rent apartment vaughan

so hello andwelcome to the force fourth session of the university of michiganflit water crisis course. so i understand that many ofyou have attended the previous sessions of this course but forthose of you who are attending for the first time if you want to seethe previous courses they are on line on the university of michigan flints websitethis session will be taped as well. so if you do have any questions. if you come to the mike. you'll be on that tape this well soi just want to let you know that up front.

it typically in fact this is n.c. league. who's the director ofthe department of public health and house sciences at the university ofmichigan flint will open the session but unfortunately she wasunable to make it today. and my name is michelle sally i'man assistant professor over at university of michigan michigan flint andthe same department. back to seal it was here shewould say she's a thirty thirty five year resident of flint mystory is a little bit different. actually it's the opposite of that i'ma six month president of the area and

i came from buffalo. having lived in buffalo fora while to flint in september. what i found at the university ofmichigan flint were a group of people from various places who were workingtogether to create an opportunity for the community to hear from speakers whoare knowledgeable on the flat water crisis and also to create an opportunity forresidents to ask questions of these speakers and to also give their commentsand to let people know what they're really going through because of this crisisthe group of people who taught me so much so fast and soi got here just in september and

they graciously allowed meto enter their group and assist in creating this courseconsisted of back to see league. doctor.can't he and the university of michigan also a long time residents k. door arewith the genesee county board of health. she's not here today. my lascivious who is a studentof dr seelig and of course yvonne lewis another long time residentof flynn who we are moderated today. and we have a full panel today and i know you want to hear thatwe got started a little late.

so with that i'm going to turn themicrophone over to evangelists thank you. thank you michele. good evening. it's really a pleasure to see each ofyou here tonight i will ask you to do me somewhat of a favor. typically we have all most allthe seats filled and tonight we have some open spaces and i'd likeus to make you feel like a cozy place. so for those of you thatare sitting on the outside. if you wouldn't mind just come inlittle bit more toward the center.

so that we will have the reg you havedirect view of our prisoners tonight and we will have a great opportunity for dialogue this this has beena very interesting process and we started this conversation abouthaving this class back in november and at that time we had very few town hallmeetings very few community discussions. very few opportunities for the communityto come together and ask questions. i am excited today to say to you thati believe as a result of this class. we have had a significant leanincreased number of town hall meetings increased number ofopportunities for community engagement.

we have had one of the most spectacularevents that i've seen in a long time and we had our our democratic debate here inthe city of flint a few a couple days ago. and i think it has beena extraordinary experience for us to see what happens when community reallystands up and speaks out and it is happen in a variety of ways it has happenedwill happen with a variety of people. it has not been one group. it has not been won a race it has not beenone ethnicity it has not been one faith tradition but it has been a collectionof all of that academic community and agencies and organizations soit is in my pleasure.

each of the four sessions threesessions that we've had so far to be a moderator andso i want to thank you. let me ask how many of you have beenhere more than one up to more than one of the classes. give yourself some appreciation thank you. and we're excited because whatyou will share with us and what you have shared with us continues tohelp us shape how this course is is given. many of you remember we've asked you towrite down questions on the cards and i have many of them here tonight andi bring them tonight to say to you.

we have not. this has not been just an exercisethat we've asked you to do. we've taken this veryseriously very literally the questions that you ask helpshape how we will move forward. we've been asked to bring informationto give more than then our website addresses and e-mail addresses andprovide information and we've had that happen atsome of our sessions. we've asked people to provide the we'veasked to provide information about our panelists so each session you receivea copy of the panelists by also tonight.

again you see a three panelists and you have a brief summaryof their experience here. our goal with this class was to provide anopportunity of how we could approach this problem of the water crisis to gravity andopportunity for those of us who had not heard from some of the professionalsfor some of the persons who have been working directly in the field fromtheir professional expertise or either. their activities in terms of communityengagement we had not heard from them. we heard the sound bites from the mediabut we weren't actually able to engage in a conversation we've been able to providethat it's been an opportunity for

what we call by directional learning. this is not just forthe academics or the politicians or the community activists to sharewhat they know with you but also for you to share with them sowe can both learn and then we can better prepare ourselves forwhat is to come in the future. it's also been an opportunity for us tolook at how we can develop better tools so that we can as we moveforward be more prepared for what is a calm because certainlythis is a crisis today but how many of you lived long enough toknow after this crisis there is another.

and from this crisis there willbe more what's important for us is to learn how we can bestadapt to what's going on and i don't mean adapt ina way to be ok with it. but to take what it is in figureout what we can make out of it so that our community can be better andwe will be better as well. so tonight is no different. we have on our panel tonight ninety yearssharif you have heard from her before but she will share with you again andyou see that she is a representative of the democracy defensively andthey have continued to do their work.

we also here have here tonight on ourpanel attorney val watch washington and many of you have her backbefore we actually switch to. flint water from detroit water therewas concerns about our water rates and why our waterways was so high andwhat could be done about that. so he'll share some insightswith us about that tonight. and of course i last panelists who willspeak tonight we're all excited about because he has been a part of ourcommunity for a long time a family legacy. congressman kildee will i share with us. not only what he understands aboutit because he is a resident of flint

genesee county. but also what he's doing inthe legislature to ensure that we are not forgotten to issue. sure that the resources thatwe hope to have come here he is in a position tohelp make that a reality. so tonight i'd like you toput your hands together and welcome our three panelists andthey will common people. be sure going into night. yes going it.

you can give them some prescience andthank you. these are again tonight you should haveon your chairs your question cars and we will periodically respond to some ofthe questions that we've already heard and already received and hopefully tonight. you hear some of those answers andsome will write your questions out. so when you have an opportunity to cometo the market phone you'll be able to articulate that question in the twominutes that you have to state your comment and articulate your question. so that we the panel can respond.

so one more time to the first panelisttonight is now your sharif please welcome her. hi so my name is an irish rave. and i'm with the flag democracydefense league and we can discuss the water crisis will file forunpacking the emergency management law which is a new model atleast the united states for us there. eddie and privatization of resources. so how i personallybecame involved into this water fight in fighting a similarlysea manager is and i want to say.

les like february januarytwentieth levon there were house hearings on this the house with thislaw when it was a bill at that time and after it was passed in march oftwo thousand and eleven me and some other folks got together and wedecided that we wanted to repeal that law and that was something thatwasn't really all that popular. we were collecting signaturesthe other communities who currently had emergencyfinancial manager at the. time which was a trick public schoolsbit in harbor in a city a pontiac they were grandfathered into the law.

but actually in novemberof two thousand and eleven which was actually flintelection day we were electing a mare that was an owl's that we were goingto be receiving an emergency manager. so we are the first city to receiveone hundred public at four and in december first. we received mike brown who was fromthe community as our emergency manager and that was kind of different from whatthe other communities that have one. it was for people who are outside of thecommunity but in this instance we got one we got a person who was from our communityto be the face of this undemocratic law

and did orders of the democracy defenseleague actually came out of two groups. it was the occupy fleming kept man andalso the people stand up for democracy which was the politicalaction committee who banded together to actuallydo the referendum campaign. and we actually got into this watercrisis because people cannot people don't have water like we pay one of the highestbills in the nation for water and we have people who were unable to pay theirwater bill and their water was turned off. we had trailer parks andapartment complexes. they were paying their rent theirlandlords were not paying the water bill

and their homes were being condemnedsaw in august of two thousand and fourteen we formed our emergencywater release mission a whole. which is a daytime didn't see comingonly daytime homeless shelter and the reason why i decided that to do thatplace is because their water was shut off by the city and we wanted to highlightboth the fact that this place that's doing like a public service could not work withthe city and then also it was a wrapped around a neighborhood and people can gothere and get water with no barriers. so like fast forward. we have to end up finding our ownvalidators because we distrust it.

