Division, disagreements, distrust leaves Flint City Council 3rd Ward seat vacant

FLINT, MI -- The Flint City Council is running out of time to appoint a replacement for one of their own -- the late 3rd Ward Councilman Quincy Murphy -- if members want to follow the city’s charter.

Murphy died on Sept. 29, creating the vacancy, and council members were scheduled to interview candidates to replace him during a special meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 23.

But the council couldn‘t address city business at the meeting because four of the remaining eight council members did not attend.

On Thursday, Oct. 24, three of the four members who didn’t attend said they had concerns about safety inside the council chambers a week after a confrontation that involved a woman with a gun.

Council President Ladel Lewis called on council members on Thursday to return to City Hall on Tuesday, Oct. 29, to appoint Murphy’s replacement and said she would work with Police Chief Terence Green on a safety plan to address safety concerns.

Lewis was among four council members who attended Wednesday’s meeting, one short of the quorum of five that was needed.

A day earlier, Lewis asked City Clerk Davinia Donahue to call members who did not attend Wednesday’s meeting in an attempt to persuade at least one additional member to attend.

“We have reached out to the colleagues to come to the meeting,” Lewis said at Wednesday’s meeting. “They have declined to respond back or to attend the meeting.”

The city charter calls for the council to fill council vacancies within 30 days if more than 18 months remain in a member’s term.

Before Murphy’s death, the nine-member council had often been divided 5-4 with five members more prone to support the agenda of Mayor Sheldon Neeley than the four in the minority.

But without Murphy, there are no longer enough votes to make the appointment without cooperation from members on both sides of the divide.

Lewis and council members Leon El Alamin (1st Ward), Judy Priestley (4th Ward) and Candice Mushatt (7th Ward) attended Wednesday’s meeting. Members Jerri Winfrey-Carter (Ward 5), Tonya Burns (Ward 6), Dennis Pfeiffer (Ward 8) and Jonathan Jarrett (Ward 9) did not.

Burns, Winfrey-Carter and Pfeiffer said Thursday that they had concerns about the safety of themselves and others in council chambers following the Oct. 14 council meeting, and Winfrey-Carter in a statement called the incident a “calculated conspiracy to incite a riot and disrupt the democratic process.”

Winfrey-Carter said Burns blamed Lewis and Mushatt, the council vice president, for failing to enforce the city’s disorderly persons ordinance, Burns called for Genesee County or Michigan State Police to investigate circumstances surrounding the Oct. 14 meeting, and Pfeiffer said in a Facebook post that “certain members of our council have engaged in what can only be described as an insurrection against the very principles of democratic governance and fair play.”

Lewis and Priestley called on council members to meet again next week to fill the council vacancy in a news conference on Thursday.

Burns also attended the press conference and spelled out her safety concerns.

“The people of Flint elected us to do their business...,” Lewis said. “By failing to come together ... we’re failing the people who elected us.”

Each of the three council members at the news conference indicated their lives have been threatened since they were each elected to their first terms on the council in 2021.

In addition to the most recent division among the council, the process for replacing Murphy has been complicated because the first-term councilman was facing a recall election on Nov. 5.

Although ballots had already been printed and candidates to replace him remain on 3rd Ward ballots, election officials have said the results of the election won’t count because Murphy is no longer an officeholder -- a requirement in a recall election.

Candidates to replace Murphy are 3rd Ward residents Beverly L. Biggs Leavy, AC Dumas, Kerry Leon Nelson and Richard Jones.

Interviews with the candidates were scheduled for Wednesday’s meeting and council members said they need to act by Oct. 29 to meet the requirements of the charter for filling the seat.

Ed Taylor, Mayor Sheldon Neeley’s chief of staff, issued a statement on Thursday, saying the administration was “deeply disturbed that the Flint City Council meeting could not take place last night due to a lack of quorum, resulting in delays in completing city business on behalf of Flint residents.”

In addition to interviews with candidates to replace Murphy, Wednesday’s agenda included resolutions to sell most of Oak Park to developer Ashley Capital, the establishment of a new program to purchase an estimated $32 million in medical debt for Flint residents, and funding proposed for the North Flint Food Market.

Taylor said the “failure of council members representing wards 5, 6, 8, and 9 to attend the meeting puts major city business in jeopardy, and could result in charter violations if the council fails to appoint a 3rd Ward representative within 30 days of the vacancy.”

“As a former council member for more than decade, this type of behavior is unprecedented and it needs to be addressed by their constituents,” Taylor said.

Police responded to the disturbance report in council chambers on Oct. 14 but only one police officer was in City Hall at the time.

Police have not announced the results of their investigation into the disturbance or announced criminal charges against any individual.

The department said in a statement that the firearm was legally possessed.

On Wednesday, Priestley said, five officers were at the council meeting.