VIDEO ABOVE: Flint water activist collapses into coma
NBC 25’s Dave Bondy talked to an emotional Sharon Moore following the congressional hearings in Washington on February 3. Moore’s son Jerome contacted Bondy on Friday, Feb. 12 telling him that Sharon collapsed earlier in the week while protesting during Governor Rick Snyder’s 2017 Budget Presentation at Lansing Capital building. Jerome Moore tells us his mother remains in a Lansing hospital after waking up from a coma. She is now conscious and talking to nurses.
No Flint water crisis if no Karegnondi Water Authority
KWA started “greatest water war in Michigan history”
GLWA widened war, taking over all of DWSD
KWA initiator Jeff Wright, a Democrat, tied to scandal-plagued Synagro, alleged money-laundering, shady campaign financing
Wright prioritized selling untreated water to DTE, other businesses over the people’s need for treated water
By Diane Bukowski
February 14, 2015
DETROIT – The mass lead poisoning of the people of Flint, Michigan, a cold-blooded act of domestic terrorism, was contrived for the profit of the Wall Street bond market, corporations and politicians by both Republicans and Democrats with their own agendas
Karegnondi Water Group members get Bond Buyers’ “Midwest Deal of the Year” award in 2014. Without them, the poisoning of Flint would not have happened.
The two parties are battling the matter out in electoral debates, with Michigan’s Republican Governor Rick Snyder justifiably though hypocritically castigated by Democratic candidates like Hillary Clinton for his role in this unspeakable catastrophe.
“The governor of that state acted as though he didn’t really care,” Clinton said during the NBC News debate in Charleston, S.C. “If the kids in a rich suburb of Detroit had been drinking contaminated water and being bathed in it, there would’ve been action.” Clinton’s Democratic opponent Bernie Sanders simply asked Snyder to resign.
In the most cynically exploitative campaign move so far, Clinton just published the video below. It calls for donations to a Flint non-profit, rather than pledging billions from the U.S. Treasury to save Flint, just as the U.S. Treasury bailed out General Motors, which left Flint, taking with it 72,000 jobs.
No politician has expressed any intention of locking Snyder and cronies up for life without parole, the only sentence appropriate under Michigan law, or of providing the billions of dollars necessary to rebuild not only Flint’s water infrastructure, but the city itself, devastated for decades by its abandonment by General Motors and other corporations.
Ten Flint residents have already died from Legionnaire’s disease linked to contamination of the city’s water. Tens of thousands more, especially children and babies, face irreversible life-time damage due to the neurological and behavioral effects of lead, according to the World Health Organization.
A petition to recall Snyder has finally been approved by the notoriously recalcitrant State Elections Board and will no doubt receive mass support, as it should.
But make no mistake—getting rid of Snyder will not cut out the cancer of racism and profiteering that has devastated Flint, Detroit, and cities across the U.S. for years.
The most blatant example of the bi-partisan midwifery of the Flint water catastrophe is the creation of the Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA), in what a Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) spokesman called “the greatest water war in Michigan’s history.”
He was quoted before the creation of the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA), which has since robbed the people of Detroit, the largest Black majority city in the U.S., of the entire DWSD, the country’s third largest water and sewerage system, founded in 1836, which had been serving 40 percent of Michigan’s population.
The poisoning of the city of Flint, which is also a majority Black, would not have happened without the creation of the KWA at the instigation of Genesee County Drain Commissioner Jeff Wright, a white Democrat who has been Drain Commissioner since 2001 and spent 23 years prior to that in the department under former Drain Commissioner Anthony Ragnone.
According to U.S. Census figures, Genesee County is 75.2 percent white, and 20.6 percent Black, with a 21 percent poverty level. Flint is 37.4 percent white, and 56.6 percent Black, with a 41.5 percent poverty level.
In 2013, the KWA began building a 63-mile pipeline to Lake Huron that runs parallel to DWSD’s pipeline for the region. While boasting it will lower water rates, the Authority admits the pipeline will only deliver raw water, unlike the DWSD, which delivers fully treated water. Communities which sign on to it will have to treat their own water, creating ways to do so at additional costs to customers and profits to contractors. Wright said in 2011 that he wanted to bring raw water in for the benefit of businesses in the area.
The pipeline was supposed to have been up for operation by 2015.
Jeff Wright, CEO of KWA, Genesee County Drain Commissioner
The KWA now includes the “Genesee County Drain Commissioner, Lapeer County Drain Commissioner, Lapeer City, Sanilac County Drain Commissioner and the City of Flint,” according to its website. St. Clair County is reportedly also considering membership as Wright courts more regional customers.
Wright, who has a history of shady dealings with water contractors, began the push to create the KWA in 2006. Snyder’s appointee, Flint Emergency Manager Ed Kurtz, later endorsed it as well. In 2013, Wright got the Democratic City Council of Flint to agree to disconnect the city from the DWSD, which had supplied high-quality water to Flint residents since 1967, and connect with the KWA instead.
Due to KWA construction delays, however, Snyder and Kurtz ordered the ultimately disastrous long-term use of the polluted Flint River in the interim, falsely claiming that Detroit had refused to negotiate better rates for its Genesee County customers. While the Flint Water Treatment Plant, using the Flint River, has always been a back-up water supply to DWSD, which gets its water from Lake Huron, the plant was never outfitted to operate with river water for more than 20 days, on an emergency basis.
DTE’s Greenwood Energy Center in Avoca, MI is on the proposed Karegnondi line.
VOD reader Peter Bernard wrote, “DTE has been involved in the formation of KWA since the beginning. DTE didn’t need treated water to run its turbines. Was it the demand of DTE for untreated water as soon as Flint withdrew from DWSD that caused Flint to pump untreated water into its supply system? I worked for Detroit Edison as a summer intern 60 years ago and they always thought pure water was an extra expense since super-heated stem automatically purified the water driving the steam turbines.”
In 2011, Ron Fonger of the Flint Journal reported that DTE told the KWA board it was interested in purchasing up to three million gallons of untreated water per day from the Authority for its Greenwood Energy Plant.
“Genesee County Drain Commissioner Jeff Wright called the news ‘very encouraging’ during a meeting of the KWA Board of Directors today, and said others could follow ‘as more businesses are made aware of (what we are doing and) the lower cost of untreated water,'” Fonger wrote, adding that Wright said KWA would work with DTE.
Map shows KWA pipeline in red, DWSD pipelines in blue.
In 2014, the Bond Buyer magazine gave KWA the Midwest Bond Buyer of the Year award during an elaborate ceremony in New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, for its second sale of $220 million in bonds to finance the pipeline, an intake facility, and two pumping stations.
It earlier sold $35 billion in bonds despite Detroit’s bankruptcy filing.
“Long before Detroit filed its Chapter 9 bankruptcy case in the summer of 2013, Flint and Genesee County, Michigan saw the need to break away from their dependence on the Detroit water system,” the narrator of a video shown at the ceremony said in a disingenuous, factually inaccurate introduction.
“In 2010 they formed the Karegnondi Water Authority, the two governments’ long-term strategy to deliver a more reliable water supply at more reasonable rates. After years of planning and crafting a bond structure with dual backstops to protect investors, the Authority hit the market in early April with its inaugural issue for $220 million in bonds. . . .The governments expect to cover the debt repayments with system revenues, and both put their limited tax GBO payments behind the bonds.”
The narrator said that Genesee County also pledged to cover Flint’s portions of the bonds if it is not able to do so under state emergency management.
Former Detroit CFO Sean Werdlow and former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick receive Bond Buyer award in 2004 for disastrous $1.5 billion COPS deal.
“Entering a market where local governments across Michigan faced heightened penalties, the authorities sold the bonds to more than 30 investors and achieved borrowing costs below projections,” the narrator said. “The deal paves the way for the County to trade in annual rate increases of about 11.5 percent for ones closer to five.”
The presentation recalled a similar Bond Buyer award given to former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his then-CFO Sean Werdlow in 2004, for the disastrous sale of $1.5 billion in “Certificates of Participation,” or “Pension Obligation Bonds,” an amount that ballooned to $2.8 billion with default penalties and interest swaps. Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr cited the deal as one reason for his improperly authorized 2013 Detroit Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing, but never followed through on a lawsuit he filed calling it “void ab initio, illegal and unenforceable.”
Below is the video presented at the Bond Buyer 2014 awards ceremony, on the Karegnondi Water Authority and the bonds involved.
In 2013, Tucker, Young, Jackson and Tull (TYJT), a Detroit-based engineering and consulting company, was contracted by the Michigan Department of Treasury to provide a study of the proposed KWA, contrasting it with the advantages of Flint remaining with the DWSD. The study strongly contradicted claims the Bond Buyer made at the 2014 awards ceremony, and other made in a study contracted by the community of Swartz Creek. (See full TYJT study at http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/FLINT-KWA-TYJT-water_report.pdf,)
DWSD spokesman Bill Johnson
“The Flint City Council’s approval of the Genesee County Drain Commission-backed idea to link Flint and a proposed multi-county connector effectively launched the greatest water war in Michigan’s history, “ Bill Johnson, communications head for the DWSD, said in a press release. “The action ignores a credible state-sponsored study that came out against the ill-advised Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA) project. And the vote makes no connection to Flint’s fiscal reality. All things considered, the City of Flint is best served by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD).” (See full release at http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/water_war_undermines_flint-dwsd_relations-2013-14.pdf.)
