It’s been a turbulent summer at Greensboro City Hall. Earlier this month, City Attorney Chuck Watts abruptly resigned. A day later, the State Bureau of Investigation announced plans to review the activities of a member of the city council. Now there’s talk of a separate investigation into Watts’ business dealings.
WFDD News Director Eddie Garcia sat down with reporter April Laissle to learn more about what happened, and what’s likely to come next. A transcript of their conversation is below.
Eddie Garcia: So April, how did this all begin?
April Laissle: So about a month ago, these two citizens started this huge email thread with members of the press and many city officials copied, basically accusing council members and the city's legal department of widespread corruption. More specifically, they accused Council Member Zack Matheny of conflicts of interest related to his work with DGI, Downtown Greensboro, Incorporated. And, they accused City Attorney Chuck Watts of doing outside work with a military equipment company called Cyberlux on city government time. They raised these points during public comment periods at city council meetings too, and at one in June, Chief Deputy City Attorney Tony Baker directly responded:
“There's simply no conflict. I don't think that's going to end the subject, but I want you to hear it. I want the public to hear it. We have analyzed it. We have discussed it far more than we need to. And for the maybe 10 people that are concerned about this issue throughout the city, I will assure them there is no conflict,” he said. “I am absolutely confident that my ethics, as well as the ethics of Mr. Watts and the ethics of our entire office, are beyond reproach.”
EG: Absolute confidence - that's a pretty strong denial.
AL: Yes, and they doubled down on it in the meeting as it progressed. Council Member Zack Matheny even made a joke about it. Here's what he said right before a vote on a recycling contractor:
“City Attorney, I recycle at home, do I have a conflict on this?” Matheny said amid chuckles.
A few weeks after this meeting, though, City Attorney Chuck Watts abruptly resigned, and then a day after that, the SBI confirmed the existence of an investigation into a member of the city council. Now, they didn't name the member or provide any other details, but it's been widely speculated that the subject is Zack Matheny. Matheny has said at meetings that no one has reached out to him and even told a news outlet that he had nothing to hide, even if they were investigating.
EG: So this news breaks, and then not too long after, the Greensboro Police Department holds a press conference.
AL: That's right. And when we first got wind of this, I assumed it was going to be about the city council investigation. Instead, Chief John Thompson got up in front of the podium and said it was actually about Watts:
“The Greensboro Police Department was made aware of allegations that questioned the legality of specific business transactions involving former City Attorney Chuck Watts,” he said. “After reviewing the information, the police department followed its protocol and contacted the State Bureau of Investigation.”
After this announcement, many media outlets started sending in records requests related to Watts and his dealings with Cyberlux, trying to get some more information. The city denied all of those, saying they were directed to withhold them by the SBI, and they cited a statute that governs the release of documents amid a criminal investigation. So I called Chad Flowers at the SBI to ask if this was true:
“We have not told the city of Greensboro to deny any public records request,” Flowers said. “Our agents do not do that.”
EG: So the city is saying the SBI said, “No, you can't share any documents.” But SBI is saying, “We didn't say that at all?”
AL: Yes. Flowers also told me that there is no official investigation into Watts at this point because they've not received a formal request from any agency. Now I should be clear, though. The police department said that the SBI was conducting a review, not an investigation. They were very specific on that wording. Now, I also talked to Eric Chilton, who was hired last November as the city’s crisis communications manager. He told me all this was basically just a mix-up.
“We had a conversation with a representative with the SBI, and they were saying that we probably shouldn't release some of the information right now,” Chilton said. “However, then a senior-level person with the SBI came in and said that's not the case, because the investigation hasn't officially started yet. So we were getting conflicting advice, basically from the SBI.”
So they reversed course and said they would release those documents, though that hasn't quite happened yet. They're still in the process of gathering them.
EG: Where do things stand now?
AL: Well, the city recently released a draft document showing that they've offered Watts six months’ worth of severance pay, though that hasn't been finalized. He hasn't signed anything yet. This is kind of controversial, though, because Watts' original contract barred him from receiving severance if he was in violation of any city policies. We, of course, don’t know for sure if he did in fact violate city policy, but we do know that city officials did turn over documents that they felt were questionable enough to ask the police to review them.
The city replaced Watts with Lora Cubbage, a deputy city attorney. Her contract differs from Watts' in that it's more specific about the rules governing what kind of outside work she can do. And as far as the SBI investigation into a council member, there doesn't appear to be much to share there yet. Chad Flowers told me these types of investigations usually take quite a while.