After the Gavel: Did the Mayor Ban Prayer?

In this episode of What’s Up Washington, Mayor Ellen Brabo breaks down the January 12th five-hour City Council meeting into a clear, 30-minute recap designed for residents who want to stay informed but don’t have hours to watch the full meeting.

The episode opens with The Ten-Minute Tally, a fast, outcome-focused summary of agenda items and votes so listeners can quickly understand what passed, what was tabled, and what moved forward.

From there, Brabo provides a deeper dive into key discussions, offering background, context, and her perspective as Mayor (speaking for herself, not on behalf of City Council).

Topics covered include:

• City-issued cell phones for council members
• Social media policy and code of ethics revisions
• Discussion surrounding a proposed commercial marina
• And the question many residents have asked: Did the Mayor really ban prayer at City Council?

This episode is designed to make local government more accessible, transparent, and easier to follow, giving residents the information they need without requiring them to rewatch a lengthy meeting.

This is a personal podcast hosted by Mayor Ellen Brabo and is not an official City of Washington communication. Views expressed are her own.

Transcript

0:00

Hey y'. All. Welcome back to another episode of what's Up Washington? I'm Ellen Brabo, the host of this podcast and Mayor of Washington, North Carolina. It's hard to believe it has already been more than two months since the election and a month since myself and counsel were sworn into office. A lot of people have been asking me how it is going and honestly I will say it is like drinking from a fire hose. I am really looking forward to attending the Municipal Government training next week in Wilmington alongside the newly elected council members. This past Monday, on January 12th, we had our first regularly scheduled City Council meeting since I was sworn in as mayor and as I thought about how I wanted to transition this podcast in my new role, I thought a great place to start would be to establish a regular rhythm in which I provide you the highlights from the City Council meetings. Monday's meeting was five hours and I do recognize most people do not have the time in their busy schedules to necessarily attend these meetings or watch them live. My goal with establishing after the Gavel is to provide you with a roundup of what has transpired and what I would be paying attention to. As a resident, I may not capture everything entirely that you would want to know. I would encourage you to read the minutes from council meetings, attend council meetings as you can, and if you have the time, divide up the meeting into smaller segments. Listen to it on your morning commute, maybe on your evening walk. Council meetings are recorded live and they are available on the City of Washington Facebook page and on the city website. After the Meeting the format of after the Gavel will be to start with what I'm going to call the 10 minute tally. This will be where I will quickly cover the outcomes of the agenda, what was adopted by council, what topics were discussed, and appointments that were made, so forth. This will not be a deep dive into any of the discussions that were had. This is simply a high level overview that follows the order of the published agenda. It's bottom line up front. If you listen no further than the 10 minute tally, you will at least know the headlines. Once the 10 minute tally wraps up, I'll jump into a further deep dive of key discussions or discussion that warranted further conversation by counsel during the meeting. Items that I introduced onto the agenda, I'll offer you context My perspective. My intent is not to speak for counsel, but to simply share with you my perspective of the outcomes and the points from my seat I believe resonated. Again, not all encompassing. You will need to watch the full meeting for that, but I do want to strive to make Council actions more accessible to our residents in a more digestible format. So with that being said, let's jump into this week's 10 minute tally. Monday's City Council agenda was robust and as I said earlier, it resulted in a five hour meeting. Council voted to approve the minutes and adopted the agenda with no amendments. The North Carolina Department of Labor Bureau Chief Kevin o' Barr presented a ten year Sharp Award to the Water Treatment Plant, Wastewater Treatment Plant and and the Utilities Operations Center. Washington is one of only four municipalities in the entire state to maintain this recognition for 10 consecutive years. For those who might be unfamiliar, Sharp stands for the Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program and the award was given for maintaining exceptional workplace, health and safety standards. Liz Parham, the Director of the Main Street Program for the North Carolina Department of Commerce, provided a presentation on the Main Street Program for Council. This encompassed Washington's history with the program and statistical funding data along with the objectives and outcomes of the program. Ms. Parham did explain that the City of Washington is no longer an accredited program as of 2024 and has been moved to an affiliate program. A scheduled public hearing was conducted and Council voted to approve the request from Richard gerard to rezone 2.77 acres on Hodges Avenue from office and institutional to business, commercial or B2 reports were provided on behalf of the Washington Tourism Development Authority, the Washington Warren Airport Authority and the Human Relations Council. Of note, both the TDA and the Human Relations Council spoke to the success of the recent New Year's Eve Crab Drop. Aaron Rule, the Tourism Director, provided statistical data from Placer AI and that showed that 