NC Auditor raises a ton of questions about Charlotte transit security (10-01-2025--Hour3)

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to vpeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. So first hour of the program today we spoke with the North Carolina State Auditor Dave Bullock about the preliminary findings a preliminary report. A full report will be coming later. We don't know exactly when. This report examined the security contracts of the Charlotte Area transit system. This was prompted by the murder of the Arena Zarutska on the Blue Line on August twenty second, and so according to the report, the report contains initial findings based on a preliminary review of documents and information obtained by the City of Charlotte and the Cats. They call it the Cats throughout the entire report, which I guess makes sense because it's the Charlotte Area transit system. It focuses solely on personnel provided by private security contractors and does not account for any temporary surges or other additional personnel provided by CMPD OSA. The Office of the State Auditor will release a final report after conducting a full review. And so this is important too, because like we don't know and I've been asking this since cats started talking about how they're going to be, you know, beefing up security now after Zarutzko is murdered, and they're going to be adding more CMPD officers and more hours. But they're they're moonlighting police officers, so this is like they're off time, and so they're picking up additional work on the transit system them and. You know, I don't know. What impact the CMPD presence would be on the contracted services, right, Like there was obviously a decision made about two years ago to split the one contract for security services, to split that contract in half and give one contract for unarmed security to one company, and the city required that company to be owned by a certified MWSBE Minority Women's Small business enterprise, so it had to be owned by a non white and non mail That contract had to go to a CBI company. It's called the Charlotte. Business Initiative, used to be called the MWBE program and whatever. So it's been around for like thirty years. They changed some of the parameters and some of the things about twenty five years ago when they were facing lawsuits based for discrimination. So they directed this to be a CBI contract for the unarmed security provider for the armed security provider. They did not require that, okay, so they broke it up two contracts. To me, this is the first part of the problem is that you've obviously made a decision to break this apart. Now how are you backfilling with CMPD officers. Is that the reason. Why the number of armed personnel was so low, okay, because when they split the contract, the number of well, so they split the contract and the company that they gave the armed security too. They were eventually fire like within a year. They were cut loose for failure to perform. They don't say why they were cut loose. And then they folded the armed contract into the unarmed contract that was already won by PSS, which is a CBI certified Minority women business owned enterprise. So like, was this intentionally done? These are the questions. I'm not making an accusation, I'm asking a question. I'm just asking questions. I'm just asking was this specifically designed to break it apart? To give the contract to the unarmed security Personnel Provider? And then when you fired the SSS this they call it Strategic Security Services when you fired them and then you folded it into PSS. Well, wait a minute, shouldn't that have gone out for another bid rather than just giving it to a vendor that you will already have on the books. Why did you do that? We don't know, but I think they should have probably gone out for a competitive bid, and that to me reeks of cronyism. And then because it does, I now have to wonder, well, did you fire that company initially in order to do the merger of the contracts with PSS. Was that the intent? Because at some point somebody had to have said, hey, if we fire SSS, what are we going to replace them with? And somebody said, well, let's just put them over on PSS, put it in that contract. Well when did that conversation happen? How soon was that after you gave the initial contracts? So there's two components to this contract stuff that are concerning to me. And how do you end up going from a contract that has between sixty eight or eighty eight armed security personnel six years ago down to just thirty nine did PSS not were they not able to reach the capacity necessary for the armed personnel? Or was this an intentional decision directed to PSS that said we don't want to see armed personnel, we want the number of armed personnel to drop. Was that the directive? We don't know. Let me go over to the phones here in chat with Pete. Great name, Hello Pete, Welcome to the show. Hey Pete. Regarding the remarks to that lady at the top of the last hour, Yeah, it's going to be hard to get accountability on any of these situations we've been you know, we got set up on plane government back in the late sixties, early seventies, and ever since then, think about that, We've had about forty five years of nobody having any accountability for anything except Pat Cannon. But they got him on video Riffin's one hundred dollars bills. Yeah, yeah, Now look, hey, we got it. We