Turmoil in the Queen City

The first text came a day after the deadliest police ambush in Charlotte’s history, when four law enforcement officers were killed and four wounded as they tried to serve a warrant at an East Charlotte home. The words from City Council member Tariq Bokhari were conciliatory.

“I know you are in the fire of the furnace right now. You are doing a great job,” he texted Police Chief Johnny Jennings on April 30, 2024. “I’m here whenever you need me.”

A month later, the tone changed.

“Whatever happens from this point forward is not personal,” Bokhari texted on May 30. “I love you dearly as a friend, and always will, but we are locked in on this path now.”

“[I]t sounds like you’re getting ready to get personal,” the chief replied. “I hope what you are getting ready to do is worth it for you. It’s a shame that you would resort to this … ”

Their battle–over allowing police to wear outer carrier vests–escalated until Bokhari, a Republican, called for Jennings’ resignation that July.

That was the backdrop to the city’s recent $305,000 payout to the chief, the terms of which Jennings first disclosed in an interview with journalist Michael Graff for The Assembly and The Charlotte Optimist.

The payout was among a confluence of controversies that have rocked Charlotte’s historically stable city government in recent months.

One council member, Democrat Tiawana Brown, was indicted for fraud over her alleged misuse of federal pandemic relief loans. Another Democratic council member, Victoria Watlington, blasted colleagues as immoral and corrupt before softening her charges.

The chief’s settlement sparked a firestorm, with the Fraternal Order of Police saying it was a misuse of public funds and “taxpayers should be outraged.” The settlement underscored lingering tensions among city leaders and raised questions about transparency and how far a council member should go in criticizing a city employee. 

Weeks after the vote, no city official has come forward to explain the rationale for the settlement. UNC Charlotte political scientist Eric Heberlig said the deal “gets to how the city government is operating.”

“We have a large sum of money changing hands for purposes that are unclear,” Heberlig said. “It’s unclear what basis [Jennings] would have to win a case against the city based on what we know. So without more information … it’s really hard to evaluate whether it’s legitimate or not.”

N.C. Auditor Dave Boliek, a Republican, is investigating the payout, which appears to have been approved on a legal technicality.

Meeting in private on April 28, with three of the 11 members absent, the council reportedly voted 6-2 in favor of the settlement. Six votes are needed for approval, no matter how many members are present. But Democrat LaWana Mayfield, feeling ill, left before the vote without being excused. By state law and Charlotte ordinance, she was counted in favor, thereby sealing the deal. 

She now says she “would have voted against it.”

“Had I stayed there, I would have been a ‘no,’” she told The Assembly.

The agreement and turmoil on the council have cast an unusual shadow over city government, which has worked with the business community to build Charlotte into the country’s 14th-largest city–bigger than San Francisco, Seattle, and Denver. City government has been a partner in drawing major league sports and building a vibrant uptown. 

“I used to brag how we’re up-and-up,” said former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, the city’s longest-tenured mayor who served from 1995 to 2009. “That was a badge of honor for Charlotte. And that badge of honor is being impacted.” 

Secretive Settlement

Four officers were killed in the 2024 shooting–three U.S. marshals and one Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer. Three of the four were wearing outer carrier vests, which Bokhari acknowledged. But he said the vests, which some officers say are more comfortable than carrying equipment on belts, would boost police morale. Jennings, like many chiefs around the country, said the vests look too militaristic and go against a “community-oriented policing philosophy.”

Bokhari kept pushing. The day before a straw vote on the 2024 budget, he met with Jennings to lobby for allowing the officers to wear the vests. Sources say he actually fell to his knees in pleading with the chief. Jennings held firm.

Then on June 10, 2024, council approved a budget that did not include money for vests. That night, Bokhari launched ShieldTheBlue.org with a GoFundMe page and a petition for the vests, as well as a threat to launch another petition for the chief’s resignation.

His drumbeat of texts continued.

“I’ll be demanding your resignation starting Monday,” Bokhari texted Jennings on July 6. “I’ll be hammering you from the press, the private sector, the foundations, the general assembly, congress, and several high profile national organizations. I’ll put maximum pressure on the city manager to fire you.” Bokhari said he would “cripple your legacy you’ve worked so hard for.”

In August, Jennings reversed course and allowed officers to wear the vests. By the time WFAE revealed the text exchanges in November, the chief had hired a lawyer.  

“It wasn’t about the text messages,” he told Graff. “Everybody focuses on the text messages, but not … the push for me to be fired … the push for the petition for people to go online and sign for my termination or forcing the manager to fire me.”

