downplayed the
weight of her prior accusation, saying none of my concerns
had anything to do with financial or widespread corruption at all.
But she did not apologize or walk back her remarks
about immoral and illegal activity, but also did not provide
evidence for them. Elected officials should know better than to
traffic in baseless accusations and conspiracy theories that injure public trust.
See except here's the difference. They're not baseless the complaint
dismissal versus the settlement, like that's the base for the accusations.
All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you
so much for listening. I could not do the show
without your support and the support of the businesses that
advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support
them too and tell them you heard it here. You
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for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.