Robert's Rules of Order states that everything that can go wrong will go wrong. That would be the reality of the Flint Zoning Board. Evidently, the zoning map is a very big deal and it was supposed to be voted on and low and behold what happens? A tornado siren warning. Amazing. It is a reminder that Michigan is in the Midwest USA and tornadoes are known to visit from time to time. So, in the well intentioned meeting the zoning board was warned that maybe there is one other thing to consider and those are tornado shelters.
July 15, 2022
By Kate Stockrahm
Flint - A much-anticipated vote (click here) to bring Flint’s zoning ordinance into the 21st century was again pushed back this week after a tornado siren ended a Flint City Council meeting early.
The zoning ordinance, which would codify the land-use vision in the city’s Master Plan, was on the council’s July 11, 2022, agenda for public hearing and subsequent second reading and adoption.
Prior to the siren, multiple public speakers and council members spoke in favor of the updated code’s passage....
It would seem as though Snyder ignored Flint's pleas regarding lead. Why is it so difficult to get charges against this lousy governor when there is evidence everywhere?
By Carol Thompson
A top aide to former Gov. Rick Snyder (click here) took the stand in an Ann Arbor courthouse this week and described his frustrations with state agencies during the height of the Flint water crisis in 2015.
As Flint residents and clergy raised alarm bells about stinky, discolored water flowing from their pipes, Dennis Muchmore said Tuesday their concerns were effectively ignored by the state government.
He wrote as much in a July 22, 2015, email to then-state Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon: "These folks are scared and worried about the health impacts and they are basically getting blown off by us," Muchmore wrote in the email, which was displayed Tuesday in court. "As a state we are just not sympathizing with their plight."
Muchmore, Snyder's chief of staff, testified before U.S. District Court Judge Judith Levy on Tuesday as part of a trial in a lawsuit filed by Flint residents against engineering contractors Veolia North America and Lockwood, Andrews & Newman, known as LAN....
Snyder had put a friend in as COO of the State of Michigan was it Muchmore? He was put in that position supposedly to trim the agencies down to size so they would function and to cancel what needed to be canceled in any regulation that was causing less efficiency. That might be an interesting reason, but, that also makes Snyder untouchable. Like a mob boss, he can claim not knowing any of the goings on with the state agencies.
Snyder was elected 2010.
November 15, 2010
Governor-elect Rick Snyder (click here) today rounded out his senior staff naming Dennis Muchmore chief of staff, Geralyn Lasher director of communications, and Michael Gadola legal affairs director.
“Finding the right people is crucial for the administration to be a success,” Governor-elect Snyder said. “With Dennis, Geralyn and Mike joining the administration I am confident we are putting together a top-flight team with the diverse mix of backgrounds and experience to help us reinvent Michigan.”
Muchmore is founder of government affairs firm Muchmore Harrington Smalley & Associates. He is also an executive vice president at DHR International, where he is responsible for recruiting executives for corporate clients....
Snyder made trimming the bureaucracy a priority and was one of the reasons conservatives pushed for him to be in office. As far as I am concerned, if Muchmore was responsible for trimming the Michigan so-called bureaucracy then he is the one for controlling information that made it to the governor, because Snyder set it up that way.
If Muchmore was having trouble in 2015, five years into the Snyder administration, with the state agencies, then it was Muchmore that was responsible for that complete breakdown of the state agencies and Snyder was sitting happy at the states Executive Chair without a care in the world, showing off how he trimmed the Michigan bureaucracy and saved the state so much money. It was Snyder that wanted the state agencies to misfire and Muchmore made it happen.
Muchmore's testimony is nothing but an attempt to push responsibility off the Executive Branch, which Snyder staffed and empowered, onto state agencies that were trimmed back to the point of dysfunction at Muchmore's hand.
May 26, 2022
By Ron Fonger
Flint - The man with direct oversight of Flint’s water system (click here) says he quit his job in 2015 after a former emergency manager blocked his plan to reconnect the city to the Detroit water system.
In a videotaped deposition played to a federal court jury on Thursday, May 26, Daugherty Johnson, who worked more than 20 years for the city, said he directed managers who reported to him to prepare to reconnect to Detroit water eight months before the state of Michigan paid to make the same switch after acknowledging rising levels of lead in Flint water....
People involved with this hostile act KNEW there was a problem with the water and simply looked the other way. That is exactly what happened all the way up the chain to the Executive offices of then Governor Rick Snyder. There was no mishandling, there was simply NO HANDLING!
This is why what occurred in Flint was a crime. There were people telling the Snyder administration about the problems and now to resolve it, but, the Snyder administration stood in the way of the resolution because they wanted things their way to REFORM Flint and sell off assets. They didn't care about the people, they figured the people deserved it.
Every time I reflect on this, it always comes down to arrogance and racism. GM was proved water that worked for them when corrosion was destroying the engines. None of what went down with Flint makes sense except blatant racism and I don't care the color of the skin of the Emergency Manager. Snyder disabled the state agencies and turned loose decision makers in the form of Emergency Managers who's role was changed legislatively to allow Snyder to completely discharge the city's government.
Snyder, in every way, shape and form is responsible for those that died and those that were maimed through the poisoned Flint water. He may have well poured poison in the water all by himself, because he designed the state government that would never process the emergency.
By Paul Egan
Right is Daugherty Johnson. The man that attempted to end the suffering. He was denied the opportunity to do so by the Snyder Administration Emergency Manager. The buck stopped with him, but, the racism continued with Snyder. Johnson had a conscience and could not bring himself to carry out the demands of the Snyder administration. He knew. What else do prosecutors need to know to assign responsibility and prosecute!!!!!
All charges have been dismissed (click here) against the former City of Flint utilities director, who was one of 15 people criminally charged in the Flint drinking water crisis.
Daugherty "Duffy" Johnson, 50, of Flushing pleaded no contest last year to a single misdemeanor charge of failing to furnish public records upon request, as part of a cooperation deal with Flint prosecutors working for the Michigan Attorney General's Office.
At that time, charges against Johnson of conspiracy and false pretenses, both 20-year felonies, were dismissed.
At a hearing in Flint on Thursday, the remaining charge against Johnson was dismissed by Genesee District Court Judge Nathaniel Perry, records show....
