CHARLOTTE -- Charlotte City Council may change the way it begins its meetings

Typically during every meeting, city council will pray before things get started. However, Monday night, they skipped the prayer and went straight from introductions to the Pledge of Allegiance.

Mayor Jennifer Roberts said the council met with its attorneys to talk about recent court cases on prayer before public meetings.

In July, the Fourth Circuit Court decided the prayers at Rowan County Commission meetings violated the First Amendment.

City Attorney Bob Hagemann sent a letter to council over the summer. It states that ruling also applies to Charlotte.

"We are not going to have an invocation tonight,” said Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts during the meeting. “We are going to change the way that we conduct it on the expert advice of our attorney, with the concern over freedom of religion and separation of church and state and some other recent court rulings."

There is some confusion, however, about how the decision was reached.

The mayor says council decided to do away with the invocation based on advice from their attorney after various court rulings about prayer, but the city attorney says ending the invocation was not his advice.

Political scientists say this could have been the mayor's move made on the way out the door.

Mayor Jennifer Roberts has referred the issue to the 'Governance and Accountability' committee.

There is no word on when they'll review it.