and really. i would say rejected the narrative thatthe state of michigan an emergency manager was putting forth that the water was safeto drink and if you actually look at the from the e-mail dumps at the time youcould really see the callous disregard of the state government andstate agencies on our community because they fell that we were a throw awaycommunity that we were superb. and we did not even have the rightto exercise our own agency which was you know coincidentally slowlythe same philosophy of why we received emergency manager because they feltthat we did not have the power or

the right to exercise our own agency andas we move forward in this relief effort. i see it as i mean it's apartheid and that's what it is because ourgovernment has poisoned us we have the daily experience of justlike actually going around and getting water and anddoing that is is just very. i mean i can't even begin to describehow how there is no dignity in that. and as we fight forreparations we move from a place of victimization where the statewants us to be grateful for whatever little crumbs that they decideto like give us we are organizing and

fighting back on multiple levels so on. now i'm part of a coalitioncalled flint rising. that is working forthe long term organizing struggle for reparations and justice because we needour pipes replaced with our own hands and using that as a vehicle foreconomic development. also we should not be paying forpoisoned water because we are continuing to receive a water bill andthinks yesterday where weaver. are suspended suspended sending water bills until they figure out what'sgoing on but up until that point people

were still receiving a water bill and onlybecause of collective outrage that they stopped shutting off people's waterbecause they were paying two bills one for clean water that they're gettingfrom their grocery stores and then also paying for poisoned waterjust running out of our taps and and finally we know that we needeveryone in this fight. so we don't need gatekeepers. we need the people whoare directly impacted to basically bill co-create andbill the tools of our own liberation. so we're turning people out to meetingsnext week we are going to washington d.c.

says governor snyder refuses to meet andlook at the faces of the people who he hispolicies have impact there. we're going to d.c. to find him when he is testifying in frontof congress house oversight committee. marsa seventeenth. then also thankful thatdistributes the open so after day after thing you can come findme and i can register you it is for us. my plug and also we are canvassingevery week in two p.m. every saturday sunday two p.m.and st michael's roman catholic church

up the street because we needto poor everyone in this fight. we all have horror stories basedon this wider me personally like. now i have grandma seizures andi can drive and i will say pretty mild compared to some of the otherhis health issues that people are facing. because now we have all of these otherthings that are happening because of the abuses of the state. so the state is x.. publishing people's test resultstheir water test results online and insurance companies are using meninformation to drop people's policies

people who are parents and are livingin flat the non-custodial parent are using that to try to tryto take away custody for kids peak kids who would lead poisoningtheir the child protective services could potentially take your childrenbecause now this is child endangerment. so these sort of things they'recontinuously happening. and as we move forward the stateis continuing to abuse and pervert the will of the peoplebecause we wanted transparency and that's what the community said butwe didn't want. we didn't want people being outed totheir friends and family that their water

that people can use to to basicallybamboozle and flimflam people and also we wanted people to we want to plant folks tobe hired for these jobs to hand out water. but what we don't want is for the state to drop the stuff off of parkinglots of people just man expose on the l. of elements as they're handing outwater so we as a democracy defensively. we're constantly exposingall of these near it and really beating back like thiscounter narrative of the state. thank you. and that was that was one of the questionsthat was asked i hope you heard many

people are saying. so what can we do. how can we get involved andhopefully you're hearing some of those things are some things thatyou can do you can list there are so many activities that are going on nowthat people can be involved in so we had many many opportunities for us liketo just tell you one of those we have people coming from all overthe federal government and have been in meetingsregularly since january. ery and sonow on thursdays at three o'clock

in the afternoon atthe eastern michigan food bank. there is number thereis a regular meeting. that outlines some of the communities thatare at work to help address this issue. they need community voice. so if you are available and you can go allthree o'clock at the eastern michigan food bank on thursdays sign up to be on one ofthe committees and that's another way that your voice can be heard and help guidethe narrative another question was what about fixing the pipes all of you knownow there are efforts actually dig it up. that's going to be ongoing process butthere are some things that are moving

forward just pay attention as best we cantell you pay attention to news because we don't know it all butas much as we know we're trying to share. so another thing the democracydefense league said they were working on helping to dosomething about the water rates and this got the attention of one of ourattorneys attorney val washington and he is here to tell you what hastranspired in that process. so please welcome him tothe podium at this time. thank you ian what i wanted to show you tostart out with is the just

the kind of a general outline of howthings that are of significance to you all happened in the timethat they happened and. and i always say follow the money andthis is no exception. because what happened to you andme because i live in flint as well. started back in two thousand andeleven it actually started in january but we didn't know that until augustof two thousand and fifteen. there was an illegal twenty twopercent increase in your water and sewer rates on january the fifteenthof two thousand and eleven. there was another illegal increase onseptember the sixteenth two thousand and

eleven of thirty five. percent by the way there's a handoutthat i made of these slides so don't try to worry about reading themhere because i can't read them and why should you be different to me butthere's a handout you can take home that has this information in it soi'm going to go through it and kind of quickly the significance ofthose increases and i call them illegal one because they exceeded the cap on waterincreases which was eight percent by ordinance the other is that the flint cityordinances specifically say both water and sewer forty six fifty two andforty six task fifty seven both say that

you can increase the ratesonce in a twelve month period. and the way in which you do it isn't but april you bring it in front of the mayorand the city council and you tell him. these are what the newrates are going to be and they have a time to look at them andthen they're published in the newspaper. so you and i can look at them and seewhat they're going to be and then they're implemented on july first and they stayin place for the next twelve months. so any rate increase that wasdone in january or september or any other time other thanjuly one was illegal.

so that's where it startsthe other thing that happens. and these are the ordinances and tell me about is that we havea contract with the city of flint for the commodity of water forty sixthat sixteen says so right there. it's all highlighted for you and what that means is when you pay your waterbill you're supposed to get water that you can use when you get a bad pieceof meat from the grocery store. what do you do with it you wrap it up andtake it back and say i want my money back. why should water asa commodity be any different.

but that's where we're put because of allthe stuff that's happened later on but we'll get to that in a moment but theseare the ordinances that provide you with the as i said in terms ofwhen you can implement and then one of the other things is that youknow how your bill is broken down to four parts water use water service chargesewer use sewer service charges. well there by ordinance shouldbe on file at city hall. if you want to go look ata rate table that tells you if you have a half inch meter if youhave a three eighth's me inch meter. this is the amount of your waterservice charge because they have it for

sewer and by ordinance it'srequired guess what's not there or it hadn't been there as i shouldsay it hadn't been there ever. and so my theory. i can't prove it but my theory is that whenever the cityneeded more money to operate. they just raise the water service chargeand you and i don't know any different. we just pay the bill. but one of the aspects of my lawsuitwas to make them put that on file and i'll get to that in just a ministerwhat they did with them.

so this is the memo or the first page ofthe memo from michael townsend who is then the financial director for the city offlint back in august of two thousand and sixteen saying we're going to increasethe rates in september because we need the money essentially andas i've said to you. the ordinances don't provide for that butnonetheless that was what was done the other thing that's important isthere's a specific state statute. it's called the revenue bond back and that revenue bond act says if you havea revenue bond for either water or sewer. you cannot transfer the moneythat you receive for

water and sewer payments to anyother fund of the city government that's what it says inthe highlighted section there. but guess what was happening ona regular basis in the city of flint. the money when it was coming inwas being accounted for properly. but then when the money came in. instead of putting it intothe water checking account or the sewer checking account. it was placed into what was knownas the pooled cash account. and when i asked him sowhat's the pool of cash account.

well it's a big investment account that the city uses because you know whenyou have a lot of money in a little pot. you don't get a lot of interest but if you have a little money put onthe one point you get more interest. i get that the problem becomes isthat instead of then taking the money out of the pool of cash andusing it for water related. or sewer related issues they would pay thelight bill they would pay the insurance bill any obligation any expense ofthe city of flint that came due would be paid out of their pooled cash fun andthat's what is in my view improper and

it's taxing us every single month whenwe pay that water and sewer bill. we are being asked tofund city government and we shouldn't be able we shouldn'tbe asked to do that now this is a. this is an excerpt fromthe preliminary finding and. sherry mentioned that in two thousand andeleven the state made an appointment of an emergency manager butbefore they can do that they have to do. it's known as a political area review. they have to have the treasurer's officecome in and look at the finances and see what's going on.

