FLINT, MI -- Two rental housing projects that appeared to have support from the City Council are in limbo after too many council members dropped out of a meeting that stretched more than 13 hours over two days.
Council was unable to vote on an ordinance designed to reinstitute a rental inspection program or get the necessary five votes for a tax break proposal that backers said would have rehabilitated an apartment complex on the city’s northwest side.
Five members -- Maurice Davis, 2nd Ward; Santino J. Guerra, 3rd Ward; Kate Fields, 4th Ward; Allan Griggs, 8th Ward; and Eva Worthing, 9th Ward -- eventually checked out of the second virtual meeting before it ended because of lack of a quorum on Wednesday, Aug. 13.
The same meeting had been recessed Monday, Aug. 10, after council failed to finish its business after more than six hours. Both parts of the meeting were delayed repeatedly by arguments over procedures and council rules.
“I am so disappointed by this ... This is a sad day,” council President Monica Galloway said.
The council has struggled to complete its business since the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced virtual rather than in-person meetings and caused council members to cancel committee meetings where questions had often been resolved.
In May, Mayor Sheldon Neeley excused department heads from meetings at 9 p.m. -- three hours and 30 minutes after starting -- after a May 11 meeting lasted nearly 11 hours. In a press release at the time the city said the move was made after “months of poorly run, quarrelsome, late-night meetings.”
Fifth Ward Councilwoman Jerri Winfrey-Carter said Wednesday that it was “rude, unprofessional as well as disrespectful” to leave the most recent meeting before business was finished.
Winfrey-Carter was among backers of a payment in lieu of taxes proposal from the city that would have allowed Communities First to purchase and renovate Orchard Lane Apartments in the area of Ballenger Highway and Flushing Road.
The tax break fell one vote short of passing the council after four members left the meeting early and Griggs, who also left the meeting a short time later, voted against it, saying it would cost the city $26,000 in tax revenue.
Griggs said Thursday, Aug. 13, that he left the meeting shortly before it ended because Galloway and 1st Ward Councilman Eric Mays “talk endlessly and there’s not a lot of substance.”
“I’d had enough,” the councilman said.
MLive-The Flint Journal could not immediately reach Davis, Fields, Guerra or Worthy for comment Thursday.
Suzanne Wilcox, director of the city’s Department of Planning and Development, called the Orchard Lane project “extremely important” during Wednesday’s council meeting and said officials in the Neeley administration had already begun “talking about how we can introduce this” again at a later date.
“I think it’s extremely disappointing what just happened,” Wilcox said. “(This project) is something I think you will see in front of you again.”
Council was unable to vote on the proposed rental inspection ordinance because only four council members -- Mays, Winfrey-Carter; Herbert Winfrey and Galloway -- were still participating in the meeting.
Flint’s proposed rental ordinance would have required the inspection of apartments and homes every three years. The city discontinued enforcement of its previous ordinance in 2016 after a U.S. District Court judge granted a preliminary injunction that forbid the city from enforcing it.
A Flint landlord claimed in a lawsuit then that the program violated his constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches of his houses.
City says Flint council meeting was waste of time as audit deadline looms
Developer asks Flint for tax break to redevelop Orchard Lane Apartments
Flint council could decide Wednesday if rental inspections return to city
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