Fayetteville City Council; The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Fayetteville, N.C. – Fayetteville City Council voted Tuesday night to instruct city attorney Karen McDonald to proceed with the amotion process to oust the now credibility and reputation damaged Tyrone Williams from the city council. This is due to alleged misconduct in office by Williams for allegedly seeking to extort bribery money from Prince Charles Holdings representatives as evidenced by a legally created, and operationally responsible recording released to the public.

As a side note; there was nothing “secret” or improper or shady about Prince Charles Holdings LLC project manager Jordan Jones recording his meeting with Williams and Jenkins. North Carolina is a “one party consent state” with regard to recordings. Neither Williams or Jenkins had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the meeting with Jones. And it was the height of ignorance for either one of them to think so. Walk into any department store, are you not recorded? Approach any Fayetteville Police Officer, are you not being recorded, video and audio? Go into ANY public place, are you not subject to video and audio recording by anyone with a cellphone or tablet? Drive along Grove St. and run a red light, aren’t you likely to be recorded by a red light camera and receive a fine in the mail along with a picture of your car? Are you going to claim that because you didn’t know about it that you were “secretly” recorded?

The special meeting conducted Tuesday night brought to light several realizations for citizen viewers.

Williams’ conduct, and the solid evidence provided by the recording, has created quite a difficult problem for all the city council members regarding the politically visual aspect towards all of them in that the alleged extortionate solicitation of bribery and misconduct of a public official, Tyrone Williams, does not allow for a “muddying of the waters” via a racial component or by simply ignoring the allegations.

There is no escaping that the audio recording has placed the adjudication of this issue firmly in the court of “content of character” and quite decisively and irrevocably negated for Williams any possibility of any adjudication based on “color of skin”, either positively or negatively.

But that does not keep certain council members and other liberally bent individuals from trying.

The Good

Council Member Waddell: “This is,…this is just very messy. And I think it’s,…if I may go out on a limb I think that it is messy because our peer [Tyrone Williams] does not seem to have shot straight with us from the beginning. And I think that’s what makes it difficult for us to sit here and expect for,…for an independent review to give us any new information.”

Bill Crisp severely schooled the city council with the most concise and exceedingly logical points of discussion of the whole evening.

City Council Special Meeting- April 16 2018 – Video reference point 28:30

Council Member Crisp: Mr. Mayor, council members, I don’t have an objection to someone outside examining this case. What I am concerned about is the rhetoric I keep hearing coming from you Mr. Mayor, from you Mr. Haire and from you counsel member Wright about other evidence. What other evidence did you anticipate uncovering? You’re not gonna get anything from the FBI. Nothing whatsoever! Unless there’s subpoena power you can’t compel Mr. Jordan Jones to come in here and speak to us. So what other evidence are you looking for? Clearly the tape implies that they want to avoid transparency, don’t want the public to know about this transaction, this request for money. What other evidence do you want? This is a motion here to start the process of removing council member Williams from office based on what nine of us signed that said we clearly believe was unethical conduct. There are other things to Mr. Williams life that haven’t come out yet. And he may not want some of them to come out, okay? But I don’t have a problem with it. But I, you know, I don’t want to spend $100,000 when we can do this in a very simplified fashion, okay? I have no problem with an outside attorney or or someone coming in and look at it but I heard the word audit used. What is there to audit? There are no records that are gonna be made available to you. We can’t subpoena the PCH records. There’s no transaction of money from this counsel of this city that requires us to audit it in which councilman Williams was involved in. What we hear clearly on the tape is someone asking for $15,000 because he said there’s something wrong with the deed to the property after a judge said there was nothing wrong with the deed to the property. He asked for $15,000, said it would be okay. 15,000, words to that effect’ would be alright. I don’t know what y’all call that? No, I haven’t made up my mind councilman Wright. I’m always open and willing because I learned a long time ago judge not unless you be judged and I also understand about throwing rocks at glass houses. I think we all understand that but we also understand what our ethical requirements are and our ethical responsibilities are. When I go to lunch with members out there, and they will attest to this, I don’t let them pay for lunch for me. You know why? Because I have an open campaign account and if I do, it becomes an in-kind contribution, so I pay for the lunch myself. This is because the ethics standards will compel me to do that. We have an ethical standard from a moral standpoint, a religious standpoint, that we have to live by and when we violate it we’re in trouble. Okay this man is a preacher, and clearly in my mind at this point his life violated the ethical standards of this council. And that doesn’t mean that I can’t turn it around in my mind council member Wright, because if we find other evidence. But based on what we have right now there’s an ethical violation and I’m not sure we’re gonna get any other evidence, all right? We’re wrestling with another problem. Mr. Williams recused himself and now he comes back and says he wants to withdraw the recusal, okay? I’ve said as much as I need to say. I’m, I’m in favor of moving forward with a resolution issue the petition so we can start the amotion process. That’s all I have to say. Thank you.

