Fayetteville City Council has decided to not look further into the allegations that former Councilwoman Tisha Wadell made in her resignation letter.

Wadell asked the Fayetteville City Council to investigate the following:

• The allegation that Mayor Mitch Colvin destroyed public records by having his cell phone wiped clean (phone number 910.987.0590) and any involvement of any member of City Staff
• The involvement of Johnathan Charleston regarding any business with Bernhard Capital Partners or their representatives
• The involvement of Mayor Mitch Colvin regarding any business with Bernhard Capital Partners or any of their representatives - to include Mayor Steve Benjamin
• Members of Council contacted by or having discussions with Attorney Johnathan Charleston or any of his representatives regarding Dismass Charities before, during, or after the initial Special Use Permit was brought to us for consideration? If this happened, it would be a direct violation of the law/policy regarding Special Use Permits.

In November, Councilwoman Yvonne Kinston asked the Audit Committee to review the allegations and to, as a group, ask the whole of City Council to discuss whether or not to do an independent investigation into the Mayor. The Council voted 4-0 and the motion was going to be presented to City Council at the beginning of December.

However, the Chair of the Audit Committee, Johnny Dawkins, pulled the item last minute - despite voting on it.

Dawkins told Up & Coming Weekly that he voted on it initially because it would just be a discussion item, not a recommendation for the council to go one way or another.

“In the two weeks or so between the Audit Committee Meeting and the Work Session, I reviewed the bylaws of the Audit Committee, and it appeared to me that the issue is not something in our purview,” Dawkins said.

According to the City’s website, the Audit Committee’s “primary purpose is to assist the City Council in fulfilling its oversight responsibilities for the overall stewardship of the City’s financial affairs.”

Dawkins told Up & Coming Weekly that he believes these allegations should go to the Ethics Committee and not the Audit Committee since no city funds, or misuse of city funds was brought up in the allegations.

“There’s never been a time when I was chairman, where I pulled an item like this. I went to enough law school to know that this is not in the purview of the Audit Committee, but the city attorney wouldn’t give me a definite answer on that,” Dawkins said.

On Jan. 28, Kinston brought up the issue in the Audit Committee. She asked Dawkins why he pulled the unanimous voted-on item from the December work session and he said that he did not feel like it should have been up to the Audit Committee to bring this topic forward.

However, when the two other committee members backed Kinston up, Dawkins conceded and said he was fine putting it up, as long as Kinston presented it and it had her name on it.

This all cumulated Monday night when City Council’s Work Session officially discussed a possible investigation. Colvin recused himself from the conversation immediately and did not vote on it.

The biggest argument against the investigation, coming from Councilman Larry Wright, is that external organizations already conducted investigations into the allegations.

This is referring to the investigation made by CityView TODAY’s investigative reporter Greg Barnes. He found that there were no signs of corruption regarding Bernhard Capital Partners’ efforts to take over the PWC, however, he did find a lack of transparency by people trying to broker a deal with the equity firm.

The allegations that Barnes did not yet look into in a published article includes Colvin allegedly destroying public records when he had his cell phone “wiped clean” during an investigation that led to the resignation of former City Councilman Tyrone Williams in 2018, that some council members may have improperly or illegally discussed a special use permit for Dismas Charities, which wants to build a halfway house for federal prisoners on land along Cain Road, or whether building permits and certificates of appropriateness were handled properly for a downtown building that Colvin has an interest in.

The council denied the motion for an external investigation 5 to 4. The people who voted against the investigation were Christopher Davis, Kathy Jensen, D.J. Haire, Wright and Dawkins. The people who voted in favor of the investigation were councilmembers Antonio Jones, Shakeyla Ingram, Courtney Banks-Mclaughlin and Kinston.