by Amy Kerr HardinHere it is verbatim:
AN ACT to safeguard and assure the financial accountability of local units of government and school districts; to preserve the capacity of local units of government and school districts to provide or cause to be provided necessary services essential to the public health, safety, and welfare;…
As we learn about the 200 children in the City of Flint, all under age 6, testing with dangerously elevated levels of lead in their bloodstreams, and another 9,000 having been exposed through toxic city water, those hollow words bring home the criminal negligence that is occurring across Michigan under Gov. Snyder’s emergency managers.
In Flint, we are talking about the “health, safety, and welfare” of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the social leaders and activists who pioneered advances in the work place for the greater good, those who personally sacrificed to build the American middle class, ground-up — the men and women of the Flint sit-down strike of 1936-’37.
It’s not just the children of Flint suffering at the hands of Snyder’s hired goons. Students at Detroit Pub
lic Schools are attending classes in under equipped, vermin-infested, poorly heated classrooms, with crumbling ceilings and roof leaks leaving buildings reeking of mold and mildew.
On Detroit’s east side, the students at Hutchinson elementary and middle school have been wearing winter coats in the classroom. In frustration, Principal Stanley Johnson resorted to asking parents to launch a letter writing campaign to DPS administrators demanding repairs to the failing heating system. This week DPS has indicated they intend to fix the problem, but Johnson isn’t holding his breath.
At Spain Elementary School, teachers are calling in sick — not just in protest, but because they truly are ill due to the mold and mildew from constant roof leaks at the school. Teacher Lakia Wilson described the conditions at the school as “inhuman, deplorable, dilapidated. It is not healthy. We are literally sick.”
Much like the Flint crisis, Michigan leaders are slow to respond. State Superintendent Brian Whiston has just this week issued a statement instructing DPS Emergency Manager Darnell Early to set up meetings to discuss the problems. While they talk and talk about the deplorable conditions, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has vowed to inspect the buildings and enforce health and building codes.
Flint and DPS share a long history under emergency management — suffering years of brutally reckless cut-back management, with nothing to show for it but sickness and sorrow — proof that Public Act 436 is more than just a failure, it’s a lying failure.
