AUDIO: Mayor Sheldon Neeley accused powerful Mott Foundation of pulling strings that caused Flint water crisis

In a recorded conversation, obtained by Detroit Metro Times and reported at length in my upcoming book, We the Poisoned: Exposing the Flint Water Cover Up and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans (available for pre-order now), then-Flint mayoral candidate Sheldon Neeley, unaware he was being recorded, told me that the Mott Foundation — a powerful entity that’s funded city hospitals, schools, cultural centers, youth programs, and more for decades — pulled the strings behind ex-Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s appointment of the city’s unelected emergency managers whose decisions helped cause the Flint water crisis. Neeley also implied the foundation’s decisions, and history, were driven by racism.

In the past, the powerful foundation, named after pioneering General Motors stockholder Charles Stewart Mott, has been accused of enabling and supporting racist policies. In the 2015 book, Demolition Means Progress: Flint, Michigan, and the Fate of the American Metropolis , author Andrew R. Highsmith laid out the foundation’s history in the 20th century of institutionalizing “patterns of racial segregation, educational disadvantage, and economic inequality that helped to make Flint one of the most racially and spatially divided cities in the United States.” Mott strongly contested the book’s account.

Terry Bankert, the late former Flint city clerk and ombudsman, described Mott as more of a kingmaker than charitable foundation. “I don’t think two boards get nailed together in this town without Ridgway getting the first look,” he told me about Mott CEO Ridgway White.

Many residents I’d spoken to over several years expressed suspicions and criticisms of the foundation, viewing it as an entity aiming to gentrify Flint and drive poor and minority residents out.

So when Sheldon Neeley, fresh off announcing a run for mayor, approached me at a church event in Flint in April 2019, I decided to ask him about Mott. I suspected he might have loose lips; I also didn’t trust him not to spin that I had misquoted him. Since Michigan’s laws allowed me to tape the conversation without permission, I hit the record button on my phone .

“What do you think about, a lot of residents keep complaining to me about Mott,” I began. I added that residents had told me they thought Mott basically controlled Flint’s politicians — and wanted the water crisis declared over in order to continue a citywide gentrification campaign.

As my question floated in the air, an awkward silence ensued. After a few seconds, I asked, “Is that a big elephant in the room?”

Neeley broke the Mott silence by asking me if I had read a major civil rights report on the Flint water crisis that had been submitted to the Michigan Civil Rights Commission. I had. The analysis, authored by Wayne State law professor Peter Hammer, found structural and strategic racism to be the dark underbellies of the water crisis.

“Did you read the book about the Motts and their relationship…” Neeley began before another person jumped into the conversation specifying the book Neeley was referring to is called Demolition Means Progress — the aforementioned book that laid out Mott’s role in allegedly advocating for, and helping engineer, racist government policies in Flint. (We’ve edited the third person out of the audio as they are not a public figure.)

After Neeley invoked the book outlining Mott’s alleged racist past, he dropped a stunning comment — unprodded by me.

“So, they [Mott] don’t give $100 million dollars to a cause because they just say, ‘Oh, we want to help out,’” Neeley said with a deadpan, no-shit-the-sky-is-blue expression. I didn’t even have a chance to respond to his shocking comment before he added another: “They [Mott] picked the first two emergency managers,” Neeley said, referring to Snyder’s appointment of unelected, Mott-connected bureaucrats, Michael Brown and Ed Kurtz, to run Flint in 2011 and 2012. The casualness, yet force, behind Neeley’s comments seemed major — and carried major implications.

First: I had not brought up Mott’s controversial past or accusations that the foundation had helped enable Flint’s history of racist educational and housing policies — Neeley did through his invoking of both the Flint civil rights report and the book Demolition Means Progress .

Second: His invoking of Mott’s $100 million dollar donation toward relieving the Flint water crisis , followed by his accusation that the foundation handpicked Snyder’s first two emergency managers — the latter which I’ve been told by several other sources — implied that Mott was funneling its cash toward the water crisis in order to sweep its role in causing it under the rug.

Here was Neeley, vying to become the top government official in Flint, validating what both residents and some frustrated politicians had passionately insisted to me for years. The state representative was all but confirming Mott’s role as the puppet master behind Governor Rick Snyder’s hijacking of democracy in Flint.

Rick Snyder: “I don’t recall”

In 2020, under oath as part of confidential testimony in the major Flint water civil case, Governor Snyder was asked why he selected Michael Brown as his first emergency manager in Flint. “I don’t recall at this point in time,” the then-former governor testified as part of a major Flint civil class-action lawsuit.

When asked if he ever met with Brown or Kurtz before appointing them ... ditto. “I don’t recall,” he said.

His answers were hard to believe; the former governor, self-described as “one tough nerd,” was known for his meticulousness. How is it he could not answer why he selected a leader for the important role of running the city he unilaterally seized control over? At the very least, wouldn’t he remember meeting with the two men before appointing them as the unelected rulers of Flint?

