North Charleston tried a new approach to fighting gun violence. No one knows if it worked.

NORTH CHARLESTON — A year ago, the city pumped more than a million taxpayer dollars into a raft of nonprofits in hopes of quelling a surge of shootings that marred dozens of lives. But after doling out the cash, officials kept few tabs on where the money went or what was accomplished.

Now the money is running out as hard questions surface about the program's effectiveness. Officials are pointing fingers at one another for the lack of oversight. Everyone — from council members to police officers to city staffers — said that responsibility fell to someone else. 

A deep sense of urgency drove the initial effort. Gun violence had rocked South Carolina's third-largest municipality in the months before City Council greenlit the first-of-its-kind program in North Charleston.

One shooting in Deas Hill wounded 13 people and killed a 14-year-old girl. Another left a man dead on the front porch of a Liberty Hill home. Still another saw a man gunned down in the backseat of a car traveling down Interstate 26.

Local nonprofit leaders appealed to City Council in summer 2022: They could help stanch the bloodshed if the city seriously invested in their work. Elected officials obliged in December 2022, bestowing $1.3 million to 13 organizations. Council asked the Police Department, then helmed by Reggie Burgess, to spearhead the yearlong effort.

But officials' failure to closely monitor the program bred disorganization from the start, a Post and Courier investigation found.

News

North Charleston awards $1.2M to gun violence prevention groups

• By Rickey Ciapha Dennis Jr. [email protected]

City leaders didn't diligently vet the groups or provide financial training before handing each a $100,000 check. Taxpayer dollars went to fledgling groups with little experience handling large grants. Some had never dealt with contributions exceeding a few thousand dollars. Two groups weren't registered charities. And some have missions experts said aren't likely to lower shootings in the short term.

One recipient pleaded guilty in 2010 for her role in an embezzlement case at an anti-poverty agency where she worked. It’s unclear whether city officials knew this. After serving her sentence, though, she formed a nonprofit dedicated to supporting people as they re-enter society from prison. She has been doing the work for eleven years.  

City Council awarded every group the same amount of money — even one that asked for $32,000. They walked away with all of that cash upfront due to a mistake by the city finance director. His error upended a plan to dole out funds in installments after the city assessed groups' progress on promised initiatives.

The money funded a variety of efforts. One nonprofit ramped up counseling sessions. Another created an animated series that teaches children how to manage their emotions. Three organizations banded together to host a six-week summer camp. 

But officials couldn't have known that. Some City Council members never received the progress reports the groups were required to submit. Police officers didn’t thoroughly read them. Officers did, however, have close contact with at least two grant recipients whom they called upon to help defuse tension after violence.

Confusion remains over who was in charge of evaluating the program.

In other cities, third-party groups or dedicated violence-prevention offices manage similar initiatives. In North Charleston, several city officials had their hands in the process along the way. But no one seemed to take ownership of the initiative, leaving few guardrails aside from monthly check-ins between the groups and police.

"It's kind of everybody's fault because we just didn't follow through," said City Councilwoman Rhonda Jerome. "Council was counting on the police to follow through, and the police was counting on council."

Officials didn't take a hard look at the initiative until mid-January, when the groups submitted their final financial reports. Within days, some council members called for a closer review of the organizations' activities and use of funds. But gauging effectiveness is difficult because the city never implemented a system to measure if the program worked. 

Some supporters point to the city's modest reduction in shootings as evidence of the groups' efforts. The city saw eight fewer shootings over the program's period, dropping from 134 in 2022 to 126 last year. Shootings remain a steady presence in some North Charleston neighborhoods, averaging around 10 each month for the last five years, a Post and Courier analysis found.

Debate about the program's achievements has rankled many nonprofit leaders in painful, personal ways. They said the public and politicians are heaping undue attention on Black-led organizations, while White-led nonprofits have received much larger cash influxes with less scrutiny. Opinions among current and former council members are mixed as to whether this is the case.

The program's disorganization and the absence of a clear strategy also have caused some people to question how committed city officials were to curbing gun violence. Allison Hilton, one of the grant recipients, put it like this:

"Are we being set up here in some way so that somebody can check off a box and say, 'We tried to address gun violence. Oh, it didn't work.' " 

Still, the groups are continuing their work even as the money to sustain those efforts has run dry. They are hopeful that Burgess, who was instrumental in getting the initiative off the ground, will throw his support behind another round of funding. He was sworn in last month as the city's first Black mayor.