got a bunch no, remember we got we got Jim Black. He went to federal prison former Speaker of the House, Meg Scott Phipps, also Democrat Agriculture Commissioner, Frank Balance, Democrat congressman. He went to prison. I think it's son. But you're talking about state level. I'm talking local Mecklenburg, municipal level. Well, what do you consider accountability? So likember Lynn Wheeler, she lost her seat, remember over the arena deal. So when you when you split the political side away from the administrative side through city manager, the police and fire report to city managers. They don't report to the political side. How many Darryl Stevens, how many other cop police chiefs if we had trouble with over. The years, Oh, there have been a bunch. Yeah my point. And what happens is they gotta go. We give him a big contract to go away and brush it under the rug and whatever else. This whole plan I've been frustrated with this for years. The whole planning government means no real accountability at the ballot box. And even Bywhiles right now, she's hanging on just to get to two things, get re elected and get a bright new like Keith used to call them, the bright new shiny things. Yeah, uh quite real, but yeah, well, no, you're right. I mean this is this is the problem with the manager council form of government. You have very weak mayors and a council that hires the manager. But then the manager runs all of the operations and is basically the top dog. And then if you run a foul of staff as a as a politician, as an elected city council member, you run a foul of the staff, and you can find yourself, you know, paddling against the tide with all of the city bureaucrats against you. You know, it's machine politics at its finest. The Chicago dailies are envious. Yeah, well, I mean pick your poison. If it's not the manager, it would be a strong mayor form of government, and then they would be running the machine. Well, you know, maybe so. But even as far as the news, right there at the top of the hour, the FOP guy yep said, he said something and they put the hammer on him, and he turned around said, oh, no, here's your FAFO. Yeah, we'll see, Yeah, we'll see he's Sue and we'll see Pete. I do appreciate the call. It's a very good point. I mean, the form of government debate is a good one to have, but I just I feel like it's all poison. You're just picking which. 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They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit Creative Video dot com. Just to finish a point, I don't think I finished regarding the staffing of armed personnel by PSS on the Charlotte Area transit system. It was at thirty nine when Arena Zarutzka was murdered, thirty nine out of two hundred and nineteen total. Actually they were only nine. They were not fully staffed, but there were thirty nine positions armed. I don't know. Because I've received no information from CATS, from the city, nothing in this auditor's report. So I don't know. What the impact of CMPD backstopping uh the private contractor is. And I know they were saying that they're, you know, getting more CMPD help. They've expanded the jurisdiction of the private security forces. Now they can move a little bit further around in the transit areas and such. But you know, did they cut the did they cut the the PSS armed contract Did they cut the number of armed personnel down? Because they were putting CMPD officers on the lines like they were supplanting, So they weren't going to use the armed officers from the private contract or. They didn't need him anymore because they're going to open this up to CMPD. I don't know the answer to that. So that's one of the questions that I still have and it is not addressed in the OSA report. Here from the Office of the State Auditor. From the report, again, this is the preliminary report. This is not the final report. The Auditor, Dave Bullock told us in the first hour that he wanted this out so we the community have this information. So you have it, the media has it, and we can now start asking these questions and trying to get some more answers from the city government, which heretofore has not been exactly forthcoming in a lot of the details. The report goes on to say, although the current contract provides that PSS may provide up to two hundred and nineteen security personnel, around the time of Arena's murder, PSS had not filled all those positions. At a September third, twenty twenty five meeting of the Metropolitan Transit Commission, which is the cat's policy board, the interim CEO of CATS, Brent Cagel, noted that PSS was quote currently providing one hundred and eighty six personnel and are continuing to hire with the goal to fully staff up and this was about two weeks after Arena's murder. They also include a data point in this report from the Federal Transit Administration that had recently determined that the quote rate of crimes against CATS writers is three times the national average. Well, that's a bit of a different story than you're hearing coming out of Democrats at the congressional hearing on Monday. Violent crime is down North Carolina or Charlotte is the ninth safest city and is the tenth safest city. And look at we're making all these improvements. We're doing fantastic. Here's our expert with the stats. But they don't mention that that the rate of crimes against cats writers is three times the national average. That's