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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsConfirmed: Governor Snyder’s Aides Knew Flint River Was Toxic 3 Years Prior to the Switch
http://usuncut.com/class-war/governor-snyder-aides-knew-flint-river-was-toxic-3-years-prior-to-the-switch/Ed Kurtz, Gov. Snyders first appointed emergency manager (EM), was given authority to make all financial decisions on behalf of Flints elected officials (as part of the controversial EM law Snyder passed early in his administration) first considered switching the citys municipal water supply to the Flint River at the end of 2012. However, as the Daily Beast reported, Kurtz dismissed the idea after floating the proposal to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ).
This detail wasnt made public until the Beasts Curt Guyette discovered a taped deposition from Jerry Ambrose, the Chief Financial Officer of Flints EM committee, who would later become Flints fourth EM. Ambrose gave the statement under oath in 2014 as part of a separate civil lawsuit filed by municipal retirees fighting Gov. Snyders cuts to their health benefits:...
Its still not confirmed if Ambrose and Kurtz told Snyder about the danger of using the Flint River as a source of municipal drinking water in December of 2012, since Snyder refuses to release any emails about Flint from late 2012 or 2013, when state officials were initially discussing the cancellation of Flints water contract with Detroit. But one Flint city administrator alleges that the decision to make the switch was made by Gov. Snyder himself. In the fall of 2015, former Flint public works director Howard Croft told the Michigan ACLU that the decision to officially make the Flint River the citys interim water source was financial, and that it handed down from Snyders office.
valerief
(53,235 posts)not-rich people are poisoned into lower IQs, illness, or death.
Tough, tough choice that Snyder had to make.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)For those very reasons.
And we wonder how anybody can be so dumb as to support uh Drumpf.
valerief
(53,235 posts)Last edited Tue Jan 26, 2016, 07:08 PM - Edit history (1)
the same personal style. Sacrifice the not-rich for the rich. Period. There's nothing else of importance to them.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Andy Dillon, then State Treasurer, who Snyder reports signed off on the water switch in the memos released last week.
Dillon said he thought Flint wouldn't be using the water to drink. Honest.
http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2016/01/former_michigan_state_treasure.html
Important for DUers and Democrats to know:
Back in 2010, after failing to win the Democratic nomination to oppose Snyder in the gubernatorial campaign, Dillon failed to support the Democratic nominee, Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero. So, Dillon was invited to serve as State Treasurer.
Democratic state treasurer played key role in Flint water disaster
By Shannon Jones
World Socialist Web Site, 25 January 2016
EXCERPT...
Before Snyder selected him for secretary of treasury in 2011, Dillon was a leading figure in the state Democratic Party and the speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives. A former investment banker, he served as president of Detroit Steel (formerly McLouth Steel) and vice president of GE Capitals Commercial Financial Group. He was also a managing director of private equity firm Wynnchurch Capital Partners, a company notorious for buying up struggling businesses, imposing massive job cuts and pay cuts on workers, and then selling the stripped-down companies for a profit.
With close connections to various turnaround firms, Dillon played a key role in the conspiracy orchestrated by the Snyder administration, banks and wealthy bondholders to throw Detroit into bankruptcy. This included the installation of Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, who threw the city into bankruptcy on July 18, 2013. The bankruptcy was used to obtain an unprecedented federal court ruling stripping Detroit retirees of their constitutional protection against pension cuts and to slash city worker health benefits and sell off public assets.
As a result of the restructuring, Detroits Department of Water and Sewerage sharply increased rates both for customers and other municipalities in order to pay off the big bondholders that controlled the city and water departments debt. This resulted in a wave of water shutoffs for tens of thousands of households behind on their exorbitant bills, and a sharp increase in the price of water pumped from Detroit to Flint. At the time, US bankruptcy judge Steven Rhodes declared that city residents had no fundamental right to water service.
CONTINUED...
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/01/25/flin-j25.html
They say greed is good.
valerief
(53,235 posts)ghostsinthemachine
(3,569 posts)Not an anti assholes in the Gov't meme.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)ghostsinthemachine
(3,569 posts)Too bad people don't see the truth.
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)Initech
(100,070 posts)roamer65
(36,745 posts)But it was done to Flint so all the rightard scum in MI don't care.
I've already had to correct a few, saying how bout they poison YOUR kids and what will you say then?
They get quiet after that question.
malaise
(268,993 posts)and he will end up in prison.