ELIZABETH NELSON:
Welcome to Episode 6 of Hollow Hype. In Episode 5, Heidi hired a member of the Ann Arbor City Planning commission as the architect for her projects. She proposed a new development called Southtown, which would displace an entire block. Heidi asked for a rezoning that would permit more short term rentals or Airbnb, just five minutes from the stadium.

In 2021, Ward 4 Council Member Jen Eyer said this

[2021 recorded meeting]

COUNCIL MEMBER JEN EYER:
We may see apartment buildings go up in my ward - say near the stadium - that are totally non-owner occupied STRs so, you know, I think we should be discussing in the future that issue as the next phase of STR regulation.

ELIZABETH NELSON:
Two years later, when Heidi needed a rezoning for Southtown, an apartment building of non- owner occupied short term rentals near the stadium, Council Member Jen Eyer said this:

[2023 recorded meeting]

COUNCIL MEMBER JEN EYER:
I just want to say as a fourth ward council member, I'm really excited to see this go forward and looking forward to voting for it tonight!

[MUSIC]

ELIZABETH NELSON:
My name is Elizabeth Nelson. From 2018 to 2022, I served on Ann Arbor City Council. That experience taught me a lot. Mostly, I learned: people will say just about anything if they think you’ll believe it. This is HOLLOW HYPE.

November 2022 marked the beginning of a bizarre era in Ann Arbor city government. The mayor led a Council of ten Members he himself had chosen. None of them had more than two years experience. Every member was funded by the same special interests and network of wealth in town. The five newest members had agreed to spend thousands of dollars on the same campaign manager, to create a slush fund of campaign resources.

[MUSIC]

The new Council showed up to public meetings and read pre-written scripts, all in agreement. In emails behind the scenes, the mayor circulated his own scripted remarks, reminding individual members how he planned to defend controversial decisions. For the next three and a half years, nearly all votes were unanimous and Council approved every single request from a developer. Absences skyrocketed, because a unanimous vote of eight counted the same as a unanimous vote of eleven. Where state law allowed it, Council delegated development decisions to mayoral appointees on the Planning Commission. In one instance, the Planning Commission rejected a development, but City Council approved it unanimously.

There was no incentive for anyone to question anything.

ALI RAMLAWI:
It came into kind of a game, quite honestly, where I saw, especially with the Council that came in in 2020 and in 2022 where it became a lot of virtue signaling where they could pass things, say things, and know that they weren't going to be many consequences from it all because the lack of enforcement. So you can go up there and just say you're going to do this, say you're going to do that. And really nothing really comes out of it because enforcement isn't there.

[2022 recorded meeting]

MAYOR CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR:
Good evening everyone and welcome to the September 19 meeting of the Ann Arbor City Council

ELIZABETH NELSON
This was one of my last meetings as a member of City Council in 2022.

[2022 recorded meeting]

COUNCIL MEMBER ELIZABETH NELSON:
There are also a couple of public engagement meetings. There's a proposal to combine the parcels of the block surrounded by South State, Henry, White and Stimson streets. The property owner is asking for a rezoning and there's a required public engagement meeting. That's going to be this Wednesday from 6:30 to 8 at 1919 South Industrial Highway. That's the old Lucky's grocery store.

ELIZABETH NELSON:
My announcement was about Southtown. The requirement for these public engagement meetings had been added about fifteen years earlier. A previous City Council believed that developers planning bigger projects should host these meetings to better understand the neighborhood where they were building. The meetings happened early on in the development process, on purpose, so that neighbors could offer feedback and projects might be adjusted to address local concerns. These meetings are no longer required. The new city council voted unanimously to eliminate them.

In 2023, the unanimous City Council considered the rezoning for Southtown. Heidi had offered the condition that only 30% of its units would be dedicated short term rentals. At a public hearing, Kurt and Anne spoke out– they described their experience, living next door to the apartment building that Heidi had converted to short term rentals or Airbnb.

