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Northeast Ward Council Member Barbara Burke is planning to sue fellow Winston-Salem City Council Member Kevin Mundy for defamation, after Mundy accused Burke of trying to illegally control city decisions on housing in her ward. In a court document filed Thursday in Forsyth County Superior Court, Burke maintains that she was “maliciously attacked by defamatory statements that (she) had engaged in illegal/unlawful conduct in the context of her service on city council while advocating for her constituents” in Northeast Ward. Burke’s claims were filed in application and order for more time to file a complaint that was served on Mundy on Friday by Randy James, Burke’s attorney, who said the actual lawsuit would be likely be filed later this week.
Burke is asking for damages in excess of $25,000. James said Mundy is being sued as an individual and not in his capacity as a council member. People are also reading.
.. The lawsuit stems from an email Mundy sent to a member of the Ministers’ Conference of Winston-Salem & Vicinity on Oct.
21, in which he said that Burke was trying to “circumvent the legal process for land acquisition and make her own decisions without council approval.” Burke says in Thursday’s court filing that she acted completely within the law and with the approval of the city council in developing a housing revitalization plan for Northeast Ward. She says that Mundy’s comments injured her “by tending to disgrace her and hold her up to public ridicule and contempt.
” On top of that, Burke alleges, Mundy “doubled down” on his accusations against Burke when he talked to a Journal reporter and said his email was “about a council member who is doing unethical and illegal things.” “I think Mr. Mundy went rogue for reasons that I don’t understand at this point,” James said.
“The power of social media is full of the exercise of one’s First Amendment rights, but in exercising First Amendment rights you can’t accuse people of crimes and doing things illegal.” Mundy said he believes his remarks were protected because Burke is a public official and that “a private citizen can say what they want to within some guidelines.” “In the real world, I hope she would realize that what I said is accurate,” Mundy said.
“If I said that as a private individual, I have some proof to hold it up. Everything I said was in the course of doing my job as a representative for the Southwest Ward.” Mike Tadych, attorney for the North Carolina Press Association, said an email to a member of a private organization like the one Mundy sent would not be the kind of communication protected from an accusation of libel.
On the other hand, he said Burke would have to prove that Mundy acted with “actual malice”: That he knew his allegation was false or was negligent in making it. The controversy between Mundy and Burke has roots in the city’s effort to develop affordable housing. The city owns a number of vacant lots scattered around the city’s eight wards, and in a number of cases the city has sold those lots — typically for $1 each — to developers or nonprofits promising to put housing on them.
The city hit pause on the sales last spring, when concerns were raised by some council members about the need for consistent standards on the sale and development of the lots. Later, when council members began talking about what those standards should be, Burke said any policies developed by the city should exclude her ward because it already has a plan that she helped develop. In her court filing, Burke maintains that her actions on housing were both legal and known and approved by the other members of the city council: Burke says council members, former City Manager Lee Garrity, City Attorney Angela Carmon and others, including a marketing videographer, had toured the Northeast Ward before the council approved the sale of lots for “Phase 1” of the ward’s revitalization effort, which the lawsuit says was approved on Jan.
2, 2023. On that date, the city set up a $500,000 line item in the budget for Northeast Ward housing. Mundy contends that setting up a line item in the budget is not the same as approving Burke’s full plan.
The city attorney says that decisions about land sales and the conditions for developing on the lots is not something that an individual council member can decide for the member’s ward. Current City Manager Pat Pate said too that he has no “council-adopted housing plan’ for Northeast Ward. Burke’s attorney said he will be proving otherwise: “I’ve got irrefutable proof that Mr.
Pate was aware of and knew of and participated in the plans for the revitalization of Northeast Ward,” James said. “Go back through all the public meetings. It is documented.
” Mundy’s original email was sent to Tembila Covington, the former president of the Ministers’ Conference. The group is composed mostly of Black clergy. When the letter became public and was reported in the Journal, the Ministers’ Conference condemned Mundy’s email and defended Burke as one who “has passionately advocated for the will of her constituents” and who has worked with the Ministers’ Conference on housing and other concerns.
Mundy’s original email talked about more than housing: He called Burke a “bully,” and accused her of trying to ‘poison” the reputation of Pate within the Black community. Burke’s Thursday court filing against Mundy did not mention those accusations. It remains to be seen whether those accusations will become part of Burke’s lawsuit when it is filed.
“She is very serious about it,” James said, speaking of Burke’s intentions. “It is disconcerting that if you are acting on behalf of your constituents, someone chooses to respond in this manner.” Burke Mundy wyoung@wsjournal.
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