Nonprofits remain locked in a waiting game as the violence beats on. Twenty-eight shootings rattled North Charleston in December and January.

A dire moment

Long before politicians sparred inside City Hall or nonprofit leaders cashed their checks, Joyce Maybin Nesmith sat inside the headquarters of Beyond Our Walls Inc., an after-school center in Dorchester Terrace. A barrage of shots rang out.

The nonprofit's executive director was making her way through a pile of paperwork on that unseasonably warm February afternoon in 2022. A stray bullet pierced the window next to her and grazed her head. Nesmith, 73, and two others survived. But 15-year-old Xiamere Moody lay bleeding in a nearby driveway. He died in a hospital that night.

Hours later, North Charleston police officers found another man shot to death at an apartment complex 5 miles away, near Rivers Avenue. The two killings joined a wave of gun violence in early 2022, when nearly 50 shootings jolted the city in a four-month span.

The city has long struggled to get a handle on gun violence. It saw 55 killings between 2006 and 2007, earning a spot on a top-10 list of the nation's most dangerous places. Aggressive policing helped drive down those numbers to five homicides by 2010. But it often came at a cost to civil liberties, leaving residents angered by incessant traffic stops for minor violations and a virtual police occupation of some neighborhoods after violence erupted.

That approach ended after the 2015 killing of Walter Scott. A White officer fatally shot the Black motorist eight times in the back during a confrontation that followed a traffic stop. The episode drew national scrutiny, resulting in a pivot toward community-based policing in North Charleston, a prerogative Burgess embraced when he became chief in 2018.

News

How Walter Scott's death continues to reverberate 5 years later for two SC families

• By Gregory Yee [email protected]

After Moody's death in February 2022, community members marched in the street and hosted forums, begging for the bloodshed to end. His killing reflected a troubling nationwide trend: Firearm injuries became the leading cause of death among children and teens in 2020, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Gun-related injuries were among the top five causes of death in 2022 for people in the U.S. ages 1 to 44.

North Charleston officials expressed a renewed interest in addressing the crisis in April 2022 after a group opened fire at Pepperhill Park. Children at a youth baseball game cowered in fear, belly-crawling across the field to avoid the spray of bullets. No one was injured.

Then-Mayor Keith swiftly responded, announcing the city would award $10,000 for information leading to the suspects' arrest.

His hard-charging reaction enraged some Black community leaders: Where was their mayor and his checkbook when Black teens, one after another, were killed?

City, county and state officials hosted a string of town halls throughout summer 2022 to hear residents' concerns and devise solutions. State Rep. Marvin Pendarvis, a North Charleston Democrat, suggested forming a task force. He and City Councilman Jerome Heyward pushed for funding to support community-based groups working to ease tensions and provide resources.

Many were led by North Charleston natives. They reached into their own pockets to fund organizations in neighborhoods where drug addiction, poverty and homelessness limited economic opportunities.

Heyward, then halfway through his first term, emerged as the initiative's leader. He attended each meeting, listening as nonprofit directors, community activists and young professionals made their pitch for funding. He pledged money as summer neared, the season in which shootings typically spike.

"Now we've got to go back and invest in these communities," Heyward said at a May 2022 town hall. "We've got to figure it out fast."

He tried the following month to allocate $1.3 million for the nascent program. Heyward, who was recently reelected, told the newspaper he isn’t sure how the number came about.

The plan resembled anti-violence initiatives in other cities that hewed toward a common goal: harnessing the community's will and connections to help curb crime.

Shifting responsibilities

Anticipation grew, but Heyward's proposal sat dormant for six months. The last day of school came and went. Nonprofit leaders, some of whom wanted to use the grant for summer programs, were left scrambling. They shuffled in and out of meetings at City Hall, armed with the same presentations and pitches they touted since early spring.

Several departments ultimately played a role in getting the program off the ground.

Groups were told to submit applications by Sept. 1, 2022, to Shannon Praete, the city's grants administrator. Among the required materials: financial returns, proof of nonprofit and charity status, a list of staff and board members, plus budgets.

Praete, who normally manages state and federal grants the city receives, catalogued the submissions in a spreadsheet. She sent the document and 18 applications to the Police Department, where a committee would select the groups.