well when they did thatthey issued a report and in the report i'm going to try toread here but my eyes are so big that it may take me a minute to get mydoctor always there while you take it. glasses off to be smallprint because i can't read. otherwise. it said. here's here's what they said that thebottom the city relies on transfers from the water supply for andthe sewage disposal fun for general city operations in twothousand and nine the city transferred

increases overhead rather charges fromthe water supply fun and the sewer the spoil the farm from one milliondollars to two point four million dollars. also in two thousand and nine the city started charging a return oninvestments against the water supply and the sewer disposal fine now whenyou have a return on investment. don't have to put the money in first. i mean that's the way they teach it. if you know merrill lynch and all thoseinvestment houses you put money in and you get a return on investment.

what we term what investment did thisgeneral fund make to the water and sewer fund that justifieda return on equity none. again it's an accounting trickused to take money out and put in the general fund. and. that was two point nine million. combined the city used. five point three milliondollars of water supply and sewer disposal money forgeneral fund operations annually.

the amount of annualappropriation is not alone and is not expected to bepaid back by these funds. now you say to yourself and that's onthe next page ghassan put my arrow here. ok and the significance of that is that it took money that should havebeen in the water and sewer funds and it put it into the generalfund operations. so when the time came. either to improve the infrastructureto pay increase water rates to detroit. we didn't have the money and that's whatthe second paragraph says i'm not going to

take time to read it to you becausefrankly i don't have that much time. but the other part of this that'simportant for you to understand and this is in the next life isthat we have money in these and in these accounts we have a lot of moneyand here's what it's worth in this life. given the extent of their enter fundborrowing normal operating functions of funds other than the general fund arebeing adversely affected or impacted for example during the same fiveyear period business water and sewer related cash decreasefrom thirty six million two hundred sixty seven thousand nine hundredeighty one dollars in two thousand and

six to zero in two thousand and ten zero. that means that in that period of time. thirty six million dollars that properlyshould have stayed in water and sewer was sent to the general fund and we were broke in all around brokein by two thousand and ten. simply put up these otherfunds could lack sufficient cash to permit the performanceof the statutory task. assigned to them to providepreventative maintenance or to plan forfuture replacement of equipment.

now that's a finding from the review team that was appointed after the preliminaryreview was was done in september. they had a review team that wasappointed and guess who served on that. re duty. mr darnell early our own emergencymanager was a member of that review team in november that made that particularfinding that will be significant. when i get to my later slide you'll beable to see why that tickles me so. but anyhow when when mike brown came inand by that time the thirty five percent increases of two thousand and elevenalready happened and what he decided

because he was the emergency manager hesays i'm going to reach back in time and i'm going to sign an order thatshould help the hopes of a given. and that was order number thirty one ornumber thirty one. not only told us finally that our rateswere going to be increased again. on july first of two thousand andtwelve but it also said s.f. thirty five percent increase. i'm going to ratify it. i'm going to sign the sword andi'm going to say poof. it's all better and my response becausewe were in litigation at that time and

i said judge tell me inthe statute the one that was in committee the one that was repealedthe what was then repassed tell me where i show me where that authority is forany emergency manager to do that. he said doesn't matterthat it's not there. he's got broad powers he can doit i said i think you're wrong. he said well i think you're out ofcourt and i said ok that's fair. that's why they make appeals court sowhen he threw the case out and went to the court of appeals andthe court of appeals took two years but they finally said yep washingtonwas right and you're wrong.

now the next couple of things iwant to the see is this is the best the rest of the order and these are therates that we're going to be increased and that was at that time. so remember you had a twenty two percentincrease and january of levon thirty five percent increase in september ofeleven and then on july first. you had a twelve anda half percent increase in water and a forty five percent increasein sewer forty five percent. wow did it cost that muchto take away our waste. now what happened is when people gotthe increase of thirty five percent.

we think they still did they stoppedusing water so they needed more money. so when they do they increased the seweryou can't fight the sewer you got to have the sewer right. so that's where we gotthis that out of balance. remember those are three numbers. those are three areas butthis is the affidavit of the former state former citytreasurer douglas bingaman. and he says right in paragraphnine on the last page and i got to read this one to youbecause it's really important.

i'm in charge of the city's bankaccounts etc etc all of the city's expenses are paid from the pooledcash account when they become do he said that under oath in a lawsuit inan affidavit he swore that this was true. so when they say well we'renot using a water and sewer money to pay yougeneral obligations. well somebody thinks you are the guy iwas in charge your money thinks you are. why is it that you're tellingthe court something different. so these are the things that you have butmore importantly. and you say well we'llhow come nobody knew.

well we didn't know butwe didn't know and we know because they were hiding in plain sight it heardthat phrase hiding in plain sight. these are the annual financial statementsthat called kaffir has certified annual financial reports andwhat they do is they tell you after their account auditorsget through looking at them. this is how the city spent its money andthey're posted on our website and they're posted on the treasury website and you can anybody can go look. most of us don't know whatwe're looking at however and frankly when i started out in know whati was looking at but i figured it out.

with the help of a lot of people andwhere they have these transfers in. to the general fund transfers out. that's money that's being taken outof the restricted funds and put into. the general fund. and the significance of those numbersthat i read to you earlier about how much they were taking out foradministrative expenses are significant because byordinance the water fund and the sewer fund can only pay tothe general fund three hundred thousand dollars a year foradministrative expenses.

so when you have numbers inthe tune of five point nine million dollars five point three milliondollars that's absurdly outrageous and it's in violation of the city ordinance. so these are the things on it and i i toldit was going to be important that darnell early was on the on that committeebecause one of these things. i'm sure you hear this one. this is from the the kaffir of junethirtieth two thousand and fourteen. guess who was here at that time. an act activity between funds thatare representatives of lending and

borrowing arrangements outstanding at theend of the fiscal year are referred to as due to from other funds the currentportion of interferon loans or advances to other funds the nine currentportion that severance i would but the point of it is is that there's a statelaw that says you can't do that especially when there's a revenue bond in place asthere is for water in the city of flint and the fact that it was being done by ouremergency managers very very troubling and problematic but i want to get on to andthen the next one shows you that there was an additional increase that we didn'treally hear about in two thousand and it was that in twenty thirteen rateincreases averaging twenty five percent.

were necessary to restore the financialsolvency of the water and sewer systems. why did you have to resort to solve andsee because you've been raiding the piggy bank and that's whyyou had to put more money in again ray. it increases andthen in fiscal year fourteen and fifteen the average wasapproximately six percent. so i am no great math whiz. but i'm going to tell you something here. if you add them up andthat's what this slide does for you. with all these increases.

since january fifteenth two thousand andeleven. we've had one hundred six percentincrease in our water and one hundred thirty nine percent increasein our sewer and yet we're broke. when detroit said allegedly thatit's going to cost you more money. we didn't have the money to pay forthe and or we chose not to pay when we chose not to pay it becausewe really didn't have it but the reality is that they're making money. this money is coming in. people are paying their waterbills when they can but

the reality is is that they're usingit to fund the city operations and that's why we're perpetually broke. now.one last point i want to make and then i'm going to sit down andlet the representative kildee talk to you. i talked about that servicecharge that wasn't there. this slide is part of the master feeschedule that the last emergency manager job. gerald ambrose put into placebefore he left office he signed it. the bill or the resolution onthe order on april twenty eighth april

thirtieth that effective julyfirst two thousand and fifteen. they would be the water service charges. now finally when you get your bill and you can go to city hall andyou can say i've got a three agent pipe. how much is my water service charge andyou can look at this document and it will tell you butthe bigger question becomes how is it that the citywas collecting in check. charging and collecting us for water service charge thatwasn't legally permitted.