The Bad

Colvin was quick to attempt to muddy the waters with allusions to the possibility of forthcoming evidence with the inference that this elusive evidence would somehow be favorable to Wright.

Colvin also is attempting to call for an audit of which as Crisp pointed out, there’s nothing to audit. But you can be assured that Colvin, Wright and Haire in collusion with Williams would be quite happy to kick this alleged criminal act right on down the road for the next six months which is how long such an audit would take even though there’s nothing to audit.

But then again it is more likely that this is the result of “birds flocking together”. One wonders how it is even conceivable to the citizenry that Colvin with his criminal record can be even remotely unbiased in this matter, his current votes on this matter notwithstanding. The direction of these votes may very well drastically change when the rubber meets the road in the far more important votes down the road. The citizens of Fayetteville rolled the dice in electing this person mayor and now they may just see just how badly it could possibly affect them in the end.

Of course Williams and his defense attorney desires an independent group hired to “investigate” Williams. This would open the door to many complaints on his part to muddy the waters like “how many blacks occupy the investigation team”, “there’s racists on the investigative team out to get me, it was just a bad decision”, “they investigated too much”, “they investigated too little”.

Why in the world would anybody in their right mind want to intentionally open that convoluted can of worms that would take forever to sort out? It’s costly and completely unnecessary because the city council is quite capable, quite authorized and quite appropriate as the decisive body in this issue; it’s what they were elected to do!

Who would choose this group? Who would comprise this group? A bunch of expensive attorneys? The city already has an attorney costing the taxpayers an exorbitant salary of $171,858.68 a year. Don’t forget, it certainly is city attorney McDonald’s job to investigate this incident and reduce the facts of this incident into a comprehensive report to the city council so that they may make an informed decision on Williams’ actions. This is clearly set forth in her job description.

Supervise and participate in the preparation and legal proceedings of important cases.

And since city attorney McDonald has been provided with a staff of eight at a cost of an additional $776,041.32 a year to the city’s taxpayers there certainly should be no need to bring in any outside independent group in this matter. The taxpayers already pay over a million a year ($1,409,268.00) a year for this legal body of nine.

Or is it that the city council doesn’t trust city McDonald and her team to be impartial and objective? If not, then shouldn’t we do away with the whole of the city attorney’s office and contract the job out? I’m sure that an attorney’s office can be hired for a yearly fee of less than a million and a half a year.

If they want a truly independent group to investigate Williams so bad then simply file a report regarding the incident with the Fayetteville Police Department or the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office and have one of their detectives investigate the incident. All their detectives have more than enough objectivity and impartiality. That’s what they do. Both have territorial and subject matter jurisdiction regarding this matter. And any of their detectives are very knowledgeable and efficient in such matters and as a bonus they cause no additional cost to the taxpaying voters.

In fact, the taxpaying voters are wondering why this hasn’t happened already.

If a city inspector was caught soliciting a bribe from local contractor to “smooth the way” for a local project, regardless or not whether the project was a local taxpayer funded city project, for the amount of $15,000.00, the expectation would be that a report would be filed with law enforcement. If the elements of any crime were met then a warrant for arrest would, and should, be expected to be issued, a court date scheduled, and the offender would lose their job sooner rather than later long before any case went to court.