Her notes didn't indicate that two groups — Bold Advocate Nonprofit Organization and Developing, Educating and Empowering People of South Carolina — weren't registered as charities in the state, a requirement if they wanted to accept grant funds.

"I don't know these groups," Praete said after reporters recently asked her about the omission. "So I'm not really sure."

Police officers also didn't flag the error. 

Bold Advocate and DEEP SC received grants from the city anyway. So did several groups with missing application materials, according to Praete's spreadsheet.

Burgess, the former police chief, told reporters it was Praete's job to screen the nonprofits for eligibility, as officers have little expertise in this area. Praete said she merely compiled the application materials and passed them on. She was under the impression police officials would take it from there.

The selection committee

In the end, Burgess tasked citizens from the city's Community and Police Committee with choosing which of the applicants would receive anti-violence grants. 

Emails obtained by The Post and Courier indicate that nine community members participated in the review process. The full committee, picked by City Council, is much larger. Members weren't supplied with scoring rubrics or a complete set of applications to review. Burgess attributed this to start-up pains.

Some groups submitted written proposals in addition to applications. But some of those documents differed considerably from applications.

Raneisha Holmes, vice president of the Liberty Hill Improvement Council, recalled sifting through brochures and pitches rather than formal applications. 

Resident Mary McCune said she saw only a handful of applications when the committee met in October, despite a September deadline for the forms to be completed. 

McCune spoke with some nonprofit leaders at City Hall. Other committee members went on site visits.

As Burgess put it: "All we did was ask them to listen intently to what the nonprofits said and what the nonprofits would like to do."

McCune said time constraints prevented the whole selection committee from speaking with each group. If she couldn't attend a meeting, she said she based her recommendations on other members' impressions.

She complimented the work of several grant recipients. But she also called the 12-day selection process rushed.

"If we would have had at least 30 days to really engage with the nonprofits, I think we would have learned a lot more," said McCune, who has no prior experience evaluating nonprofits.

Committee members sent their funding recommendations to police officials. Some had lists totaling more than the $1.3 million that was available; others came up short. Some committee members also expressed confusion about the process in emails obtained by the newspaper.

"Not sure if there was a specific way to do this," one wrote. "I also cannot remember what you said was the overall budget we had to disperse."

The committee ultimately decided to give each organization $100,000, even though some had asked for substantially less. It didn't matter whether a nonprofit handled a six-figure budget, like Community Resource Center, or was used to dealing with only a few thousand dollars, like North Charleston SC Youth Resistance Inc.

The city never informed other applicants that they were rejected, or why. Among those denied: a national nonprofit founded in 1975 and a Medical University of South Carolina program that specializes in violence intervention. 

Meanwhile, council members bickered over how the grantees would account for the money. An original contract called for monthly reports. But Heyward and many of the nonprofit leaders maintained that standard was too onerous.

"I don't think it's fair, the stipulations we put on them," Heyward said at a November meeting, questioning whether the city held other grant recipients to the same level of scrutiny.

The final contract required the groups to submit two progress reports: one at six months, the other at year's end. City Council unanimously awarded funds to 12 groups at its Dec. 8, 2022, meeting.

A 13th organization, My Community's Keeper Mentor Group Inc., was added after the fact. Executive Director Keith Smalls said he missed the application deadline because he had COVID. A councilwoman successfully advocated for him to get the funds anyway.

The city intended to dole out the money in installments to ensure groups spent it properly, according to a program contract. They were to get $50,000 at the outset and the remainder after six months, contingent upon city officials receiving their reports.

Instead, city Finance Director Rob Jarrett mistakenly handed out the full $100,000 upfront. (Jarrett acknowledged his error to City Council in an apologetic email obtained by the newspaper. He did not respond to requests for comment.)

The check was the largest most of these fledgling groups had ever seen.

Lack of data

North Charleston's City Council entrusted Burgess and his officers with spearheading the new grant program, though the department had little experience managing nonprofits.

Some experts caution against police running community-based programs because their presence can undermine nonprofits' credibility with participants who are wary of law enforcement. But they believe officers can play an important role from an information-sharing perspective.

