• Controversy has brewed for months over a $40 million offer for an elementary school within the state-funded megasite near Flint
• Negotiations took place for over a year behind the scenes before the offer was made public this summer
• Now Swartz Creek Schools is mulling the proposal along with an investigation into administrators who say they did nothing wrong

SWARTZ CREEK — Michigan’s deal to lure a semiconductor plant may be dead, but the fight to assemble 1,300 acres to lure a big-ticket business here lives on — and it’s dividing a community.

One month after Sandisk pulled out of a deal to build a $63 billion plant, an economic development group working with Michigan is still buying properties near Flint’s Bishop Airport.

In recent weeks, bulldozers leveled a church and nearby homes, while yard signs implore: “No megasite.”

Now, the controversy has shifted to Morrish Elementary, a school of about 400 that has stood near farm fields for more than 50 years.

After months of angry board meetings and a series of resignations, the Swartz Creek Board of Education is expected to vote Wednesday on a $40 million offer to buy the school and 9 surrounding acres. The district expects it would build another school with the proceeds.

“You can’t look anywhere in the state of Michigan and find a place where someone’s offering $40 million for a building,” said Jim Kitchen, interim superintendent .

“(The) $40 million is not going to make or break our district,” he  added, “but this divisiveness will.”

The dispute is the latest over Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s signature economic development fund, the $2 billion Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve, which lawmakers voted to defund this month.

Land surrounding the school has been acquired with $261 million the state gave to the Flint & Genesee County Economic Alliance to assemble the megasite.

The agency bills the property — known as the Advanced Manufacturing District of Genesee County — as “the best site in North America” for projects that could produce thousands of  jobs, like a semiconductor.

School board meetings became fraught after May 28, when then-Superintendent Rod Hetherton acknowledged he’d been negotiating a sale for months.

“As I’ve told everyone, they came to me over a year ago,” Hetherton said during the meeting, “and I never got to the point where I thought their offer was good enough to bring to the board.”

Trustees said they were shocked and demanded more information.

There was an offer? Trustee Chuck Melki asked.

Documents obtained by Bridge Michigan and others in the community through the Freedom of Information Act show that negotiations for the school explored price, school relocation and timing of a deal.

The records were a blow to some board members and opponents to the megasite who say they didn’t realize how far talks had progressed.

RELATED: 

• Records: Michigan offered more than $6B in failed bid to land chip factories 
• Lawmakers: Spending $660K per job for Sandisk would have been tough sell
• Whitmer’s semiconductor dreams near Flint become nightmare for neighbors
• With Flint megasite deal, Michigan tops $1B in spending on development land

Since the offer became public, two board members — one alleging harassment — resigned.

Hetherton, who told Bridge Michigan there was nothing unusual about the negotiations, left the district in June to lead Zeeland Schools.

Two top school officials are now serving in interim posts. Another was removed from the board table during meetings because she’d entered into a deal to sell her home for the megasite as the district was negotiating to sell the school.

The fallout has caused board meetings to stretch for hours and prompted trustees to threaten an investigation while the deadline looms for a decision.

“We keep focusing on the past and it’s holding us from going forward,” Board President Carrie Germain said at the Oct. 8 meeting.

“Do we get to talk about the future?”

An offer takes shape

Now, the megasite nearly consumes all of a 2-mile land rectangle, and more deals are set to close.

Large tracts included farmland; others purchased include rows of single-family homes and a full subdivision where all but a handful of owners haven’t sold.

State and local economic leaders are bullish about the project, but it’s also sparked accusations from neighbors about land speculation and a lack of community input.

The $40 million offer for Morrish originated as an exchange for a new building on 32 acres near Hill and Morrish roads. Talks initially focused on a 65,000 square foot building, allowing the district to also close Gaines Elementary and dedicate the new building to the district’s early education programs, according to documents.

“We knew he was talking to people,” said Melki, referring to the former superintendent. “We didn’t know there was a hard offer.”

Tyler Rossmaessler, executive director of the economic alliance, unveiled the public offer for Morrish in a June board meeting.

The $40 million represents about 15% of the state’s megasite funding, an outsized figure compared to the size of the property and other sales.

The neighboring New Life Wesleyan Church, for example, sold its now-demolished building and 46 acres for $900,000, according to township records.

The district’s goal of replacing the building bumped up the price, officials said. And the 15 months of  conversations came because “it took us some time to make sure we understood what the school district was looking for,” Rossmaessler told the board.

Hetherton’s notes to the board since his first meeting with Rossmaessler in October 2023 showed deal-shaping, according to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The megasite team “asked for our ‘grandest’ wish if we were to sell Morrish,” Hetherton wrote. Architects and a construction company looked at potential costs.  Some board members had shared recommendations with Hetherton.

Rossmaessler was told “they needed to come to the board with an offer and the replacement of Morrish must not cost the district anything,” Hetherton told Bridge this month.

Some trustees say the administration went too far without informing them of details or including the public in how they would shape a new building if Morrish is sold.

“Obviously, things were going on for months,”  Trustee Ken Engel said at the Oct. 8 meeting, supporting Melki’s quest to investigate whether the negotiations violated district policy.

Hetherton told Bridge he followed standard protocols: “Forming an administrative workgroup to gather information is a routine, lawful practice consistent with district policy,” he wrote in an email.

School board trustees want a new Morrish sale committee — one of three formed in August to deal with the offer and potential new building — to delve into the construction estimates so that any counter-offer doesn’t leave the district scrambling for more money if building costs increase.

Engel, a board member, wants to go further and investigate the process altogether.

“Things went on and we keep trying to ignore them,” Engel said. “They have to be acknowledged.”

While trustees sparred over who knew what and when, residents began clamoring for a voice in any new school.

“They feel like they can just come in here and steamroll and just tell us what’s in our best interest,” resident Jenni Wolgast said after hearing the offer in June.

After the board’s treasurer resigned, claiming harassment over the project, Wolgast was appointed to the board this month.

She spent her first meeting asking questions about why the board would accept a $40 million offer with no other plan besides gaining a date to leave the building.

The board, she said,  has “a bigger responsibility to know what we’re going to do with the money before we accept any kind of offer.”

Looking ahead

Time to complete a deal may be narrowing.

Rossmaessler has asked Swartz Creek for a decision by Dec. 1, leaving fewer than six weeks for negotiations if the district makes a counter offer.

The state grant that funded the land acquisition, meanwhile, expires in 2028.

If the district decides against selling Morrish, the economic group “will work to minimize any inconvenience for students and their families during construction” at the megasite, Rossmaessler said.

“We are confident that an advanced manufacturing facility and a school can coexist safely and with minimal inconvenience if the school district decides to decline this opportunity,” he told Bridge.

Megasite opponents from Mundy Township and neighboring areas are coming to meetings to urge a no vote, believing the school sale would damage the last holdouts choosing not to sell their homes.

Other residents are urging the school board to just make the best deal for the district.

Kitchen, the interim superintendent, said the state has put the district in a difficult position. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and President Donald Trump have talked about the failed Sandisk deal, but the megasite controversy stays local.

“I have been very frustrated that more of our political leaders haven’t taken a stand here,” Kitchen told Bridge.

Politics over the state’s megasite have “taken over this decision,” he said. “It hasn’t been about a $40 million offer for a building that’s not worth near that much. “

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