[2023 recorded meeting]

KURT BERGGEN
And all of a sudden, the permanent tenants were gone. Many of them were our real neighbors, they stayed years.

And so I say to you, all of you ran on more affordable housing. And you're doing things that are counterproductive to more affordable housing in Ann Arbor. And I don't know, people tell me that the city council allowed these nine AirBnB units next to us. And I don't know whether you know you did that. Anyway, it's pretty frustrating for us.

ANNE BERGGEN
We can surmise then that short-term rentals bring in a lot more money than regular rentals.
But it's my position that they take away from housing that is apparently very much needed in Ann Arbor.

ELIZABETH NELSON:
In the days before that meeting, others in the community discussed what had happened at Henry Street, where Heidi built an entirely new development of Airbnb units. Residents circulated a video I made, highlighting how Heidi had lied to the planning commission.

Speaking to City Council, Heidi’s partner Marge was defensive about Henry Street.

MARGE POSCHER:
I don't believe that at the 2018 Planning Commission meeting there was a great deal of concern about what technology would be used to fill the units.
Some 830 Henry occupants stay for less than 31 days and many stay for far longer. I would ask council members not to get caught up in hot button terminology. For example, Airbnb, used by people who are trying to run council from the outside.

ELIZABETH NELSON
In promoting Southtown, Heidi was not defensive. She gave a long speech, repeating terms and phrases from the City of Ann Arbor’s climate action goals.

[MUSIC]

HEIDI POSCHER:
I want to talk about something very positive tonight. My name is Heidi Poscher. The Southtown Sustainable Energy System will set a benchmark for sustainable building construction and ongoing clean energy production at a state, regional and national level. Sustainable benefits of the South Town project relate to a built environment constructed to optimize energy efficiency and the activation of occupant participation in programs to reduce and preserve energy.
The objective of the South Town microgrid design is 100 percent uptime and carbon negative operation, completely eliminating the 3,600 pounds of CO2 emissions that pollute our environment with every megawatt hour of electricity that's delivered. We can do this while still preserving an all-electric campus. Ann Arbor is a clear leader in municipality driven sustainability in the United States. South Town presents a unique opportunity for area residents to live their strong commitment to curbing climate change in the most meaningful way possible. I'd respectfully ask council to make sure that we're not distracted by other issues and we're focusing on what really matters here. Thank you.

ELIZABETH NELSON:
Heidi had identified a City Department that was exploding in terms of both visibility and influence at City Hall: the Office of Sustainability and Innovations, led by Dr. Missy Stults. In 2022, the City of Ann Arbor famously approved a tax millage, specifically to fund Climate Action. From that millage alone, Dr. Missy Stults worked with a budget of over $11 million a year and led a staff of 20 full time employees.

In March 2023, Dr Stults explained the reach of her department.

[2023 recorded presentation]

DR. MISSY STULTS:
We have a staff person who reviews all site plans and the zoning requests from sustainability and that individual is trained in urban planning but also a sustainability specialist, so we have a seat at that table that's fairly new about a year since we've been at the zoning table itself

ELIZABETH NELSON:
This department was Heidi’s focus in Ann Arbor.

Years earlier, Heidi identified a very different target in Washington County, Ohio: economic development and broadband internet service.

[2000 recorded newscast]

NEWS ANCHOR:
The AOL Time Warner Mega merger yesterday has put the word Broadband in the news well what is broadband? NewsCenter 4's Anthony Moore is here to explain it all to you and us

ERIC ELIA:
Here we're downloading a 15 megabyte file in less than a minute that would take several hours to download on a regular dial-up connection. Everywhere we can throughout we're embellishing with video, graphics, animation

ANTHONY MOORE
High speed means you can access the internet's audio and video files as if it were an on-demand TV

ELIZABETH NELSON:
County leaders in Ohio described a problem.

