By Joel Feick
Flint - They are the finest legal minds in the state. (click here)
The lawyers who are defending and prosecuting those at the center of the Flint water crisis are, by some accounts, the best that money can buy....
...Sen. Ananich says" I've never seen anything like it. $30 million, no one's been convicted and there's no end in sight".
What will $30 million get you these days? The MDEQ estimates it spent about $668,000 a month on bottled water. Divide 30 million from that number and the state could pay for bottled water for Flint residents for another three and a half years.
Or put another way, Flint estimates pipe replacement at about $7,500 per home. With $30 million, you could replace pipes in 4,000 homes.
Ananich says some of the lawyers are making more than $1,000 an hour. He authored a bill to cap the legal fees at $150 an hour, but the state senate turned him down....
...The courtrooms are packed with lawyers for the water crisis hearings. In most cases each defendant has more than one lawyer. Former Flint public works director Howard Croft is represented by attorney James White.
James White says " I'm unable to comment...(Joel) Are the lawyers getting rich off the Flint water crisis? (White) "I'm not getting rich. (Joel) But $30 million is a lot of money. (White) I haven't received $30 million."
Are the lawyers getting rich off the Flint water crisis?
Senator Jim Ananich says " No question about it."
But a Ketttering University professor, who testified during a preliminary hearing, says money got Flint into the water crisis, so this isn't the time to pinch pennies.
Dr. Laura Sullivan " I don't think now is a time cost should be a factor of whether or not justice is served."
Do the lawyers have a blank check?...
The survivors of Snyder's poisoning has to live with the injuries for the rest of their lives. There is no balance in this perspective. The victim's town, namely Flint, is still struggling with pipes not yet replaced and the burden of drinking bottled water. The other side of this are the monies that flow in expenses to lawyers defending the "middle management" of Synder's poisoning of Flint water.
An impoverished community without resources to change it's reality once the plug was pulled on the Flint River, today has more disabled and chronically ill people than it did years ago. There is no balance here.
October 15, 2018
By Auditi Guha
“It hurts. It really does hurt that you have people with that much power not even seem like they care."
In 2014 and 2015, Genesee County saw the largest outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in at least a decade. After reports of high lead levels and public outcry, Gov. Rick Snyder (R) switched Flint’s water source back to Detroit’s in October 2015. Jassmine McBride’s mother calls her “a miracle.” (click here)
The 30-year-old woman is among the 90 or so residents of Flint, Michigan, who survived Legionnaires’ disease, a potentially deadly lung infection. And while the news focused mainly on the ones who died, families like the McBrides now feel lost and forgotten.
Forgotten is how many residents said they feel four-and-a-half years after Flint’s lead-tainted water crisis began, and six months after Republican Gov. Rick Snyder declared the water safe and stopped distributing free bottled water to people who have no trust in their government.
“It hurts. It really does hurt that you have people with that much power not even seem like they care,” Jassmine said last week about politicians who claim all is fine in Flint. “You can still smell the water. It’s still affecting people. We still bathe or brush our teeth with bottled water. It’s just hard, it really is, to have none of those people come around and say they are sorry.”...
In addition to the money, Snyder has a scapegoat.
October 15, 2018
By Steve Carmody
A preliminary hearing (click here) is underway for a former emergency manager criminally charged in connection with the Flint water crisis.
The prosecution blames the crisis on Flint’s series of emergency managers, appointed by the governor to run the city of Flint amid a financial emergency.
Prosecutor Todd Flood told the judge in court on Monday that the emergency managers, including Darnell Earley, put money ahead of "human health and safety."
Flood recounted how, to save money, the managers pushed through a plan to switch Flint’s drinking water source from Detroit to the Flint River....
