freep | Neeley's complaint to the governor came three months before a March
2015 consultant's report that recommended spending $50,000 to add
corrosion control chemicals to Flint's drinking water because iron was
leaching from the pipes and turning the water brown.
The
disclosure of the Snyder e-mail and a second one Neeley to State
Attorney General Bill Schuette in September asking for an investigation
into the Flint water delivery crisis came two days after Snyder promised
in his annual status report to fix the Flint water problem.
Schuette, who declined to investigate last fall, is investigating now.
Could
Neeley's complete letter have been omitted because he wrote
that "community health could be on the decline as citizens become afraid
to even shower or bathe in their homes. The people of Flint bring
bottles of brown water full of sediment and other foreign substances to
community meetings, asking only to be treated as human beings."
Nobody read that but the press secretary? Michigan deserves to hear those words this week. Flint deserves it.
“It’s
really hard to figure out who are the accessories to the crime being
committed against this city and who are the allies to fix this massive
problem that we facing,” Neeley said. “I think the governor has more to
say to the people of Michigan, and he is reluctant to say it. He’s
being selective about what truths he wants to release.”
Understandably,
Flint residents and some elected leaders are not sure whom to trust and
wonder whether all that needs to be done will be done – for residents
and for the children.
"The frustration hasn't subsided yet,”
Neeley said. “My frustration has grown with individuals who are very
dismissive of the Flint community and their concerns."
The question to be asked now may not be: What did they know and when did they know it?
The
question may be: How could an intelligent, organized millionaire
and former businessman have something happening in his state as
catastrophic as the Flint water crisis -- and not know about it for 18
months?
Or: What kind of people did he choose to work for him
that they would let this problem, which could have been resolved with a
$100 additive or a $50,000 anti-corrosion treatment, get this big? And
do they still work there?
And here's a third question: How could
this happen to Flint? The Rev. Jeffery Hawkins, pastor of Prince of
Peace Baptist Church just blocks from the Flint River, had an idea.
“I
believe it’s a city that has been kicked so many times, and when it
comes to voting, our numbers are not always the greatest numbers …
because of that, I think that the governor just doesn’t care about the
city,” Hawkins said. “But there are still human rights afforded, and he
could have cared far more than he did. There’s no excuse for what he
did, at the end of the day."
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