You mean that the Emergency Manager of Flint and a bunch of State officials under Snyder rejected all offers to renew the water contract from Detroit (which was under its OWN emergency Manager at the time) which caused Detroit to give a one year termination notice. I don’t know how reasonable those offers were but Flint was being charged a premium because of its altitude and distance from Detroit.
So in a sense, this was two Snyder appointees fighting over their own bottom lines that led to Flint getting it drinking water from the Flint river (with the oversight and approval from other Snyder appointees).
And its not like elected officials from Detroit turned off the tap (so I don’t see where you get the idea that Detroit voted to turn off the tap on Flint). Flint could have continued to purchase water from Detroit but in an effort to save about $5 million during the period between when the contract with Detroit lapsed and the time when the new water supply came online, they decided to reject Detroit’s offer and treat water from Flint river as an interim measure. The Flint water treatment facility cost about $4 million. So as I understand it, they switched from Detroit water to barely treated water from the Flint river to save a million dollars.
Actually, it’s looking like it’s worse than that. Detroit Water and Sewerage did everything they could to keep Flint. Even offer them a savings, according to an email sent by DWSD Director Sue McCormick in April 2013. Switching water to the Flint River was, it would seem, NOT about saving Flint money. The state’s Emergency Manager didn’t even save Flint money in the process, yet they wanted us to believe this.
So all this comes from 2013. Perhaps it’s not coincidental that Gov. Snyder has released his Flint-related emails from 2014 and 2015, but refuses to release those from 2013.
Interested in seeing how the banks respond. You got a thirty year mortgage, say, paid off about half of it, and your equity is diddly squat, because you couldn’t sell your house in Flint for a dollar. So, you walk away, as well as…how many? a thousand? ten thousand? more?..who will simply hand the keys back to the bank, and go live in their car. If they have one…
I anticipate a sudden enlightenment, a raging outbreak of humanism and deep concern for the victims here. The real victims, here, the banks stuck with millions…millions? with an “M”?..in property they cannot sell. I expect that their born-again humanism will bear fruit. Only question will be the form, a way for the supposed “victims” to keep their worthless homes, or some means to help out the real victims stuck with the tab.
Well New York has very high property tax rates but the price of the property was not a factor. Their homes in Connecticut are about as much as what they would have spent in Manhattan.
NYC has its own city income tax of over 3.5%.
New York State has a 9% income tax rate.
Connecticut has a 6% income tax rate.
Taxes were a significant factor in moving to Connecticut.
So this is new today: Back in March, someone from Genesee County alerted the head of the state’s DEQ that there was a spike in Legionnaires’ disease in Flint and he attributed it to the drinking water from the Flint River. The head of DEQ emailed this info to one of Gov. Snyder’s top aides and director of urban initiatives, Harvey Hollins.
Yet almost 11 months go by before Gov. Snyder says he knew about the Legionnaires outbreak. Eighty-seven cases of Legionnaires break out in Flint over a 17-month period-- more than the previous five years combined according to the DEQ-- including 40 in the first few months of 2015 PLUS nine people died. Yet Snyder claims he knew nothing about it until January 2016.
It gets better. Now Harvey Hollins-- the guy who either **didn’t **tell the governor about the diseased water back in March, or he **did **and now the governor’s lying-- was just named the governor’s point person in the Flint clean-up.
All this bullshit coming out of the governor’s office, and yet according to the governor, it’s Michigan’s “career civil servants” who were lacking common sense in this debacle. Something stinks in Denmark.
Former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, his health director and other ex-officials have been told they’re being charged after a new investigation of the Flint water scandal, which devastated the majority Black city with lead-contaminated water and was blamed for a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in 2014-15, The Associated Press has learned.
Two people with knowledge of the planned prosecution told the AP on Tuesday that the attorney general’s office has informed defense lawyers about indictments in Flint and told them to expect initial court appearances soon. They spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
To which I say: Good, and good riddance to that wanker and his stooges.