The study concluded that the cheapest and safest option out of eight through 2042 for Flint’s water supply was to provide it directly through an adaptation of DWSD’s Imlay City pumping station, which is closer to Flint. DWSD has always provided water for the area through its Lake Huron Water Treatment Plant at Ft. Gratiot, Michigan, which sends it to the Imlay City station to go to Flint. Flint then supplies it to other regional customers. (See graph below.)
TYJT noted that the KWA proposal did not account for cost overruns on construction contracts, an almost inevitable occurrence, or provide a back-up water supply as does the DWSD for all its customers in the event of failure of the primary supply.
Why did Wright ignore this study? His connections with shady contractors during his tenure as Genesee County Drain Commissioner beginning in 2001, and earlier in his 23 years serving under former Drain Commissioner Anthony Ragnone, are well-known.
Southwest community organizer Denise Hearn leads protest against Synagro’s Detroit boondoogle outside the Detroit Wastewater Treatment Plant July 31, 2008.
Wright himself formerly owned a water consulting business called Tara/Aqua Management. During his term as Commissioner, he has signed multiple contracts with Synagro Technologies, Inc. for sewage sludge removal, dewatering, and land application at the county’s Linden and Ragnone treatment plants, from 2002 through 2009, according to a 2010 Flint Journal expose by reporter Ron Fonger.
At least two of the Genesee Drain Commission Synagro contracts, in 2003 and 2005, were signed by James Rosendall, former Synagro vice-president of development who went to prison for 11 months, in connection with the Synagro/Carlyle bribery scandal that brought down former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, DWSD head Victor Mercado, and former City Council President Monica Conyers, among other Black city officials.
Synagro VP James Rosendall.
Rosendall was the only white who was jailed, while Black officials who refused to act as FBI informants received terms as long as five years. Judge Avern Cohn barred the defense from asking why Synagro and the Carlyle Group were not charged in the RICO indictment.
Wright was an FBI informant against Conyers’ aide Sam Riddle during the probe. Many officials involved in the probe acted as informants rather than being charged as well.
Synagro was purchased by the insidious Carlyle Group in 2007, one of the largest private equity and alternative investment firms in the world which has extensive ties to the global defense industry.
The Carlyle Group’s board has included politicians from around the world, including former U.S. Presidents George H. W Bush and George W. Bush, and their former cabinet members U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, also former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Arthur Levitt, who served under Pres. Bill Clinton. It is connected to the Bin Laden family and to former Phillippines dictator Fidel Ramos, among numerous others. Synagro went bankrupt in 2013 and was sold.
The KWA’s current major contractors include the omnipresent L D’Agostini & Sons, based in Macomb, at a starting cost $24.6 million for the pipeline and $11.06 million for the intake station on Lake Huron. D’Agostini earlier sued the DWSD because it was barred from further contracting with the department after its involvement in the RICO indictment of Kilpatrick et. al. was exposed. D’Agostini previously did 70 percent of its business with the Department.
The Alabama-based American Cast Iron Pipe Company, which operates one of the largest ductile iron pipe casting plants in the world, has a contract with a starting cost of $84.1 million, while the Flint-based E & L Construction’s contract for the Imlay City pump station has a starting cost of $11.78 million. All this work duplicates DWSD pipelines and intake and pumping stations already servicing the area.
Pipe for Karegnondi Water Authority is hoisted into Lake Huron.
Recently, Channel 2 reporter Charlie LeDuff interviewed Jeff Wright in a story focusing on the profits made by contractors on the Flint water switch. They included Kurtz campaign contributors AECOM, with $18 billion in revenues in 2015, and the engineering firm hired to ensure that the switch to Flint River water would be safe, LAN (Lockwood, Andrews and Norman). LeDuff reports that firm’s original contract began at $140,000 and ballooned later to $4 million, despite the fact that it did NOTHING to ensure the safety of the city’s water.
(VOD takes issue with LeDuff’s initial contention that Flint ratepayers decided to opt for the KWA because they were paying “outrageous” rates to Detroit. That is a claim that has been made by DWSD’s wholesale customers in six counties for decades, never with an addendum that the communities involved add their own surcharges to the wholesale rates. LeDuff also appears to conclude at the end that water flowing through Flint’s pipes now from DWSD is safe, which it will not be until complete replacement of the corroded infrastructure. )
Carrier Air Conditioner [parent company United Technologies] is moving production to Monterrey, Mexico putting 1,400 Indianapolis Jobs south of the border in 2017.
From TheIndyChannel.com Staff
February 10, 2016
Carrier A/C plant in Indianapolis, Indiana.
INDIANAPOLIS — There were gasps of anger and disbelief. There was yelling. At least one person in the crowd of Carrier employees shouted things that cannot be written here.
The employees had just been told the heating, cooling, air conditioning, and refrigeration company was relocating its Indianapolis plant to Monterrey, Mexico.
Carrier workers react with rage to announcement by Chris Nelson, seen speaking at top.
Around 1,400 people work at the plant. According to a release from Carrier, there will be no immediate impact on jobs.
The relocation process will take place over a 3-year period, according to the company. The work movement is expected to start in 2017, with completion in 2019.
Chris Nelson, president of HVAC Systems and Services North America, released a statement about the move.
“This move is intended to address the challenges we continue to face in a rapidly changing HVAC industry, with the continued migration of the HVAC industry to Mexico, including our suppliers and competitors, and ongoing cost and pricing pressures driven, in part, by new regulatory requirements. Relocating our operations to a region where we have existing infrastructure and a strong supplier base will allow us to operate more cost effectively so that we can continue to produce high-quality HVAC products that are competitively positioned while continuing to meet customer needs.”
Chris Nelson
“This decision is difficult and we recognize the impact on employees, their families and the community,” Nelson said regarding the status of the employees. “We are committed to ensuring that our employees are treated respectfully and to working closely with their representatives throughout this transition.”
VOD: According to its website, United Technologies had $57.9 billion in net sales in 2014, and employs nearly 200,000 people across the world.
“A leader in the global building systems and aerospace industries, United Technologies invents new and better ways to keep people safe, comfortable, productive and on the move,” the site boasts. “By combining a passion for science with precision engineering, we create the smart, sustainable solutions the world needs.
The F-35 Lightning II jet, the next-generation fighter for the United States and its allies, is powered by Pratt & Whitney’s F135 engine. The U.S. Marine Corps’ F-35B variant is on track for initial operational capability in 2015, followed by the Air Force’s F-35A in 2016 and the Navy’s F-35C in 2019. Photo: UTC
“Our commercial businesses include Otis elevators and escalators and UTC Climate, Controls & Security, a leading provider of heating, ventilation, air conditioning, fire and security systems, and building automation and controls. Our aerospace businesses include Pratt & Whitney aircraft engines and UTC Aerospace Systems. United Technologies also operates a central research organization that pursues technologies for improving the performance, energy efficiency and cost of its products and processes.
And the beat goes on–while Pratt & Whitney helps the U.S. obliterate people in wars across the world, its parent company UTC is obliterating the jobs of people here at home. Most comments on a Twitter post called on people to vote either for Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump.
WAKE UP AND RISE UP, FOLKS! No matter who is elected, the next assault on U.S. workers in pursuit of war-mongering profits is coming to your neighborhood soon.
DO NOT VOTE FOR WAYNE COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE MICHAEL HATHAWAY THIS NOVEMBER
The ordeal of Clifford and Mary Ann Stafford at the hands of the Domestic Terrorist unit known as the Wayne County Deed Fraud Task force continues.
Clifford and Mary Ann Stafford
Mr. Stafford was sentenced to 18 months probation Jan. 13 for “obstruction of justice” related to a predatory Wells Fargo mortgage neither Stafford was connected to. Wells Fargo itself stated it did not initiate the criminal complaint although it is listed as the complainant.
On the same day, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Michael Hathaway (of “MO’ WATER SHUT-OFFS’ fame ***), ordered that a postconviction “Ginther hearing” be held for Mary Ann Stafford, after reviewing her pro se motion for the hearing.
The motion alleges “ineffective assistance of counsel” during the Staffords’ trial Nov. 30 to Dec. 4, 2015, referring to attorney Steve Lockhart, and also references both prosecutorial and judicial misconduct.
Judge Hathaway first assigned attorney David Goldberg to conduct the hearing. When Goldberg told Mrs. Stafford that he was not going to hold the hearing as ordered, Mrs. Stafford fired him and retained another attorney at significant cost, Craig Tank, to do so.
Judge Michael Hathaway
However, Mr. Tank has now informed VOD that he cannot hold the Ginther hearing because there is no time to review trial transcripts before a sentencing date Judge Hathaway set for Friday, Feb. 12 at 9 a.m. Instead of objecting to Hathaway’s action, Tank said he would deal with Ginther issues AFTER the sentencing.
However, the Michigan Supreme Court decision in Ginther says such an evidentiary hearing must be held at the trial court level:
Although Ginther would have us reverse his conviction, until he establishes the factual substantiality of the claims that the judge should have disqualified himself, that another lawyer should have been substituted and that the plea of guilty was impermissibly induced, the only relief we could properly grant would be to require an evidentiary hearing concerning those claims.
A defendant who wishes to advance claims that depend on matters not of record canproperly be required to seek at the trial court level an evidentiary hearing for thepurpose of establishing his claims with evidence as a precondition to invoking the processes of the appellate courts except in the rare case where the record manifestlyshows that the judge would refuse a hearing; in such a case the defendant should seek on appeal, not a reversal of his conviction, but an order directing the trial court to conduct the needed hearing.
Meanwhile, another pro se motion alleging prosecutorial misconduct against Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Douglas and misconduct as a public official against Investigator Mary Williams-Jones is being prepared in defense of Mrs. Stafford. With reference to that motion, see story below:
Prosecutor who sent innocent man to death row is disbarred
Anthony Graves, sent to death row on falsified evidence.
