Matthew Miller of MLive wrote an in-depth story on former Mott Community College President Beverly Walker-Griffea’s departure that is worth a full read as it covers much of the amateurish governance this board has displayed over the past year plus. This quote in particular from Trustee Art Reyes was good to see, as it validates the outright bullying many of us witnessed from Chair Andy Everman toward Walker-Griffea near the end of her tenure:

“We never should have been in the position that we were in,” said Trustee Art Reyes, “but we got a chairman who was openly disrespectful to the president and a majority of the board who did not support her nor stand up to the chair.”

The story is also full of highly questionable financial decisions, which shows this board’s whole “we’re gonna run it like a business” ethos is absurd.

But this Everman story that Miller relayed from Trustees Reyes and Michael Freeman and former Trustee Anne Figueroa is particularly disgusting.

Freeman, Reyes and former Mott Trustee Anne Figueroa all described an incident that occurred in a meeting of the Board’s Finance Committee in 2019, shortly after voters had returned Everman to the Board.

Walker-Griffea had been responding to a question, Figueroa said, and Everman took exception to the way she responded.

“He goes, ‘You need to call me “sir,”’” said Figueroa, who said she was seated next to Walker-Griffea at the meeting. “He led with that. And the rest of us kind of gasped.”

At a Board retreat that December, other trustees “basically told him, ‘This was wrong. You need to apologize to her.” He never apologized,” Freeman said.

Everman doesn’t recall asking Walker-Griffea to call him “sir.”

“Is there a video recording so I can hear myself saying this,?” he said. “Because I don’t remember this.”

There is not video.