A Grosse Pointe Schools trustee is defiant after receiving an apparent death threat during a March 31 school board meeting.

“Fortunate for you, I’m no Luigi,” local activist Ian Seaman said in a video clip posted to a local Facebook group. “But to some disgruntled teen with his or her father’s pistol or rifle, any of the other things you prefer in school other than rainbow flags, you might be a Brian Thompson.”

The comment was a reference to Luigi Mangione, who allegedly shot and killed UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City in December. Video shows Seaman wearing a backpack, as Mangione did during the shooting of Thompson. The audience applauded after Seaman's comments, the video shows.

Seaman's comments were directed at Trustee Sean Cotton, whose family previously owned hospitals in the region.

Seaman claimed to be upset over school policy on hanging gay pride flags in classrooms. Cotton noted that the Grosse Point Public School System's Policies & Guidelines document does not contain policies related to flags. He told Michigan Capitol Confidential he believes Seaman has been radicalized by political opposition whose "months of reckless demagoguery that used me as a boogeyman contributed directly to his actions and the threat he made against my life."

Cotton and other board members expressed shock after Seaman's statement.

“You don’t always have your life threatened right here, and that guy Ian Seaman, he absolutely just did threaten my life,” Cotton told the assembled crowd. “From my exercising representative government and democracy and the First Amendment, that’s pretty disconcerting.”

After ensuring that Seaman had left the location, Cotton filed a report with the Grosse Pointe Farms police department, he told Michigan Capitol Confidential in an email.

“While he did not explicitly mention my background in healthcare, it is clear he had done his homework, and I believe he likely knew of my former role,” Cotton said. “He ranted about my ownership of our community’s local newspaper, my political donations, and was clearly very angry and agitated about my participation in the democratic process.”

The death threat won’t stop him from serving the school district, the alumnus of Grosse Pointe South Class of ‘95 said.

“While the incident was unsettling, it will not deter me from continuing to serve the Grosse Pointe community,” Cotton said. “I sought this role to help preserve and strengthen our public schools, championing academic excellence, fiscal responsibility, and long-term stability. That mission remains as important to me today as ever.”

In a phone intereview with CapCon, Seaman countered that the statement was intended to draw attention to the risks of extremism and gun violence. The comment wasn’t a threat, he said, and the board should be more respectful of public commenters.

“I explicitly said I would never do that,” Seaman said. “I am not (Mangione). But if we keep not listening to people and what they need, we are in an environment where someone could do something drastic. That should be a scary thought for everyone.”

The threat typifies extreme views held by many transgender activists, Matthew J. Wilk, president of Get Kids Back to School Inc, told CapCon.

“What you saw Monday at the school board meeting was appalling but sadly predictable,” Wilk said in a text message. “Progressive political organizations have been pushing that a reversion to a traditional view of sex, one that has been understood on this planet for thousands of years, is somehow ‘violence’ against those with gender dysphoria. It isn’t.”

He called on those in the crowd who applauded the death threat to “knock it off before someone tragically acts on their rhetoric.”

The Office of the Attorney General can’t determine whether a real threat was made, said Attorney General Dana Nessel’s Press Secretary Daniel Wimmer in an email to CapCon.

“Whether a threat was effectuated would require some degree of investigation that I am unable to conduct, via email as the press secretary for the department,” Wimmer wrote. “If you or anyone else believe a crime has been committed, we would encourage you to contact local law enforcement or your nearest Michigan State Police post.”

Cotton said public servants must remain strong in the face of intimidation.

“I believe deeply in democracy and in the importance of representative government,” Cotton told CapCon. “These are the bedrock principles of our nation. To serve in an elected role is both an honor and a responsibility. Threats and intimidation cannot be allowed to silence public servants or any citizen who chooses to participate in civic life.”

Correction: This article was updated after publication to clarify Grosse Pointe Public School System policies.

Michigan bet $3 million of taxpayer money on Bollinger Motors, an electric truck maker that, two years later, appears to be going broke.

The company headquartered in Oak Park has paused production of commercial cab trucks and is being sued, The Detroit News reported in March.

The company received over $949,000 of Michigan Business Development Program grants and created 75 jobs out of the 165 it promised, according to a fiscal 2024 state report.

The project is still in good standing for the grant, said Otie McKinley, a spokesperson for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

“Clawback provisions are in place should the qualified new jobs for which funding has been disbursed be eliminated prior to the end of the grant term,” Otie told Michigan Capitol Confidential in an email.

Michigan taxpayers promised the company part of another $100,000 in 2021 to work with Michigan State University on mobility projects.

In 2020, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer promised an all-electric future for Michigan. She gave billions of dollars in subsidies to electric vehicle makers and backed Bollinger’s vision as recently as last year. 

“Bollinger Motors has once again decided to bet on Michigan as they lead the future of class-4 electric commercial trucks,” Whitmer said. “From their headquarters in Oak Park, the company designs, builds, and tests their cutting-edge tech in America, and I am proud that the Michigan Economic Development Corporation has worked with them to create even more good-paying jobs right here in our state.”

The company can’t comment directly on the ongoing lawsuit but is working toward a resolution, Bollinger CEO Bryan Chambers told CapCon in an email. 

“We are working towards an outcome to this dispute that will enable us to continue to grow a strong, innovative workforce that develops industry-leading commercial EV trucks,” Chambers wrote.

Many Michigan government agencies and politicians, including Chief Mobility Officer Justine Johnson, supported the company.

“Bollinger Motors’ decision to build its new line of electric commercial trucks right here in Michigan is a testament to our thriving mobility and electrification supply chain,” Johnson said in a 2024 statement. “Electric commercial fleets will play a key role in reducing carbon emissions from the transportation of goods. Bollinger is a company that shares our state's vision for a sustainable future and we are proud that the company chose to Make It In Michigan."

Only one of every 11 jobs promised by Michigan politicians and public officials in business subsidy announcements gets created, according to a study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which analyzed 20 years of state-sponsored deals.

Business subsidies rarely deliver on their promises and waste taxpayer money, James Hohman, the center’s director of fiscal policy, told CapCon in an email. “Some lawmakers love them anyway because they give them a chance to say they’re doing something about jobs. This applies even if the project turns into nothing.”

Whitmer has ordered the state to have an all-electric vehicle fleet by 2040. Currently, the state has 30 electric vehicles, Michigan Capitol Confidential has reported.

In her second term, the governor appears to have turned from that goal. Now, she doesn’t care what kind of vehicle you drive as long as it’s made in Michigan.

Michigan’s climate plan expects 2 million electric vehicles to registered statewide, but the state is 1.95 million shy of that goal.

Last month, another EV maker, which received $900,000 of taxpayer money, said it would shutter two Michigan locations and take 188 jobs out of state, CapCon reported.