Sudden Federal Aid Flows to Pier Near Dear Corey
Hey, McCook Lake residents! The next time you have a flood and feel like Kristi Noem is letting you down, here’s a quick way to get her attention: call one of her big donors and ask him to call Kristi!
That’s how Naples, Florida, broke through the bureaucracy to get a rather sudden injection of FEMA aid to rebuild a hurricane-damaged tourist attraction, reports ProPublica:
The records show that Noem quickly expedited more than $11 million of federal money to rebuild a historic pier in Naples, Florida, after she was contacted by a major financial supporter last month. The pier is a tourist attraction in the wealthy Gulf Coast enclave and was badly damaged by Hurricane Ian in 2022.
Frustrated city officials had been laboring for months, without success, to get disaster assistance. But just two weeks after the donor stepped in, they were celebrating their sudden change of fortune. “We are now at warp speed with FEMA,” one city official wrote in an email. A FEMA representative wrote: “Per leadership instruction, pushing project immediately.”
Along with fast-tracking the money, Noem flew to Naples on a government plane to tour the pier herself. She then stayed for the weekend and got dinner with the donor, local cardiologist Sinan Gursoy, at the French restaurant Bleu Provence, according to records and an interview with the Naples mayor. This account is based on text messages and emails ProPublica obtained through public records requests.
Noem’s actions in Naples suggest the injection of political favoritism into an agency tasked with saving lives and rebuilding communities wiped out by disaster. It also heightens concerns about the discretion Noem has given herself by personally handling all six-figure expenses at the agency, consolidating her power over who wins and loses in the pursuit of federal relief dollars, experts said [Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, and Alex Mierjeski, “Kristi Noem Fast-Tracked Millions in Disaster Aid to Florida Tourist Attraction After Campaign Donor Intervened,” ProPublica, 2025.09.26].
ProPublica fleshes out the timeline of how cardiologist Sinan Gursoy broke the FEMA funding logjam:
By this summer, Naples officials were getting desperate. In June, one tried to enlist Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., to press FEMA to move ahead. “We were told yesterday that Secretary Noem would have to ‘personally’ approve the Pier project before FEMA funding would be obligated,” the city official wrote to the senator’s staff. The Naples mayor, Teresa Heitmann, also personally wrote to FEMA. Heitmann said she was “perplexed” by the delays and begged the agency for guidance.
Heitmann had long been paying expensive Washington consultants to help her city navigate the process. But she was “feeling increasingly helpless,” she later said, until she had the idea that would finally put her project on the fast track. On July 18, the mayor emailed a Google search to herself: “Who is the head of Homeland security?” She was going to go straight to Noem.
Heitmann determined that her best bet for getting Noem’s attention was Gursoy. A Naples cardiologist, Gursoy has no obvious experience working with the federal government; much of his online footprint centers on his enthusiasm for pinball. But Gursoy gave Noem at least $25,000 to support her campaign for governor in 2022. That was enough to put him near the top of Noem’s disclosed donor list. (In South Dakota, campaign contributions remain relatively small.)
On planning documents for the 2024 Republican National Convention obtained by ProPublica, the Florida doctor is listed as an attendee affiliated with the delegation from South Dakota, a state he has no apparent connection to besides his support for Noem. Heitmann told ProPublica that Gursoy introduced her to Noem at a political event at a private home in Naples while Noem was governor.
“Hello it’s Teresa,” the mayor texted Gursoy in early August. “I really need your help.” She explained the tangle of bureaucracy she’d been contending with. “FEMA is holding us up,” Heitmann wrote. “Kristi Noem could put some fire under the FEMA employees slacking.”
Gursoy responded: “Okay. I will get on it.”
The next week, on Aug. 11, the doctor gave Heitmann an update. “Kristi was off for a few days for the first time in a long time, so I left her alone,” he said. “I just txted her now.” Within 24 hours, he had exciting news. He told the mayor to expect a call from Noem’s “FEMA fixer” shortly.
The identity of the “fixer” is not clear, but by Aug. 27, Naples officials were seeing a “flurry of activity” from Noem’s agency. That day, a FEMA staffer told the city that “FEMA is intending to expedite the funding” for the pier. “Secretary Noem took immediate action when I reached out to ask for help,” the mayor soon posted on Facebook [Kaplan, Elliott, and Mierjeski, 2025.09.26].
ProPublica says that Gursoy donated at least $25,000 to Noem’s campaign for the job she just wanted to hang onto until Donald Trump could get her out of Pierre. Gursoy sent much of that money to Noem’s federal committees. Gursoy must have a thing for political fraudsters: OpenSecrets.org lists $23,200 in donations from Gursoy to Noem’s close Florida-photo friend George Santos.
Another friend in Florida may have helped focus Kristi’s attention on Naples:
Noem’s top adviser, Corey Lewandowski, also appears to own a home in Naples near the city’s pier, according to property tax records. Lewandowski is an unpaid staffer at DHS serving as Noem’s de facto chief of staff. (Media reports have alleged the two are romantically involved, which they have both denied.) Lewandowski told ProPublica that he was not involved in the pier decision and that he was not in Naples during Noem’s visit [Kaplan, Elliott, and Mierjeski, 2025.09.26].
But never mind kisses; other Neapolitans have caressed Kristi with plenty of cash. Noem’s South Dakota campaign finance reports for 2021, 2022, and 2023 are peppered with donations, some recurring, from Naples residents: $4,000 from Amy Quinn, $4,000 from Michael Stock, $2,500 from Samantha Sublette, $2,000 from Roland Gelok Jr., $2,000 from Gojan Stojkoski, $1,000 from Michael McCumber, $1,000 from Diane McGinty, $1,000 from Philip Heasley… those big Naples donors alone, just on the 2021 year-end report amendment filed on March 29, 2022, far outperforming all donors listed on that same report from North City and Dakota Dunes $1750, who together, according to my rough text search, kicked in only about $1,750, including former GOP chairman Dan Lederman, who in 2021 appears to have given Noem a measly $500 and who, according to OpenSecrets,org, hasn’t ever put anything in Kristi’s federal kitty.
So if you feel a disaster coming, find out who in your town can grab the FEMA boss by her purse, and get those donors ready to dial for FEMA dollars!