City, LU officials disagree over what was said on secret tape

Participants continued to disagree Wednesday over exactly what was said during a recent meeting held between Liberty University and the mayor and city manager.

LU Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. said there was “no question” that Mayor Joan Foster said she thought the school could get unanimous support for a zoning request it subsequently made to City Council.

City Manager Kimball Payne said he did not believe either he or Foster made any such statement.

“I’ve counseled elected officials for years not to predict how a zoning issue will turn out,” he said. “And it would be very presumptuous of me to try and predict how council would vote. I think the complete tape would bear that out.”

LU caused a stir during a meeting Tuesday when it revealed it had secretly videotaped the conversation with the mayor and city manager without their knowledge.

Falwell said he signed off on the recording, which was made by concealing a camera behind some books, due to what school officials called misrepresentations made at a City Council candidates forum earlier this year.

He said the school felt it had to protect itself from further false statements by ensuring there was an accurate record of the meeting.

“A staff member convinced me that some things were being said that weren’t true and it would be wise to allow them to tape it and I said OK,” Falwell said. “I didn’t think it would be an issue or that there would be an argument about what was said. It really wasn’t a controversial meeting.”

Falwell added he’s been recorded before without his knowledge on at least two occasions.

“Both times I was very glad I told the truth,” he said. “It’s not a fun thing, but it’s not a problem if you just tell the truth.”

On Wednesday, LU released its recording of the meeting. The tape starts and stops and parts are garbled. The total footage runs for about 48 minutes or approximately half the length of the meeting.

LU officials attributed this to the use of a voice-activated camera that shut down whenever decibel levels dropped for a certain period. They also said one file was corrupted and could not be opened. They said they released all the footage they had.

The video captures the mayor saying at one point there would be “7-0” support for something, although it is not clear she is referring to LU’s zoning request.

The lead-up to Foster’s comments went as follows:

Payne: I personally don’t care what you build on your campus or what it looks like as long as it meets building code and environmental code. That is what’s important.

Lee Beaumont (LU’s director of auxiliary services): That’s all we were simply asking for.

Payne: Then my issue is at the connections where you start to have an impact on public infrastructure. We need to understand how that’s going to work. That is my intent. If you’re going to build a tunnel, we need to understand how we would make that work.

Foster: That would be a 7-0 in favor of what he just said.

Falwell maintained the mayor was speaking about LU’s request to return to by-right zoning status and that she was specifically suggesting that the request would be strongly supported if the issues raised by the city manager were addressed.

All participants agree Falwell and Payne committed at that time to start meeting on a quarterly basis to talk about the school’s plans for the future.

The city manager and mayor had not received a copy of LU’s recording Wednesday, but wrote a letter requesting one. Payne said he would have preferred to know the meeting was being taped, but felt ultimately that “the fact there is a recording is a positive thing if a full and accurate recording is released.”

LU feels it has been unfairly vilified for making its request now and seeking to get the matter resolved before the May 4 City Council elections. The school has been heavily promoting local voting on its campus and its students are now considered to be an influential voting bloc.

“So many people are trying to say this was a political maneuver with the timing or that we’re trying to fire a shot over the bow of council, but that had nothing to do with it,” Falwell said, adding his concern was not with the discrepancy over the mayor’s 7-0 comment.

“To me, that’s not the issue,” Falwell said. “The issue is that Liberty was encouraged to make this request during that meeting and now all of a sudden we’re being made out to be a bully. This is why I think it was a good thing it was taped.”

Falwell said he felt the video demonstrated LU was encouraged by the city manager and mayor to make its zoning request and was led to believe the matter would be well received by council.

At the time of the meeting, which was arranged by the city, it was generally agreed that it would take two to three months to bring the issue to a resolution. LU says it found out the next day there was way to expedite the process so it could be decided by May 4.

“It’s almost like once they found out it could be fast-tracked, they changed their mind,” Falwell said. “It’s almost like the support they expressed in that meeting disappeared.”