a problem. And again I will point out that city Councilman Edwin Peacock asked Katz interim director Brent Cagel where the data was that he had requested about hot spots where you've got the most criminal activity occurring in the CAT system. Where is it occurring? And this was about two weeks ago, I want to say, and they still hadn't compiled all the data, and they were trying to sift through it and get all the data and be responsive and all of that. But like the fact that you don't know that is a problem that should have been something I said this at the time. I can go to the CMPD crime mapping website and I have done this a lot. Okay, I've done. This a lot, particularly when you're looking at purchasing a home or something. You go to the crime map and you go take a look and see what are the kinds of crimes, how many crimes are occurring in a particular neighborhood over what period of time? How do you not have the data? And it's not a matter of like, oh, well, you should have the data so you know. When Pete Calendar comes along knocking from the media with a foyer request, you can give it to me. That's not the point. The point is where do you staff right? The point is if you're PSS, you need to know where the hotspots of crime are because you need to be able to surge troops to that area. If you know there's a bunch of crime happening at one particular train station, you want to put more personnel there. If you don't have the data, you don't know to put the personnel there. You could have them riding around on the safest bus Laune and not surged to the place where they are needed. The most that should have been that should have been a data set that was readily available, and the fact that it's not that tells me that they don't know. And that's pretty bad. That's pretty bad. And I spoke with Dave Bullock, the auditor, about this very point. You need to know where the activity is occurring so you know how to run your staffing model, and it doesn't appear like anybody's got that. But the mayor says they are satisfied with the service that PSS is providing. The response, which is included in the auditor's preliminary report here. The response from Mayor vy Lyles says that the report appears to suggest that PSS is not qualified, but fails to offer spec evidence to support this conclusion. Bullock said in the interview, he said, basically, that's garbage. The auditor's report does not actually say that. It in fact says literally quite the opposite. It says, we're not making any determination or any conclusion about PSS's ability to fulfill the contract. We're not saying that it's too early to know that we're just putting this preliminary report out. So the mayor was off based on this. He says, PSS was chosen following a competitive process. The mayor says PSS also served as the subcontractor to G four S, which was a prior contractor back in twenty eighteen that they then scrapped they got rid of, right, they didn't. They did not keep G four S, which was then merged into Allied Services. They didn't keep Allied. They didn't keep G four S. But yet you're you're citing a letter of recommendation from G four S. Why would that matter if they didn't win the contract. Why would you take their recommendation for another contractor if you weren't satisfied with the work that they were doing. Yeah. As further testament to PSS's professionalism and excellence, please note PSS was selected as a security provider a security provider to the first presidential campaign of President Donald Trump, then Candidate Trump, while the President conducted campaign events throughout the Carolinas. Again, PSS has successfully met the expectations of CATS to this point and is a valued partner to CATS as we have worked to enhance security throughout the transit system, so they're going to the mat for PSS. So when I was a kid, my grandpa died with Alzheimer's, and before he died, my mom and my dad took care of him as he got worse. Forty years ago, there were no treatments and not much support for cat givers and family. But things are different today because of the work of so many people, including the Alzheimer's Association of Western Carolina. It's a great organization with awesome people with huge hearts. I've been a supporter for twenty five years. This cause means a lot to me. 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Let me get over to the text line because we've got just tons of texts on this. I'm gonna try to get to everybody's comments. This is from David. I actually thought that this kind of discrimination was illegal. What would happen if they if the city were to have said we only hire white people. Yeah, And this is the problem with these types of programs is that you know the answer to pass discrimination is not discrimination now right. But this was the Ibra Mex Kendy philosophy. This is how you end up in these positions is that you're you're awarding contracts based on targeted goals to have minority and women owned businesses get city contracts. And you know that's to me, like you shouldn't be hiring companies based on the race of the owners, because you know, the dirty secret is also here that people make the quote owner somebody in one of the protected classes so as to get the contracts, even though that person may not actually be functioning in reality as the president or owner of the company. It's like husband and wife team put the wife on