City Manager Marcus Jones, in a recent written statement to The Assembly, said, “The Chief had made it clear to me that he was upset with Council member Bokhari in general and had mentioned to me that he was thinking about legal counsel.”

It wasn’t until January that interim City Attorney Anthony Fox (not to be confused with former Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx) told Jones he’d received what he called a “demand letter” from Jennings’ personal lawyer, Daniel Lyon.

Fox told The Assembly he can’t release the letter because it’s part of a personnel file. He would not say exactly what it sought in terms of damages. In reviewing the city’s options, he said he went through an extensive review “that included a third-party mediation” before concluding a settlement was the best choice.

“With the employee’s consent, we proceeded with an external mediator and held an informal mediation which … produced settlement terms, contingent on Council approval,” Fox said in a statement. He also told The Assembly, “The mere fact that you haven’t been sued doesn’t mean that there’s no merit to the claim or exposure to the [city].” 

Though city officials were mum about their deliberations and the terms of the payout, outlines of the settlement and vote trickled out.

On May 12, Brown disclosed on Facebook that Jennings would get $300,000, a post WSOC-TV first reported. The Charlotte Ledger identified five council members who reportedly voted for the settlement: Republican Ed Driggs and Democrats Dante Anderson, Renee Johnson, Marjorie Molina, and Malcolm Graham. Anderson and Molina could not be reached; the others declined to comment on why they apparently voted in favor.

Jennings himself revealed the details of the settlement in a May 25 Assembly story. They included a $45,699 retention bonus, severance of $175,000, and $25,000 for legal counsel. Jennings declined to comment for this article.

“Obviously, this council got behind closed doors, and they just thought it was better to settle it and not turn it into something larger,” said Republican Edwin Peacock, who was appointed to the council after the vote. He replaced Bokhari, who left to become deputy administrator of the Federal Transit Administration in April.

Over four terms, Bokhari developed a reputation as outspoken and combative, unafraid to criticize colleagues or staff. He demanded the firing of former Charlotte Area Transit System CEO John Lewis, whom he called “a habitual liar.” He also urged the firing of then-planning director Taiwo Jaiyeoba over a disagreement about the city’s comprehensive plan. In Charlotte’s council-manager form of government, those employees, like most others, report to the city manager, not the council.

The city charter spells it out: “Neither the Mayor, the Council nor any member thereof shall direct the conduct or activities of any City employee, directly or indirectly, except through the City Manager.”

Council members are not shy talking about Bokhari.

“I have a concern regarding the action of a sitting elected official threatening an employee of the city rather than going through the manager,” Mayfield told The Assembly. “No elected official should ever … bully an employee.”

“The chief was basically tossed under the bus,” Peacock said. “If anything we owe him an apology. … This started by the bad behavior of a board member, and that is not being addressed.”

Bokhari declined to comment for this story.

‘Power Corrupts’

Watlington’s May 6 email shocked her colleagues.

Coming from her campaign account with the subject line “Power Corrupts,” she said she was “extremely concerned with the level of unethical, immoral, and frankly, illegal activities occurring within City government.”

“I have seen enough,” she wrote. “Over the last five and a half years, I have witnessed the brazen disregard for dissenting opinions and the rule of law. Never, however, have I seen such an egregious example as what has occurred in the last week. It is time for a change.”

The email came the same day WFAE and WSOC first reported leaked details of the Jennings settlement. Watlington told The Charlotte Observer she was talking about “the culture of the organization and how work is done.” She said council members “need equal access to information.” 

The Ledger reported Watlington voted against the severance deal. She could not be reached for comment.

The next day, Lyles and a handful of council members responded. The mayor said Watlington’s comments, “are serious and … damaged the reputation of this organization. To be clear, these allegations are unfounded and if she has any proof she needs to provide that to the city attorney’s office, who is duty bound to investigate.”

Watlington later clarified her remarks. In an email to supporters, she said she has no concerns about “financial or widespread corruption.” Later, at a public meeting, she said, “I didn’t have an opportunity to have all the facts about the settlement at the time that my vote was asked, which is why I had concerns.”

Fox, the interim city attorney, has said he plans to investigate Watlington’s comments. WFAE reported that Watlington has said she won’t cooperate with the probe because Fox was involved with Jennings’ settlement after dismissing an earlier ethics complaint against Bokhari by the president of the local NAACP.

Her concerns echoed earlier criticisms about communication among city leaders. Two years ago, I talked to some council members for a Charlotte Magazine article on the city’s power structure. One said that policy issues sometimes came to the council “already baked” by staff, leaving them little room for changes.

“We’ve got to change the culture back to where major public initiatives have to be discussed in public,” Graham told The Assembly. “Sometimes the default position is to disclose less.”

