Investigators: Case against Williams could justify councilman’s removal

An investigation into District 1 City Councilman Antonio Williams opened in October 2018 — one Williams has characterized as a “conspiracy” — concludes that the city can be held liable for the board member’s actions toward Community Affairs director Shycole Simpson-Carter.

Investigators found that not only was Williams’ behavior at a Sept. 27, 2018, GATEWAY meeting “unacceptable,” but that his demand, a little more than a week later, for Simpson-Carter to be fired, “could very well be found to be retaliatory.”

“The City Council need not take any particular side in the history of acrimony between Ms. Simpson-Carter and Councilmember Williams in order to justify its action of taking sufficient action now to prevent any future occurrence of the escalated behavior which occurred on September 27 and which has not abated and which could very well be found to be retaliatory towards Ms. Simpson-Carter,” the report, which was released publicly this week, reads. “What the City Council should remember is that the facts in this case are clearly sufficient to put the City (at) risk for liability for allowing further allegedly discriminatory or retaliatory behavior to occur.”

The council has taken steps to address the Williams/Simpson-Carter saga — voting to release a redacted version of the investigation report to the public after Simpson-Carter waived her right to confidentially. But investigators said the board is not limited to those actions, and suggested that councilmen could “authorize the City Attorney to seek local legislation to authorize a recall election or even remove (Williams) from office via an amotion proceeding.”

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According to the report, tensions between Williams and Simpson-Carter began to surface in early 2017 when Simpson-Carter, as part of her duties as Community Affairs director, was helping to develop the Summer Youth Employment Initiative. Williams, investigators concluded, wanted more control of the program — and to have summer youth workers placed at his business, a request that Simpson-Carter perceived as a conflict of interest and therefore spoke out against.

The following pages of the report pertain to that particular aspect of the case:

Summer Youth by K Fine on Scribd

Several months later, Williams allegedly told the city manager and Mayor Chuck Allen that Simpson-Carter “leaked my residency issue to the press” after a special meeting was called to address an anonymous allegation that Williams did not reside in District 1.

The following pages of the report pertain to that particular aspect of the case:

But the event that, allegedly, led to the exchange at the GATEWAY meeting involved residents who had been displaced by Hurricane Florence. Simpson-Carter says that she did her job — that she did everything within her power to ensure 10 individuals had a roof over their heads after the flooding associated with the storm. Williams, according to the report, disputes that.

The following pages of the report pertain to that particular aspect of the case:

It is unclear what next steps — if any — the City Council intends to take, but the NAACP has gotten involved, vowing last month to fully investigate the matter to ensure the case against Williams isn’t racially motivated. Both Williams and Simpson-Carter are African-American.

To read the complete report, click on this sentence.

This story was edited to correct an error. Williams’ censure hearing is scheduled for later this month.