The logic is this: Officers best understand the problems afflicting different neighborhoods. They can supply certain crime metrics to nonprofit leaders, guiding them toward the people who need them most. In turn, groups can tell officers who they're serving, where and how often. And if a group isn't reaching the highest-risk population, the department can help them retarget their efforts. 

Researchers emphasize the importance of using data to inform — and evaluate — organizations' work.

In North Charleston, Burgess asked Sgt. Jamel Foster and Lt. Tireka Wright to hold monthly meetings with the nonprofits to discuss ideas and hash out problems. Group leaders commended the pair for their enthusiasm and help.

Foster, who became a city firefighter in 1996 before transitioning to the Police Department nine years later, got a $3,500 pay raise in October 2022 for heading up the grant program, records showed.

"With all his daily tasks, his vast knowledge and experience in our community, (he) will be a great asset to make this initiative a success," Burgess wrote in a letter to then-Mayor . "Sgt. Foster will also be required to submit various reports and a vast amount of record-keeping."

The Post and Courier filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documentation related to the grant program. The city produced no reports or records signed by Foster. The Police Department denied reporters' repeated requests to interview Foster or Wright.

The groups' contracts mandated they attend quarterly meetings where police officers break down crime trends and map hot spots. Burgess considered this a priority to help groups target their efforts. 

"They needed to know exactly what's going on in the neighborhood," he said.

But many group leaders recalled attending just one or two sessions.

Any data that groups supplied to the city in return was up to them. Some referenced metrics in their six-month and one-year reports, noting the number of events they hosted or how many people they mentored. But the reports didn't require this information. Nor did the grant ask groups to specify who they were targeting. 

Quantifying the often behind-the-scenes work of grassroots groups can be tricky. How many homicides did these 13 leaders stop in North Charleston by offering support and mentorship, for instance?

Nonprofit leaders typically don't have the budget, experience or time to collect data and analyze the effectiveness of their strategies, said Daniel Webster, a researcher at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins University. It's prudent for cities to partner with research institutions to do that work, he said.

In North Charleston, two consultants who specialize in data analysis and program evaluation offered to assist the groups. Neither nonprofit leaders nor city officials were interested, with some council members later citing the potential costs. 

Without those metrics, city officials had little way of knowing if their investment was making a difference. 

If cities want to slash crime in the short term, community groups must focus their energies on people at the center of violence: shooters and their potential victims, Webster said. Studies show a handful of people often drive the bulk of a city's crime. In Washington, D.C., for example, a report found about 500 people cause as much as 70 percent of gun violence. Targeting those core people is key, he said. But quite often, that doesn't happen.

At Community Resource Center in Whipper Barony, distributing food, clothing, school supplies and hygiene products is founder Louis Smith's specialty. His one-year report cites 224 food and supply giveaways in North Charleston, where several neighborhoods are federally designated food deserts.

"Our target audience is the whole community," Smith said, estimating the people he primarily serves fall between ages 17 and 60.

Studies have found a link between hunger and gun violence: An analysis of homicides in St. Louis found nearly 70 percent occurred in low-income census tracts with no grocery store for at least half a mile.

But without reaching the highest-risk population, handing out food doesn't pass as a violence-reduction strategy, Webster said.

Smith said addressing poverty — a root cause of violence — is key. He asks everyone who picks up supplies to write their name, age and household size in a thick binder. Neither of his progress reports included this information.

The city didn't ask for it.

Vacuum of guidance

Some nonprofit leaders relied on their boots-on-the-ground experience to inform their work.

Ronald Smith fit this bill. He's served time in juvenile, state and federal prison, mostly for drug-related offenses. In May 2021, he lost his 14-year-old daughter Ronjanae after she was caught in the crossfire of a shootout between rival gangs at an unpermitted block party.

He opened Positive Vibes Ronjanae Smith Inc. two months later in her honor. Taxpayer money funded a youth summer camp and a bus to take participants of his weekly mentorship group on trips, he said.

Imperative to his work is understanding who in the community needs help. Ronald Smith, who still uses his street name Stunna, said he knows all the violent areas, the "hooders," the small-time and big-time gang members.

"I circle myself around them to try to figure out how we can get in the middle of it and calm it down," he said.

Officers occasionally call Smith and others to defuse tensions after a shooting, relying on them to discourage retaliation. It's given him an inside look into crime, augmenting his work at Positive Vibes.