He said members didn’t know about the proposed Jennings settlement until they walked into the April 28 executive session. He argues the mayor and manager should have called out Bokhari when he called for the firing of other department heads. “Vi and others should have spoken out earlier when these came to light,” Graham said.

The city manager did talk to Bokhari. “The chief shared the texts with me after he received them,” Jones said. “And yes, I did tell Mr. Bokhari that I did not support his position or appreciate his approach, and I asked him to stop.” 

Lyles declined to comment.

The Charlotte Way

With one notable exception, Charlotte has long prided itself on clean government.

City leaders might bicker on policy but have generally done so with an underlying comity. The “Charlotte Way” usually meant that political and business leaders were on the same page on important issues. Under council-manager government, day-to-day operations are in the hands of professional staff.

That formula generally has worked well for Charlotte. Mayors from both parties–like Harvey Gantt, Richard Vinroot, McCrory, and Foxx–led city councils that worked with business leaders to build a 24-hour uptown and the infrastructure to support one of the fastest-growing cities in the country.  

The exception was former Democratic Mayor Patrick Cannon.    

In 2014, Cannon was sentenced to four years in prison for taking more than $50,000 in bribes. That included taking a brown Fossil briefcase containing $20,000 from an undercover FBI agent in the mayor’s 15th-floor office. An FBI affidavit said he’d also solicited another $1.25 million bribe. All that happened just a year after he was elected.

Like Cannon, current council member Brown served four years in federal prison. She was sentenced for fraud in 1994. When she won her seat in 2023, she acknowledged being the first person elected to council who’d spent time behind bars.

“As most of you may know, I am a formerly incarcerated individual,” she said at her swearing-in. “This position is a gift from God that I don’t take lightly.”

Brown gave birth to one of her two daughters, Tijema, while she was an inmate in West Virginia. Last month, both daughters were indicted along with Brown after prosecutors alleged they’d fraudulently received $124,165 in federal pandemic relief loans. The indictment says a month after receiving one loan, Brown spent $15,000 on a birthday party for herself.

Brown, who could not be reached for comment, has maintained her innocence. She briefly addressed the indictment at the end of a town hall meeting in May.

“This has been one of the most difficult six days of my life,” she told constituents. “I wanted you to hear directly from me: I’m still fighting, and I’m still serving.”

At least two Democrats have said they plan to run for Brown’s seat. WSOC-TV reported that Brown told friends in a June 10 email that she would not run for re-election. But she told the station the email was a “test” and that she plans to run.

Lack of Transparency

Two days after Watlington’s accusations went public, the city alerted potential investors in city bonds, which were issued to upgrade Charlotte Douglas International Airport.

“The City has been made aware of recent allegations of corruption and illegality within City government,” it said. “The City will take all necessary steps to assess the merits of the allegations and will respond accordingly.”

Cannon aside, words like “corruption” have been uncommon in Charlotte.

Malcomb Coley, central region private leader for EY (the accounting and consulting firm formerly known as Ernst & Young) and a prominent Charlotte executive, said the city’s “brand is extremely strong.”

“But these things,” he said of recent controversies, “do begin to chip away at the edges.”

What troubles former Mayor Jennifer Roberts, a Democrat, is the lack of transparency on the chief’s $305,000 payout.

“The public deserves to know what their public tax dollars are paying for,” she said. “And part of that means knowing how decisions are being made in the use of those dollars. … A lot of people are losing trust. And I think it’s going to have repercussions on things like the transit tax–you’ve got to get the community to vote on these things.”

City and county officials are hoping state lawmakers allow them to put a sales tax referendum on the ballot this fall that would raise billions for public transit.

Some critics point to what may be a more basic issue: the way Charlotte elects its leaders.

It’s one of only four N.C. cities, along with Kinston, Sanford, and Winston-Salem, to hold partisan municipal elections. For decades, Democrats and Republicans flipped control of the Charlotte council; Republicans held the mayor’s seat for two decades until 2009. Since then, like many larger cities across the country, Charlotte has become essentially a one-party town with city elections almost always decided in Democratic primaries.

Turnout in primary and general elections has been abysmal. According to the Mecklenburg Board of Elections, fewer than 5 percent of voters went to the polls when Brown won her 2023 district primary; turnout was 9 percent in that year’s general election.

“When people are assured of re-election, there tends to be a growing arrogance about their power,” McCrory said.

Former Bank of America Chairman and CEO Hugh McColl Jr., who over five decades helped transform Charlotte into a major league city, said he’s “disturbed that we’re having these problems. … I don’t think it’s good for the city.”

For whatever reason, he said, “Too many good people have avoided running for office. And as a result, over time you get a weaker government.”