At today’s hearing on the Flint water crisis before the House Oversight and Government Reform, Democratic committee members made it clear time and time again that the poisoning of Flint’s drinking water with lead was the responsibility of the state government and the administration of Gov. Rick Snyder. On the other hand, Republican committee members spent the vast majority of […]

Darnell Earley, the former Flint Emergency Manager and current Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager will resign on February 29th according to a statement released by Gov. Snyder this morning on the state website. Earley, who has denied he was responsible for any of the problems in Flint or Detroit Schools, is quoted in the statement as basically saying, “Mission Accomplished”: […]

In comments here at Eclectablog and in many other media spaces around the globe, people are clamoring for the resignation of Michigan Governor Rick Snyder. For Michigan residents, that call has been ringing in the halls of this great state almost from the moment he was sworn into office for his first term. If we get into the “Way Back […]

One of the reasons I have written about Emergency Management in Michigan ad nauseum is because I contend that we are the testing ground for this anti-democratic move in state governments, the “beta testers”, if you will. With the evidence now in and showing it to be a colossal failure, other states are still moving forward with it. Indiana was […]

Most of you don’t know that I have literally written thousands of speeches, not for myself, but for many leaders in organized labor, titans of industry, and some serious politicians, some of whom are serving today. These speeches are written within the guidelines of confidential agreements and I have always taken this job very seriously, paying a great deal of […]

NOTE: It’s fundraising week at Eclectablog. If you find value in what we do here, please consider making a donation to ensure that all our regular contributors can be paid for their creative work. Click HERE for details. Thanks so much. – Chris On April 16, 2013, Flint Emergency Manager Ed Kurtz signed an agreement on behalf of the city […]

An apology must be just the beginning of the investment that must be made to rebuild the city This week the people of Flint, Michigan finally got an apology from the governor who appointed both the Emergency Manager who approved the poisoning of the city’s water and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality officials who dismissed citizens’ “perfectly legitimate scientific […]

The Flint water crisis was declared a state of emergency by Mayor Karen Weaver this week — something we’ve known for months. But much of the nation still has no idea what has been perpetrated against the people of this battered city. One person is trying to change that. “Governor, the water of the city of Flint, Michigan has been […]

The primary justification for Emergency Financial Managers or Emergency Managers in Michigan from the very earliest iterations (and continuing through to today) is that some cities and school districts were just too full of corruption and ineptitude and that the state needed to swoop in and save the day. However, this easy answer has turned out not have been the […]

In 1999, the Detroit Public School system had a positive fund balance of $246,300,000 according to a ten-year summary in their 2008 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (pages 91-92). That was the same year that the DPS was taken over by the State of Michigan under Republican John Engler. The school district was placed under the control of an Emergency Financial […]

Bill Nowling is a longtime Republican spokesman and strategist. He was Governor Rick Snyder’s spokesman for a time. Then he was Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr’s mouthpiece. Now Nowling is cashing in on Atlantic City’s current financial emergency: Atlantic City’s Emergency Manager, Kevin Lavin, appointed by Gov. Christie in January, did not issue an updated report this month as promised […]