February 6, 2016
AUSTIN, Texas — A former prosecutor who used false testimony and withheld evidence to send a now-exonerated man to Texas’ death row has lost an appeal to overturn his disbarment.
The Dallas Morning News (http://bit.ly/1TPB1fq ) reports that the Board of Disciplinary Appeals on Monday upheld the decision of the State Bar of Texas to disbar Charles Sebesta. The board’s decision is final.
The bar revoked the Burleson County district attorney’s law license in June, finding he had engaged in prosecutorial misconduct in the case of Anthony Graves.
Graves was sentenced to death in 1994 in the slayings of six people in South Texas two years earlier. A federal appeals court reversed his conviction in 2006.
Prosecutor Charles Sebesta loses law license.
Graves spent 18 years in prison, including 12 on death row. He filed a complaint in January 2014.
___
Information from: The Dallas Morning News, http://www.dallasnews.com
Greek workers from wide swath of unions participate in general strike against austerity measures, pension cuts Feb. 4, 2016
Opposition to pension reform has cut across wide swath of occupational groups
Youth participation widespread
February 4, 2016
Services across Greece ground to a halt Thursday as workers joined in a massive general strike that cancelled flights, ferries and public transport, shut down schools, courts and pharmacies, and left public hospitals with emergency staff.
Riot police in Athens duck petrol bomb thrown by protesters Feb. 4, 2016
Well over 20,000 supporters of a Communist party-backed union were marching through central Athens, while around 10,000 more people — including about 1,000 lawyers in suits and ties — were gathering for a separate demonstration. A heavy police presence was deployed in the capital, as previous protests have often degenerated into riots.
Unions are angry at pension reforms that are part of Greece’s third international bailout. The left-led government is trying to overhaul the country’s ailing pension system by increasing social security contributions to avoid pension cuts, but critics say the reforms will lead many to lose two-thirds of their income to contributions and taxes.
Opposition to the reform has been vociferous, uniting a disparate group of professions, including farmers, artists, taxi drivers, lawyers, doctors, engineers and seamen among others.
Taxi drivers block traffic, battle police
Demonstrations were also planned in Thessaloniki — where about 200 taxi drivers drove through the city centre honking their horns in protest Thursday — and other Greek cities.
Thursday’s general strike is the most significant the coalition government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has faced since he initially came to power about a year ago. As an opposition party, Tsipras’ radical left Syriza party had led opposition to pension reforms, but he was forced into a dramatic policy U-turn last year when he faced the stark choice of signing up to a third bailout or the country being kicked out of the eurozone.
Syriza has even issued a statement backing Thursday’s strike.
A passenger looks at an announcement board inside the Athens Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, as flight controllers hold a work stoppage during a 24-hour general strike against planned pension reforms in Thursday. (Michalis Karagiannis/Reuters)
Athens pensioner Yannis Kouvalakis said Tsipras’ government “fooled” Greeks by promising to reverse austerity cuts.
“Because they are from the left, what happened? Was the situation saved? Things got worse. They’d said they’d give some money to pensioners or the unemployed, increase the minimum wage to 750 euros (per month),” he said. “They cut five euros from my pension … What can they give? Forget it.”
The strike comes as the government negotiates with Greece’s international debt inspectors, who returned to Athens this week to review progress on the country’s bailout obligations. The central Athens hotel where the inspectors were staying was heavily guarded by police.
Farmers blockade Athens to Thessalonki highway.
Ferries between Greece’s islands and the mainland remained tied up in port as part of the strike, while only limited public transport was operating in Athens for a few hours in the day and taxis also stayed off the streets. More than a dozen domestic flights were cancelled, while farmers maintained their blockades of highways that have forced motorists into lengthy detours.
State-run hospitals were functioning on emergency staff, while state schools, many shops and gas stations were shut.
Terrance Kellom’s father Kevin Kellom, stepmother Yvette Johnson, with family members of two others killed by police, Kimberly Griffin (Kimoni Davis) and Mertilla Jones (Aiyana Jones), during national tour against police brutality.
Dearborn cops on wild again, killing Detroiter Janet Wilson Jan. 28
No justice yet for Kevin Matthews, killed by Dearborn cop Dec. 3
Dearborn cops illegally demanded ID from Terrance Kellom’s stepmother Yvette Johnson, a jitney passenger
Wayne Co. Prosecutor Kym Worthy, who refused to charge cops in Kellom execution, resurrected previously dismissed case vs. Johnson
Johnson held 12 days before release on bond
Dearborn cop threatened to arrest reporter making legal request to view Yvette Johnson’s file
By Diane Bukowski
February 4, 2016
Janet Wilson, killed by Dearborn cops Jan. 28, 2016 in Dearborn
Kevin Matthews, killed by Dearborn cop Dec. 23, 2015 in Detroit
DEARBORN – The Dearborn police appear not to have been deterred by a large protest and cries of outrage over their recent killings of unarmed mentally ill Black Detroiters, Kevin Matthews on Dec. 23 and Janet Wilson, 31, on Jan. 28.
Now they and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy have targeted Yvette Johnson, the stepmother of Terrance Kellom, 19, killed in his father’s Detroit home by an inter-agency police task force last April. Worthy faced extreme pressure and criticism for not charging police in the young dad’s death.
Johnson has been active along with her husband Kevin Kellom in fighting for justice for their son, rallying in Detroit and traveling to various cities to build the national movement against racist police killings.
Terrance Kellom with baby son before he was executed by police task force in April, 2015.
“I was coming home in a jitney when the Dearborn police stopped us Jan. 21,” Johnson told VOD. “They made the driver and me show our ID’s, then they did a warrant search, and arrested me.”
The reason for the stop is unknown. The Michigan Legal Aid Society says such searches of passengers are uncalled for.
“You must show identification if you are stopped while driving or if you are in a place that sells alcoholic beverages,” Legal Aid says on their website. “At any other time, you cannot be legally arrested for failing to present identification to a police officer. However, you may be asked to state your name, age, and address.”
Court records in the case indicate that Dearborn police officer Cpl. Daniel J. Goebel stopped the jitney Jan. 21, 2016 at 19401 Hubbard, the address for Henry Ford Medical Center in Fairlane.
Janet Wilsons car, punctured by bullet holes, after it was rammed by Dearborn cops Jan. 28, 2016.
Just a week later, Dearborn police rammed Janet Wilson’s car from both sides a short distance away, at Hubbard near Southfield, then shot her to death, twice in the chest, through her windshield. They claimed she had tried to run down a cop.
According to news reports, Wilson had just left a store in the Fairlane mall after suffering a schizophrenic episode and was attempting to go home.
Ericka Erickson of Fox 2 News reported that Daryl Burke, a close family friend, said “She was murdered. That’s how I feel. She was murdered.” He said she was not dangerous and he had never been afraid of her.
Michigan State Police ICHAT records on Yvette Johnson do not show any outstanding warrants. But at the request of Dearborn police, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy re-instituted several 2014 felony charges against Johnson related to possession of a painkiller that Johnson said had been dismissed with prejudice in Garden City. The Dearborn court tacked on an outstanding bench warrant related to a 2012 Dearborn parking ticket.
Pros. Kym Worthy with Terrance Kellom’s autopsy diagram, as she refuses to charge cops who killed him.
Judge Vesta Svenson, who works weekends in a Romulus courthouse, arraigned Johnson on a “Controlled Substance” charge Jan. 24. The arraignment took place only after Kevin Kellom said he called the Dearborn Police Department repeatedly about his wife’s detention.
Kellom told VOD that Dearborn Police falsely claimed there was no longer a 72-hour limit on detaining an individual without charges. The Custody Order on Johnson incorrectly dates her arrest as Jan. 24, 2016. Johnson told VOD that a Dearborn cop appeared with her on-screen, and objected to Svenson’s original declaration of a personal bond.
Instead, Johnson was given a $4,000 bond, 10% cash, with a requirement for a tether.
Dearborn police station where Yvette Johnson was held.
The Kellom family had trouble raising $400 to bond Johnson out, but eventually with donations, bond was posted with Sheriffs at the Wayne County Jail on Fri. Jan. 29, after a lengthy wait. One of the members of the team that killed Terrance Kellom was a Wayne County Sheriff.
There were further abnormal delays over the weekend, and Johnson was not released from the tether unit at Dickerson Jail until Mon. Feb. 1. In all, Johnson had been incarcerated for 12 days, part of that time in the Dearborn police station.
Kellom said that during one call to the station, he heard a woman crying in the background, and a cop telling her “Oh, shut up, Sandra Bland.”
Sandra Bland, who died under suspicious circumstances in Texas jail cell.
Despite the fact that Dearborn borders Detroit, which is at least 82 percent Black, and that Detroiters frequent numerous establishments in Dearborn, the Dearborn police force has no Black officers, according to attorney Craig Tank. Its police chief Ronald Haddad is Arab-American, as are some of its officers, but there is not a lot of love lost between Detroit’s Black community and Arab-American merchants in Detroit.
When this reporter went to Dearborn’s 19th District Court to review Johnson’s file Feb. 1, she was escorted to Judge Sam Salamey’s chambers to do so by a court employee. Salamey is the judge set to conduct Johnson’s probable cause and bench warrant hearings Feb. 5.
Black defendant (right)being arraigned by 19th District Judge Sam Salamey Photo by Joe Slezak
While this reporter was reviewing the file, Salamey’s clerk Michelle and an Arab-American Dearborn cop, Officer Hazise, entered. Obviously enraged, Hasize snatched the file out of the reporter’s hand and physically advanced on her, threatening her with immediate arrest if she did not leave the chambers.