how are they able to do that. can you and i do that when something thatlegally permitted we go and do it anyway. course not that we teach our children. absolutely not. so the fact that these were finally. effect on july first two thousand andfifteen. ok i guess that's a good thing butit begs the question. what happens to that money that we paidall those years that we should that we should not have had to pay.

doesn't that come back to us. that's what my lawsuit says that'sone of the things that i'm asking for is to be fund that moneyto this when we get it all. probably not but we get some of it. you bet we will. and you heard it here first. we're going to get justice inthe piggy bank in the pocketbook in the wallet for residents offlint michigan that in conscionable the east it's unconscionable.

what our government has done to usunder the guise of governing and that's what i'll leave you with thank youfor your tension ladies and gentlemen i am more questions were not quite my wifeaccused me of having c.r.s. but the one more thing is that in front of meare two micro jet shower systems that have proven to take away the contaminants anddirt and odors and chlorine and water won't take away the lead but the lead is not what's causingyou to it and to have rations. it's the other contaminants every doctorwill tell you lead does not cause these

symptoms that you're having andthat's true but these are available and i've got handouts that are out onthe front desk if you like them. if you want to call and have them ordered they'll be shippedright to you call with your credit card. there's a number they'rethere to call off and that will hopefully improve yourquality of life in your home. thanks to the iraqis that those two units there answered one ofthe questions or some of the questions or group of questions that was provided tous and that was what do people do either.

are some systems availableas you know this is a class sponsored by the university of michiganflat our comments are the comments of the individuals who are speaking theuniversity does not take responsibility for those and sothey are not per promoting any item. but the prisoner has providedyou an opportunity so we ask you to look into that opportunityto ensure that it's what's best for you but we wanted to make sure thatwe could provide that for you. so that's the disclaimeron behalf of the university that we are not promoting any particularproduct but that is an opportunity for

you to look into to ensure thatyou're doing what's best for you. one of the issues that the judge broughtup an excuse me the attorney washing brought up as well as sister nigeria and that is the issue of trust andwe know that trust is an issue and it brings up a lot of feelingsabout all of these things and so it's helpful for us to hear whatwe know best as fact and many times i will say to people this is whatwe know today as much as we know today this is how responding tomorrow we maylearn something a little bit different. so one of the reasons we're having thisclass is that we can be good khana source.

we can be good consumers of knowledge andthat that knowledge will help us to make better decisions for our livesbased upon our life circumstances and so tonight in terms of trust. we appreciate our congressmancoming here to talk to us to give us a perspective that no speciallights and cameras like when all over you wonder what all those radio t.v.stations we saw for to see him in b.c. they came here and that's wonderful that they came to shedlight on this but we're glad that he came even without a contingent of twenty fiveor thirty people he came to share with us.

so will you please. help me.welcome our congressmen congressman killed to thank you. thank you so much for the invitation and for that introduction andi'll just take a few minutes to touch on a somewhat broader perspective i thinkwhat we've heard sort of the from the washington perspective particularlywhat we've heard is incredibly important in terms of the questionsregarding democracy and the suspension of democracy andthen to have a judge washington always

calling judge washington walk throughthose steps it's really important for us to keep in mind how this happenedspecifically the decisions that were made but if i could just provideanother context for those those facts and i'd like to do so. the broader question ishow could this all happen in the twenty first century inthe wealthiest country on earth at the wealthiest moment in itshistory and that really is a fact we live in the wealthiest country on earthand actually today is the wealthiest day in the history of the united states interms of assembled accumulated wealth and

you know what tomorrow will beit will also be the wealthiest day we are the richest country atthe richest time in its history. and we can't drink the waterin flint michigan. i just saw this quick story. i was invited to go to the unitednations general assembly to listen to the speech of pope bypope francis to the world. and barren master asked if iwould sit with her in the. the first few minutes of his speechhe was describing what he thought was an essential element of a civilsociety on the planet in of

course he was talking about the wealthynations and their obligations to assist developing countries andthe first principle that he referred to was the availability of safedrinking water in my heart sank. this was in september. i'm sure he didn't know but i sure knew. that the pope was not talking abouta developing country in another part of the world he did not know it but he wasactually talking about our own community of flint michigan and what you saw is adescription of how this all could happen. but there is a larger context.

flint was strugglingbefore the water crisis we had a lot of problemsbefore the water crisis. because of globalization of manufacturingdriven largely by national policy. relocation of wealth from flintto areas around flint driven by bad land use policy. by transportation policy by tax policy. at every level of government all ofwhich have made it very easy and quite efficient in the shortterm to move wealth. and economic activity out of ourolder cities so that is the backdrop

of a set of decisions thatgovernor snyder made not related. so much to the water. but to continue to underminethe health of this city. by eliminating the one sourceof financial support for this city that was already struggling. and that was state revenuesharing we've lost. about fifty million dollarssince the decision was made to eliminate direct support to cities. so you have all these policydecisions that undermine our economy.

along with. you know what happened. we know in the sixty's andearly seventy's basically racial of voids. all of these factors that have contributedto the hollowing out of this community. were double down when theydecided to withdraw the already meagre support that state government wasproviding to help keep this city afloat and so what is their answer and listeningto judge washington's description. it's almost as if itwouldn't be believable if you didn't see it in black and white.

i mean you couldn't youcouldn't make this stuff up. the answer is to sendan emergency manager. the state which in the long term andin the immediate sense actually helped to create the fiscalcrisis in the city of flint their answer is to send an emergencymanager that they believe has the power not only tosuspend local democracy. but as judge washingtonpoints out to ignore the law and just make decisionsbased on their own whim. that's what got us to this andthen that emergency manager comes in.

what are they arrive withas tools to help rebuild the city that they helped to bankrupt. what are the tools they have a budget scalpel an accounting tricks. and i guess it's probably justa kindness to refer to them as tricks. or perhaps the judge would havea harsher way to characterize them but it's basically. they didn't come with money. they didn't come with the resources theydidn't come to recapitalize the water and

sewer fund to replace the money that theystole from it in order to fund basic operations no. they came to make even more cuts. and of course one ofthe decisions that was made by the emergency managerwas to save more money by moving to the less expensive flintriver for a temporary period of time. now there are lots of otherreasons that one could argue that were the underlyingcause of that decision. but it was a unilateral decisionmade by an emergency manager.

it was not done for reasons. regarding public health. it was not because it was the bestsource of water as we are surrounded by the greatest surface fresh water source to the known universewe use the flint river. so let's just extensivelysay it was to save money. i suspect we were being used as a tool. in a struggle with the detroit water andsewer system and the effort to createthe great lakes regional water authority.

but let's just at least say theydid it in part to save money. so what was the effect. the effect is the state helpedto create the crisis state and federal policy for sure. undermining cities. the state made the crisisworse by cutting support they took over the city andmade a series of decisions that less the left us worse offthan we were before they came in. thanks a lot.

we have been better off left alone. we could have handled it. so there are multiple sources and i'll bequick because i know we want to get to questions there are multiplesources of responsibility here and there are multiple ways to get ataccountability for those responsible to be fair the u.s.government failed in this sense. the environmental protection agency whichhas broad oversight not primacy for enforcement but brought oversightover the michigan department of environmental quality which does haveprimacy foreign force when the e.p.a.

made a mistake in this sense. they operated on the assumption. that the michigan departmentof environmental quality. was the agency in michigan. that was concerned aboutenvironmental quality were wrong. that was a mistake. the d.e.q. itself without going into allthe detail but you can read the e-mails. you can read the newspapers. here's what we knowthey knew the water was

not safe to drink and they told usthat the water was safe to drink. why because they seemedat state government. far more obsessed with theirown careers than the career choices of one thousand children livingin flint who are under the age of six. but they were concerned butthey were concerned about the wrong thing. and all that you read in all the yousee and there was another e-mail dump today which i haven't had a chance to readbut apparently most of it's redacted. so you'll have to get that throughthe process judge that you will go through hopefully you'll go.

