Week 70 of the Occupation

The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department held a Fair last Saturday. On Monday, Mayor Mike Duggan announced he will extend the moratorium on shut offs until August 25. The extension is to give time to “redesign bill collections.”

The aggressive bill collection and shut off policy established by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr brought unwanted national and international criticism. It is a policy designed to make DWSD more attractive to prospective buyers or suburban interests. It has created widespread suffering and chaos in the process.

The Mayor must separate himself from this shut off policy and take a stand to shift rates away from usage to the ability to pay. This shift is the heart of the People’s Affordability Plan adopted by the City Council in 2006. Further, the Mayor must make clear to the court appointed mediators deciding the fate of the Water Department that water is a public trust, not a private profit center.

So far Mayor Duggan has done nothing more than offer a kinder, gentler shut off policy.

“If we make it more convenient for Detroiters to make payment arrangements and we do a better job of communicating the available help for those truly in need, I’m convinced the great majority of Detroiters will step up and take care of their bills,” Duggan said.

Does the Mayor seriously think that nearly half the city is behind in their bills because they found the service center hours “inconvenient?”

Such a view is nonsensical and unrealistic. If Mayor Duggan talked to people at the Water Fair he would have heard how unfair this current system is.

People gathered as early as 6:30 am to talk to service center personnel. Here is some of what they said to the People’s Water Board:

●      I work full time. I had $250 for a $1300 water bill. I called DWSD, they told me to come today, that my bill would get paid. I found out that they don’t have any money to help with bills. That’s false hope. They don’t have any money to pay anything.

●      My water was supposed to be included in my rent. My landlord didn’t pay for my water for a year. I have no other choice. I have children.

●      They’re charging people $112 to put the bill in their name. I had just paid $300 the week before, then they wanted another $112.

●      They’ve been doing an estimated bill on my house for four years. I don’t know why. They owe me $1440, and are about to cut off my water because I owe $148.

●      My water’s been off for a month, and they still sent me a bill. I called THAW to get help with my bill. They said they would call me back in 5-7 business days, that was more than two weeks ago.

●      Our water bill went from $150 to $317 to $717, and we’re hardly home.

●      My water bill is $260-$300 per month. I only make $625 per month. If it weren’t for my daughter I wouldn’t be able to make it.

●      My water’s been off for almost two months. I waited on THAW to call me back for over two weeks, they never did call.

●      They turned my water off seven days before they were supposed to. I would have had the money in five days.

●      All this is just smoke and mirrors. It’s a cover-up because the judge says you have to have a program in place.

●      This is chaos. These people have no idea what they’re doing. This is damage control because we’re raising hell about the water. There’s no money to help us.

The Mayor should step out from behind Emergency Manager Orr and do the right thing. Stop the shut offs. Turn the water on. Implement the Peoples Water Affordability Plan. Unless the Mayor represents the interests of the people, taking charge of the water department will be little more than one more failed public relations effort by Kevyn Orr.

American Revolutionary, Transformation in 82 Minutes

By Tawanna Petty

Mother, Organizer, Author, Poet

“I feel so sorry for people who are not living in Detroit,” says 99, then 98 year old Grace Lee Boggs at the intro to the film by Grace Lee (no relation), American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs.

As she gazes at the once vibrant, now dilapidated, and enormous Packard Building, Boggs provides a powerful analysis of the postindustrial city struggling to reinvent itself, after the job system has failed it. “Detroit gives a sense of epochs of civilization in a way that you don’t get in a city like New York. It’s obvious by looking at it, that what was, doesn’t work. People are always striving for size, to be a giant, and this is a symbol of how giants fall.”

I’ve had the pleasure of screening American Revolutionary at several venues in Detroit, and in Metro Detroit, and have traveled with it nationally. Even after a dozen viewings, I discover something new each time, and that amazes me. I can truly say that the filmmaker Grace Lee did an incredible job with this film.

Although Lee follows Boggs over a period of 10 years, she was able to capture so much more than the story of one remarkable woman’s life. American Revolutionary is not just a film about Grace, although that alone would be significant, it is a film about transformation in our country, our society, individual transformation, and transformation in Detroit.

It is through Grace’s rootedness here, and the fact that she has been an active member and maker of community in Detroit for more than six decades, that inspires activists of my generation, particularly women who were fortunate enough to see the film, to continue forward in this struggle for our humanity, while embracing the evolutionary, and sometimes very difficult process. I often find that people need something and someone to look at that’s inspiring us to continue to evolve. Grace is absolutely one of those beings.

At 99, Grace is still pushing for new ideas and ways to determine how we treat each other as human beings, and at this time, “on the clock of the world,” as Grace would put it, how we treat each other is not only significant, but it is necessary for our survival during these times.

This is a film that I recommend to anyone who is seeking answers to questions like, “what does it mean to be a human being?” A question I believe, if answered, or at least pondered over, is a huge step forward to our becoming the beloved community.

American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs will be screening during the North End Urban Expressions Art Festival: The Healing II on August 22, 2014 at 6pm. http://www.oaacdetroit.org/

The screening will be followed by a discussion led by representatives of the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership

For more information about the film or to purchase it online, visit http://americanrevolutionaryfilm.com/.