Other groups turned to their peers for help. One of the 13 grant recipients emerged from her past mistakes and took on the role of mentor.

Patsy Gardner was sentenced to three years and a month at a federal correctional camp in Florida. Prosecutors accused her and two others of embezzling from the anti-poverty agency she ran. She pleaded guilty in 2010 to conspiracy and theft charges.

Gardner incorporated her nonprofit, A Second Chance Resource Center, soon after her release. She said her past informs the purpose of her organization — supporting people and their families as they navigate life after prison.

To those who might question her integrity, Gardner says this: "I have humility, but at the same time … I had to move on to keep serving the community."

In the 15 years since entering her plea, she's transformed an online portal into a bevy of services: transitional housing, job training and an after-school program. And Gardner estimates she's helped half of the 13 nonprofits acquire the data system she uses. 

She said she was happy to offer support. But her role highlights an attribute the program largely lacked: technical assistance.

Gun Violence in the Charleston, SC area

After lofty promises, North Charleston gun violence groups still wait for support

• By Rickey Ciapha Dennis Jr. and Jocelyn Grzeszczak [email protected] [email protected]

Lingering questions

Enlisting community groups to help curtail violence is a longtime strategy in other cities.

In Richmond, Va., a $1.9 million federal grant in 2022 buttressed anti-violence programming for youth and covered the cost of an evaluation. In Baltimore, $3.6 million from the state in November supported operating costs at Safe Streets, the city's flagship anti-gun violence group. Philadelphia city officials spent $13.5 million in 2021 to help 31 grassroots groups reduce shootings. Another $8.5 million covered administrative costs for the initiative.

Guidance and guardrails are essential to Philadelphia's program, said Erica Atwood, the city's senior director for criminal justice and public safety.

Nonprofits received amounts ranging from $100,000 to $1 million. Organizations receive 20 percent of the grant upfront. They get the rest if they meet certain financial and data reporting benchmarks, Atwood said. Six city employees run the program, two consultants support grantees and three outside partners assist with evaluation and fiscal reporting.

"We're not just giving folks money and saying 'good luck,' " she said.

To be sure, Philadelphia's budget and population far exceed that of North Charleston. But even in smaller cities, $1.3 million split 13 ways won't lower crime overnight.

"You're asking them to almost perform miracles with a very modest amount of resources," Webster said.

When Philadelphia's program took root in 2021, city leaders made a point to invest in organizations at least 3 years old. They couldn't afford to experiment on the community, Atwood said. (The program faced scrutiny after a Philadelphia Inquirer investigation last year revealed the city funded nascent nonprofits that left millions of dollars unspent.)

In North Charleston, taxpayer dollars went to some newer groups. Bold Advocate became a registered nonprofit in the state two days after city officials handed over the $100,000 check. And the group did not become a registered charity until this month. That resulted from prodding by the state on the same day Post and Courier reporters inquired about the group's status. DEEP SC, the other group that wasn't a registered charity, became one Feb. 9.

Sarah Anderson, Bold Advocate's director, said she worked with children, helped families pay bills and raised money for food distributions through her church and limited liability company, Bold Enterprises, for years before formalizing its nonprofit arm.

Anderson said she used the city grant to host gun violence awareness pop-up events, distribute meals to families and host a summer camp in partnership with two other nonprofits. She also purchased recording equipment to start a podcast featuring the young people she serves.

Anderson documented Bold Advocate's efforts in the mandatory progress reports, submitting one to the Police Department in June 2023 and the other this January. The four-page document didn't ask for much: a description of activities and challenges, and a cursory breakdown of expenses.

But the entire City Council never reviewed them. Heyward said he remembers reading the six-month reports but couldn’t say when. Police officers only made sure they were complete, Chief Greg Gomes said.

A Jan. 18 Finance Committee meeting underscored the consequences of the grant's uncoordinated rollout.

Councilwoman Rhonda Jerome asked about the reports' status, wanting to know how groups spent $1.3 million in taxpayer funds. Burgess said he believed City Council had planned to review the program in November.

But that never happened.

Former Councilman Ron Brinson told The Post and Courier he and then-Mayor Summey discussed leaving the evaluation to the next administration. Summey confirmed that when reached by phone. He declined to comment further.

Jerome continued to press Burgess at the Jan. 18 meeting: Did the groups report anything at all?