He said she had no right to review the file because it involved felonies.
However, Michigan statutes permit any citizen to review court files and obtain copies, unless limited by local ordinances, a fact that is well known in other courts this reporter has dealt with. Court administrator Eric Cyman eventually apologized for the actions of the two court employees, and gave the file back for review and copying to this reporter.
Judge Evans lectures Robocop for 20 minutes: “Today is payback for resorting to an act of cowardly brutality. . . .It ain’t no fun when the rabbit’s got the gun.”
Dent: “I may be able someday to forgive what he did to me as a man, but no one should ever forgive what he did as a police officer.”
Melendez (poem): “Those of us that carry badges can’t always be a saint. We work most Sundays and at times talk tough because the streets can be awful rough.”
Squires: “How many people has he put in jail, maimed and destroyed their lives, like he framed my son and gave him a record? He should have been locked up a long time ago.”
Media including Kevin Dietz of Channel 4 (l), who pursued Dent’s story, interview Floyd Dent (r) with attorney Gregory Rohl (center) after Melendez sentencing Feb. 2, 2016.
DETROIT—Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Vonda Evans sentenced former Detroit, Inkster, and Highland Park cop William Melendez to 13 months to 1o years in state prison Feb. 2 for his near fatal-beating of Floyd Dent in Jan. 2015.
“Robocop’s” police dashcam video of the grisly incident had captured worldwide attention.
A majority-Black jury convicted Melendez of “assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder” and “misconduct in office” Nov. 19, before his remand to Wayne County Jail. Judge Evans said a jail time credit of 90 days was to be applied to the second count only.
Judge Vonda Evans castigates actions of ‘Robocop’ Melendez for 20 minutes prior to sentencing him.
Melendez had faced a total maximum sentence of 15 years on both counts.
“The victim involved was a 58-year-old Black man driving a Cadillac in Inkster Jan. 28 before his life was changed forever,” Evans said prior to delivering the sentence.
“He was stopped for minor traffic offenses, had his hands extended out of his window, then was grabbed out of the car, thrown on the ground, struck 16 times in the head, kicked and tased by a group of angry and anxious police officers that celebrated afterwards by fist-bumping as shown on the video.”
Below is the dashcam video from “Robocop’s” own car that garnered world-wide attention and outrage.
Judge Evans said she was most struck by a police station video showing a bloodied Dent in an Inkster cell, shaking his head in disbelief at what had occurred.
Floyd Dent, bloodied and seriously injured, in police cell. No medical attention was given for hours.
“He must have been asking himself, ‘What crime did I commit: being a Black man in a Cadillac stopped by a group of racist police?’” she surmised.
Judge Evans notably said that Dent had BOTH hands out of the car before he was dragged to the ground by Melendez’ partner, an issue that was hotly contested by Melendez and his attorney James Thomas during the trial. They claimed Dent was reaching his right hand to the other side of the car.
However, a still frame from the video of his beating clearly shows Dent with both hands out after he opened his car door. Note the photo below, which shows his left hand reflected as a white shape in the glare of the police headlights, while his right hand is on the handle of the car door.
Dent shows both hands as Melendez trains gun on him during Jan. 28, 2015 stop.
The police station video, which included a section showing Melendez and other cops wiping Dent’s blood off their uniforms as they laughed and mocked Dent, was released only due to the dogged persistence of WDIV (Detroit Channel 4) reporter Kevin Dietz.
Judge Evans also cited racist texts from and to Melendez’ volunteer auxiliary cop partner John Zielenewski, including one that said, “At least give me the satisfaction of knowing you are out there beating up n*****s right now,” one text to Zieleniewski read.
Auxiliary Inkster cop John Zielenewski testifies at trial.
“LOL,” Zieleniewski said in his response. “Just got done with one.” Zieleniewski was the cop who dragged Dent out of his car.
“The way you denigrated that man was awful, making fun of him while you wiped his blood off your uniform,” Judge Evans told Melendez directly. “Today is payback for resorting to a cowardly act of brutality. There’s a saying, ‘It ain’t no fun when the rabbit’s got the gun.’ I can only punish your conduct, but it’s up to God to change your character.”
Judge Evans was constricted by sentencing guidelines of 29-57 months that included no previous convictions. Melendez has never been charged for two killings, beatings, frame-ups and death threats alleged in numerous lawsuits during his 25 year tenure on the Detroit and Inkster police forces.
William Melendez mugshot.
‘Robocop’ in battle gear.
He was charged federally in 2003 for being the ringleader of an LA “Ramparts” style squadron of Detroit Third and Fourth Precinct cops which brutalized poor people for years, but a jury acquitted him and the others despite the testimony of 17 Black Detroit officers against the defendants.
“He got off light, I was hoping at least three to four years,” Dent said after the sentencing. Most present seemed to deem it likely the state parole board would release Melendez after his minimum sentence, a situation that rarely occurs in the cases of more than 50,000 others in Michigan’s prison system.
“Going to prison is different than jail,” Dent added. “But I feel that no man should be away from his family. I have already forgiven him and have no hatred towards him. Physically and emotionally, I’m doing pretty good considering I can barely move my left arm, and the beating messed up my speech a little bit. But I would be willing to give up the settlement with Inkster if I could go back to my life as it was before Jan. 28.”
Floyd Dent with niece Dynisha Smith, who read his victim impact statement.
Dent’s attorney Gregory Rohl negotiated a settlement of nearly $1.4 million with the City of Inkster after thousands of people marched repeatedly on the Inkster and Highland Park police stations in Dent’s support.
Rohl said, “This sends a message to other police officers, that they face prison time in the future [for such offenses]. For once, a Black man has finally seen this happen.”
Earlier, Dent’s niece Dynisha Smith, wearing a T- shirt declaring, “Stop Police Brutality,” read his “Victim Impact Statement,” which he dictated to her.
“I would first like to thank the court for the kindness and respect shown toward me when I testified . . . I am here as a free man at least,” she read in part. “I am not the one going to court. . . But I will never be the same after Jan. 28. The beating has left me mentally and physically crippled for the rest of my life. I am grateful to all who supported me against the actions of ‘Robocop.’ I may be able someday to forgive what he did to me as a man, but no one should ever forgive what he did as a police officer.”
Dent was originally charged with possession of cocaine and other offenses later dismissed by the Wayne County Prosecutor.
Cornell Squires of Original Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality.
“Justice was served somewhat,” reacted Cornell Squires, who said his son was framed up by Melendez in 1999.
“Now he has a criminal record, now he will get to feel what it is like to be on the other side,” Squires said. “But he’s still getting preferential treatment—this is the second time they didn’t put handcuffs on him when they led him off. How many people has he put in jail, maimed and destroyed their lives, like he framed my son and gave him a record? He should have been locked up a long time ago. They need to revisit every case he had a part of; everyone should be exonerated. I’m glad that he got some time, thank God for a Judge like Vonda Evans that had the guts to have him incarcerated. She’s doing what most judges should do and don’t do.”
Squires is a member of the Original Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality.
Omar Gaither
“This is just business as usual,” Omar Gaiter, a Detroiter who was in court, told VOD. “It is superhard for a Black man out here, with cops who get paid to beat my a–. You get more time for beating a dog, like Michael Vick did, than [Melendez] got. The police don’t deter crime, the justice system does. They are nothing but a team of paramilitary bullies running around. There are thousands of innocent people in prison. I am afraid for my children in this system.”
The courtroom was packed with Melendez’s family including his wife Terry Melendez, and dozens of white cops, several of whom spent time glaring threateningly at Dent. Although not in uniform, some carried their police sidearms displayed prominently on their hips.
Also present was his former attorney David Lee, who defended him in the 2004 federal trial. Lee was at his side throughout most of this trial.
Melendez himself spoke, citing his military record as an MP, his long service as a cop, his founding of organizations including one for fallen police officers, and the dangers a cop faces working in [majority Black and poor] cities like Detroit, Highland Park and Inkster.
Addressing Dent and his family, he said, “I am truly sorry that this has caused undue hardships in your life and hope it has not caused animosity toward law enforcement. That was not my intent. Please have faith in law enforcement—many would risk their lives for you.”
He also read a poem called “The Final Inspection,” which he said he uses at funerals for “fallen” cops.
“Those of us that carry badges can’t always be a saint,” said one verse. “We work most Sundays and at times talk tough because the streets can be awful rough.”
Melendez’ current attorney, James C. Thomas, said he planned to appeal the sentencing, but did not say on what grounds.
Thomas claimed during the hearing that Dent was not seriously injured according to medical records from Garden City Hospital, where he spent three days after the beating, and from two brief visits to Henry Ford Hospital locations. He also asked Judge Evans for permission to access Dent’s records of psychiatric treatment prior to the beating, a request she denied.
He continued to insist in court that Dent was a drug user and had cocaine on him when he was stopped, despite extensive testimony by a Michigan State Police (MSP) expert at trial that secondary tests did not confirm the presence of cocaine.
Michigan Department of Corrections Probation Officer Eilea Murray, who did the pre-sentencing report on Melendez, took the stand at Judge Evans’ request. In her report, she said, she cited testimony by a Michigan State Police Investigator that although Melendez claimed he found drugs after an extensive search of Dent’s car, no other officer confirmed that allegation.
Melendez’ atty. James Thomas speaks after conviction Nov. 19, 2015, as Channel 4 reporter Kevin Dietz listens.