the judge that's willing to torule to disclose all of this. so that's where we are we havea governor who has apologized and has basically sending the cityof flint a get well card. you know we need morethan a get well card. we need accountability. number one. that accountability will come. hopefully in the form of a complete and thorough criminal investigation whichallows the facts to take the investigators

wherever they may lead and i don'twant to prejudge that process but so long as it is thorough and the decisionsare made to let the facts speak for themselves if it finds that the kindof neglect that occurred rises to a level of criminal neglect orsome other statutory violation. let us all pray that thatprocess will go forward. there's another form of accountability andit's through the civil court process judge washington's involved in a partof that and there are others as well so holding people responsible individualsresponsible is really important not just for this case but

to make sure that there isn't another onelike this at some time in the future. it's also a way forus to more clearly clarify to whom we have the rightto turn to make it right. i believe the state has the preponderanceof the responsibility for what occurred here i mean after all the state actuallywas the city the city was the state. so when it has been said that there wasa breakdown at every level of government. there was only one level of governmentas between the city and the state. so let's forget that part of it andi think i've already articulated where i think the federal responseresponsibility is.

the path forward is accountability forsure but it's also getting justice justice comes in many forms justice also comesin this case by getting the resources that we need in this community toget back to being whole again. basically to make it right. when i was growing up. i was taught if you did somethingwrong you do apologize. but if you have it within your power andwithin your capacity to make up for what you did. you're also obligated to do that and

that's where i think much of ourattention should be focused. the response comes in a fewforms basically four very quickly one to make sure right now peoplehave safe water to drink and are free of the fear that the water that they'rebathing in could hurt them or poison them. so the emergency response isa critical part of this second whatever needs to be doneto make the system work. we've heard about orthophosphate treatment as being one way to recode the pipes about replacementof the private lead service lines there needs to be a very careful and

deliberate plan to make sure thathappens other system improvements. so that the water system itself isoperable including making sure that we have adequate professionalstaff to operate it. third we have to hand this is probablythe biggest number financially. we have to demand services for especially children but also adults butonly focusing for a moment on kids because leds a neuro toxin it has a permanentimpact on brain development. but like any developmental challenge. it is possible to overcome.

a developmental challenge. and so this is the way to think about it. whatever you ori would do for our children. if one of them had a developmental hurdle. is what the children of flint are dofrom the people who did this to them that means really good nutritionnot just available but ensuring that it'sdelivered to kids in flint. it means early childhood education available to every one ofthe children potentially affected.

it means a smaller classroom size andactually a classroom for which a child does not have to fearthe feeling the ceiling will fall in. it means an educational experience thatallows them to stretch their brains and maximize their potential. it also means the possibility ofafterschool program all the things that you would do foryour own child i would do for these children and then finally becausei know i've only got one minute and i don't know how long you'vebeen holding up the one minute. probably about ten minutes.

finally we need and deserve realhelp in creating opportunity for those kids once they doreach the age of majority. rebuild our economy rebuild smallbusinesses particularly small local business particularly minorityowned businesses particularly women owned businesses in our community we need to getthe help that we deserve in order to make that happen and it needs to come from boththe federal and the state government. i have a bill you know whetherthan litigate for ever. who is responsible. while these kids weigh my legislationthe families of flint act

would simply say ok governor. i think it was your fault. more than anyone else's. but i'm willing to split it. let's just do this let's get it done. the families of flint act onepoint five billion dollars over a period of time to dothe things i just suggest. the split evenly between the state andthe federal government. here is how we have to make thathappen all the energy all the anger

which is legitimate and that anger islegitimately focused on everyone right now all the anger andfrankly all of the attention that we have been getting from people all acrossthe country and all across the world should be channeled has to be focused sothat it's not just anger that is being expressed in orderjust to get it off our chests. but anger that we can channel andask for some specific things and it has to be big enough andcomprehensive enough so that in a few years we will not havesettled really important here that we will not have settled forwhat sounds like a lot of money.

i mean a couple hundred million dollars. wow that sounds like a lot of money. you know. it's roughly what the people flint havepaid for water that poisoned their kids. so we're not even close with that money. it's got to be largesustained comprehensive broad based support fromthe people who did this to flint. to make it right. water.

is a human right andthat right has been violated. and we cannot settle. we cannot allow thisgovernor in particular and i don't want to go to political buti'll just say this or the republicans in congress whoare stopping the legislation that we have introduced keep us from gettingthe justice that we deserve. thank you thank you. not quickly the mikes are available askyou to get in place to ask your questions. again please write.

your questions on cards so that whenyou're done you can leave those questions with us andwe'll continue to see to respond to them. thank you again. congressman kildee forthe insight and encouragement. it is important for us to realizeit is it is not just the water and as much as it is importantto focus on our children. it's not just the children it's all of us. and soreally requires all of us to get involved. thank you.attorney washington and

i'm stuck on judge two for giving us thatclear insight and it's in writing so you can get a copy of that and this thissession was talking about the social justice component of this whole watercrisis so we want to hear from you now. ask your questions please remember we'vegot two minutes for you comment and question so we'll begin here. yes or if you. you don't really realizehow much water you use. until you don't have it so my questionis for the honorable mr washington. do we as taxpayers havea legal right to turn off

the water at the governor's mansion. that's a legal right. i say is probably like a legend jailif you get close enough to it but i get your point or you know comecome live a day in our shoes. you know when you talk aboutno irreparable harm because your water is turned off think abouthow often you reach for that water or how much you use that water forin day to day life. that's where i get angry when peopletalk about well you don't have irreparable harm becauseyou want to turn up.

yes you do it doesn't live in it andin the governor's mansion he live. then a two million dollarscondo on down time and arbor. my question.my question is for mr kill the actually we watched a news and we see that onehundred thousand dollars has come. from the state for this and that and then we hear thatthey've hired extra state police. that's going to eat that money up then weget another hundred two hundred thousand dollars here and they bring in the national guardwhich is going to eat that money up.

it feels to me that the state is just backfilling their budget with these donations. what can we do want to federal levelto repeal the emergency manager law. can we create an emergencymanager on a federal level that takes over the statelike they took over the city. why i was saying that thatmight be the best idea but i mean at least it would be something. well. it's a great question. it's tough though i will admit andwe've looked at this.

we've had some discussionof this in fact we had i had a group of members of congress cometo flint last friday twenty five members including john conyers whois the ranking member and was the chairman of the house judiciarycommittee who's very interested in the very question that you have raised and i'm not an attorney but judge washingtonmight have an opinion on this. there are constitutional limitationsin terms of federal government views of the state authority andthis would be a really big hill to climb. how ever.

there's always a way andis would be a big lift. but i can just tell you whatthe mechanism would be. and that would be use the power ofthe federal government's budgeting process to condition federal support forvarious activities based on. you know certain criteria. let's say that might be one approach but. i think in this caseto be honest with you. we have to change state law and we haveto change the people who make state law. i was going to i was going to add tothat that one of the ways in which this

would not have happened is ifthere was a federal right. a federal law. like there is a federal law that youcan't discriminate append someone because of their race or gender or gender. if there was a federal law that says youas the citizens of this country have a federal right toaffordable clean water and if you don't get affordable clean water. you have a private cause of action againstthe people who are taking that away from you that you just come andi agree with the judge and

i actually think it wouldtake a lot of work because we actually have to figure outhow we fund that guarantee but in this case it's not just peoplein flint that have this problem. we are a an extreme exampleof a national problem. that also includes people inother parts of the country and in parts of the country thatare actually far more affluent who can't get access todrink of water as well. so i think we have. that that probably is the best hold wecould we could make on the on the problem

which i have two questions i'dlike to ask mr washington. what do you have to do to becomea part of a class action lawsuit and not be in a residence and how do you want it well since there area ton of class actions floating around. i can only tell you about mine. the one bomb there ranting aboutthat's what you're asking about. but if you have to if you were a watercustomer between september sixteenth two thousand and eleven and august theseventeenth of two thousand and fifteen. you're already in.