3700 people were in attendance at Festival park during the Crab Drop. Mayor Pro Tem Nick Fritz was appointed to the Tourism Development Authority and his term will run concurrently with the current election cycle. Per the TDA bylaws, this specific seat is designated for a Council member and is a full voting member. In old business, the Council voted to adopt a resolution concerning the deannexation of property located within the city's corporate limits, specifically at the Washington Warren Airport. Moving into new business, Council voted to approve the budget ordinance amendment for the Beaufort County Industrial Development Grant match in the amount of$188,202. Susan Squires, the Beaufort County Economic Development Director, provided background information and presentation for Council on the matter. This grant match is for the water, sewer and roadway improvements for the industrial park. The budget ordinance amendment for City Council cell phones was approved in the amount of$1200. Items for discussion included funding for outside agencies and economic development and Ray Johnson's request to lease city property for parking spaces for a proposed commercial marina. The funding for outside agencies encompasses local entities like the Boys and Girls Club, Zion Shelter, Eagles Wings and the Open Door Community center. There are 12 in total listed in the 2025-2026 budget for a total of$71,800. Funding for economic development includes things like the Civic center and airport subsidies, insurance for the estuarium and contributions to their operations, among others. The total amount of economic development funding in the 2025-2026 budget is$422,738, with $213,677 going for the airport subsidy. The proposed marina would be located near Backwater Jacks. The ordinance requires a one acre property for this development. However, a variance has been granted by the Board of adjustment for the 27 acre property contingent on a parking plan being established for six spaces. The marina is expected to have six spaces based on the number of boat slips. Mr. Glenn Moore, a Planning Administrator with the City, spoke on the topic along with Mr. Johnson and the current property owner, Leo Bargelt. Laura Scopel, the owner of Backwater Jacks, also spoke on the matter. The proposed plan includes 39 boat slips with slips one and two as fuel docks. Mr. Johnson said the previous administration had stated that he could lease six spaces from the city owned parking lot outside of Backwater Jacks next to the city boat ramp for the cost of $1 for 50 years. In the discussion, the City Attorney did note that anything more than a 10 year lease would require a statutory process. An existing Memorandum of Agreement is already on file with the Department of Wildlife for the property to terminate this. It would require a mutual agreement between both parties and a 120 day advance notice. The City of Washington would be required to reimburse any funds for improvements on a 50 year amortization schedule. Following this discussion, Council voted to table the adoption of the City Council Code of Ethics until their next meeting. The current City Council Code of Ethics was adopted in 2010. There were two proposed modifications. First was to add an ethics awareness program for new City Council members to be conducted during orientation by the City Manager or a designee and the second was the implementation of censure hearing procedures in the event a majority of Council had reason to believe that one of its members violated a provision of the Code of Ethics. Council voted to adopt the committee of the whole proposal. This will take effect in February and will be held on the fourth Monday of the month at a time to be determined. The Committee of the whole will serve as a monthly coordination and planning session for Council staff, leadership and appointed boards to share updates, identify emerging issues and approve alignment across city functions. This meeting will be open to the public and is designed to inform future agendas. This will not be an action meeting for the last item under new business Council voted to table the revised Social Media policy until their next meeting. The City of Washington adopted a social media policy in February 2020. The revised policy seeks to provide a more robust framework including guidelines around the maintenance of city owned accounts and comment moderation, the implementation of a social media action plan and accessibility standards, and the adoption of a three strikes rule for enforcing the terms of use. Counsel then entered into closed session under NCGS143.318.11 for Attorney Client privilege and personnel following closed session, upon re entering open session, Counsel voted to establish a subcommittee for the Chief of Police hiring process. Mayor Pro Tem Fritz and Councilman Peralt will make up the subcommittee to cull 14 resumes recommended by HR to a recommended 5 to 7 by Friday end of business day. A hiring committee will be selected at a later date to interview the final candidates. Additionally, Council voted to sell the city owned Keysville Landing property on gov deals or a city used equivalent and that wraps up our 10 minute tally. If that's all you had time for, you're fully up to speed. But if you're sticking with me, here is where we're going to dig in a little deeper. I want to start with a discussion around the proposed commercial marina because this is one I expect residents will continue to hear about. I was honestly surprised that there were not residents at the meeting to speak on this matter. During the public comment period. I expected there to be a handful of residents there to offer their input as impacted parties or just general thoughts. I think this situation has the opportunity to turn into one of those where people are not