No Snyder administration officials will be held accountable. And that’s exactly the problem. At long last, after activists and elected officials and even bloggers like LOLGOP and I have been sounding the alarm about the poisoning of Flint residents with lead in their drinking water, the story has finally hit the national stage. In the past week, in addition to […]

Nearly a year after evidence surfaced that there was a very serious, odorless, and invisible poisonous menace lurking in the water of Flint, Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder has finally declared a state of emergency in the devastated city: Gov. Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency for Flint and Genesee County Tuesday as a result of the contaminated drinking water […]

Last night, Rachel Maddow covered the Flint water lead poisoning story for a third time in the past month. In the segment, she lauded the Michigan press – including the ACLU’s crack investigative journalist Curt Guyette who wasn’t named explicitly – for their vigilance and doggedness in pursuing this story, something I agree with completely. For this report, Maddow brought […]

An apology must be just the beginning of the investment that must be made to rebuild the city This week the people of Flint, Michigan finally got an apology from the governor who appointed both the Emergency Manager who approved the poisoning of the city’s water and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality officials who dismissed citizens’ “perfectly legitimate scientific […]

The Flint water crisis was declared a state of emergency by Mayor Karen Weaver this week — something we’ve known for months. But much of the nation still has no idea what has been perpetrated against the people of this battered city. One person is trying to change that. “Governor, the water of the city of Flint, Michigan has been […]

As the water crisis has unfolded in Flint over the past few months, there has been an enormous amount of finger pointing and blame shifting going around. Just this week, Darnell Earley wrote an op-ed piece for The Detroit News absolving himself of any of that blame, despite the fact that he or one of his predecessors was in charge […]

In April of 2014, under the direction of Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Earley, the City changed the source of its drinking water from the Detroit water system (drawing from Lake Huron) to the Flint River. The move was touted as a cost-saving measure which would save $7 million annually. However, there were problems from the start. High levels of bacteria […]

The primary justification for Emergency Financial Managers or Emergency Managers in Michigan from the very earliest iterations (and continuing through to today) is that some cities and school districts were just too full of corruption and ineptitude and that the state needed to swoop in and save the day. However, this easy answer has turned out not have been the […]

In 1999, the Detroit Public School system had a positive fund balance of $246,300,000 according to a ten-year summary in their 2008 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (pages 91-92). That was the same year that the DPS was taken over by the State of Michigan under Republican John Engler. The school district was placed under the control of an Emergency Financial […]

If we learned anything about Emergency Management in a major urban city here in Michigan (i.e., Detroit), it’s that it’s very expensive and some companies make a windfall, all paid for with our tax dollars. Now Atlantic City, NJ, which is under emergency management like Detroit was, is getting a taste. Since Gov. Chris Christie appointed Emergency Manager Kevin Lavin […]

Look out, Indiana! It’s coming right for you! After having been beta tested in Michigan, the Emergency Manager model of “saving” “failing” municipalities from their own corruption, malfeasance, and ineptitude – or as is more often the case, the implosion of their manufacturing base and disinvestment – is being rolled out in the states of Indiana and New Jersey. In […]