the paperwork, so this way you're a woman owned business, but the guys actually running the whole thing. You know, there are all sorts of ways around this, and it has been abused. These types of programs get abused. Seven oh four number says tragically and sadly, it took the murder of an innocent young lady to bring to light the corruption in city hall. Or giving the benefit of the doubt, it's not out and out corruption, it's a complete ineptness, buffoonery or dumassery. In either case, it's time to clean house. Sadly, it's hard to vote these folks out when no one better is stepping up to take their place. I saw the same thing happen when I lived in Atlanta. Yeah, and like this is the issue, right people become demoralized. They are. Then you know, they say, I'm not going to run for office, I'm not going to contribute, I'm not going to get involved because my vote doesn't matter. And then you get to just sit back and not be involved, and then keep complaining about how things get worse and worse and worse. At some point you have to break that cycle. You've got to get involved right otherwise things don't change and it takes a long time, and I know people don't have the. Patience for this. And you can get You can get involved in all sorts of ways. You don't have to run for city council or congress or something right right out of the gate. You can get involved in a civic organization or a business related organization. You can get involved in your HOA. I know people are like, oh, I got it CHOA right. Well, if you don't like your HOA, you don't like the way it functions, join it, change it, make it better. Another another text here from an eighth three number in South Carolina says, isn't it illegal for a hiring decision to be based on age, race, sexual orientation, et cetera? How is the city not being sued for racial discrimination. Well, there is case law on this stuff, and that's why the city, like twenty five years ago, they changed their policy where they were like they were running direct discriminatory programs basically, and you know, their argument at the time was, you look at all these contracts that we're entering into at a city government level, and they're all going to these firms, these companies that yes have the capacity to do the work and do it well and do it for a low price, but they're all owned by white guys, and so they want to give a leg up to minority owned businesses that were you know, for a very long period of time in North Carolina and Charlotte history, they were shut out because they were black businesses. So that was the intent, but it was basically like affirmative action. That was the intent, was to try to make good on some of the past discrimination, try to make up for some of that. But I would submit we are in a different place when you have the Charlotte City Council controlled by Democrats, and I believe all of them now are black city manager, county manager, right school superintendent, school board. It's all controlled by one party and all controlled majority black So are you telling me you're racist against black contractors, you're not going to give them the bids. I don't understand this argument. Now. It's the same argument, by the way, that the Charlotte Mecklenburg school board tried to make it a federal court back in the early time two thousands maybe two thousand, when they didn't want to get rid of the bussing. They were like, you can't, you can't lift the court ordered bussing against us because we could still discriminate. And it's like the board chairs, Arthur Griffin, the black Democrat, like what are you talking about? You guys, So you're telling me you're going to discriminate against African American students. You're going to withhold funds from predominantly black schools when the school board is predominantly black, Like, that doesn't make any sense anymore. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina? Just a quick drive up the mountain and cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the breath taking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga National Forest, their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Centrally located between Ashville and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It's the perfect balance of seclusion and proximity to all the local attractions with hot tubs, fireplaces, air conditioning, smart TVs, Wi Fi grills, outdoor tables and your own private covered porch. Choose from thirteen cabins, six cottages, two villas, and a great lodge with eleven king sized bedrooms. Cabins of Ashville has the ideal spot for you for any occasion, and they have pet friendly accommodations. Call or text eight two eight, three, six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at Cabins Offashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Back to the text line, which has just been lighting up, I'm gonna try to get to all of your messages here, folks. Amy says, could the previous contractor SSS? Could they sue the city for breach of contract if there was no cause for canceling it. If so, we the taxpayers will be paying them for the remainder of their contract while also paying the new company for a contract covering the same time period. Right. Yeah, they do not appear to have sued, but we wouldn't know that because they would do all of that inclosed session, and they would not divulge it to us until there's some agreement