Why should the city council expect to be treated any different? There is no law in the state of North Carolina stating that city council members are subject to any different laws than a city inspector, or any Fayetteville citizen for that matter.

The Ugly

The Fayetteville city council has a duty to its constituents to shoulder the responsibility of sitting in judgement of their council member peer Williams and making that hard determination as to whether or not Williams’ actions, the content of his character, provide a reasonable and just cause for removal from office. It would be unethical on their part to attempt to shun that duty of their office and try to foist it off onto others.

It is firmly established in North Carolina law that amotion is a common law action enabling a municipal governing body to remove an elected official for reasonable and just cause. It is an intrinsic right of all corporations, and therefore available to incorporated municipalities. It is not new and it is not unusual. In fact it is a process that is used quite frequently.

Williams should be removed from office if it is determined after a full and fair hearing on the merits that reasonable and just cause for removal has been established by the evidence.

It’s just not that hard for them to do either.

They are doing nothing more than any law enforcement officer, prosecutor or juror does, at speed, efficiently and effectively every day in their jobs. They simply answer that one, and only one, singularly relative question;

Did the accused’s actions meet the elements of any common law or legislatively defined crime?

If the answer is no then the verdict must be not guilty. If the answer is yes, then the verdict must be guilty and punishment imposed.

This issue is really no different than seeing Williams run a red light. With the recording as evidence you know what you are seeing (hearing) and there is no question that a law has been broken. There is no other evidence that is going to magically present itself to exonerate Williams or mitigate the crime that you saw (heard) committed. It’s time for the city council to put their big boy and big girl pants on and shoulder the responsibility that they campaigned and promised they would shoulder.

In this particular instance there is “probable cause” to believe, as evidenced by the recording released to the public, that Williams committed criminal violations of N.C.G.S. § 14-230 “Misconduct in office” and N.C.G.S. § 14-217 “Bribery of an Official” and N.C.G.S. § 14-234. “Public Officers or Employees Benefiting from Public Contracts” and N.C.G.S. § 14-118.4 “Extortion” which separately or collectively are certainly just causes for removal of Williams from the office of city council.

The “elements” for these crimes are already set forth in a time honored and well respected publication in use by nearly every prosecution, defense and law enforcement office across the state called North Carolina Crimes, a Guidebook on the Elements of Crime; ISBN 978-1-56011-568-7.

Taking these elements in the order listed, you the reader, decide for yourself if you believe the elements to these crimes have been met;

Bribery of Official; Class F Felony

1. Did council member Tyrone Williams hold a public office at the time of the incident?
   1. Yes, Tyrone Williams was a duly elected Fayetteville, N.C. city council member at the time of the incident.
2. Did council member Tyrone Williams commit the overt act of receiving or agree to receive?
   1. Yes, Tyrone Williams agreed to receive money in the form of U.S. dollars.
3. Did council member Tyrone Williams agree to receive something of value or personal advantage?
   1. Yes, Tyrone Williams agreed to receive a promissory note for the value of $15,000.00.
4. Did council member Tyrone Williams agree to perform an official act [or] to omit to performing an official act in the scope of his or her official duties and authority?
   1. Yes, Tyrone Williams agreed to “smooth the way” for the presentation of a clear title to the remaining city council members and affected city employees by;
      1. “signing off” on the title making it a “clear” title, such statement by Williams that was a false representation of the truth, said title having already been adjudicated as “clear” in that the alleged defect had no bearing on the the new owners’ title, as determined by a bankruptcy court conducted by a duly elected judicial official in 2008 which was information that Williams had received through notification by his attorney (John Briggs) who stated he notified Williams and the company that hired him as a matter of due diligence and
      2. by not raising, or causing to be raised, an issue of a “defect” (related to Williams) publicly as a Fayetteville city council member against the title in the matter of the Prince Charles Hotel, said title being a critical component in a project that is a part of a Fayetteville city funded project and
      3. by attempting to thwart the official policies of the Fayetteville city council regarding transparency and ethical behavior and adherence to the N.C. Constitution and the laws of the State of N.C. as set forth in his oath of office.
5. Did council member Tyrone Williams commit these acts with an express or implied understanding?
   1. Yes, Tyrone Williams, as evidenced in a recording legally acquired within the limitations set forth in N.C.G.S. § 15A-287 made statements of both implied and express understanding;
   2. NOTE: Jones is not to be viewed as a bad player in this incident as it is he and his company who released this information to the Fayetteville city council and the public.
      1. Williams: I have a call from attorney they told me about the uh, the uh, title there…
      2. Jones: Okay Audio Time Stamp 03:30
      3. Williams: …unclear, and they wanted me to sign off on it and I’m sure they can forget, you know, you know how they push things through they knew that but some time banks will stop it cause banks are like hey look this has to be clearly and it has to be this but sometimes you still make it through but I don’t want somewhere down the road you know come back up
      4. Jenkins: And don’t want to do it, yeah wanna make sure you make sure we do this quiet as possible.
      5. Williams: Right, absolutely!