the judds certified that class of peoplethe water and sewer customers during that time period on august thirty firstof two thousand and fifteen. you have to do a darn thing more. ok i have a question forcongressman kildee. well gee sponsible for saving a fund foradults for their health issues. well our present and future. it go at that is to me it'svery important that that now. well well to be and to be very direct. there isn't anyone right now whois responsible for it because so

far we haven't seen the resourcesdelivered to take that responsibility with one exception with exception andbut it's not for everybody but it would be the expansionof medicaid for a five year period which provides some reimbursement for thosewho otherwise would not be covered but what we have asked for is andand i specifically asked for the state to fun a health and development fund that would do two thingsthat would track every individual and i don't mean in the most narrow sense butsimply help us know who they are because here's the problem if somebody livesin flint during the period that they

faced exposure that doesn't mean they'reconsigned to live in flint for the rest of their life but they still should beable to get whatever help is funded so that those health manifestationsthat could occur in ten years. potentially could be attributed backattributable back to this exposure and give you the right to to that fundthe only thing that i have said for sure. so far is that the one entity that i do not wantto have as responsible for the fund is the state ofmichigan anywhere else. i'm pretty well happy with it andi actually think it should be a locally

managed and controlled fundcapitalized by federal support but mostly coming from the state wherethe governor has one billion dollars that he does notknow what to do with him. people in flint are in trouble. and he is is trying basicallyhe's he has been quicker to hire out of your tax dollars criminal defenselawyers and public relations firms. then he has public health nurses and school social work that'sa bit gets a lot of thank you. and the documented community is noteligible for the medicaid expansion.

so we have many undocumented childrenwho there is there is no safety net for them and they they do not needimmigration status to get poison but they need to show identificationto receive treatment. thank you.yes. good afternoon. for fifteen years. i made my little trek. out the door to highway andstewart avenue and one capacity or another i tested water.

i monitored water. and i saw a lot of to this communitythat proudly and when i retired i had roughly two hundred thousand peopleunder my arm every day because i was responsible and accountable for makingsure that they didn't even know what that big sign out there on the on a highway wasthey just knew that it was a place and people would ride by and they saywatch sat in the at that big tower and i said plant water plant anda good day for us was to go home with nothing happeningand april of two thousand and fourteen. i got a phone call from a young man that ihad helped in the system in his training

and he informed me thathe was very worried. because they were being asked to dosomething that in their conscience and deep down in their heartthey knew was not right. they were being asked to put the city'swater supply from the flint river and service and he entered made it tome that they were not prepared and they were not ready to do so andhe said to me and i quote you larry. we miss you guys because we don't haveanyone on here who is capable of standing up to the system and he said weknow when you guys were there and he was speaking about our entire crewbecause we can all laugh at the same time

he said you would have stood up tothem and you would have said no which would have pressed the button andforced them to make some decisions. now i'm saying that as a backdropbecause i've heard all this and i guess you know nobody really knowshow gut wrenching this really has and has been for those young men and for meto have to endure this and my family and my community to have to sufferin this way on nine eleven when those planes went intothose buildings in new york. it was a broadcast all over this world. and the world became our friend.

and one of the thingsas part of our resolve. was that we're going to rebuild this. we're going to fix this becausethey tried to come in and they tried to desecratethe symbol of our existence. that's why they went there and they bombedthose they they ran into those buildings. they had the resolve andthe will to go and they rebuilt it. so when you go to new yorknow you don't see the vestiges of nine eleven otherthan as a memorial they rebuilt it. but that flint water tower out there.

that's been all over the world hasbeen in every corner of this world and it's a symbol of what happened to us andfor the life of me i knew about thisin two thousand and fourteen. this is two thousand and one sixteen. why isn't it rebuilt. why haven't the result of andthe fortitude and the initiative in the funds and theresources and the community organization. how come all of this hasn't come together. so that we could have been rebuilt andbeen whole by now it should happen.

but the fact that it didn't andi'll end here. the fact that it doesn't is an indictment. not only on the system. but a sin and died one on the thingsthat we've really been trying to ask for in this whole matter. and what i'd like todo is i'd like to see. senator kildee. i'd like to see that resolved buti like to see. judge in washington.

your son andmy daughter went out for montessori. and they were drinkinggood water back then. weren't they. yes they were i'd like tosee that result take place. we gotta get somewhere wherewe can find a means and there are constant issues we'vegot to put these issues all. and one big nice littleneat little package and we got to find the resolve to make flintwhole again because i promise you. even if they repair every pipe and

that even if they were to take all ofthe children and give them lead treatment. for their lead issues that water plant outthere in that tower is going to always stay in the back of people's minds tenfifteen twenty years from now as a symbol of what happened here and more importantlywhat did we do about it first. first of all i want to tell you that mightbe one of the more eloquent statements i have heard on this flatwater issue since it began. thank you for all the other thing i wantedjust to say thank you. for all those years.

keeping us safe. because we take it for granted. and you couldn't take it for grantedbecause you had to go in every day and make sure the water was safe. so you allowed us the comfort. of that. in the in the thing that i thinkyou represent in the conversation the referred to is that is part of thiscrisis that has made me the most angry in it is when i hear.

i was going to say public officials but i'll just pick one when i hearthe governor of our state try to lay the blame for this crisis on civil servants who don't make a lotof money who work really hard every day. many of whom i know because we workwith them over the years to lay their political decisions in lansing and their accounting shenanigans whichjudge washington laid out right here. try to lay the responsibility forthis on civil servants whether it's civil servants who work inthe flint water plant and you've heard it.

i've heard it. they've tried to say the citydidn't manage this right. it's not right. we know what happened. they how doubt the city. they created a form of austerity. it makes it an unsustainableplace in some ways and not having adequate resources to operateand then being told to do something that you know is wrong forsome purpose that you don't understand.

you can't be held accountable for that and the people that you talkto need to understand that. that that we that the public does not holdthem accountable just because the governor is trying to pass off his culpability onsomeone else the easiest thing to do and i've heard this for so long forthe last decade around here is to demonize public servants for the decisions ofpoliticians and that's just plain wrong. he's doing the same thing. even with his own staff willing tothrow them under the bus for to sit. is that he made willingto hide behind the fact

that his name doesn'tshow up on these e-mails. if he if we were to believe and i'm not. i'll stop if we were to believe thateverybody in the governor's office knew everything that was going on except oneperson that happened to be the governor. we either got the wrong governor orwe're fools. so to your your your your mainpoint your main point is that we do have i think we have the moralhigh ground and the argument and hopefully with with some of the legal workthat george washington others are doing. the authority to force the kind of

reinvestment that will rebuild andwill put us in a position where we can be very very proud again of everythingthat we have here i think you never want to say that that that you wantto take advantage of a crisis but you know neither can you let a crisisgo to waste and this is a chance for us to get something to get our communityon a path that if we otherwise might not have been on i think the bears a largerquestion who are we as a society. because once you starthaving that dialogue. there is an ideology anda narrative of that if you're poor and if you're a person of color that she don'tmatter and all of the decision making

process is under the emergency managementlaw which was only ample amanat and majority black communities that we didnot matter thus we did not have the and really like bringing back some ofthe near dos from reconstruction that they kind of like an urban zombiefive that black people don't have the power to make their own decisions andthey not go with money. so we're going to bring in andwe don't we have these resources but we don't know how to reallydo what they want to. to do so they're going to come in andtake the power from us. so once you start.