Burgess looked to Praete, the city's grants administrator, who said police handled the reports. Burgess, who retired as police chief in May to run for mayor, had a different understanding. He said it wouldn't be the Police Department's job to evaluate City Council-funded programs.

Amid the finger pointing, some council members floated a different idea: inviting the groups to detail their past year's activities before a subcommittee. The mostly new City Council would be left to wrap up the program their predecessors started.

But Heyward, who heralded the initiative, said responsibility falls squarely on the past council, not the organizations.

"Some of these groups really help us prevent stuff from happening that y'all don't even know about," he said at the meeting. "So when we … start tearing them down, that's not right. … It's on us because we didn't put no stipulations in the whole game."

Groups find themselves in a bind as politicians waffle on renewing the grant program.

Money from the city allowed Beyond Our Walls to expand its after-school programs and meal distributions, said board Chairman Martin Deputy. But without more cash, Deputy said the group is worried "we're going to go backwards."

DEEP SC is in a similar spot. The grant helped fund a summer camp, youth enrichment workshops and food giveaways. Without additional funds, Hilton worries the program did more harm than good by offering services it can't sustain. 

'Do not delay'

North Charleston's first foray into funding anti-violence nonprofits officially ended on Jan. 15, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when the one-year reports were due. All groups but Real Champions Inc. turned the documents in on time. As of Feb. 13, the Ridgeland-based nonprofit still hadn't submitted its paperwork.

Reports showed that what groups set out to do differed from what they actually did. But North Charleston officials never required grant recipients to update their plans. 

Hilton of DEEP SC initially wanted to establish a centralized resource center. But she soon realized a summer camp would consume most of the grant money. In his application, James Johnson of the Racial Justice Network listed a litany of initiatives: anti-crime summits, a gun buyback program, a "mental health awareness and assistance program."

Yet the organization spent most of its money on refurbishing two used buses into mobile classrooms; on the "Thou Shall Not Kill Fun Bus," children across North Charleston will learn about the vices of crime through a spiritually inflected curriculum Johnson helped to write.

When questioned by reporters about their use of funds, some nonprofit leaders bristled. White-led groups, they said, receive far more money from the city. Do those organizations face the same level of scrutiny?

The answer is complex. Nonprofits get money from North Charleston every year, but those are typically federal funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development administered through a partnership with Charleston County. A team of county and city employees use a scoring assessment to select those groups, which are required to submit quarterly reports and receipts for reimbursement.

The gun violence program, which used money directly from the city's budget, had fewer guardrails and requirements.

District 1 Councilman Mike Brown said it's reasonable for people to have questions, especially those less familiar with the groups' work.

"I don't expect people that were not part of the process … or seen some of these guys out at 3 in the morning, literally between guns, to actually empathize or even understand the work they do," Brown said.

Brown said city officials should address "transparency and finances" if the grants are renewed. But he wholeheartedly supports the groups and their transformative work.

Gomes, the current police chief, echoed this sentiment in a statement. He voiced support for the program and the "amazing work" several nonprofits accomplished, adding that he equally supports transparency and accountability.

"As with many new initiatives, the beginning is met with challenges, and this initiative was no different," Gomes said.

The program's fate will fall to Burgess' administration. In late January, his office sent a letter to each group inviting them to present an overview of their initiatives, achievements and use of funds before a seven-person subcommittee.

The letter asks groups to complete a "comprehensive report" and "financial document statement." It does not provide templates or specify requirements. City officials want to leave the conversation open-ended, spokesman Ryan Johnson said.

Burgess told The Post and Courier he hopes to continue the program. He floated the idea of making it part of the Police Department's annual budget, though he didn't delve into particulars.

He considers the first try a success.

"I'm looking at anything I can do, any ship I can ride on, to … save lives," he said.

An air of celebration buoyed Burgess' inaugural City Council meeting on Jan. 11. But at his second, tensions crested as pastor Thomas Dixon addressed members on the groups' behalf.

"Please, please, I beg of you, do not delay," he said. "Call for a vote tonight if you can, and let these folks go to work."

Dixon paused, seemingly awaiting Burgess' response. But the mayor remained silent, as did the council members tucked behind the long, curved desk, who slowly rose and trickled from the room, disappearing into executive session.