Learning from Flint

Many people breathed a sigh of relief as Flint residents returned to the Detroit Water System. For decades Detroit has provided nearly 5 million people with fresh, safe water. The injuries suffered by the citizens of Flint did not need to happen. Their return to the Detroit system is an essential first step in restoring basic safety to their water supply.

But the safety of Detroit water is in danger. The Detroit Water System is being refashioned in the wake of bankruptcy. The newly emerging Great Lakes Water Authority and the Detroit Water Department are being guided by the same ideas that lead to the debacle in Flint. Saving money is the priority, not public safety.

Clean, safe water from Detroit is no longer guaranteed. Those responsible for ensuring water quality have proven themselves incompetent and uncaring.

Gary Brown is now guiding the restructuring of the water facilities. This should concern all of us. Mr. Brown has absolutely no experience in running a water department. His experience in public safety is limited to his time as a police officer.

Emergency manager Kevyn Orr plucked Mr. Brown from the City Council to oversee the downsizing of city government. Mr. Brown became a reliable corporate champion and quickly took on the role of hatchet man.

Most of his work as chief compliance officer was outside of public view until one hot July day in 2014. As temperatures soared into the 90s downtown Detroit experienced a major power outage. The downtown grid stopped. People were trapped in elevators. Buildings were evacuated. The courthouse, on high alert after the escape of a prisoner earlier in the week, was among the buildings affected. It turned out that the disruption was intentional. Gary Brown wanted to “send a strong message” about conservation. So he turned off the electric grid. When questioned about this by local news, Brown laughed, enjoying the power of what he could do.

Mayor Duggan rewarded this incompetence and callousness by appointing Brown Group Executive of Operations for the city. He has been the Mayor’s representative to the transition team for the new water authority.

Brown is now the new Director of the Water and Sewerage Department. This approval was done on the recommendationof Mayor Duggan. In a letter that doesn’t pretend to talk about Brown’s qualifications, Duggan simply says, “I recommend that you appoint Gary Brown.” He gives no reason for this. The entire letter is less than half a page.

So on the strength of Mayor Duggan’s word we now have a man with no experience or education in water systems heading the city’s entire department. Further we have a man who has proven to have little understanding of public responsibilities.

The one thing Brown has shown a talent for is cutting the workforce. Under Emergency Management the water department lost nearly 40% of its employees. Reductions have continued under Mayor Duggan. Last week more than 100 people were in the process of being laid off. Many of these workers are chemists, many with critical experience in water safety.

“We’ve lost chemists, engineers, instrument technicians … a whole range of people,” says Michael Mulholland, President of AFSCME Local 207, which represents some workers at DWSD. “We’re concerned that what they’re doing is running it on a business model that is inappropriate and irresponsible.”

DWSD Chief Operating Officer Cheryl Porternot said we shouldn't worry because cutbacks are all part of a plan. “The optimization design has broader, more flexible jobs, therefore requiring fewer positions.”

This is the kind of empty bureaucratic language that allowed officials in Flint to ignore what everyone could see, smell, and taste. Thanks to Mayor Duggan, we now have such officials running our water Department. It seems the Mayor learned nothing from Flint.

Reflections on time spent at the Boggs Center with GLB and comrades

Myrtle Thompson-Curtis, Feedem Freedom Growers

Through years of conversations with Wayne Curtis I was opened up to a world of (r)evolutionary philosophy. Over a time span of at least 15 yrs, I realized that I was the student and the teacher had appeared. By 2008 I was introduced to members of the BCNCL board and so many other great thinkers and doers. Shortly after that I attended a meeting at the center and had the honor of meeting GLB and learning of her and Jimmy Boggs history of activism. I had read Grace’s Living For Change articles, her many books and pamphlets. I knew she was a firm voice for capturing the political and social climate of the day. I did not know what to expect when I arrived at the center but there she was, a tiny woman on a cane with a welcoming smile. My first thoughts were that she reminded me of the kind of women I knew existed but were not in my circle. She was an elder but sharp, she was kind but not frivolous. She was intelligent but not lofty and far off. She was academic but relatable. Her words were from a place of experience, not just quotes or theory, she was curious and I really found that compelling. She challenged me as she did all those she came in contact with by sometimes answering a question with a question, forcing me to have an analysis from my own perspective!

I traveled with Grace in the last years of her remarkable life. She never ceased to invite folks from everywhere to come to Detroit and learn of the (r) evolution taking place. I can’t recall how many times I heard her say Detroit is a place she loved enough to change, and come see how people are making a way out of no way. She never blamed the poor and marginalized for their circumstances, but she pointed to the solutions, how folks were creating solutions all around her and it gave her strength and resolve in her message.

My time with GLB has impacted my views and interactions, to read everything and to write about my work and experiences; it has made me work to find collective solutions without being afraid to help others discover their own truths. She was and is a creative force, encouraging folks to not wait but to create the solutions and find answers to problems. Grace was creating a new culture of beloved community from where she sat, as a philosopher, a great thinker and activist that looked at the world from her eyes and overcame boxes and stereotypes. She loved people and as an elder she never stopped embracing the world and its changes as she met young people and heard their cries and questions. I think that is the thing about GLB that resonates with me most. She would sign books with "In Love and Struggle." Always the person to challenge others to think big, by writing and reading, in practice and action to seek answers and to build relationships. She did not pretend to have all of the answers for complex problems but engaged people to find solutions through struggles tempered with love so we can create the world anew.