we can't really have that conversationuntil we start really talking about race and wow does that look like race andclass in america today because we're under was moremoving towards being a plutocracy. and not a democracy and sowe have like that conversation. we're still going to be havingyou know at the federal level like trying to piece male and cherry picksolutions instead of thinking about what are we are as a society as a whole andhow do we become more inclusive and making our decisions based on the valuesthat we say that we are doing. several more questions that we have and

i just want to take a moment and reallythink about the conversation tonight because it is a different conversationthan we've had previously and even in the conversations that have happened andother town hall so to speak meetings. this is a quest this is a conversationthat causes us to look at all of us and our responsibility andwhat and i frankly larry for his the way you articulated thatthat message was so powerful because it says who are we as a community asas not only here in flint michigan but who are we as a nation and what we do sowe all have a responsibility in this and i hope that we will considerwhat our responsibility is and

how we will utilize what wehave as individuals to work collectively togetherto make a difference. so let's see our next question please. yes i have a question in regards to. first of all we know led affectseverybody not just the children. i'm very concerned about the children butit affects everybody especially our very own people such as the elderly andthose with compromised immune systems. so my question is whereare the dollars going. to help them.

i have been trying forthe last four weeks to find out who champion in our elderly and our compromised immune system fogs who is going to do that and how are wegoing to hold them accountable for what they do the second partof the question really is data drives the money. if there is no data the moneydoesn't get to you. you can have all ofthe rhetoric that you want but if you don't have the hard core data.

you will not receive the dollarsthey will not get to you. you cannot write forthe dollars you cannot write the polls. ols without data i have tried for two and a half years to get data and everybody tells me there is no data. so i'm going to askeveryone in this room there is a form over on a table over there. take it home fill it out. drop it off at the health department sothat we can get the data so

that we can make sure therewhen we asked for the money. we're not asking amiss weknow exactly what is needed. and by whom. thanks for on the table the document is a speak toyour health survey it is a genesee county based survey so it's speak specificallyto the issues of genesee county so please take advantage of that as well. yes or directed congressman. we already know that leads to developchildren and i can tell you firsthand.

the classrooms at the flint communityschools are already at about maximum capacity if not exceeding that andi'm curious what is being proposed in your families a flint act to invest inthe fund community schools to increase the amount of teachers nurses andspecial ed help in these schools. well in in our legislation we address eachone of those it is specifically funding for the long term foradditional well behavioral health support both inside and outside the schoolsschool nurses school social workers. significant also is a partportion of the funds under the families of flynn act that would go toeducation would be specifically to reduce

class sizes in the lowerelementary school a cohort. of course one of the thingsthat seems rather intuitive. we are proposing honestly. for the kids affected in flint andbasically what we ought to do for every child in america if you reallywant to get serious about it. the truth of the matter is what's happenedhere in flint in this is true in a lot of urban and actually mostly poor and almostalways african-american majority school districts is that we have a system ofpublic education financing that is grotesquely and equal or unequal i shouldsay and you don't see these sorts of

school buildings or class sizes orlack of basic support in other places. ironically all we would do which is almost all that's required in terms ofthis piece of it is provide that those basic services have a a lower elementaryclass size of seventeen to one for example i don't your school teacher mysisters are both flint teachers and so they sort of have a built inlobbying i guess you call it. but i remember i served on the schoolboard in flint i don't know of anybody in this room is old enoughto remember that but i was elected. terry as i was elected back in onethousand nine hundred eighty seven and

i remember walking the picketline with the teachers. as a school board member becausewe were we were in negotiation and the only on room unresolvedissue was class size and i couldn't believe that we weretrying to increase class size. so that all of the elements thatyou suggest are in the families of flint act which are going to beit's going to be tough to move that we need we need help with that. so it's all right there. congressman when you say you need helpwith that does that mean you need us to

need you need a communityto make phone calls. what do you what doesthat translate to for us. well we do i mean here's what ithink just tactically we need to do. every one of us. i know in this town. we've been kind of impressedwhen people come in right. it's kind of interesting. when snoop comes in or you know fill inthe blank we've had a lot of attention. what we need to do is get ourselvesorganized so that we're trained.

so that when people ask whatthey what can they do to help you know most of mine to say iwant to send a truckload of water. what we need is a truckload of e-mails andletters and phone calls to go to the people whocontrol the financial resources that already exist to pay for all the thingswe're talking about and that take. i mean some people at this table knowmore about organizing than others. you know a lot about. we need to organize wesimply need to organize and to me it's organizing around that message.

next question please. i have a question for mr chirac. i have to pre-k. my question isi am a member of the league. women voters in the league of women votersis going to have a registration drive. coming up check their website butthe question is what percentage of the people who are damaged by by the floodwater crisis bullet in two thousand and ten and two thousand andfourteen for governor. if the narrow had been elected or shall have been elected thenfourteen will be here today.

considering that obama carried thisstate in two thousand and eight and two thousand and twelve. and i don't have those numbers buti'm going to put on my organizer had and say you know like we have this idea thatelections are the end all to be all and elections are a tactican overall strategy. so you can't just vote andcast your ballot then just go home and just like disappear you got to be in theseelected officials faces all the time and. and really be our say both involvedinside the political process but then also stand outside so you can exertpressure when those elected officials

are act behaving in a mannerthat she would want them to act. i'm looking at you. congressman kildee so i you know i'veheard talk that i play is like the canary in the coal mine because i don't thinkanybody is under the impression that we're the only city with an aginginfrastructure kind of happens nationally. so i'm just curious why talk isthere at the federal law in congress that not only do we help out flint butthen how do we create a sustainable approach to helping everybody throughoutthe country because america is going to have more public health crises andyou know crashing infrastructure issues.

that's not. america that need your generations youngerthan me necessarily want to inherit it so how is that conversation going. well now.well i mean i will admit i mean there are a lot of members of congressmyself included that have been pushing for and are anxious to go big. when it comes to all theseinvestments that we need to make in infrastructure is only one of them. i mean that's one of the things that thatis something we have to when we get into

deeper conversations about the flintcrisis we have to remember that. that failing infrastructure isthe backdrop the decisions that have been described and the litany of decisionsthat judge washington put on the screen. those are the those are the stepsthat actually led to the crisis. it was a crisis made worse by the factthat we have aging infrastructure that is more susceptible to the kind ofextreme outcomes that we saw in flint. but it's not infrastructureissue all by itself. it's an issue of inequality in america it's an issue ofa failed educational financing system.

it's an issue of land use tax policy miniscule finance policytransportation policy that has made it very easy and convenient forplaces like flint to be overlooked. first of all we helped hollow themout with all these approaches and then because it is a. it is a characteristicof of race in america that the people who are making decisionsthat are foundationally based upon race don't see their own prejudice. don't recognize their own prejudice.

they are blind to their own prejudice ithought there was a really interesting moment in the debate the other nightwhen one of the questioners and asked a question on race andone of the i was going to political one of the respondents both ofthem happen to be caucasian like myself. said something that was really important. we can't understand everything about what it's like to be blackin america we can read about it. we can be we can be taught. we can learn.

we can try to experience it but we can't completely understandit first recognizing them and at least acknowledging it in the courseof conversation in the course of deliberation even in the course ofpolicy making is a huge step forward. so i just think we have to lookat the facts the facts are. it is majority minority communitiesthat almost always are the subject of appointment of emergencymanagers now is that an accident. no. because nor do i think it's an accident

that policy decisions that takeaway financial support for cities that happen to majoritythe majority minority are juxtaposed to policy decisions that give giant taxbreaks was just like writing a check to people who are almost entirely ifnot predominantly wealthy and white. i mean i don't think you canmix escape that reality and i think it's something that has to bepart of the conversation like you. that's huge elephant in the room right. takes a lot of couragebecause when we talk about trust trust is generated throughgreat transparency and so

we appreciate you beingthat transparent tonight. our next question over here place to short lines when we havefriends all over the country. you name three people theyshould be sending me e-mails letters and phone calls. and then the second is asyou know another thing. how about scholarships to all the stateschools for all the kids that live in the families of flint act is a hugeexpansion in pell grants for flint kids basically creating a flint promise becauseif we don't have something waiting for

these kids at the end thatlooks like opportunity. obviously we still want to provide themdevelopmental support until they're at that point butwe've got to get there and i'm sure that others have thoughtsabout who we should call. there's a couple of different categories. i think the faith community needs tobe activated on this to get to a lot of the folks who carry faith isa part of their core message but when it comes time tosort of put in policy. matthew twenty five forexample they're absent.

