Racial Slurs Prompt Flint Land Bank Manager’s Resignation

FLINT, MI — A bank executive at the Genesee County Land Bank, the largest property owner in Flint due to foreclosure actions, has resigned after activists recorded a video of him using a racial slur while describing what he believes are the root causes behind the Flint water crisis. “Flint has the same problems as Detroit — (expletive, slur) don’t pay their bills, believe me, I deal with them,” the government bank’s longtime sales manager, Phil Stair, is heard saying on the widely publicized video.

Environmental activist and independent journalist Chelsea Lyons recorded the comments after getting a tip that Stair was at a local bar, then posted the video online. Condemnation of Stair for the remarks was swift on social media, including calls for his resignation or termination. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Flint Patch, click here to find your local Michigan Patch. Also, follow us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

U.S. Congressman Kildee, a Flint Democrat, was among those condemning Stair for the remarks. In a tweet Sunday, he said the “behavior is awful and indefensible.”

One of the key missions of the Land Bank is to aid in Flint’s economic recovery to “restore value to the community.” As Genesee County treasurer in 2004, Kildee founded the Genesee County Land Bank in response to the tax foreclosure cycle as a vehicle through which Flint could reclaim, reinvest in and rebuild neighborhoods.

Even Little Miss Flint, the plucky 9-year-old activist who charmed former President Barack Obama into a meeting to discuss the city’s lead-contaminated water, called for Stair’s dismissal.

The bank said Monday that Stair had resigned, and bank Executive Director Michele M. Wildman apologized to the Genesee County Board of Commissioners, MLive.com reported.

“I am deeply troubled by (the statements),” Wildman said. “The citizens of Flint deserve to have trust in their public officials.”

In his letter of resignation, Stair admitted to using “insensitive language” to convey his private opinion of the root causes of the Flint water crisis, including a price hike by Detroit in 2014 that was among the reason Flint switched its water supply to the Flint River. Several state and city employees have been criminally charged and accused of lying about corrosion-control measures that would have prevented pipes from leaching lead into the city’s drinking water supply.

“I am deeply sorry for what I said and those I offended,” he wrote. “I do not know how I can face my friends and co-workers.”

The Truth Against The Machine website, which originally posted the video, said Stair’s remarks are symptomatic of systemic racism in Flint, where 56 percent of residents are African-Americans.

In one exchange, Stair said that Land Bank foreclosures have cleaned up some areas of Flint, but problems only move to other areas of the city. “F-----’ deadbeats who, when they tear the houses down, they gotta go somewhere, they go to the south side,” he said. “It just shifts — it just shifts the s---. The people are still the people, they f----d the houses up then they leave and when we tear 'em down, they just go somewhere else and just f--k those houses up.”

You can watch the video below. It contains strong language, profanity and racial slurs.

Photo: Public Domain