Every Charlotte City Council member has an ethics complaint. Here’s what’s going on.

A cascade of formal ethics complaints has flooded the city clerk’s office in Charlotte in recent weeks.

It started with intense scrutiny on one Republican City Council member and his nonprofit, which was poised to run a taxpayer-backed jobs training program, using COVID-19 relief funds.

Soon after that, two Democrats on council who raised questions about the arrangement found themselves the target of ethics accusations.

As of this week, all City Council members, including the mayor, are facing at least one ethics complaint.

The allegations range from elected officials luring campaign donations from developers, to making racially-charged comments during closed-door meetings, and to using city business for private business gains.

And the council is continuing its debate over whether to change the way complaints — which can be filed by any member of the public — are vetted, investigated and settled. Already a minor revision has made to the ethics policy. But more change could come that impacts how the public can file complaints and how elected leaders will be expected to manage potential conflicts of interest.

Here’s a look at what’s happening with the most recent complaints.

What are the Charlotte City Council complaints about?

Of the 14 separate complaints filed since early August, city attorney Patrick Baker has referred three to an “independent investigator.” But through City Council’s late-night vote on Tuesday, that entity is now — and retroactively — referred to as “outside counsel,” in an effort to ensure certain criteria is met before a formal investigation gets underway.

Two of those complaints were filed by the North Carolina GOP against Democrats Dimple Ajmera and James “Smuggie” Mitchell, after they voiced ethics concerns about Republican colleague Tariq Bokhari. Ajmera was accused of using rezoning cases to garner campaign contributions. Mitchell was accused of using taxpayer money to travel to Detroit for city business while also consulting with a past and current employer who could gain from a future project in the city. Ajmera and Mitchell said the the claims were baseless.

Bokhari faces the same ethics complaint as Ajmera, filed by a Charlotte resident and attorney. Bokhari also called the string of attacks against him baseless, saying he’s faced blow-back for his support of police and holding the Republican National Convention in Charlotte.

Bokhari’s involvement in a city workforce development program was the first in a frenzy of ethics allegations.

Charlotte would have directed $1.5 million in federal CARES money to Carolina Fintech Hub, where Bokhari is executive director. In late July, the City Council voted to disqualify Bokhari from participating, arguing it created the appearance of a conflict of interest — even though city administrators had gone ahead with the arrangement.

A separate complaint against Bokhari appears to have stalled. That complaint includes a 15-page document alleging years-long “corruption” of blurring “his private-sector work with public duties.”

Baker this week said he was combing through at least 10 complaints that may lead to outside reviews. The costs associated with investigating the complaints are unknown, the attorney has said.

Other complaints include:

▪ Mayor Pro Tem Julie Eiselt was accused of saying she feared going into a “predominantly black neighborhood,” according to the ethics violation form filed Corine Mack, president of the local chapter of the NAACP. Eiselt denied making any inappropriate remarks, saying the allegation was frivolous.

▪ Council member Larken Egleston has been accused of taking “suspicious donations” from developers, as well as disregarding the “wishes of his constituents” by voting for the RNC to come to Charlotte.

▪ Council member Malcolm Graham said a complaint against him forges a “reckless disregard for my reputation.” On Tuesday, he told his colleagues: “We didn’t sign up to be disparaged by frivolous complaints, where there’s no facts, no merits.”

▪ A wide-ranging complaint against the entire council and the mayor claims the city failed to produce public records surrounding misconduct and crimes. The person who filed the complaint has an “extensive history” with city departments, making unannounced visits where employees said they felt “threatened,” City Council documents from 2013 show.

How are ethics complaints filed?

The city’s ethics policy allows anyone to file a complaint with the city clerk, who then forwards it to the city attorney’s office for initial review.

The form requires the person filing the complaint to specify both “the facts that form the basis for the alleged violation” and details on “the provision that has allegedly been violated.”

The city attorney then notifies complainants if they need to provide more information.

If there’s enough detail on the form, the rules call for the city attorney to refer the matter to an independent investigator.

Who investigates?

The “independent investigator” — now referred to as the “outside counsel” — decides whether the complaint has merit.

If the complaint is deemed frivolous or the allegation isn’t a violation of city policy, then no formal investigation is triggered, according to City Council’s policy.

But if there’s enough suspicion of wrongdoing, under the policy, an outside entity will investigate and produce a report on the case and decide whether a violation has occurred.”

City Council could sanction an elected leader if they’re found at fault. That includes adopting a “Resolution of Censure.” There have been no sanctions yet amid the slew of accusations.

Council member Ed Driggs, who proposed the retroactive language swap for “investigator,” told the Observer it was a “very minor short-term fix” for an ethics policy that’s become “weaponized” by Charlotte residents and activists lately.

“The idea is to have a filter so we don’t have every random complaint that is filed resulting in this tag of ‘investigation’ against council members,” Driggs said in an interview last month.

“We are trying to protect council members from spurious claims or accusations of ethics violations, without in any way of changing the liability of anyone actually guilty. We’re trying to uphold the presumption of innocence.”

A more comprehensive ethics policy review is currently underway in the Budget & Effectiveness Committee, which Driggs chairs. That could include giving the City Council members more notice if there’s a conflict of interest issue with any member.

Is the ethics policy changing?

Debate over changing the ethics policy has included concerns from some on council that the bar is too low for what’s considered an investigation following a complaint. Some worry that the currently policy allows an unfounded accusation to gain momentum and cast the impression of guilt or serious wrongdoing prematurely.

Earlier this week, council members Ajmera, Renee Johnson and Victoria Watlington voted against the change, which requires an outside review but not necessarily an “investigation” for any complaint that meets basic requirements.

Still, much more work lies ahead for the City Council and the city attorney’s office.

And Baker has repeatedly and openly discussed shortfalls of the ethics policy. In an email to elected leaders last month, Baker said Charlotte’s policy lacks a sound mechanism for him and others to thoroughly review a complaint before involving an outside third-party.

This “defect” has created a domino effect for the rest of City Council, Driggs said. Once people understood how the ethics process unfolds, he said they started to “abuse the policy for the purpose of political warfare.”