She recommended that Melendez be incarcerated. Judge Evans spent extensive time peppering her with apparently brutal questions about issues such as her non-inclusion of actual copies of citations given to Melendez by police departments, and medical records from Garden City and Henry Ford Hospitals. Judge Evans said Murray appeared to rely on reports provided by doctors paid by Dent’s attorney, but Judge Evans did not question their expertise.
Murray said she had to prepare the report in a short time frame before Melendez’ original sentencing date of Dec. 4 and did not have those records. But she maintained that even if she did, her recommendation would not have changed.
Despite lengthy suggestions for correction of the sentencing report from Thomas, Judge Evans said it would do no good to have Murray re-do the report since she had already said she would not change its final result.
Video below, courtesy of Jet Magazine, contains full text of Judge Evans’ statement before she sentenced Melendez.
Maryanne Godboldo in front of her home, with photo of her daughter Ariana, 13 when she was seized by a police SWAT team, forcibly medicated with harmful drugs, and abused in a state hospital. Maryanne’s battle is known world-wide, and has inspired others to fight state kidnappings of their precious children.
By Ambyr Amen-Ra
January 25, 2016
Police swat tanks roll down Linwood to kidnap Ariana from her mother in their home March 24, 2011.
Our parental rights are being undermined. Maryanne Godboldo sought to provide the best health care for her child; she disagreed with The State of Michigan, Department of Human Services and Child Protective Services’ demand that she medicate her child with Risperdal, a drug that has TERRIBLE side effects.
On March 24th, 2011 Maryanne was forced to protect herself and her daughter in the wake of an over-reaction by Child Protective Services and the Detroit Police officers on the scene. CPS claimed they had an order to remove her child from her custody and asked Detroit Police to gain access to her house to do so.
It was later revealed in court that the order was never presented to Maryanne on the scene, it was rubber stamped and never presented to a judge for sign off and Detroit Police were never meant to take her child. Once the Statof Michigan removed Ariana from her mother, a CPS worker signed off on a myriad of drugs to be administered to Ariana , even though she was not a doctor. At age 13, Ariana was taken from her mother for over 5 weeks and repeatedly drugged and abused while in the State’s custody.
Wayne County Prosecutor, Kym Worthy has vowed to continue to punish Maryanne. It has been almost five years and she is still fighting. After losing four court cases, Worthy has filed a fifth appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court. They have reversed the appeal and now Maryanne must fight for her freedom a FIFTH time. All she wants is to be left alone to repair the damage that was done by the State of Michigan. Please consider donating to Maryanne’s legal fund so that she can finally leave this all behind her and focus solely on her daughter, Ariana.
Video: Rachel Maddow interviews Michigan Radio reporter on Gov. Snyder’s refusal to comply fully with order from Environmental Protection Agency on Flint water crisis.
Protest against Flint water poisoning, high bills.
Keith Creagh, the new Director of Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality, is questioning the legality of an order from the USEPA that Michigan make some substantial changes in their response to the catastrophe in Flint. The political and regulatory blame game taking place as Flint’s water and public health crisis unfolds, took another turn Friday with the new head of Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality saying the state will comply with a federal order regarding the handling of the emergency, but is taking a combative stance in doing so.
First, DEQ Director Keith Creagh questioned the Environmental Protection Agency’s legal authority to make such demands. Then he disputed EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy’s contentions in her emergency order sent to the state Thursday that the state has delayed corrective action in Flint, where high lead levels were found in drinking water.
Keith Creagh, new head of MDEQ, previously led the Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources, which led campaign for state take-over of Belle Isle. Here, Monica Lewis-Patrick speaks at rally againt takeover Spet. 22, 2012.
[…] In Thursday’s order, the EPA said despite ongoing efforts in Flint even after the city switched back from Flint River water as its source to Lake Huron in October, there remained “underlying problems” and “fundamental deficiencies” in the response by both
The state and the city of Flint. It ordered them to inventory all the lead service lines in the city — an unknown number — and demanded the state create a publicly accessible website to post results of water sampling and reports.
Maddow will host a Town Hall Meeting in Flint, “American Disaster: The Crisis in Flint” on Wed. Jan. 27 at 9 p.m. Guests will include Flint Mayor Karen Weaver; U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow; Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha of Hurley Medical Center; Lanice Lawson, creator of Bottles for Babies; Curt Guyette, reporter for the ACLU in Michigan; Brynn Mickle and Ron Fonger of The Flint Journal; and Detroit Free Press columnist Nancy Kaffer.
Highest lead level in Flint: 13,000 parts per billion; most water nothing but “toxic waste”—Virginia Tech
Snyder: “I take full responsibility to fix the problem so it will never happen again.”
Snyder’s Public Act 436 coup d’etat led to Flint catastrophe; Pres. Obama refused to fight predecessor PA4 under Voting Rights Act
Detroit bankruptcy, impoverishment of Benton Harbor, Pontiac, Highland Park, other cities resulted from bipartisan-approved bankster takeovers
Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks in Flint, Lansing; ignores Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.s’ most effective campaign—the Montgomery bus boycott
By Diane Bukowski
January 20, 2016
DeMario Stewart of Flint said feeds his son Damonei Stewart during his two month checkup at Hurley Childrens Center. USA Today
DETROIT – The deliberate lead poisoning of the people of Flint, especially its children, babies and those still in their mothers’ wombs, likely ranks among the greatest genocidal crimes in the U.S. in the 21st century, an act of domestic terrorism comparable only to the thousands of murders of unarmed Blacks, Latinos and poor people by law enforcement since 2000.
No matter what promises Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder made in his State of the State address last night, no matter how many planeloads and truckloads of bottled water are brought into the city now, no matter how much is spent to restructure water systems, no matter how many speeches are given, rallies held, and class action lawsuits filed, the damage done is “irreversible,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
“Lead has . . .serious consequences for the health of children,” WHO says. “At high levels of exposure, lead attacks the brain and central nervous system to cause coma, convulsions and even death. Children who survive severe lead poisoning may be left with mental retardation and behavioral disruption. . . .In particular lead affects children’s brain development resulting in reduced intelligence quotient (IQ), behavioral changes such as shortening of attention span and increased antisocial behavior, and reduced educational attainment. Lead exposure also causes anemia, hypertension, renal impairment, immunotoxicity and toxicity to the reproductive organs. The neurological and behavioral effects of lead are believed to be irreversible.”
Adults are affected as well, as the graphic at right shows.
Every child and adult in Flint who drank Flint’s water since April, 2014 has been exposed to lead, according to studies done so far. That includes 8,657 children under the age of six, who are most severely affected. Ten adults have died so far from Legionnaire’s Disease, also a result of the lead contamination.
EPA guidelines for lead contamination of water indicate that action needs to be taken at 5-15 parts per billion (ppb) of lead, but that NO level is “safe.”
But in Virginia Tech’s study of 257 Flint households, according to the Washington Post, “The lowest reading they obtained was around 200 ppb, already ridiculously high. But more than half of the readings came in at more than 1,000 ppb. Some came in above 5,000 — the level at which EPA considers the water to be ‘toxic waste.’ The highest reading registered at an astounding 13,000 ppb.”
Detroit city retirees blast Snyder during protest against phony bankruptcy that left most impoverished, in Oct. 2013.
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the director of pediatric residency at Hurley Children’s Hospital who first exposed the severity of the crisis, told the AP, “It has such damning, lifelong and generational consequences.”
What punishment is sufficient for those who are responsible? What must be done to forever change the nature of the system that preordained this would happen?
“I know apologies won’t make up for mistakes that were made,” Snyder said at his State of the State address yesterday. “I take full responsibility to fix the problem so it will never happen again. We will be doing whatever we must until the crisis is resolved.”
He even hypocritically had Dr. Hanna-Attisha stand for a round of applause, mispronouncing her last name and saying he calls her “Dr. Mona.”
While admitting some responsibility, Snyder laid most of the blame on officials from the Michigan Departments of Environmental Quality and Health and Human Services, whose leaders answered directly to him. He announced he had fired several top MDEQ executives.
He repeated the lie that the DWSD terminated its service to Flint. He also blamed the Mayor and City Council of Flint, who voted in 2013 to connect with the private Karegnondi Pipeline, although they did not vote to disconnect from DWSD immediately or use Flint River water.
Map shows proposed Karegnondi pipeline in red, opposed to DWSD water lines in blue. Karegnondi will not build individual community treatment plants.
The Karegnondi Pipeline itself represents more dangers. The mainstream media has held it up as the ultimate answer to Flint’s problems, providing “clean” water from Lake Huron. However, they fail to mention that is ALL Karegnondi will do. The individual communities serviced by it must build their OWN treatment facilities.
An initial assessment from the U.S. Environmental Task Force’s newly created Flint Drinking Water Task Force warns, “There are many other communities scheduled to transition from their current water sources to the KWA pipeline. Although the source water will be the same for the City of Flint and all communities transitioning to the KWA pipeline source, the intended treatment planned for these communities may differ and the studies undertaken for the City of Flint may or may not be suitable for use by the other communities.”
Snyder also blamed the EPA. The EPA said in a statement, “Our first priority is to make sure the water in Flint is safe, but we also must look at what the agency could have done differently,” with a spokeswoman confirming the agency did not act fast enough to address the problem
The EPA statement also said that “while EPA worked within the framework of the law to repeatedly and urgently communicate the steps the state needed to take to properly treat its water, those necessary (EPA) actions were not taken as quickly as they should have been.”
It cited “failures and resistance at the state and local levels to work with us in a forthright, transparent and proactive manner.”
Flint’s Department of Public Works Director Howard Croft exposed Snyder.