we need to actually i think we need toactivate the faith community to get at some of the folks that we don't normallysee as allies to hold them to their stated philosophies of government andso that these senators or i would say that the republicans in themichigan legislature the speaker just said he's not planning on any more supplementalfunding for bills for funding to come to flynn i actually think the governor'shiding behind the speaker on this one. so we need to go after both of them andthen honestly if you have friends in utah for example you could callthe u.s. senator told ing up our federal funding bill that would be enormouslyhelpful not friends in utah and so i just

want to briefly say that yes representedcarter who's the michigan speaker of the house needs to be called to taskfor inciting himself into this process. also we have the waters of humor. i bill packets of bills us inthe state house and lead chat fill. he is sitting like there are i want tosay a bill that are sitting and can. right now but then finally withthe air like conversation about face. there have been faith leaders involvedin this fight want first of all with the coalition for clean water whichwas one of the activists coalitions that formed with the concerned passers forsocial action and they were part of

an injunction to try to force us to goback to detroit water before we had the emergency declarations andthen finally misfired participant rising action which is anothergroup of clergy members is involved in this fight andi think that you know as we move forward. yeah all of the faith leaders are involvedbut there have been some that have stepped up and stuffed out and we need to honorhonor all of their all of their efforts. yeah if i could just to be clear i was notsuggesting the faith community was not involved because actually it was largelythe faith community that wouldn't let it go in flint what i'm talking about

is the faith community across the countrywho deal with members of congress who sit on the other side of the buildingthat i work in all the time and the other side of the aisle inthe hall that i sit in all the time. if you kind of get what i'm saying. so our last question isare at the podium and. i think we hear first. ok. yes yes. and i'm a veteran.

nineteen eighty three one thousandnine hundred eighty seven cap with north carolina. they had try having my thanks. because he th you knowduring that time and through that time veteransif you drank water for over thirty days you wereaffected with that water. to this day we are still fighting for medical health and compensation. now to take this forwhat i was saying from.

june of two thousand andfourteen to august of two thousand and fifteen the tri helm atthe head level was high. if you're one hundred fifty fourpounds drink two liters of water and it's high point eight. you are guaranteed outof ten thousand people. three people are guaranteed not a mite but guaranteed to die during augustof two thousand and fourteen. you had an eco light boil advisoryyou had legionella bacteria and you had t. th ons one of those.

violations where a ball advisorynotice you had to boil it legionnaire bacteria and th there's a tearto violation and you can't boil it. so we was i caught in a catchtwenty two what i'm getting at here is the fact that all we are letting themdo is set the narrative about kids and let you have all these adults but i don't mean the systems that was my stuffyou have kids you have regular adults because in the military we didn't have anybody that had i don't mean deficiencies. but they are a fact and now. you can't tell right nowif you are a fact that.

nowhere do i hear anyonespeaking about down the road. what are they going toput money to decide. i have petition eighty s.t.r.. agency toxic substances eastregistry they will not come in here. that's a federal nonfederal agency. part of c.d.c. and they still won't come. my issue is all of the new empty kuno that they can put us face in the waterbecause they didn't have the equipment to do it until december ninthtwo thousand and fifteen.

everybody knew. it's not just a gov it's empty. q mike presby told me on the phone. that we're learning as we go. my problem here is we don't have anyelected officials we can write and call our day has sent us toa voicemail have pushed us off. why won't why can't we get someone to saywe just came from lansing protesting my voice is gone now because weprotest from eleven o'clock today to three o'clock this afternoon.

so you question my question is can youcongress the kildee drink eighty s.t.r. again because in order for us to havea long time medical benefits just like with the veteran's a.t.'s t.r. had to comein and register it with the government. can you petition a t.s.r.eighty s t r and bring them in here so that they can register it for the adultsthat drunk that water over thirty days. let's hear the answer i will askthem to do that i can order them but i will ask and i will also askdr lawry and she will assist with that if you can get me while we can talk as wetalk afterward to get some some specific. thank you call me.

you got my number question here. i know you got it and will go quicklyyes or snyder it isn't also a speech so that he signed an executive order to make sure that we had allthe resources that we need. tricky ricky. a couple weeks later the supervisor ford.h.h.s. came by our student organization as forvolunteers. to pass out lead test results because hedidn't have the manpower to go out and tell residents that they're being poisonedand that their filters don't work so far.

snyder's relief package isa case of water day and filters for your sink faucet thosefilters that you have a clear. those are part of snyder's relief package. just one be clear about that. so we have to pay for those if we want to bathe in the water weshould buy those ourselves that's right. so your questions are my questionas it was a point to show. that can we hold snyder accountable sothat he can claim ignorance and at what point is itbecome criminal neglect.

surely it's or is up to till nowthe processes that are in place allow the governor to claim executive privilegethe freedom of information act doesn't apply that the governor i'm going to outof the goodness of my heart released e-mails that are almost entirely redactedblacked out what good is that that's not accountability to stand up and say i madea mistake and i'm going to make it right. that's accountability andhe hasn't done that but mark my words the story's not over. and this is what we know today. stay tuned for further developments.

last question and i ask you please waitfor some announcements yes or repeatedly. this is for congressman kildee andi'll talk to you later. and you'll remember who i am. we talked about replacing the lead linesand all the money coming for that for the infrastructure buti know you're from flint and i know and i worked in the water departmentat all this and i'm saying forget just replacing that lead because allyou get is more potholes on the road. you remember what flushing road used tobe like yeah flushing road is a beautiful road now because they dug it up completelyput in brand new water mains and

you got rid of all the lead. you've got copper lines andnow it's a brand new road same thing with third avenue and over by ketteringthe same thing with m.l.k. from downtown all the wayup to wells boulevard. but if you just want to dig up lead. and replace aging infrastructure. drive by sunset and brad. hills and see the main break that was donethe other day and replacing a lead line just just to do want to startreplacing everything a little hole

in the middle of a major thoroughfare bya major hospital on a major bus route and see that we just don'tneed to replace a lead. we need to replace waterme everything with. and i think we all can address justquickly say i agree hundred percent families feel and act isn't just the fiftyfive million dollars for service and replacement it's closer to seven hundredmillion dollars in total infrastructure solution but if we need to go big in this country oninfrastructure we have a way to do it. we could fund it simply bybeing as taxable redeeming as

repatriated offshore held profits and economic financial assets of companiesthat are owned and controlled in the united states that would generateenormous amount of money that could capitalize the public side of a nationalinfrastructure bank which would allow us to deal with infrastructure in a reallybig way not just picking at the edges. thank you for your questions and pleasegive our panelists some appreciation. we know that we're not able to answerall of the questions in every night so please again if you have questionsput them on your cars and we'll seek to answer thoseif you just sessions.

our next session will bemarch twenty third right here as you saw tonight economic andsocial justice issues surrounding water. the next session will be politicalpolitical backdrop around the water to have our elected officials here toaddress that we also want you to keep in mind that many of you havecome from week to week and we take that really really to heart andappreciate it. we want to know if you'dlike to be involved in a long term planning of issues around thisother issues that might be addressed. i believe there is a sheet out onthe table that you can sign in if you.

interested in what happensbeyond the water class. thank you so much we appreciate each andevery one of you and again it will take all ofus to make a difference. there is more to this thanjust bottles of water. this is our life we're talking aboutin order to make a difference. everybody counts so please take thatinto consideration invite someone to come with you on march twenty third andas always we say god bless you. we love you come back and see us again.