paying attention and suddenly they look up and they go wait, who approved that? When did this happen? I had no idea this was taking place so I am asking please pay attention. I was incredibly grateful that Laura Scopel was at the meeting and was able and willing to speak because I do think it is so important in these types of situations that the stakeholders have a voice in the decisions will impact them. I personally find the entire situation to be incredibly disappointing. The he said he said elements are truly unfair to both parties. In my opinion. There is no concrete evidence that an agreement was made to enter into a $1 lease for 50 years because the reality is there is no drafted lease. If this was stated, I can sympathize where someone who is striving to build a business would be frustrated by the process with the city at this junction. During Monday's discussion, Mr. Johnson mentioned that he does have a purchase agreement in place for the property for $600,000, but that he doesn't want to purchase the land if the marina is not going to move forward. Ms. Scopal expressed concerns with the parking already being at capacity on a nice day when the community wants to come out to use the boat ramp and it's already impeding on the existing business operations like her restaurant, which has been as its location for 21 years and as she mentioned employs about 40 people during the season. She referenced that oftentimes her staff and customers are parking down the street in order to be able to come frequent her establishment. And as a waterfront community, many of us can understand that just because you're taking the pontoon out doesn't mean that it's just one vehicle parking in that lot to utilize the boat ramp. It's the people that came to also meet you to go out on the boat with you who are also going to park and leave their vehicles there for the afternoon. From what I gathered, it doesn't seem clear on how that lot could possibly accommodate the traffic for the existing businesses, the boat ramp and an additional marina with 39 slips. It was mentioned that there might be an opportunity for Mr. Johnson to purchase an adjacent lot to the property from a private resident and convert it into a parking lot on the other side of the railroad checks. The reality is there's still a lot for council to figure out. Copies of the existing memorandum of agreement with the North Carolina Wildlife were requested, along with additional information before Council will consider any decisions around a lease agreement one way or the other. The proposed plans are publicly available as well as the minutes from the Board of Adjustment meeting. For those who would want to better visualize what has been proposed. If you have thoughts one way or the other, I would encourage you to reach out to Council do the same. If you have any questions Back in December, I had put forth a recommendation for a revised social media policy and adopting a new code of ethics. From the social media standpoint, the policy that the city had adopted in February of 2020 was not readily available for residents and quite frankly it's not very robust. It doesn't really encapsulate what would be expected in a standard social media policy. And in doing some research looking at other municipalities. I was able to find a really great example in the policy that the City of Newbern had adopted. In working with the city staff and further research, reviewing materials from the UNC School of Government, we were able to make some headway on a proposal to council on what a strong social media policy would look like, largely to equip the City PIO to be successful. It is robust, it's multiple pages, but some key differences if adopted is that this social media policy would establish administrative continuity, ensuring that our City PIO is an admin on all accounts and it would establish a social media action plan for the approval and creation of any new city accounts. It is updated to reflect web content accessibility guidelines to ensure that content is reachable for all citizens. Additionally, it would implement a three strike rule in order to ensure the PIO can properly enforce the Terms of Use. It speaks to AI generated imagery and AI text being used sparingly along with managing expectations for both the staff and the end user on the intended uses and outcomes when utilizing social media as a communication tool within the City of Washington, I've written many a social media policy in my background with Public affairs and Strategic Communications and having been the person responsible for the management of DoD accounts with public affairs guidelines, it is so important to to the person doing the management, the administrator to be equipped with the right policies, the right guardrails to ensure that they are set up for success, but it also ensures that the users receiving the information from the account have a clear understanding of what is expected from them in terms of their behaviors when engaging in these environments. We have seen a lot of contentious online behavior in our community over the last few months and I really think that it would be beneficial to all parties for a robust social media policy to be implemented in order to manage expectations on all sides. The encouragement has been for Council while they did table this to ensure that this is not something that falls to the wayside, it should be expedited. It needs to be adopted quickly and efficiently in order to ensure success going forward with our online activity as the City of Washington as well as a request was made that once this new policy is in place that this needs to be pinned at the top of our social media pages readily available for residents to access on the City of Washington website and with the implementation of a new policy, any users