There should be transparency for the work being done. While some of the work can be considered confidential, it isn't as though the work is not noticeable. A watchdog group can follow the companies working in Flint and record their presence in a home. What they can't record is the work being conducted inside the home.
There have been many people and organizations involved in the effort to bring clean drinking water to Flint. There really should be an office where work orders are filed and residents with comments can file complaints, etc. It is unfortunate to realize there is not a central office where all the information is collected and reports generated.
There should be enough monies to open an office for this purpose. The mayor and council need to answer the filing and provide comfort to all involved in realizing the people of Flint and their children are safe. There should be no neglect of the facts before the people.
December 28, 2017
By Merrit Kennedy
The city of Flint, (click here) which has been reeling for years over lead seepage from its pipes into its tap water, is accused of violating the terms of a major settlement agreement aimed at improving its water quality. Advocacy groups say the city is failing to disclose information about its efforts to replace its lead pipes....
...The agreement was seen as a significant victory for people struggling for years with unsafe water. It originated from a lawsuit filed in January 2016 by Flint resident Melissa Mays and three groups — the National Resources Defense Council, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and Concerned Pastors for Social Action....
...The agreement also requires authorities to examine water service lines for 18,000 Flint households within three years and to replace them if they are made of lead or galvanized steel. They have replaced nearly 5,500 service lines so far, according to data released by the mayor....
...These lapses, the plaintiffs say, raise questions about the city's competence. "If the City cannot collect critical, easily identifiable data and provide it within the agreed-upon timeframes, how can Plaintiffs trust that the City is competent to execute the much larger and urgent task of service line replacement in Flint?"
There has been severe weather in Michigan and the Midwest for more than a week now. It is bound to slow things down during the winter months.
December 29, 2017
By Dominic Adams
Flint, MI - Icy conditions have lead to around 30 crashes throughout Genesee County on Friday, Dec. 29.
The crashes began around 8 a.m., according to Genesee County 911.
A crash on southbound U.S. 23 after the Thompson Road exit is impacting traffic, according to the Michigan Department of Transportation.
There also are numerous crashes on Interstate 75, Interstate 475 and Interstate 69, according to Genesee County 911.
A hazardous weather outlook from the National Weather Service called for light snow of with accumulation of an inch or less was expected.
I trust Mayor Weaver. The coordination of information may not be simple, but, I think she can be counted on to improve the city's performance on reports and transparency.
December 29, 2017
By Steve Carmody
...Weaver says her administration (click here) is "doing all we can" to protect resident's health. The mayor is optimistic her city's lead pipe replacement program will accelerate in 2018.
The service lines connecting homes to city water mains have been a prime source of lead in Flint’s tap water.
The city has replaced more than 6,000 lead service lines over the past two years.
Weaver expects crews will replace another six thousand lead pipes next year to stay on pace to replace around twenty thousand service pipes by 2020.
“We may be able to come in under that three year time frame,” says Weaver, “So we’re going to continue to work toward that.”
The city still distributes more than 60,000 cases of bottled water each week to Flint residents who don’t trust their tap water.
Friday, December 29, 2017
The disconnect from the USA Constitution serves their purpose.
The President sits at Mar-a-Lago in violation of the Emoluments Claus while the Republican leadership plots their next attack on the country.
December 27. 2017
By Seung Min Kim and Rachael Bade
...The Wisconsin Republican (click here) has detailed an ambitious effort to dramatically reshape Medicare, Medicaid and welfare programs that the GOP has long targeted as ripe for reforms. But bring it up with key Senate Republicans and House GOP moderates and they blanch — seeing a legislative battle that may not be winnable and that may not be worth it in an election year where control of Congress is up for grabs...
December 27. 2017By Seung Min Kim and Rachael Bade
...The Wisconsin Republican (click here) has detailed an ambitious effort to dramatically reshape Medicare, Medicaid and welfare programs that the GOP has long targeted as ripe for reforms. But bring it up with key Senate Republicans and House GOP moderates and they blanch — seeing a legislative battle that may not be winnable and that may not be worth it in an election year where control of Congress is up for grabs...
Where is the impeachment?
I now know where I can have direct contact with Donald Trump. This is not a surprise, it is more of Trump's corrupt administration.
Power brokers can sit down to lunch with Trump and play "Let's Make a Deal." That is corruption. The reason Trump gets away with it, is that the entire estate is secure including the members in attendance. The Secret Service has been pushed aside in order for Trump to "Make a Deal" with any of it's members. Trump has become so hostile to the Secret Service they don't have an office to operate out of at Trump Towers in New York City.
There is no ease of contact by any modern day President. Trump has created a method of securing 'a space' whereby members can approach him to engage a conversation without being over heard by the Secret Service AGENTS.
The media is sugar coating this interview as a great moment when Trump was candidate and leisure. "W"rong!
December 28, 2017
By Charles P. Pierce
...Other people were unkind enough (click here) to point out that the interview was brokered by one Christopher Ruddy, a Trump intimate and the CEO of NewsMax, and that Ruddy made his bones as a political “journalist” by peddling the fiction that Clinton White House counsel Vince Foster had been murdered, one of the more distasteful slanders that got a shameful public airing during the Clinton frenzy of the 1990’s. Neither of those will concern us here. What Schmidt actually got out of this interview is a far more serious problem for the country. In my view, the interview is a clinical study of a man in severe cognitive decline, if not the early stages of outright dementia.
Power brokers can sit down to lunch with Trump and play "Let's Make a Deal." That is corruption. The reason Trump gets away with it, is that the entire estate is secure including the members in attendance. The Secret Service has been pushed aside in order for Trump to "Make a Deal" with any of it's members. Trump has become so hostile to the Secret Service they don't have an office to operate out of at Trump Towers in New York City.
There is no ease of contact by any modern day President. Trump has created a method of securing 'a space' whereby members can approach him to engage a conversation without being over heard by the Secret Service AGENTS.
The media is sugar coating this interview as a great moment when Trump was candidate and leisure. "W"rong!
December 28, 2017
By Charles P. Pierce
...Other people were unkind enough (click here) to point out that the interview was brokered by one Christopher Ruddy, a Trump intimate and the CEO of NewsMax, and that Ruddy made his bones as a political “journalist” by peddling the fiction that Clinton White House counsel Vince Foster had been murdered, one of the more distasteful slanders that got a shameful public airing during the Clinton frenzy of the 1990’s. Neither of those will concern us here. What Schmidt actually got out of this interview is a far more serious problem for the country. In my view, the interview is a clinical study of a man in severe cognitive decline, if not the early stages of outright dementia.
Over the past 30 years, I’ve seen my father and all of his siblings slide into the shadows and fog of Alzheimer’s Disease. (the president's father developed Alzheimer's in his 80s.) In 1984, Ronald Reagan debated Walter Mondale in Louisville and plainly had no idea where he was. (Would that someone on the panel had asked him. He’d have been stumped.) Not long afterwards, I was interviewing a prominent Alzheimer’s researcher for a book I was doing, and he said, “I saw the look on his face that I see every day in my clinic.” In the transcript of this interview, I hear in the president*’s words my late aunt’s story about how we all walked home from church in the snow one Christmas morning, an event I don’t recall, but that she remembered so vividly that she told the story every time I saw her for the last three years of her life....
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