Fayetteville mayor, former councilwoman hold separate interviews about new allegations

Fayetteville Mayor Mitch Colvin and former City Councilwoman Tisha Waddell took to the airwaves Thursday morning to talk about allegations of impropriety and corruption Waddell leveled against Colvin in her resignation letter earlier this week.

Colvin appeared on WFNC’s Good Morning Fayetteville radio program at 7:25 a.m., while the newly resigned Waddell was on a local podcast at 9 a.m.

The two politicians discussed Waddell’s sudden departure Tuesday from City Council.

In a five-page resignation letter, Waddell outlined her concerns about a proposed deal that would turn over management of the Public Works Commission — Fayetteville's utility — to a private company; the mayor’s seemingly conflicted involvement; and a lack of transparency and communication from key political players in the city.

More: Fayetteville Councilwoman Tisha Waddell resigns, alleges wrongdoing by mayor, council

Personal and professional differences

Colvin thanked Waddell for her service on City Council on the 640 am radio show but said he was puzzled about her resignation and where she got some of the accusations against him.

Waddell said the close relationship between Colvin and well-known politician and Fayetteville attorney Jonathan Charleston was a conflict of interest because of Charleston’s involvement with Bernhard Capital Partners, the Louisiana-based private firm seeking to control the city’s utilities for the next 30 years.

Colvin said on the radio show that his relationship with Charleston is one of business and though he had a fundraiser hosted by Charleston, he has not received any financial support from him or members of Bernhard. The two are also fraternity brothers.

"I met him several years ago, even before I was on council," Colvin said on the show. "We're in a small to medium-sized city, 200,000 people or better. Commercial litigation, real estate lawyers, you know it's not a lot of them. I'm sure that some council members share services with some local providers."

Colvin said that while his and Waddell's relationship was challenging, they all worked together to serve the city.

"Sometimes there are personalities that don't agree, and I do know that it's my belief and it's been discussed subliminally, or allegedly ... that she had mayoral aspirations so sometimes that causes people to take positions on things," Colvin said. Waddell has not confirmed whether she would run for mayor.

Bernhard and PWC interests

Waddell said she listened to the Thursday morning broadcast featuring Colvin. In her letter, she highlighted the involvement of Charleston in some of the political decisions around the city and the discussions about the Bernhard and PWC offer.

Colvin said Charleston was his attorney but also acted as a private citizen.

“I think that is negated by the fact that Mr. Charleston is the bond counsel for PWC, he’s the bond counsel for the city of Fayetteville,” Waddell said. “I think that Mr. Charleston’s firm probably made an excess of $140,000 off a recent transaction with PWC as bond council. He’s involved in the political landscape of this city.”

A bond counsel authorizes an issuer to issue bonds. They are retained by the issuer but represent the interests of bondholders. Colvin said that he was not the one who was brought in Charleston to serve as the city’s bond counsel.

“We were really making an effort to keep our money local,” Colvin said. “There is no conflict, according to the School of Government, that says that because you get services from a vendor that somehow you’re conflicted when they come before the body because you’re not directly benefitting. I’m not benefitting when he serves or issues a legal opinion.”

Colvin said his relationships and interests are not as conflicting as Waddell alleges in her letter.

“What is a conflicting relationship because you go to church with somebody or because you know them from a fraternity or sorority,” Colvin said. “Let’s get real. Conflicts speak to financial gain or some type of scrupulous advantage that you have, it’s not from knowing them.”

Waddell said she fought to bring in a new PWC commissioner and asked District 4 Councilman D.J. Haire to talk with her about redistricting. One of the candidates for commissioner, retired Col. Don Porter, was a leading candidate for the position, but the City Council could not come to an agreement.

“We had two great candidates and we couldn’t work our way through it, but I think we were working out way through it, we are working out way through it and we had pretty good discussion with some of the councilmembers the other day,” Colvin said.

He said he expects an appointment of a PWC commissioner Monday.

Unafraid of backlash

“I’m not afraid of losing everything. You can’t be. Leaders can’t lead with fear,” Waddell said on the "RUD:E" podcast she hosts along with Fayetteville activist Troy Williams and former District 43 Rep. Elmer Floyd. “I’m not afraid of a lawsuit, I’m not afraid of threats, I’m not afraid of any of that.”