But it was Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder who directly ordered Flint’s then-Emergency Manager Darnell Earley to disconnect Flint’s water system from the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department and use the Flint River water and city facilities, with no lead protections in place, in April 2014. That set the poisoning of Flint in motion, according to an article published by Curt Guyette in the Michigan Democracy Watch Blog.
“In a recent interview with the ACLU of Michigan, Flint Public Works Director Howard Croft . . . pointed the finger of blame at the state, saying the decision to switch came from the governor’s office,” Guyette wrote. See the ACLU documentary he sponsored in video below.
Earley, at Snyder’s behest, is now wreaking havoc in the Detroit Public Schools. As of today, 88 Detroit schools have been ordered shutdown due to walkouts by teachers over conditions in the schools and Snyder’s role in dismantling DPS. (See upcoming VOD article.)
U.S. Democratic Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton took cynical advantage of the situation during the presidential debates, opining that the lead poisoning would not have happened in affluent white cities. However, she did not say that if elected, she would have the U.S. Department of Justice criminally indict Snyder or any other operatives in the disaster.
Hillary Clinton
Clinton likewise neglected to address the millions of deaths and destruction of world-class water system and other infrastructures resulting from the genocidal global wars she and President Obama initiated against Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and throughout Africa and Latin America.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson of Rainbow: PUSH spoke last week in Flint about the lead crisis, and then stuck around for celebrations of the national Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday holiday Jan. 18. He was also present outside the Governor’s address.
“We should have .. tape around the city because Flint is a crime scene.” he said. “The people of Flint have been betrayed.”
But only two days after the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, Jackson did not propose using the strategy that resulted in one of Dr. King’s major successes–the Montgomery bus boycott, which brought the city to its knees economically and led eventually to passage of national civil rights legislation.
Carpool during historic Montgomery Bus Boycott.
VOD proposes once again A NATIONAL BOYCOTT OF MICHIGAN’S MAJOR BUSINESSES!
Why? As Dr. King proved, the only way to affect the slaughter of poor and working people by corporate interests is to hit the banksters in the pocket.
During a Michigan Welfare Rights march against the cut-offs of 12,600 Michigan families from public benefits on Sept. 29, 2011, VOD asked Jackson and U.S Representative John Conyers if they would call for a boycott of Michigan businesses in response to what the protesters said amounted to “murder.”
Both Jackson and Conyers reacted with a horrified, resounding “NO.” They said an “economic recovery” was underway in Michigan, despite evidence to the contrary all around them in the neighborhoods of Detroit.
Michigan Welfare Rights’ protest Sept. 29, 2011 against public aid cut-offs to families. Rev. Jesse Jackson refused to call a boycott of Michigan for this draconian measure. The late, renowned General Baker carries the “Tax the Rich” sign.
Jackson went on to attend Rainbow PUSH’s Global Automotive and Energy Summit at MGM Grand Casino the following week, hobnobbing with corporate executives who sit on Rainbow PUSH’s board.
In fact, it was Hilary Clinton’s husband Bill Clinton who signed the legislation which permanently cut-off of federal benefits to the poor after four years, if each state opted in. Just before she left office, Michigan’s Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm gave state approval, although she had vowed not to do so, leaving it to Snyder to drop the ax.
Today, Michigan’s majority-Black cities are suffering far worse than even in 2011.
Detroit children wait for free coats given away by the Moorish Science Temple of America.
In Detroit, with at least an 83 percent Black population, 59 percent of the city’s children live in poverty, with rates of unemployment, home mortgage and tax foreclosures and evictions, and public school shutdowns skyrocketing.
Under the Bankruptcy Confirmation Plan of 2014, Detroit has effectively lost the revenue of all its major assets, including the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, Belle Isle, and the Detroit Institute of Arts, where billions of dollars worth of art owned by the city was lost to a “trust.” The Flint debacle results directly from the state-sponsored dismantling of the country’s third largest public water and sewerage facility.
VOD recently reported that there are hardly any workers left at the city’s Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP), the largest in the U.S. and the third largest in the world. As raw sewage flows into the Detroit River and downriver to southeast Michigan and Toledo, Ohio, due to increasing disfunction there, countless more Flints can be expected.
The late, beloved Detroit retiree Belinda Myers-Florence, who fought Detroit bankruptcy with all her might as an officer of DAREA.
Like the WWTP workers, City of Detroit workers everywhere have faced massive lay-offs and privatization. Retirees are rapidly sinking below the poverty level, having lost huge chunks of their pensions, annuity savings, and medical benefits.
Some, such as Belinda Myers-Florence, officer of the Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association (DAREA), which has now appealed the bankruptcy plan to the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, have lost their lives due to the stress of this vicious attack.
Highland Park’s population of 10,000 is 93.5 percent Black, and 51 percent of its people live below the poverty level. Pontiac, 52 percent Black, has a 36.6 percent poverty rate. Flint, 56.6 percent Black, has a 41 percent poverty level.
Benton Harbor, nearly 90 percent Black, had 42.6 percent of its people living below the poverty level in 2013.
Rev. Edward Pinkney
General Motors first abandoned and impoverished Flint, Pontiac and Detroit, shutting down most of its auto plants in those cities.
Ford Motor Company, whose pro-fascist founder Henry Ford created the white city of Dearborn, has done nothing to stop the ongoing racist murders of Blacks who venture into that city, including the execution-style slaying of Kevin Matthews by a white Dearborn cop Dec. 23, 2015.
Chrysler abandoned Highland Park to its fate, leaving its public school system, libraries, and housing stock in shambles.
Among other Michigan-based companies, Whirlpool abandoned the 99 percent Black city of Benton Harbor, pulling its plants out, taking over public land, and sanctioning racist police murders there as well. With Whirlpool’s support, the activist Rev. Edward Pinkney is now languishing in a Michigan prison, falsely charged with changing dates on an election recall petition aimed at a Whirlpool-endorsed Mayor.
Detroit APTE VP Cecily McClellan speaks at rally against Benton Harbor EM
What is the common denominator for these cities, and many more like them, including even working-class majority white cities in Michigan? After all, over the last 10 years, the state has cut $7.2 BILLION in revenue-sharing to its cities.
It was the coup d’etat pulled off by Snyder and his legislative and corporate allies, in the secrecy of night in Dec. 2012. They created the second Emergency Manager Act, P.A. 436, after the residents of 84 out of 86 counties had voted down its virtually identical predecessor, P.A. 4, in a referendum vote.
Pres. Barack Obama, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
Despite pleas by Michigan’s Black population, 51 percent of which was disenfranchised under the Emergency Manager acts, the country’s first Black President, Barack Obama, and his Black attorney general Eric Holder, refused to open a Voting Rights Act investigation of the legislation, requested by U.S. Congressman John Conyers (D-Detroit).
Hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S. fought in the streets, in the fields, in the cities of the south and north, and many lost their lives, to establish the Voting Rights Act. The failure of a Democratic, Black administration to fight the attack on it in Michigan was a historic betrayal that can never be forgiven or forgotten.
Like the youth of Ferguson, Baltimore, Chicago and elsewhere, who have spent the last two years fighting in the streets for their very lives against police assassinations, the people of Flint and of Michigan must not be hoodwinked by the election hi-jinks being played out now.
DIRECT ACTION BY THE PEOPLE, INCLUDING BOYCOTTS, UPRISINGS, STRIKES LIKE THE CURRENT MASS WALKOUTS BY DETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS, AND OTHER MILITANT RESPONSES CAN BE THE ONLY APPROPRIATE RESPONSE TO THE HORRENDOUS CRIME WHICH HAS BEEN COMMITTED AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF FLINT.
Clifford Stafford sentenced to 18 months probation, $1300, community service
Hathaway to hold “Ginther” evidentiary hearing for Mary Ann Stafford Friday, Feb. 5, 2016
VOD makes further inquiries to Wells Fargo, which officially denied being “complainant” in case
“Place crime scene tape around Frank Murphy building”—Professor O
By Diane Bukowski
Jan. 15, 2016
2008 global economic meltdown caused by greedy subprime mortgage lending.
DETROIT – Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Michael Hathaway, late of “MO’-WATER-SHUTOFFS” notoriety,** laid the blame for the global subprime mortgage meltdown of 2008 on the shoulders of Detroit residents Clifford and Mary Stafford, giving passing mention to the nation’s banks and mortgage lenders, during the couple’s sentencing hearing Jan. 13.
Mr. Stafford is a retired autoworker and Marine Corps veteran, while Mrs. Stafford is a homemaker who does credit counseling and other community services.
Hathaway sentenced Mr. Stafford to 18 months probation, $1300 in fees, and 200 hours of community service for “obstruction of justice,” in allegedly defrauding Wells Fargo Bank, the largest home mortgage lender in the country. Mary Stafford, who was also found guilty of “False Pretenses,” a 15-year felony, will have a “Ginther” evidentiary hearing Friday, Feb. 5, 2016 at 9 a.m. based on several motions filed pro se including ineffective assistance of counsel.
Omar Mimrah
The last row of the courtroom was packed with members of the Staffords’ family and friends. They are asking to community as a whole to turn out for the Feb. 5 hearing.
“How can they say Detroit is coming back when the Detroit criminal justice system is sitting on a cesspool?” Omar Mimrah, known as “Professor O,” told VOD. “Yellow crime scene tape needs to be put all around this building [the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice], an investigation must be held, and it must be shut down.”
