'He touched the whole world.' Flint City Councilman Eric Mays dies ...

Flint, MI — Friends and family gathered on the city’s north side Saturday as they mourned the loss of longtime resident and Flint City Councilman, Eric Mays.

“We appreciate the love from the city,” said Kevin Mays, Eric Mays’ nephew. He and a handful of other mourners gathered near Eric Mays’ home on the north side of Flint on Saturday night. “We know what the city meant to him, so you can only imagine what he meant to us,” Kevin Mays said. “Everything he stood for leaves a legacy for our family, leaves great steps for us to follow in. However you felt about him, what he fought for was the people and how he felt about this community. He stood on that. He stood behind it. And we can’t do anything but continue that fight.”

According to reports, Mays, who was a third-term councilman, died on Feb. 24, 2024. He was 65.

The flag at Flint City Hall is set to be lowered to half-staff in his honor, beginning Monday, Feb. 26, 2024.

Flint City Council members Tonya Burns and Jerri Winfrey-Carter waited behind police tape on Mays’ street Saturday night. They talked with Mays’ friends and family while answering nonstop phone calls until Sunday’s early morning hours.

“He touched the whole world,” Burns said. “I’m gonna miss my friend.”

Winfrey-Carter said she admired Mays’ commitment to his ward’s residents, and she expressed frustration at how some of her fellow City Council members had recently voted to suspend Mays for 90 days. Mays spent the last months of his life fighting to get back in his seat, she said.

“They disenfranchised a whole ward,” Winfrey-Carter said. “That’s not our call.”

Regardless, Mays’ passion for his community garnered massive support on social media as clips of him at city meetings went viral in 2023. Kevin Mays said he was grateful that his uncle got to see how much “his voice was appreciated.”

“Where we are right now, my family grew up here,” Kevin Mays said, pointing to the neighborhood behind him. “This is our grandmother’s home. We were raised here. It’s often tough for people to kind of humanize times like this when you’re dealing with somebody with such a massive spirit, but man, this is a tough time for us. Again, we appreciate everybody. We’re definitely going to do everything that we can do to keep his legacy alive and to continue to push forward for our family.”

Mays was a 1976 graduate of Flint Northern High School, received a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University, and served in several positions with the UAW.

Former classmate and fellow politician, U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, extended his condolences to Mays’ family.

“I’m saddened by the death of my friend Eric Mays,” wrote Kildee in a Feb. 25, 2024 statement. “Councilman Mays loved serving Flint on the City Council, and his constituents continuously re-elected him because of his bold and unwavering voice.”

Mays’ attorneys said they will continue to fight for his constituents.

“We are heartbroken by the sudden, tragic death of our client, Councilman Eric Mays…Councilman Mays was a man devoted to public service,” wrote Lento Law Group, the legal firm that represented Mays in a number of lawsuits. “His unrelenting advocacy on behalf of his constituents gave them a voice in a government body that often seemed interested in silencing voices that did not agree with the majority.

We will continue to fight for those constituents and the City of Flint in Councilman Mays’ name and memory, including against those individuals whose gracious statements concerning his passing stand in stark contrast to the actions they took against him while he was a public servant. Rest in peace, Councilman Mays.”