[2012 recording]

ERIC SKOMRA:
Broadband is the utility of the 21st century.

CORA MARSHALL:
Washington County has at least 6,000 residents that are underserved.

ERIC SKOMRA:
Our citizens are expecting to be able to utilize computer based services and without the ability to connect to the internet to use those services they have no ability to make transactions do business online do schooling

CORA MARSHALL:
So my ultimate goal for Washington County is to have affordable wireless broadband that's provided for them at their home or rural business it isn't anything that's unreachable.

ERIC SKOMRA:
It’s detrimental to our economy. We're not able to ensure that we can continue to bring in or grow businesses in our area because of a lack of broadband .

[MUSIC]

ELIZABETH NELSON:
In 1998, the Mayor of Marietta, Ohio appointed Heidi as development director for the city. She served for only eighteen months but the position gave her access to powerful people. She wrote federal grants for the City and built relationships in Ohio with the Governor’s Economic Development Regional Offices. She met with regional representative Mike Jacoby, who submitted reports directly to Governor Bob Taft’s office. In 1999, Heidi presented a local technology plan to the State Development Director, Lee Johnson. In her last few months as development director for Marietta, Heidi persuaded the Washington County Community Improvement Corporation to contribute $25,000 to a City and County Technology Program. She attracted additional donations from Bank One, Marietta Savings, Peoples Bank, Settlers Bank and WesBanco.

Heidi left her position as development director for Marietta in June 2000. She immediately pivoted to promoting her own broadband company, Sequelle. In July, she announced that it would need $3 million to get up and running. In August, Sequelle registered as a nonprofit in Ohio.

[Press conference background sound effect]

Sequelle was launched in a press conference at Washington State Community College in Marietta. The press conference included community leaders from the Chamber of Commerce, a local bank, the county commission, and then Congressman Ted Strickland. By November, the Washington County Commission had budgeted $65,000 toward the Broadband Project. Heidi announced that the funding needed for Sequelle had increased to $4.8 million.

In 2001, Sequelle moved across the river to West Virginia.

[2012 recording]

VOICEOVER:
At Mountain State College, we build careers by offering curriculum relevant to today's employment marketplace in a close-knit and supportive environment.
Founded in 1888, MSC enjoys a rich tradition of high standards and academic excellence. Our intimate classroom settings and 17:1 student to instructor ratio empower students to lead, explore, and achieve any possibility.

ELIZABETH NELSON:
Heidi collaborated with a local training college in Parkersburg, called Mountain State College. She worked closely with its president, Michael McPeek.

JACK MOBERG:
Michael had the licenses that were required for the frequencies, and beyond that, I don't know. Mike was a dynamic, not overly so, but a forward-looking progressive entrepreneur of sorts. I mean, what was his college name again? Mountain State College. Mountain State College, it was a private enterprise.

Mike McPeek was, he was a promoter. And a bright guy. I remember he had access to these licenses and it was kind of a mystery to me of why they were out there and not being used by the college, and why it is we might be able to use them in Marietta, but I didn't ask questions, I just accepted the fact that he had the licenses, Heidi had the idea, and had the contacts for equipment, and we're gonna make this thing happen.

MARTY SEUFER:
I think that maybe she was using them as somebody that could help her create this thing or put it together. And you almost have to drive past Mountain State College to appreciate that.

[MUSIC]

ELIZABETH NELSON:
In 2002, two Congressmen - Ted Strickland from Ohio and Allan Mollahan from West Virginia - announced a $3.3 million federal loan that had been awarded to Sequelle, through the US Department of Agriculture Rural Utilities Service. Sequelle would be a public private partnership serving rural Ohio and West Virginia. According to a press release, Sequelle would use the federal loan to construct a wireless broadband system for high speed internet access. The Congressmen boasted about how Sequelle would provide opportunities for economic development and more good paying jobs. It would serve 592 subscribers. The Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Council would administer the funds through the Wood County Commission in Parkersburg. In the press release, Heidi is quoted as the Chief Executive officer of Sequelle. She declared “We look forward to deploying the network in association with our strategic partners that do business in the mid-Ohio valley.”