         

      6. Jenkins: No, no public image, no public…
      7. Williams: Right! Audio Time Stamp 04:05
      8. Jenkins:…knowledge…
      9. Jones: Mm-hmm
      10. Jenkins:…so that we have you lined up for scrutiny we,…
      11. Williams: Yeah!
      12. Jones: Yeah.
      13. Jenkins:…when you start doing that so…
      14. Williams: I think I would just feel good if we just work together some kind of way doesn’t make it all go away. Okay? I don’t know, I’m not looking for a large amount of money, I’m just looking for, ah… smooth transitions you know what I mean?
      15. Jones: Mm-hmm Yeah, any? I’m just, need probably a little more detail there, kind of any specific ask in mind. What’s a smooth transition? Audio Time Stamp 04:58
      16. Williams: I don’t know, I kind of take it um, I don’t know, um. I don’t know, maybe, you know…I think, I think, to be honest with you, I think I did about $15,000 for work on a project just trying to put my effort into it. There’s some kind of a story and I alternate our part in it, but if I could just, I got a $100,000 written off I believe but I think I just sign off for like $15,000 I’d be done.
      17. Jones: Okay.
      18. Williams: I’ll be over with, I’ll be completely done.
      19. Jones: Okay.
      20. Williams: You know what I mean?
      21. Jones: Yeah, Okay.
6. Did council member Tyrone Williams know that his official action or inaction was to be influenced by the thing of value or personal advantage.
   1. Yes, Tyrone Williams made it clear that for the sum of $15,000.00 he would;
      1. “sign off” on the title making it a “clear” title, such statement by Williams that was a false representation of the truth, said title having already been adjudicated as “clear” in that the alleged defect had no bearing on the the new owners’ title, as determined by a bankruptcy court conducted by a duly elected judicial official in 2008 which was information that Williams had received through notification by his attorney (John Briggs) who stated he notified Williams and the company that hired him as a matter of due diligence and
      2. by not raising, or causing to be raised, an issue of a “defect” (related to Williams) publicly as a Fayetteville city council member against the title in the matter of the Prince Charles Hotel, said title being a critical component in a project that is a part of a Fayetteville city funded project. and
      3. thwart the official policies of the Fayetteville city council regarding transparency and ethical behavior and shun adherence to the N.C. Constitution and the laws of the State of N.C. as set forth in his oath of office.

