Winston-Salem Council Member Barbara Burke Called ‘Bully’ By Fellow Council Member – Winston-Salem Journal

Mundy accused Burke of trying to have sole control over decisions in her northeast district regarding the sale of vacant city lots for affordable housing development, and went on to allege that Burke was trying to poison City Manager Pat Pate’s reputation in the black community, saying Pate’s decisions were racist.

“Frankly, she’s a bully,” Mundy wrote in an email he sent to Thembila Covington of the Ministerial Conference. “She bullied me about various issues and bullied former City Manager Lee Garrity until he basically let her do whatever she wanted without scrutiny.”

Covington is a former president of the Ministerial Conference, which is largely made up of black clergy in the area. She did not respond to questions about Mundy’s email.

Burke did not respond to an email requesting comment on the email.

Mundy’s email was forwarded to the Journal by a member of the activist group Housing Justice Now, which on Monday sent an email to City Council members alleging Burke urged voters to sign a petition giving her the right to control “all city owned land and development decisions” in her area.

“No council member should have a ‘feudal hold’…” the group said in an email signed collectively.

That email included a copy of another email, one from a group called the Coalition for Accountability and Transparency, which said Burke met with Northeast voters on Oct. 16 and asked them to sign a petition to give Burke control over affordable housing decisions in her ward.

Mundy confirmed that the email sent to the Journal by Housing Justice Now was his.

Winston-Salem has recently been selling vacant city lots, typically for $1 per lot, to both private and nonprofit organizations that have pledged to build housing on the lots that are affordable to people with lower-than-average incomes .

Burke cast the lone vote on the seven-member board June 3 against the sale of four vacant lots in the Southwest District of the Moravian Church in America’s Southern Province. Burke complained to the commission that the proposed projects were not “something (residents) can be proud of.”

Later, in September, Burke told members of the city’s housing commission that any new policy to dump and develop dollar lots would have to exclude her ward because she had been working on a revitalization plan that was in effect for her ward from 2022 onwards.

No other council member has publicly supported Burke’s position. Although council members usually give great deference to other members in decisions that affect their wards, financial decisions such as approving land sales and other similar actions are usually made by a full council vote.

In his letter to Covington, Mundy argued that the kind of design features Burke wanted for homes on dollar lots — including a garage for each house — put the homes out of affordability, raising the potential sales price to about $250,000.

“She (Burke) says she’s just cleaning up the disease, but what she’s doing is unapologetically ennobling,” Mundy wrote.

Mundy claimed in his email that Burke was on a mission to get Pate fired, and said that while all other council members gave Pate “overwhelmingly positive” ratings after his first year in office, Burke’s review was “scoring.”

“Pat stood up to her several times, stood her ground and enforced city and state policies,” Mundy wrote. “That’s what he had to do.”

Mundy went on to say in her email that when Burke “couldn’t convince me or the rest of her colleagues that City Manager Pate had to go, she began her efforts to poison his reputation in the black community, starting with the Ministerial Conference. “

Mundy claimed Burke “doesn’t want ministers to get their members to sign petitions to overturn (Pate’s) decisions as racist”.

Mundy, in a telephone conversation Tuesday, said he had no first-hand knowledge that Burke had tried to get members of the Ministerial Conference to work against Pate, but that he had been informed of it by someone he believed to be a reliable source. within the conference.

About “a lot of what I’m responding to is he said, she said information,” Mundy said, stressing his lack of direct knowledge of some of the things Burke said or did.

Chenita Johnson, a member of the Coalition for Accountability and Transparency, said she was at the Oct. 16 meeting Burke had for Northeast residents and confirmed much of what Mundy said about Burke’s housing efforts:

Burke “said the Northeast Ward lots had to go through her office,” Johnson said. According to Johnson, Burke said she had an agreement to that effect with Garrity and that when Pate became involved, he did not agree to the agreement.

But Johnson said she didn’t hear Burke claim that Pate is racist or that the city’s housing decisions are racist. According to Johnson, Burke did say that “outsiders” wanted to buy and build homes in the Northeast.

The coalition believes Burke should not have the sole say in things like choosing contractors to build houses on dollar lots or what features the homes should have and their prices. In this, she said, the Coalition agrees with Mundy: Get people decent, basic housing, she said, and when their financial situation improves, they will add additions and other improvements themselves.

City Attorney Angela Carmon said Thursday that the city cannot legally give any council member the power to decide land sales either way, and that any financial aid conditions intended to build housing would also have to get full board approval.

When Garrity retired as city manager, Burke led the effort for a new city manager in then-assistant manager Patrice Toney. Tony, along with Pate, was one of three finalists for the job.

Mundy claimed in her email that Burke “had tremendous influence over Assistant City Manager Patrice Toney and promised to make her the next city manager if she was allowed to unilaterally develop housing policies that were within Patrice’s authority without her knowledge or assisted by him any of the other seven representatives in the council.’

According to Mundy, “the culture and atmosphere in the city was dysfunctional and toxic” at the time, with the city losing “good employees left and right.” Mundy said that after Garrity’s retirement, most council members wanted to bring in a new manager from outside to be “the change agent that we needed.”

Mundy’s criticism extended to Burke’s mother-in-law, former Councilwoman Vivian Burke, who previously held the seat now held by Barbara Burke. Mundy said the current Northeast Ward member is taking a “page … in (her) late mother-in-law’s playbook.” Regarding Pate “going up against her (Burke),” Mundy said that “ the Burkes don’t like to be told no.

Speaking of Pate, the city manager wouldn’t directly respond to Mundy’s claim that he “confronted” Burke:

“I believe the mayor and city council as a whole are supportive of the direction they hired me to take the organization” — adding that it means making Winston-Salem a “community of choice” for residents and employees.

Some council members declined to comment on Mundy’s email.

North East Council member Jeff McIntosh said Mundy’s letter “really raised the interesting legal question of whether the council has the right to waive its oversight ability” by allowing a council member to make spending and ownership decisions in member area.

McIntosh said he thinks the entire council should review and make those decisions.

East Ward Council Member Annette Scippio refused to enter:

“Each council member is an individual and can speak for himself in situations,” she said.