Several supporters noted that if the the Deed Fraud Task Force can target community anti-foreclosure advocates like the Staffords without cause, using fabricated and fraudulent evidence, no one is safe. Valerie Kauth, of Reliant Title, testified during the Staffords’ preliminary exam that it was NOT HER SIGNATURE AS NOTARY on a 2007 warranty deed repeatedly displayed to the jury. Yet the only person Douglas targeted was Mrs. Stafford, who said her signature on the same deed was forged.
Wells Fargo representative James E. Hines has already officially informed VOD that although the prosecutor listed the bank as the “Complainant” in the case, it “had no role in initiating the complaint.” VOD has now asked Mr. Hines if Wells Fargo plans to take any action regarding the misuse of their name and address by the office of the Wayne County Prosecutor. Mr. Hines said he will respond next week.
VOD earlier provided the Wayne County Prosecutor’s office with a copy of the email from Hines, but has not responded to a request for comment on why it prosecuted the Staffords citing Wells Fargo as the complainant.
“It is clear that you and your wife engaged in some part of a much much larger set of circumstances nationally, which almost brought this country to its knees,” opined Judge Hathaway during Mr. Stafford’s sentencing.
Wall Street’s banksters testifying before Senate in 2009.
“I concede that the mortgage lenders were largely culpable by being as reckless as they were in writing mortgage loans based on dubious circumstances, and that questionably ethical title companies and brokers participated in the process” he said. “But the other players were those who borrowed money, ultimately from the U.S. Treasury, with no intention or ability to pay off those loans.”
Hathaway evidently referred to the fact that the U.S. government, using taxpayer dollars, spent at least $7 TRILLION dollars bailing out the banks involved in the meltdown. Hardly any of that trickled down; only six percent of homeowners facing foreclosure got loan modifications required by the government.
The Staffords themselves were never accused of borrowing ANY MONEY at all from either the government or Wells Fargo, and certainly not $7 trillion. Hathaway broadly inserted a vague definition of “aiding and abetting” unspecified parties into jury instructions. His words Jan. 13 implied that they “aided and abetted” a $7 trillion theft.
Lecture from judge
“I guess you think you can just blow smoke in everybody’s face,” Hathaway continued. “It doesn’t really matter that you spent the first 64 years of your life as a hardworking veteran [without any criminal history]. It appears that you got yourself in over your head in a bogus deal that cost the government a lot of money.”
Before Hathaway’s remarks, Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Douglas demanded jail time for Mr. Stafford on his misdemeanor conviction, claiming he had wasted “an incredible amount of resources of the court, Wells Fargo and Fannie Mae.” She blamed him for exercising his constitutional right to file a “quiet title” lawsuit regarding the property involved, at 13236 Nautica in Belleville.
She said Mr. Stafford also should be charged over $96,000 in restitution to Wells Fargo, a fee which has been assessed in Mrs. Stafford’s sentencing report. Judge Hathaway denied that request.
Failed Wayne County jail project involved $41 million in overruns; Douglas unsuccessfully prosecuted the case.
Douglas unsuccessfully prosecuted two Wayne County officials accused of causing a $41 million overrun on the failed Wayne County Jail project. Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Vonda Evans found the indictment insufficient.
Wayne County Deed Fraud Task Force Investigator Mary Williams Jones said in her recommendation for a warrant that, “on July 7, 2015, writer received the closing package from Wells Fargo Bank for the sale of 13236 Nautica Drive from Private Consumer Consulting Services [PCCS] to Trenise Wyldon. The package revealed the following: Borrower Trenise Wyldon, Seller PCCS Mary Staffird, Settlement Agent Reliant Title. Cash from borrower, $23,140.93, cash to seller $379,273.00.”
VOD has also asked Wells Fargo whether it paid $379,273.00 to PCCS, and what it plans to do with the $96,000 in restitution required of Mrs. Stafford.
Broker Richard Woonton, an expert witness for the defense, testified during the trial that the entire Wells Fargo package was severely flawed and did not involve the Staffords or their company.
Clifford and Mary Ann Stafford
The “Ginther” hearing set for Mrs. Stafford derives from a 1973 Michigan Supreme Court decision in the case of People v. Herbert Ginther.
“Although Ginther would have us reverse his conviction, until he establishes the factual substantiality of the claims that the judge should have disqualified himself, that another lawyer should have been substituted and that the plea of guilty was impermissibly induced, the only relief we could properly grant would be to require an evidentiary hearing concerning those claims,” the high court ruled.
Such hearings are now common. In her plea for a Ginther hearing, Mrs. Stafford cited ineffective assistance of her counsel Steve Lockhart, the statement from Wells Fargo that it had no role in the criminal complaint, and other matters involving Judge Hathaway.
She has been assigned new counsel to represent her, but her supporters said they are considering retaining an attorney who is not afraid to deal with Judge Hathaway.
Hathaway earlier said in an in-chamber conference regarding Tigh Croff, who killed a 56-year-old grandfather who had run blocks away from Croff’s home, that he “would have done the same thing.”
No Flint water crisis if no Karegnondi Water Authority 
Published on Jan 28, 2016
Melendez himself spoke, citing his military record as an MP, his long service as a cop, his founding of organizations including one for fallen police officers, and the dangers a cop faces working in [majority Black and poor] cities like Detroit, Highland Park and Inkster.
It was later revealed in court that the order was never presented to Maryanne on the scene, it was rubber stamped and never presented to a judge for sign off and Detroit Police were never meant to take her child. Once the Statof Michigan removed Ariana from her mother, a CPS worker signed off on a myriad of drugs to be administered to Ariana , even though she was not a doctor. At age 13, Ariana was taken from her mother for over 5 weeks and repeatedly drugged and abused while in the State’s custody.
Adults are affected as well, as the graphic at right shows.
VOD earlier provided the Wayne County Prosecutor’s office with a copy of the email from Hines, but has not responded to a request for comment on why it prosecuted the Staffords citing Wells Fargo as the complainant.
Karegnondi Water Group members get Bond Buyers’ “Midwest Deal of the Year” award in 2014. Without them, the poisoning of Flint would not have happened.
The two parties are battling the matter out in electoral debates, with Michigan’s Republican Governor Rick Snyder justifiably though hypocritically castigated by Democratic candidates like Hillary Clinton for his role in this unspeakable catastrophe.
“The governor of that state acted as though he didn’t really care,” Clinton said during the NBC News debate in Charleston, S.C. “If the kids in a rich suburb of Detroit had been drinking contaminated water and being bathed in it, there would’ve been action.” Clinton’s Democratic opponent Bernie Sanders simply asked Snyder to resign.
In the most cynically exploitative campaign move so far, Clinton just published the video below. It calls for donations to a Flint non-profit, rather than pledging billions from the U.S. Treasury to save Flint, just as the U.S. Treasury bailed out General Motors, which left Flint, taking with it 72,000 jobs.
No politician has expressed any intention of locking Snyder and cronies up for life without parole, the only sentence appropriate under Michigan law, or of providing the billions of dollars necessary to rebuild not only Flint’s water infrastructure, but the city itself, devastated for decades by its abandonment by General Motors and other corporations.
Ten Flint residents have already died from Legionnaire’s disease linked to contamination of the city’s water. Tens of thousands more, especially children and babies, face irreversible life-time damage due to the neurological and behavioral effects of lead, according to the World Health Organization.
But make no mistake—getting rid of Snyder will not cut out the cancer of racism and profiteering that has devastated Flint, Detroit, and cities across the U.S. for years.
The most blatant example of the bi-partisan midwifery of the Flint water catastrophe is the creation of the Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA), in what a Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) spokesman called “the greatest water war in Michigan’s history.”
He was quoted before the creation of the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA), which has since robbed the people of Detroit, the largest Black majority city in the U.S., of the entire DWSD, the country’s third largest water and sewerage system, founded in 1836, which had been serving 40 percent of Michigan’s population.
The poisoning of the city of Flint, which is also a majority Black, would not have happened without the creation of the KWA at the instigation of Genesee County Drain Commissioner Jeff Wright, a white Democrat who has been Drain Commissioner since 2001 and spent 23 years prior to that in the department under former Drain Commissioner Anthony Ragnone.
According to U.S. Census figures, Genesee County is 75.2 percent white, and 20.6 percent Black, with a 21 percent poverty level. Flint is 37.4 percent white, and 56.6 percent Black, with a 41.5 percent poverty level.
In 2013, the KWA began building a 63-mile pipeline to Lake Huron that runs parallel to DWSD’s pipeline for the region. While boasting it will lower water rates, the Authority admits the pipeline will only deliver raw water, unlike the DWSD, which delivers fully treated water. Communities which sign on to it will have to treat their own water, creating ways to do so at additional costs to customers and profits to contractors. Wright said in 2011 that he wanted to bring raw water in for the benefit of businesses in the area.
The pipeline was supposed to have been up for operation by 2015.
Jeff Wright, CEO of KWA, Genesee County Drain Commissioner
The KWA now includes the “Genesee County Drain Commissioner, Lapeer County Drain Commissioner, Lapeer City, Sanilac County Drain Commissioner and the City of Flint,” according to its website. St. Clair County is reportedly also considering membership as Wright courts more regional customers.
Wright, who has a history of shady dealings with water contractors, began the push to create the KWA in 2006. Snyder’s appointee, Flint Emergency Manager Ed Kurtz, later endorsed it as well. In 2013, Wright got the Democratic City Council of Flint to agree to disconnect the city from the DWSD, which had supplied high-quality water to Flint residents since 1967, and connect with the KWA instead.
Due to KWA construction delays, however, Snyder and Kurtz ordered the ultimately disastrous long-term use of the polluted Flint River in the interim, falsely claiming that Detroit had refused to negotiate better rates for its Genesee County customers. While the Flint Water Treatment Plant, using the Flint River, has always been a back-up water supply to DWSD, which gets its water from Lake Huron, the plant was never outfitted to operate with river water for more than 20 days, on an emergency basis.