 Misconduct in Office; Class 1 Misdemeanor: Mandatory Removal From Office

1. Did council member Tyrone Williams hold a public office at the time of the incident?
   1. Yes, Tyrone Williams was a duly elected Fayetteville, N.C. city council member at the time of the incident.
2. Was council member Tyrone Williams qualified to the office of Fayetteville city council member?
   1. Yes, Tyrone Williams was duly elected and qualified as evidenced by his installation into the office of Fayetteville city council member.
3. Did council member Tyrone Williams willfully and corruptly omit, neglect or refuse to discharge any of the duties of his office, [or] willfully and corruptly violate his oath of office according to the true intent and meaning thereof by by failing to  support and maintain the Constitution and laws of North Carolina?
   1. Yes, Tyrone Williams;
      1. willfully and corruptly omitted;
         1. to inform the body of the Fayetteville city council in a timely manner of his involvement with the Prince Charles Hotel and in fact attempted to conspire with Jenkins and Jones to hide the fact of his involvement and attempted extortion of $15,000.00 to not interfere with the property title to the Prince Charles Hotel regarding a trivial “defect”, said title having already been adjudicated as “clear” in that the alleged defect had no bearing on the the new owners’ title, as determined by a bankruptcy court conducted by a duly elected judicial official in 2008.
      2. neglected or refused to discharge any of the duties of his office;
         1. such duty as set forth in Sec. 2-94. Conflict of Interest. – Participation in business transaction involving public funds. No appointed official or employee shall become an undertaker, or make any contract for his own benefit, under such authority, or be in any manner concerned or interested in making such contract, or in the profits thereof, either privately or openly, singly or jointly with another, unless the contract is authorized pursuant to G.S. 14-234, and the following conditions are met:
            1. The appointed official or employee has not been privileged to any confidential information relating to the business or transaction;
            2. The appointed official or employee shall make a public disclosure of their financial interest and not participate in any deliberations or voting on such business or transaction;
            3. The public body on which the appointed official or employee works or serves is not the initiator, recipient, user of the supply or service, or public body involved with the purchase, implementation, construction or management of the public project or facility.
      3.  willfully and corruptly violated his oath of office according to the true intent and meaning thereof by failing to  support and maintain the N.C. Constitution and laws of North Carolina in that he;
         1. violated or attempted to violate N.C.G.S. § 14-234(a)(3) and/or
         2. violated or attempted to violate N.C.G.S. § 14-217 Bribery of an Official and/or
         3. violated or attempted to violate N.C.G.S. § 14-230 Misconduct in Office and/or
         4. violated or attempted to violate N.C.G.S. § 14-118.4 Extortion.
         5. Before entering upon the duties of the office of city council member, Tyrone Williams, a person elected to the office, had to take and subscribe the following oath:
            1. “I, Tyrone Williams, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and maintain the Constitution and laws of the United States, and the Constitution and laws of North Carolina not inconsistent therewith, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of my office as city council member, so help me God.”

Extortion; Class F Felony

NOTE: Tyrone Williams’ status as a city council member is not a factor in this violation. It does not matter if he’s a city council member, a grocery sacker or an out of work car salesman. ANY PERSON who meets these elements are guilty of this felony crime.

