usatoday | U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes was due to decide Tuesday on a
request to issue a restraining order against additional shutoffs of
customers with unpaid water bills.
People need water "to live, to survive, to thrive," lawyer Alice Jennings told Rhodes in a hearing Tuesday morning. "The inability to flush a toilet quite frankly, your honor, creates a health problem."
Jennings represents a number of groups opposed to the Detroit Water
and Sewerage Department's aggressive program of going after unpaid water
bills. The department has cut off water to 19,000 homes in recent
months, with about 5,000 remaining without water, Jennings said. The
groups fighting the shutoffs include the National Action Network,
Moratorium Now, the People's Water Board and the Michigan Welfare Rights
Organization.
Jennings said the shutoffs endanger low-income
families and particularly children and vulnerable seniors. The groups
are seeking the restraining order until the city has a more
comprehensive plan for helping the poorest city residents with financial
help to pay for a critical service, much the way there are resources to
help against electricity and heat shutoffs.
But a lawyer for the water department, Tomothy Fusco, said the
department opposes the move because it would be an unprecedented effort
to prevent it from following through on its duty to properly run the
department, including going after customers illegally hooked into water
service.
Fusco also said that under the federal bankruptcy code,
judges aren't authorized to instruct local governments on how to
operate.
"This is not the forum or the way to deal with this issue," Fusco said.
