Flint workers denounce foreclosure threat over water bills
By
Jerry White
18 May 2017
Angry workers in Flint, Michigan piled into a City Council meeting Wednesday to oppose city plans to put tax liens on their houses and strip them of their homes if they failed to pay back bills for water still poisoned with lead and bacteria. Under intense pressure from residents, the Democratic-controlled city council hurriedly convened an emergency session, just two days before the May 19 deadline to impose liens on some 8,000 homes, or a fifth of the city’s 40,000 occupied homes.
The threat to seize workers’ homes has provoked popular outrage in the city, which used to be the manufacturing hub of General Motors. Three years ago, an emergency manager appointed by Republican Governor Rick Snyder ordered a switch of the city’s water supply from Great Lakes water pumped and treated by the Detroit water system to heavily polluted and untreated water from the Flint River. This move, approved by Snyder’s Democratic Party state treasurer, Andy Dillon, precipitated the lead poisoning of city residents and a massive public health crisis that continues to this day.
The rage and pointed comments by residents exposed the deep alienation of the largely working-class population from the entire political establishment, which carried out this crime to funnel more money into the hands of wealthy bondholders, private contractors and real estate developers. Over the last three years, Democrats and Republicans alike, from Governor Snyder to President Obama, have sought to cover up this crime and mollify public anger with bogus promises that have brought no relief.
Declaring that lead levels had fallen below unsafe levels, Governor Snyder cut off subsidies that were…