1. Did council member Tyrone Williams threaten or communicate a threat to another?
   1. Yes, Tyrone Williams communicated the threat that the title to Prince Charles Hotel was defective due to his not having “signed off” on the new title and made the threatening inference that he would not “smooth the way” and sign off on the title clearing it, said title being a critical component in a project that is a part of a Fayetteville city funded project.
      1. Threat communicated: Williams: I have a call from attorney they told me about the uh, the uh, title there unclear, and they wanted me to sign off on it and I’m sure they can forget, you know, you know how they push things through they knew that but some time banks will stop it cause banks are like hey look this has to be clearly and it has to be this but sometimes you still make it through but I don’t want somewhere down the road you know come back up and got Carlos you trying to sell an all this thing, and some attorney say what’s this right here, you know?
2. Did council member Tyrone Williams commit the threatening act with the intent to obtain wrongfully?
   1. Yes, Tyrone Williams communicated the threat when he knew, or reasonably should have known that his threat was a false misrepresentation of the truth said title having already been adjudicated as “clear” in that the alleged defect had no bearing on the the new owners’ title, as determined by a bankruptcy court conducted by a duly elected judicial official in 2008 which was information that Williams had received through notification by his attorney (John Briggs) who stated he notified Williams and the company that hired him as a matter of due diligence.
3. Did council member Tyrone Williams make a demand for anything of value, any acquittance, any advantage or any immunity?
   1. Yes, Tyrone Williams made a demand for the amount of $15,000.00 U.S. dollars, said monies to be transferred to him in the form of a promissory note as evidenced by Williams’ statements excerpted from the released audio recording of the December 21, 2017 meeting between Fayetteville city council member Tyrone Williams, Prince Charles Holdings LLC project manager Jordan Jones, and little known obscure marketing businessman T.J. Jenkins.
      1. Williams: I think I would just feel good if we just work together some kind of way doesn’t make it all go away. Okay? I don’t know, I’m not looking for a large amount of money, I’m just looking for, ah… smooth transitions you know what I mean?
      2. Jones: Mm-hmm Yeah, any? I’m just, need probably a little more detail there, kind of any specific ask in mind. What’s a smooth transition? Audio Time Stamp 04:58
      3. Williams: I don’t know, I kind of take it um, I don’t know, um. I don’t know, maybe, you know…I think, I think, to be honest with you, I think I did about $15,000 for work on a project just trying to put my effort into it. There’s some kind of a story and I alternate our part in it, but if I could just, I got a $100,000 written off I believe but I think I just sign off for like $15,000 I’d be done.
      4. Jones: Okay.
      5. Williams: I’ll be over with, I’ll be completely done.
      6. Jones: Okay.
      7. Williams: You know what I mean?
      8. Jones: Yeah, Okay.
      9. Jones: Moving forward if I’m able to make this 15 or something work …
      10. William: Mm hmm
      11. Jones: …check to you? Or
      12. how do you want that to work?
      13. Williams: Uh, I mean to be honest was free for an attorney, I mean it’s right there, is a, is a promissory note.
      14. Jones: okay yes, and we were able to find that, perfect, and that’ll be what we will settle
      15. Williams: Right.
      16. Jones: A promissory note, that sounds good.
      17. Williams: That’s good,…that’s good news.

Public Officers or Employees Benefiting from Public Contracts; Class 1 Misdemeanor

1. Did council member Tyrone Williams commit this violation while holding a public office?
   1. Yes, Tyrone Williams was a duly elected Fayetteville, N.C. city council member at the time of the incident.
2. Did council member Tyrone Williams solicit or receive any gift, favor, reward, service, or promise of reward, including a promise of future employment?
   1. Yes, Tyrone Williams made a demand for the amount of $15,000.00 U.S. dollars, said monies to be transferred to him in the form of a promissory note as evidenced by Williams’ statements excerpted from the released audio recording of the December 21, 2017 meeting between Fayetteville city council member Tyrone Williams, Prince Charles Holdings LLC project manager Jordan Jones, and little known obscure marketing businessman T.J. Jenkins.
3. Did council member Tyrone Williams make this solicitation in exchange for recommending, influencing, or attempting to influence the award of a contract by the public agency he or she serves.
   1. Yes, Tyrone Williams, a city council member serving on the the public agency, the City of Fayetteville, agreed to “smooth the way” for the presentation of a clear title to the remaining city council members and affected city employees by stating that he would;
      1. “sign off” on the title making it a “clear” title, such statement by Williams that was a false representation of the truth, said title having already been adjudicated as “clear” in that the alleged defect had no bearing on the the new owners’ title, as determined by a bankruptcy court conducted by a duly elected judicial official in 2008 which was information that Williams had received through notification by his attorney (John Briggs) who stated he notified Williams and the company that hired him as a matter of due diligence. and
      2. by not raising, or causing to be raised, an issue of a “defect” (related to Williams) publicly as a Fayetteville city council member against the title in the matter of the Prince Charles Hotel, said title being a critical component in a project that is a part of a Fayetteville city funded project.

As one can readily see, there are no unknown “facts” remaining that require discernment. All the elements of the various violations certainly appear to have been met. All the required “facts” are in and any demand for additional facts are merely an attempt to muddy the waters and slow down the process for the benefit of the accused, Williams.