Waddell told her colleagues on the podcast, which was also streamed on Facebook Live, that her resignation was to hold herself and members of the City Council accountable for failing to act when faced with evidence they needed. She said what bothered her the most about her service was the “council’s inability to police each other.”

“This decision was not easy to make as I have taken my role as a representative of the people, for the people, and by the people very seriously,” Waddell wrote in her letter. “Multiple factors have made it necessary for this to be my designated course of action.”

Waddell said during the podcast that she scheduled a community meeting with members of her district to inform them of her departure at 5 p.m. Tuesday. As she walked into the meeting, she said, she hit send on an email to her council colleagues and the media announcing her resignation

She said people were caught off guard and that she had not shared her plans to resign with anyone except her husband.

“I’ve been making this decision for months,” Waddell said. “When I announced that I was not going to run for office again, I already knew that I would be resigning eventually. I didn’t want anybody in my district to find out before I had an opportunity to talk to them about it.”

She spoke clearly and confidently about her decision to leave the City Council, saying her second term lacked an established process and policy among the entire body. In her letter, Waddell also questioned why the council stalled in selecting a new commissioner for the city’s Public Works Commission. The council remains split on a vote.

Serving District 3 in the city, Waddell said that her constituents would not be without representation as Colvin currently lives in the district and served it before running for mayor. Though her letter heavily accused the mayor of wrongdoing, she said she had no personal agenda to attack him.

“I want to be very clear, there are some members of this community who believe this is a personal attack on Mayor Mitch Colvin, I don’t have a personal relationship with Mayor Mitch Colvin,” Waddell said. “I don’t have a reason to personally attack him. I’m not angry with him. I dealt with him firmly in our professional dealings because I had some issues with how professionally things were being done.”

The issue of cellphones

For Colvin, the most puzzling statement in Waddell's letter was the allegation that the mayor had his phone wiped of any information by city staff members when former city councilman Tyrone Williams was accused of indecent liberties with a child in 2018.

Colvin said he is having legal counsel look into the accusation.

"If you knew or she knows that that occurred, how do you wait from 2017 to the other day to make a statement about it," Colvin said.

According to Waddell, she did not wait. She said she was uncertain the City Council would act on it.

“I’ve had conversations in regard to this issue, I’ve documented those conversations in regard to this issue,” Waddell said. “I was not confident by the time that I received this information … that the council would have done anything about it.”

Waddell said she would not reveal how she learned that Colvin may have wiped his cellphone but knew he used the phone and communicated with him on it before.

“When we were elected, I remember several instances where I used that number to try and reach the mayor by phone to ask him some questions,” Waddell said. One of those times, she said when she called the number a woman answered the phone. “Either the phone was left at or the number had been transferred to his funeral home and somebody from there was receiving the calls and distributing the messages to him.”

Waddell also said that she received a message from Colvin once from a new number asking her not to give the number out to anyone in the public. She wants there to be an investigation into why, or if, Colvin’s phone was indeed wiped clean.

Outcomes and responsibilities

For Waddell, her sudden departure from the City Council was a tough decision but one that she said she felt she had to make. She said she was going to hold out longer to get past the issues she had with the council.

“I began to realize I have fought to protect the interests of this community, my district and our city at length for four years,” Waddell said. “Now it was time for people in this community to have information and to decide what they want to do with it. The outcome could no longer be my responsibility.”

When asked about how she would handle the backlash from the allegations she made, Waddell said she has been verbally "attacked" before by members in the City Council and in the community for decisions she had made but is not worried about what people will try to say about her now.

Colvin told Goldy, the host of the radio show, that he is ready to move forward and refocus attention on the things the city needs. He said the request Waddell makes for Colvin to recuse himself from any vote on the PWC commissioner is "ridiculous."

“If you start recusing yourself, you look guilty and that’s by far the farthest thing from the truth,” Colvin said.

He said he is trying to take emotions out of the issues Waddell mentions.

“We’re coming up on the silly season,” Colvin said. “We know that there’s going to be a lot of these kind of things and tactics, and I don’t want to take it personal. We have a lot of work to do.”

Investigative Reporter Kristen Johnson can be reached at kjohnson1@gannett.com.

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This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville mayor & former city councilwoman speak about accusations