[Abrupt record scratch sound effect]

Ultimately, Sequelle provided none of what it promised.

[MUSIC]

In 2005, the Marietta Times reported that Heidi was accused of embezzling $1.5 million.

A federal indictment came later, in 2008. Heidi faced twelve counts:
Five counts of mail fraud
Two counts of theft from an organization receiving federal funds
One count of conspiracy to commit money laundering
And three counts of engaging in illegal monetary transactions

MARTY SEUFER
I don't think anybody at the state level or local level did anything shady. If they did anything, they were probably just really wanted jobs and, you know, and a business that would help.
I don't think there was any of that going on. I just think it just ended up a bad deal.

ELIZABETH NELSON
Ten years after she narrowly avoided prison for Sequelle, Heidi promoted herself in Ann Arbor as a sustainability expert with decades of experience. This was the sales pitch that would work in an upper middle class, progressive college town.
Heidi established a close relationship with the office of Sustainability and Innovations director, Dr. Missy Stults. They travelled together to conferences, representing the City. In 2024, Heidi and Missy participated in a panel at the South by Southwest conference in Austin.

[2024 recording]

MISSY STULTS:
So that's part of what our team works on day in and day out, and I'm so excited to work with all the people on this stage, as well as 130 other community collaborators, because this takes a village.

HEIDI POSCHER:
We try to figure out how we can comply, where we have ways to innovate, where we have maybe a different view of the transition. Missy and I are working through that right now. Our background is very, very heavily integrated in the fuels industry. And so when we talk about us partnering with the city of Ann Arbor, it doesn't have to be sitting around a table every day to figure it out. So when Missy talks about creating, really, place making around sustainability, a lot of that involves some of the other things that we do like, you know, a coffee shop or a restaurant or co-working space. Really understanding how we can sell that together as a modality and a choice.

MISSY STULTS:
I have to lean into collaboration, whether that's if you know Ann Arbor, Zingerman's and work we're doing to turn them into a microgrid. The work with Heidi in Southtown, whether that's working with our electric bike companies to help make cargo bikes more accessible for businesses, our work with the library system, the 2030 district, a local dairy.

ELIZABETH NELSON
The audience in Austin included one special person, who Heidi name-dropped very intentionally.

[2024 recording]

HEIDI POSCHER:
My good friend Dug Song points out: people don't want to take risk. And so risk taking around anything new or anything different, especially when it requires involvement of a lot of capitalized asset, requires some bellwether proof that there's going to be a payback on the investment. And I agree, Dug, you know, that's not for everybody.

ELIZABETH NELSON:
Dug Song is one of the most notable people in Ann Arbor. In 2018, he famously sold his tech company, DuoSec, for over two billion dollars. Two years later, his wife Linh spent over $20,000 of it on her campaign for City Council. She served one term, from 2020 to 2024. Dug and Linh now manage a venture capital and private equity fund.

[MUSIC]

In October 2025, former Council Member Linh Song was with Heidi, offering support to her as police investigated the scene of Marge’s death. A local attorney filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking for police reports about this incident. Those reports list the people present on the scene but do not mention Linh Song. Council Member Jen Eyer told colleagues that she spoke to Heidi that day, hours before Marge was found. It’s unclear whether police ever talked to Jen Eyer about her conversation with Heidi. Hours after Marge’s death, the Ann Arbor City Administrator instructed Council Members to say nothing about it publicly. They complied.

Thanks for listening. Visit HollowHype.com to find more information about this episode.

Coming up in episode 7: Heidi has encountered and confronted skeptics. Somehow, her plans continue to move forward and people ignore obvious red flags.

If you have something to share about Heidi’s activities in Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, or California. Please reach out to hollowhypepodcast@gmail.com