who are currently blocked be unblocked so that they may get a fresh start under the new Terms of Use and Comment moderation guidelines in place. As far as the Code of Ethics, I was really Surprised when I was sworn into office to learn that the city council Code of Ethics was adopted in 2010. And it's never been readopted, not to say that it has to be. 2010 is when the state required that municipalities implement a code of ethics. I just personally think it's good practice that there's new leadership, that this be readopted, a reaffirmation that these are the ethics and these are, this is the code that we are going to follow and that we're aware that this exists. However, in reviewing our existing code of ethics, I didn't personally feel like there was any recommended changes to be made to what existed, just that there was opportunity for some additions. And so in looking at the way some of the other municipalities in North Carolina had set up and structured their code of ethics, I felt like there were two really great things that I had seen in other examples. And so one was to adopt a model from Cary, North Carolina, which is to implement an ethics awareness program to be included in new member orientation. Because the reality is currently we're still waiting as newly elected officials to go to municipal government training and ethics awareness training, which we'll do next week. But that's the first training being offered since being elected. So an ethics awareness program being set up right at home in city hall that the city manager could facilitate or a designee would provide immediate localized ethics training. And I think that that would ensure every member would start their term with a clear understanding on the standards from day one. The second was proposing that a formal violation censure hearing procedure be adopted. And this specific example that I had pulled and made recommendation came from the Elizabeth City Code. It provides a transparent step by step roadmap for council to hold itself accountable. It ensures that if a violation is alleged, then the proceedings are clear to the community and fair to the members involved. It's essentially a clear rule of law for our own conduct. And so I think it's interesting to have a code for the sake of just having a code without any understanding or clear outline of what that looks like in the event that that code were to be violated. Obviously, we would all hope that there would never be a position in which a majority of council would feel that or have evidence that another council member has violated the code of ethics. You hope you never need it. You don't want to go looking for trouble. But if we just have a code for the sake of having the code, and there's not a clear outline for council or the residents as to what happens in the event that that code is violated. I kind of feel like, then what's the point? So that's my thoughts. Council had some questions around the censure proceedings, and that is why ultimately it was tabled until the next meeting. The city attorney was going to further review that for them. There were some questions. And so we'll see what comes next. I hope council will be at least eager and ready to adopt even just readopt the existing code of ethics as a sign of good faith that this is the standard by which we are going to be upholding ourselves over our term. There was a lot of talk also last night around the committee of the whole proposal that was put forth, and that is something that I had touched on during our special meeting in December. It is not a new idea. It is something that the city of washington has implemented in the past. It's something that other communities do. And it was just trying to establish some sort of streamlining and getting everybody out of their silos. And so the expectation at the first organizational meeting was that, as mayor, I'm supposed to appoint liaisons from council to the different respective boards and committees. And as I began to have conversations with some of the boards and some of the council members, it became apparent that we have some boards and committees that haven't been meeting, and not just over the couple of months, but over a couple of years. And so I don't know necessarily enough to understand the why. I don't know. I've got some boards who are appointed, and they have council liaisons who their council liaison hasn't come to their meeting in a couple of years. And so I felt like in hearing the advice of some of the previous mayors and with other council members and talking with other representatives with experience in different communities, it felt like a really great way to kind of pull everyone together to have a true planning session and to ensure that the right people are at the table and that we can pull ourselves out of our silos to be working together as a team. And so the committee of the whole structure that was put forth to council was adopted to meet on the fourth Monday of the month, a time to be determined in which the city council, the city manager, the city clerk, a rotation of department heads, and your representatives from the city appointed boards, commissions, committees, will all be at the same table together with a very structured agenda, very structured outline, with the same elements of reports, but so that we can start to better understand what the different entities are doing across one another, and they can start to hear how they might be a resource to one another and start to get this ship working together, rowing in the same direction as a singular team and hopefully remove some of the bureaucracy from within the bureaucracy so we can move more efficiently going forward. The intent is that this will be discussion. This is not another action City Council meeting. This is simply discussion, work