Before he proclaimed a financial emergency in Flint in 2011, Snyder dispatched his treasurer there. In a classic, good-ol’-boys backroom meeting, State Treasurer Andy Dillon met with a who’s who of the Mott Foundation and those connected to it, a source revealed. Representing the foundation was the late Bill White, the longtime president of the foundation. Also present was Phil Shaltz, an investor and cofounder of the Mott-funded real estate company Uptown Reinvestment Corporation; and the heads of the Mott-funded Genesee County Chamber of Commerce. Joining them were two Mott-connected bureaucrats the foundation was putting forth as choices for Governor Snyder to appoint as emergency manager (EM) of Flint.

Michael Brown was a longtime fixture in Flint’s political and nonprofit scene. He was also a Mott guy. He had served as executive vice president of Mott-funded Genesee County Chamber of Commerce and as interim Flint mayor. Additionally, Brown ran two Mott-funded foundations. Mott’s floating of Brown as an emergency financial manager was curious considering Brown had no real financial management background.

Ed Kurtz, another Mott fixture, appeared with Brown at the shadow meeting. A decade earlier, controversy swirled around Kurtz after Michigan governor John Engler declared a financial emergency in Flint in 2002. Engler appointed Kurtz as the city’s first-ever emergency manager; Kurtz made major financial cuts to city jobs and services. Like Brown, Kurtz had no financial management background. He was plucked out of academia, having run Flint’s Baker College for thirty years. Mott showered the college with millions and named a scholarship after Kurtz.

The backroom convention of aristocrats might have been missing the cigar smoke and top hats, but it set in motion a wrecking ball of disaster for Flint. Treasurer Dillon and Mott officials struck a deal: over the fierce objections of residents, Governor Snyder would declare a financial emergency in Flint and then insert Michael Brown as Flint’s EM. For Mott, its own puppet would now be calling the shots in Flint. For major decisions — say like the city’s water source — Mott would have a seat at the head of the table.

Ex-state Treasurer Dillon acknowledged the foundation’s role in Brown’s appointment. “There were a lot of recommendations, from like [former state senator Bob] Emerson, for example, to Mott Foundation who had a real interest in Flint,” Dillon told Flint water crisis special prosecutor Todd Flood during confidential testimony in 2016.

When I reached out to Dillon in 2020 about, among other things, his summit with Mott and Mott-connected officials, Dillon answered: “I may respond to this but would like to get legal advice before doing so… there is more I would like to share but I need to check.” He then pivoted to the topic of the controversial Karegnondi Water Authority [KWA], which he signed off on Flint joining as a water customer in 2013. The move meant that Flint, after 50 years, would stop purchasing water from the city of Detroit. A year later, in 2014, Flint began temporarily using the Flint River as its water source while the KWA was under construction. Millions in necessary equipment upgrades were not made to Flint’s dilapidated water plant at the time of the Flint River switch — and legally required corrosion control chemicals were not added to Flint River water being piped to city residents homes. The rest, tragically, is history.

Dillon insisted his approval for Flint joining KWA was for the city to be a water customer purchasing water from the KWA — not as a co-financier borrowing nearly $100 million dollars to help Genesee County Drain Commissioner Jeff Wright fund construction of the new water pipeline.

“When I was there the only financial obligation of Flint was [to] purchase water when and if supplied. I was against them taking any financial risk on the project,” he said. (More to come on how Flint morphed from customer to part-KWA funder is in my upcoming book .)

When I followed up with Dillon on the specifics of any meetings, or negotiations, he partook in with Mott and Mott-connected individuals, he declined to further answer my questions, deriding them as “gotcha reporting style” and stating my “assumptions are wrong.” At no point did Dillon deny or offer specifics to contest my reporting.

Likewise, the Mott Foundation did not offer a firm denial that it had met with Dillon to discuss Snyder’s appointment of Flint’s emergency manager.

“The Mott Foundation has not been able to confirm that a meeting of all of these participants took place. But there is general agreement that many organizations and individuals were meeting with representatives from the state to discuss the appointment of an emergency manager,” a spokesperson told me in 2020. The spokesperson disputed that the foundation “picked” Snyder’s emergency managers — or “negotiated for their appointment.”

In the church basement, Neeley didn’t stop at spilling tea on Mott as Snyder’s puppet master. He stressed that after years of the Flint water criminal investigation, Brown and Kurtz were “names you never hear in criminal culpability.” He added: “Ed Kurtz is the one who made the decision to use Flint River water.”

In 2020, Mayor Neeley’s office responded to a request for comment — by disputing that he made the comments.

“To his recollection, he did not ever grant you an interview so we have no idea how you could possibly be quoting him,” the office said. “What he does know is that these alleged quotes are complete misrepresentations of him and his beliefs.”

The quotes are not alleged — you can hear Neeley’s exact words below.

The spokesperson continued that the Mott Foundation’s relationship with the Flint community is “more than money” and Neeley was thankful to the foundation for its “ongoing assistance in our time of crisis.”

Sheldon Neeley recently dropped his Congressional bid to replace outgoing Flint Congressman Dan Kildee. He is currently serving in his second term as Flint’s Mayor.

This report contains excerpts from the author’s upcoming book, We the Poisoned: Exposing the Flint Water Cover Up and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans , out in bookstores on Aug. 6.