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FLINT, MI – Former Flint Fire Chief Raymond Barton, who claimed he was fired after refusing to make false statements about a house fire that led to the deaths of two children in 2022, is on the verge of settling a lawsuit against the city and Mayor Sheldon Neeley for $225,000.
Neeley’s administration is asking the Flint City Council to approve the settlement during a special meeting at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 25, at Flint City Hall, potentially ending the litigation, which seeks damages of more than $10 million.
Barton has maintained he was wrongfully fired by Neeley after refusing to change his recommendation that two city firefighters be terminated.
“I wouldn’t lie for the mayor ...,” Barton said previously. “I didn’t lie for him. If I did, I’d still have a job.”
The firefighters had declared an all-clear during a house fire in May 2022 on West Pulaski Street, broadcasting that they had searched the home’s second floor and found no entrapment victims.
But Barton said in an internal investigation that the firefighters never searched a room where two brothers – Zyaire Mitchell, 12, and Lamar Mitchell, 9 – were found roughly six minutes after they called off the search.
Barton’s lawsuit claims Neeley told him he and his wife, state Rep. Cynthia Neeley, needed the support of the Flint firefighters’ union in their campaigns later that year.
The union had backed the firefighters after Barton called for the firings.
Crystal Cooper, the boys’ mother, and their estates later sued the city, claiming her sons died as a result of smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning because of the gross negligence of former firefighters Daniel Sniegocki and Michael Zlotek.
A city spokeswoman and Arnold E. Reed, Barton’s attorney, declined to comment on the proposed settlement in advance of Wednesday’s meeting.
Wednesday’s council agenda includes a resolution to approve the Barton settlement without the city admitting liability for his firing. Council members huddled with attorneys in a closed session earlier this week to discuss their options in the case.
Barton previously told MLive that Neeley never gave him a straightforward answer when he asked for the reason he was fired.
The former chief said then the mayor had done “everything but ask me to change” the discipline he had recommended for Sniegocki and Zlotek.
When he refused, Barton’s lawsuit says, his recommendation was ignored, and he was fired.
The lawsuit claims the firing violated Barton’s constitutional rights, including his right to free speech.
In November 2023, U.S. District Court Judge Nancy G. Edmunds allowed the case to continue based on that allegation but dismissed two additional counts that alleged wrongful discharge.
Barton was a mayoral appointee, first chosen to lead the Fire Department by former Mayor Karen Weaver in 2016. He remained as chief during Neeley’s first term in office.
Cooper’s lawsuit against the city, the Fire Department, Sniegocki, and Zlotek is pending in Genesee Circuit Court.
Just last month, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled the lawsuit can continue and Sniegocki and Zlotek were not entitled to have the case against them dismissed.
The Appeals Court’s 10-page decision concluded “that defendants had a duty to conduct their search of the decedents’ home in a manner that was not grossly negligent.”
“Plaintiff’s amended complaint alleges that defendants breached this duty, and that is sufficient to survive defendants’ motion for summary disposition at this early stage in the litigation,” the ruling says.
Days after the May 28, 2022, Pulaski Street fire, the Mitchell brothers died at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit, according to their obituaries.
A Michigan State Fire Marshal’s investigation determined faulty wiring in their home caused the fatal fire and their home did not have working smoke detectors.
Wednesday’s potential settlement in the Barton case comes just a week after the city council agreed to settle rather than litigate another lawsuit involving public safety officials.
In that case, the city agreed to pay a Flint woman $175,000 to settle claims that a Flint police officer slammed her to the ground during a routine hit-and-run crash investigation last year.
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