Mobile Housing Authority CEO says city has been “secretly conspiring” against him

In a letter posted to the Mobile Housing Authority website on Thursday, MHA CEO Michael Pierce accused local politicians of “maliciously and joyfully [setting] ablaze” the organization’s reputation. He singled out Mayor Sandy Stimpson, city councilor William Carroll, and neighborhood development senior director James Roberts.

“At a minimum they should be required to inform the public why their extremely negative portrayals of the agency’s CEO, Board of Commissioners and overall performance should be believed over that of the HUD Birmingham Field Office,” he wrote.

Pierce specifically claimed that “the city has been secretly conspiring with two of the agency’s staunchest critics over the past 24-36 months”: Laurie Hunter and Estella Trotter. Both Hunter and Trotter, Pierce says, live in MHA developments. Hunter, he points out, is Carroll’s “aunt or cousin.”

This is not the first time that Pierce has attacked Stimpson and Carroll since he joined the MHA in 2019, although it may be the most public. In 2022, Pierce said in an email to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that “the mayor is trying to bully me” and that Carroll “for decades has had a great deal of disdain for me.”

In a statement to the press at the time, Stimpson called the comments “untrue, unprofessional and disappointing.”

Back in 2022, Pierce had also already begun looping Hunter into his criticisms of local politicians, although she went unnamed and was simply called “[Carroll’s] family member.”

Councilor Carroll denied having any substantial connection to Hunter while speaking to a reporter with the Lagniappe Daily. He said Hunter is only a distant relative and he didn’t know she lived in public housing.

In Pierce’s telling, both Hunter and Trotter have received significant help from local politicians as they criticize the MHA. He claimed Trotter, who was on the resident advisory board for her development, “received guidance from both James Roberts and city attorney Ricardo Woods” about her resistance to relocation.

In 2022, Trotter discussed her concerns about how the MHA treated the Thomas James Place and R.V. Taylor developments and the upcoming relocations with a local news station. She said the MHA “purposefully let the property rot because they want the [land].”

Roberts is the senior director of neighborhood development for the city of Mobile. In his letter, Pierce accuses him of being power hungry and practically Machiavellian in his vindictiveness. Pierce claims the split began when he “failed to give [Roberts] the agency reins upon my arrival.”

Pierce also vaguely referred to two prior “Mobile Hits” by Mayor Stimpson, one of which seems likely to be the removal of police chief Paul Prine.

“The Lord will rightly judge between me, Mayor Stimpson and those who seek my harm,” Pierce finished. “My conscience is as clear as my hands are clean, and I plan to continue the good work our team began five years ago until I am unable to.”