reached, if there was one. But I'm not aware of any litigation regarding that stances. In a lot of instances, insurance regulations govern a lot of contractual relationships. More often than not, security of business entities is not governed by the reality of perceived needs, but by the minimum you need to spend in order to obtain liability insurance certification. Who cares I innocent people are victims, as that economic liability has now been moved to the insurance company. Be interesting to look at the city's books and see if that's the case here. Tim is very mad. A lot of cussing here for crying out loud for crying and screaming and wailing and complaining and moaning and groaning. Who in the hell is the bleep? Who are the bleeps that pay the city manager four hundred and ninety thousand a year, pure bleep garbage. All of you should be removed from office. There should be a movement to remove every single government official out out if they won't go, drag their sorry butts out. Into the bleep in street. There you go. Jefferson says it was nice to hear the Secretary of War say the broken window policy would no longer be tolerated. That must be a Pete thing. Oh I get it because his name is Pete. Also Pete hesa. Okay, this is from Doug. How much does a man hour of private security service cost for transit versus how much does a man hour for CMPD or statewide law enforcement if transit covers outside CMPD jurisdiction. If the cost is close, it seems like professional law enforcement would be the way, the better way to go. The private route has profit built in. Seems like government ought to be able to provide the service closer to the actual cost. So I suspect no that the security contract is cheaper than CMPD. That would be my bet that it would be a cheaper man hour for the transit system to contract with the private firms. I think because of the amount of training that CMPD goes through, the liability insurance costs, all of that. If you have CMPD that are on staff on the clock, I should say, when they are working the transit system. Otherwise you do what they are doing now, which is they backfill the open slots and the need with moonlighting officers CMPD officers that then in their off time they're off hours, they go to work for the transit system and they can go in their uniforms and all of that. But I would bet that the man. But yeah, I don't know what the cost comparison would be for using CMPD officers versus transit or a sorry, a private firm. I don't know, And maybe we'll get those answers, you know, I would like to know those answers. This is from a seven oh four number. You would think city council sitting on thirty six thousand dollars of new chairs would be comfortable and in a good enough mood to pass these things quicker. They did spend a lot of money on their chairs, but they're nice looking chairs. I mean, only the best for our public servants. Scott says. The city faced lawsuits for supposed discriminations, so now they do discriminate against white dudes. Wow, Pete, I'd be willing to bet that PSS, the private contractor, was not. Oh, this is an interesting theory. So if you're a media person, this is a story idea for you. Try to go track this down. Is it possible that PSS was not certified at the time with the when the initial contracts were split, right, and they said, we're going to give one contract to the unarmed and then another contract for the armed security. And for the armed security you have to have certifications of some kind, but not really for the unarmed. So we want to split that up and we give it to PSS for the unarmed, and then we go to this other company SSS for the armed contract. But in the meantime PSS maybe get certified. I don't if they were certified before, I don't, but maybe they got certified in the interim. And then this is the. Theory from a five one eight number. It was so in other words, like they gave PSS the contract for unarmed while they worked to get certified, and then when they got certified, then they gave them the second contract too. So it could have been. Set up right from the jump that when they did get themselves certified, then they would get rid of the other company. That's a theory. Seven oh four numbers says, I guarantee somebody's getting paid pasted or current city leaders. Protect the marine wildlife. Okay, yeah, do you do. I'm sorry, I'm trying to see. When you send lots of text it becomes difficult for me to uh to follow there. This is from Bain. I think Charlotte light Rail has exposed itself to litigation, not their CBI hiring policy, but for neglecting to push the hired company fulfill its contractual obligations. Unless I misunderstood whether armed or unarmed. Were there not significantly fewer overall guards working the light rail? No, there were more, actually than the contract from twenty eighteen. There was a doubling of the guards, but it was all unarmed, and then they cut the armed guards. And for Charlotte leaders to say they were satisfied with their services irrelevant? Were the terms of the contract fulfilled and if not, why right, we don't know the answer to that. The auditor says, they're pursuing that to find out why was that contract scrapped? What were the terms that were not being met that allowed the city to scrap the original contract? All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpclenarshow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.