session, planning session. It is open to the public. If you're interested in learning what these other boards and commissions are doing and witnessing this discussion, please stay alert for an update to follow once a time has been determined on what that will look like. This will take effect for the fourth Monday in February. The other topic I really wanted to touch on was the budget ordinance amendment for City Council cell phones. I do want to make sure it's understood that all council members were provided equal same opportunity for saying yes to a city council. A city issued cell phone and so I personally after I was elected, it was a question that I asked as an elected official, do you get a laptop? Do you get a cell phone? Am I expected to use my personal devices, hand out my personal phone number? What are the implications for things like that? Personally, my mom was a county supervisor in Virginia back in 2000. Oh my goodness, 2011, 2012, time frame for a couple of terms and I remember her going through this process with the county that she was serving at the time. I mean we're talking more than a decade ago in which public records law had changed in Virginia and it made the most sense to ensure that supervisors were equipped with county issued devices in order to be efficient in responding to public records requests. And so she had gone through experiences when the city was complying with public records law in which personal devices were being turned over for weeks at a time in order to secure imaging. And I know things change and they're constantly being updated. But what has continued to be remaining as a best practice for public records transparency is ensuring that the city business remains separate from the personal devices. This creates a clean audit trail. It is standard transparency measures to ensure that all city business is being properly archived and is easily accessible to residents. It also helps create a clear boundary between public work and personal life, which honestly it protects the city from high legal costs that are often involved if you have to search a personal device for public records. Just some very general research. Digital forensic flat fees for imaging of cell phones averages about $4,500 per device. It's important that in 2026 we are striving to improve the efficiency of the government agency to ensure that we are compliant with public records law and that we are doing so in a timely manner fashion. If a council member is using their personal device, their personal email to correspond about city business, sending text messages from a personal cell phone using a personal Facebook to respond to residents and constituents on city concerns to message other council members using a personal email, all of those communications are subject to public records law. So in the event that a public records request is received by the city, all of those correspondence are subject to that response. By separating it out and having council have city issued devices in which they are using to conduct city business, those text messages can automatically be archived. Those call records can automatically be archived. All of that software exists for managing those devices. If that device is lost, that can be remotely wiped. And I will also offer beyond the public records, it's also going to ensure that there's continuity of contact information so that through any future transitions it's providing long term accountability and continuity for our community. Before I close, I just want to take a moment to address the dialogue taking place in our community that I have banned prayer at City Council meetings. That is not true and that is not what has transpired. Prior to a City Council meeting. The Mayor, the City Manager and the City Clerk sit down together to finalize the agenda. At the time of the meeting to finalize the agenda for the January 12th city council meeting, no invocation had been coordinated. I asked if we could host a moment of silence. That is how the agenda came to be listed as moment of silence Invocation. I am a God fearing woman and prayer is a very important part of my daily life. However, I personally believe a moment of silence best serves the city of Washington as a whole. Separation exists because government should remain neutral and as elected officials, we represent all of our constituents equally. However, the decision to have a moment of silence on the agenda for the Jan. 12 meeting was not a tactic to eliminate prayer from City Council. There is no process in place in which the invocation is coordinated. I did not intend to create such a dialogue around this topic. Though I have enjoyed seeing so much conversation taking place from our residents, it has certainly brought attention to something that probably would have never been a point of conversation. For every message that I have received telling me that the invocation should not be modified, I have received an equal number of messages stating the moment of silence would be preferred. I have asked counsel who is going to coordinate the invocation. There should be a process in place in which the religious leaders in our community have equal access if there's going to remain an invocation prior to the opening of City Council meetings. Councilman Davis has offered to take on that responsibility. If you are a religious leader or if you are someone that would like to lead an invocation to open a city council meeting of any faith denomination in our community, I would encourage you to reach out to Councilman Davis. You are welcome to CC myself and the city clerk, if you'd like to be added into the rotation. Thank you so much for joining me. For after the gavel. I'm your host, Ellen Brabo, mayor of Washington, and I look forward to sitting down with you next time.