DTE’s Greenwood Energy Center in Avoca, MI is on the proposed Karegnondi line.
VOD reader Peter Bernard wrote, “DTE has been involved in the formation of KWA since the beginning. DTE didn’t need treated water to run its turbines. Was it the demand of DTE for untreated water as soon as Flint withdrew from DWSD that caused Flint to pump untreated water into its supply system? I worked for Detroit Edison as a summer intern 60 years ago and they always thought pure water was an extra expense since super-heated stem automatically purified the water driving the steam turbines.”
In 2011, Ron Fonger of the Flint Journal reported that DTE told the KWA board it was interested in purchasing up to three million gallons of untreated water per day from the Authority for its Greenwood Energy Plant.
“Genesee County Drain Commissioner Jeff Wright called the news ‘very encouraging’ during a meeting of the KWA Board of Directors today, and said others could follow ‘as more businesses are made aware of (what we are doing and) the lower cost of untreated water,'” Fonger wrote, adding that Wright said KWA would work with DTE.
Map shows KWA pipeline in red, DWSD pipelines in blue.
In 2014, the Bond Buyer magazine gave KWA the Midwest Bond Buyer of the Year award during an elaborate ceremony in New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, for its second sale of $220 million in bonds to finance the pipeline, an intake facility, and two pumping stations.
It earlier sold $35 billion in bonds despite Detroit’s bankruptcy filing.
“Long before Detroit filed its Chapter 9 bankruptcy case in the summer of 2013, Flint and Genesee County, Michigan saw the need to break away from their dependence on the Detroit water system,” the narrator of a video shown at the ceremony said in a disingenuous, factually inaccurate introduction.
“In 2010 they formed the Karegnondi Water Authority, the two governments’ long-term strategy to deliver a more reliable water supply at more reasonable rates. After years of planning and crafting a bond structure with dual backstops to protect investors, the Authority hit the market in early April with its inaugural issue for $220 million in bonds. . . .The governments expect to cover the debt repayments with system revenues, and both put their limited tax GBO payments behind the bonds.”
The narrator said that Genesee County also pledged to cover Flint’s portions of the bonds if it is not able to do so under state emergency management.
Former Detroit CFO Sean Werdlow and former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick receive Bond Buyer award in 2004 for disastrous $1.5 billion COPS deal.
“Entering a market where local governments across Michigan faced heightened penalties, the authorities sold the bonds to more than 30 investors and achieved borrowing costs below projections,” the narrator said. “The deal paves the way for the County to trade in annual rate increases of about 11.5 percent for ones closer to five.”
The presentation recalled a similar Bond Buyer award given to former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his then-CFO Sean Werdlow in 2004, for the disastrous sale of $1.5 billion in “Certificates of Participation,” or “Pension Obligation Bonds,” an amount that ballooned to $2.8 billion with default penalties and interest swaps. Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr cited the deal as one reason for his improperly authorized 2013 Detroit Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing, but never followed through on a lawsuit he filed calling it “void ab initio, illegal and unenforceable.”
Below is the video presented at the Bond Buyer 2014 awards ceremony, on the Karegnondi Water Authority and the bonds involved.
In 2013, Tucker, Young, Jackson and Tull (TYJT), a Detroit-based engineering and consulting company, was contracted by the Michigan Department of Treasury to provide a study of the proposed KWA, contrasting it with the advantages of Flint remaining with the DWSD. The study strongly contradicted claims the Bond Buyer made at the 2014 awards ceremony, and other made in a study contracted by the community of Swartz Creek. (See full TYJT study at http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/FLINT-KWA-TYJT-water_report.pdf,)
DWSD spokesman Bill Johnson
“The Flint City Council’s approval of the Genesee County Drain Commission-backed idea to link Flint and a proposed multi-county connector effectively launched the greatest water war in Michigan’s history, “ Bill Johnson, communications head for the DWSD, said in a press release. “The action ignores a credible state-sponsored study that came out against the ill-advised Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA) project. And the vote makes no connection to Flint’s fiscal reality. All things considered, the City of Flint is best served by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD).” (See full release at http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/water_war_undermines_flint-dwsd_relations-2013-14.pdf.)
The study concluded that the cheapest and safest option out of eight through 2042 for Flint’s water supply was to provide it directly through an adaptation of DWSD’s Imlay City pumping station, which is closer to Flint. DWSD has always provided water for the area through its Lake Huron Water Treatment Plant at Ft. Gratiot, Michigan, which sends it to the Imlay City station to go to Flint. Flint then supplies it to other regional customers. (See graph below.)
TYJT noted that the KWA proposal did not account for cost overruns on construction contracts, an almost inevitable occurrence, or provide a back-up water supply as does the DWSD for all its customers in the event of failure of the primary supply.
Why did Wright ignore this study? His connections with shady contractors during his tenure as Genesee County Drain Commissioner beginning in 2001, and earlier in his 23 years serving under former Drain Commissioner Anthony Ragnone, are well-known.
Southwest community organizer Denise Hearn leads protest against Synagro’s Detroit boondoogle outside the Detroit Wastewater Treatment Plant July 31, 2008.
Wright himself formerly owned a water consulting business called Tara/Aqua Management. During his term as Commissioner, he has signed multiple contracts with Synagro Technologies, Inc. for sewage sludge removal, dewatering, and land application at the county’s Linden and Ragnone treatment plants, from 2002 through 2009, according to a 2010 Flint Journal expose by reporter Ron Fonger.
At least two of the Genesee Drain Commission Synagro contracts, in 2003 and 2005, were signed by James Rosendall, former Synagro vice-president of development who went to prison for 11 months, in connection with the Synagro/Carlyle bribery scandal that brought down former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, DWSD head Victor Mercado, and former City Council President Monica Conyers, among other Black city officials.
Synagro VP James Rosendall.
Rosendall was the only white who was jailed, while Black officials who refused to act as FBI informants received terms as long as five years. Judge Avern Cohn barred the defense from asking why Synagro and the Carlyle Group were not charged in the RICO indictment.
Wright was an FBI informant against Conyers’ aide Sam Riddle during the probe. Many officials involved in the probe acted as informants rather than being charged as well.
Synagro was purchased by the insidious Carlyle Group in 2007, one of the largest private equity and alternative investment firms in the world which has extensive ties to the global defense industry.
The Carlyle Group’s board has included politicians from around the world, including former U.S. Presidents George H. W Bush and George W. Bush, and their former cabinet members U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, also former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Arthur Levitt, who served under Pres. Bill Clinton. It is connected to the Bin Laden family and to former Phillippines dictator Fidel Ramos, among numerous others. Synagro went bankrupt in 2013 and was sold.
The Alabama-based American Cast Iron Pipe Company, which operates one of the largest ductile iron pipe casting plants in the world, has a contract with a starting cost of $84.1 million, while the Flint-based E & L Construction’s contract for the Imlay City pump station has a starting cost of $11.78 million. All this work duplicates DWSD pipelines and intake and pumping stations already servicing the area.
Pipe for Karegnondi Water Authority is hoisted into Lake Huron.
Recently, Channel 2 reporter Charlie LeDuff interviewed Jeff Wright in a story focusing on the profits made by contractors on the Flint water switch. They included Kurtz campaign contributors AECOM, with $18 billion in revenues in 2015, and the engineering firm hired to ensure that the switch to Flint River water would be safe, LAN (Lockwood, Andrews and Norman). LeDuff reports that firm’s original contract began at $140,000 and ballooned later to $4 million, despite the fact that it did NOTHING to ensure the safety of the city’s water.
(VOD takes issue with LeDuff’s initial contention that Flint ratepayers decided to opt for the KWA because they were paying “outrageous” rates to Detroit. That is a claim that has been made by DWSD’s wholesale customers in six counties for decades, never with an addendum that the communities involved add their own surcharges to the wholesale rates. LeDuff also appears to conclude at the end that water flowing through Flint’s pipes now from DWSD is safe, which it will not be until complete replacement of the corroded infrastructure. )
Some related stories from other media:
http://www.bondbuyer.com/video/doty-2014-midwest-deal-of-the-year-1069549-1.html
http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2014/03/kwa_officials_think_credit_rat.html
http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2011/05/dte_energy_tells_regional_wate.html
Related articles from VOD:
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2016/01/24/maddow-snyders-new-mdeq-chief-opposes-feds-flint-water-order-flint-town-hall-jan-27-9-pm/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2016/01/20/boycott-michigan-jail-snyder-cronies-for-flint-lead-poisoning-domestic-terrorism-racism/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/12/21/rachel-maddow-slams-gov-rick-snyder-for-poisoning-flints-water-emergency-manager-act/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/11/08/layoffs-flood-detroit-water-dept-risk-public-health-rising-debt-higher-rates-more-shut-offs/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/10/16/flint-water-and-the-no-blame-game-true-files-fed-complaint-re-disparate-impact/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/10/13/will-regional-takeover-of-detroit-water-make-residents-of-6-counties-drink-flint-water/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/08/18/judge-signs-order-to-lower-flint-water-rates-35-stop-shut-offs-tax-liens/
http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/07/10/regional-water-czars-plan-permanent-shut-offs-to-large-parts-of-detroit-while-increasing-rates/
http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2010/06/synagro_contract_provides_new.html
http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2005/09/fbi_seizes_wrights_campaign_le.html
http://transmissionsmedia.com/carlyle-group-and-bushs-crusades/
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