It is not the job of the city council to search out and find all the facts. It is the job of the city council to hear the facts that are presented to them by city attorney McDonald and it is Williams’ job to seek out and present to the city council any “facts” he wants them to hear that are relevant to the incident. It is not city council’s job to “seek out” any facts good or bad. It is up to Williams to collect his own facts on his own dime and more importantly it’s up to him to pay for any research for those facts he believes to be in existence to be conducted in a timely manner in order to meet the deadlines set by the remainder of the city council in this matter.

A succession of continuances in this matter would be unethical in itself for the extremely important reason that they would leave District 2 without representation in the most honest lawful sense of the true intent and meaning thereof as the citizenry of District 2 are entitled.

Quite frankly, there is nothing that the Fayetteville Ethics commission can determine in this matter that can’t already be determined, and be determined more appropriately, by the city council as they are duty bound to use the same methods to arrive at a decision.

Should it not be a “jury of his peers”, other city council members, to sit in judgement of Williams rather than a lower commission that is subject to direction from Williams too? That in itself appears to be an ethical conundrum as well.

The standard in any such proceeding whether it be a court of law, a quasi-judicial city council meeting or even your average everyday corporate board meeting remains the same across the venues. It is; What would a “reasonable person” decide in a similar issue?

What is a “reasonable person”? In the case of a city council member sitting in judgement of a peer it is a phrase frequently used in tort and Criminal Law to denote a hypothetical person in society who exercises average care, skill, and judgment in conduct and who serves as a comparative standard for determining liability as does any juror or any judge in a court of law.

In the case of the accused, Williams, it is how he compares with a typical person, with ordinary prudence, would act in certain circumstances. The test as to whether a person has acted as a reasonable person is an objective one, and so it does not take into account the specific abilities of a defendant.

Even though the liberal WFNC commercial announcer Jeff Goldberg tried to tell his 128 morning listeners and George Breece that Williams didn’t get an ethics briefing until after the incident occurred at a council member training session, this information is untrue. McDonald clearly stated that they received clear and concise ethics information in their new council member on-boarding packets that new council members received on being elected.

They were required to read and assimilate the information therein and thus Williams can’t say that he didn’t know what his ethics requirements were.

City Council Special Meeting- April 16 2018 – Video reference point 47:23

Waddell: I have one more question for you before you sit down. And not to make light of this situation but sometimes laughter is good for the soul.
McDonald: It’s also, it’s actually, the entire ordinance is 2-94
Waddell: Thank you
McDonald: Then that particular section that you referenced pertains to the conflict of interest then the voting prevention.
Waddell: And, and you may not remember this but do you remember when you provided each of us a copy of the, the code of ethics? Did we receive that?
McDonald: Absolutely!
Waddell: Okay
McDonald: That was part of your on boarding notebook that all new council members received
Waddell: Okay, thank you

The citizenry of the 2nd District are being deprived of credible representation each and every minute that this situation is allowed to fester. The decision in this matter must be timely or all decisions coming before the city council must be tabled, especially PCH decisions that are about the 2nd District, until the issue is resolved. The people of the 2nd district can not be unrepresented in any of the decisions. The issue is not what’s convenient for the city council member or members, but what is proper for the 2nd district constituency.

These unethical calls for slowing down the process by Colvin, Wright, Haire and Williams serve only to cast an even more dismal aura of depravity, criminality, and untrustworthiness on the City of Fayetteville as a whole in the eyes of other cities and other businesses that would have considered bringing good paying jobs to Fayetteville.

• SOURCES:
  • Bribery of Officials
  • Extortion
  • Willfully Failing to Discharge Duties
  • Public Officers or Employees Benefiting from Public Contracts
  • N.C. Electronic Recording Law
  • City Council Special Meeting- April 16 2018
  • Williams, Jones, Jenkins December 21, 2017 Meeting
  • Putting Amotion in Motion
  • Fayetteville Fiscal Year 2018 Annual Budget (Page G13)
  • ENCODE – Fayetteville Municipal Codes
  • City of Fayetteville Employee Salaries