FLINT, MI-- A member of Flint’s city council was escorted by police from a meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 23 after a group of residents protested his treatment of female constituents.

First Ward Councilman Eric Mays was also removed from his seat as finance chair prior to general council meeting earlier this month, he said. At Wednesday night’s meeting, Mays stated he wouldn’t resign from his position because he wasn’t formally removed by council president, 6th Ward Councilman Herb Winfrey.

Protesters in council chambers said Mays verbally harassed women on the city council to silence them in the midst of arguments that erupted between Mays, Winfrey and the new finance chair appointed by council president, 7th Ward Councilwoman Monica Galloway.

“I’ve got a one-year term that ends on the second Monday of November” Mays said. "What you’re attempting to do is totally out of order and I’m asking this meeting is called to order.”

The councilman is referring to a council rule that states any formally appointed committee chair can serve a year-long term that ends in November unless council votes otherwise. Mays has been finance chair for a little over a year and was verbally told by Winfrey he’d lead the committee again in November 2018.

Winfrey met with Mays weeks ago and told him his behavior of “harassment” is the reason he doesn’t want him chairing the finance committee.

“I never formally appointed him,” Winfrey said. “He’s not willing to apply the rules fairly and because of his abusiveness, I don’t believe he deserves that position.”

Ultimately, Mays refused to back down as committee chair during the meeting. He spoke over Galloway as she tried to chair the meeting and called her out of order for not letting him lead until he was removed by an police officer.

After Mays was escorted out, the council moved to vote on removing him as finance chair with a 6-1 vote. Second Ward councilman Maurice Davis dissented. Mays has been removed or voluntarily left council meetings before he could be escorted by police at least five times since 2012.

Once things settled down, council voted to move all resolutions on the committee meeting agendas to the next general city council meeting at 5 p.m. on Jan. 28., including a resolution granting more than $50,000 from the Planning and Development general budget to pay for renovations for vacant and vandalized Flint homes.

Two of the homes are located at 1318 West Moore Street and 1414 West Moore Street and the other three are homes in Smith Village, per the drafted resolution. According to city administration, the homes originally received $52,113 in funds through a Community Development Block Grant to be restored. However, according to the resolution, they were left sitting there vacant for too long and were vandalized. They now need additional funding, according to the resolution.

Smith Village is a subsidized subdivision project just north of downtown Flint. The city owns unsold homes in the neighborhood, bordered by Williams Street on the south, Wood Street on the north, Saginaw Street on the east and Martin Luther King Boulevard on the west.

In 2015, the council grew weary with expenses tied to Flint’s troubled Smith Village development. Council members were briefed on a project by the Department of Community and Economic Development to restore and sell the homes in the village after agreeing to spend $90,000 to keep private security officers on patrol in the area to prevent theft and vandalism at 14 unoccupied homes.

Fourth Ward Councilwoman Kate Fields also brought forth an add-on resolution that would require the city to use a predictive model to plan its final phase of lead service line replacements. The model was used between 2016 and 2017, but excluded from the FAST Start program when AECOM a Los-Angles based engineering firm took over in 2018.

The company’s extension of services and request for an traditional $4.8 million to its $6.1 million contract was voted down by council twice. The firm is no longer overseeing the FAST Start program and city officials stated they expect to hire a new management company to oversee its service line replacement program soon.

Ultimately, council decided to postpone a vote on the add-on resolution to a Feb. 6 finance committee meeting so that all council members have had the chance to look over it.