9,000 to go. until the infrastructure work is complete, people need to stay on filtered and bottled water. the way we got to the story in the first place on this show way back in the day, was that we had been covering the emergency manager law in michigan where your locally elected officials can be pushed aside, taken out of all decision making process and the government, the governor specifically can say we re not going to recognize the results of your local elections anymore, we re going to do it our way because we know what s best. that s part of the flint water crisis story because it was an emergency manager who was in charge when the switch was made. how s democracy? that s a big part of how you tell the story about what went wrong. absolutely. kudos to you, rachel, you were the first to elevate that issue of democracy. you were on the story before it was a water crisis story. so thank you we would be nowhere without you. in 2011, flint lost democracy overnight. we had a stat
this? who is doing this? who s the person in charge that can make this stop? thank you for having me, chris. first of all, we should know that the buck stops in one place and that is at governor rick snyder s desk. he is the one who is in charge of the city of detroit. he sent an emergency manager which effectively wiped out our mayor and city council. they can do nothing but rubber stamp what governor snyder says. governor snyder is the only one who can put a moratoriums on shutoffs, put together a plan or lower rates for residents in the city of detroit. the water company in issue you re saying is a public entity, part of the city which is reports to the governor because of the emergency manager law. correct. and, you know please. no, i was just going to say this is what we re fighting against.
against, is that at the end of the day, the governor is in control, and he is not saying anything at this point. why did where did this come from? seems like such a to people watching from the outside seems like a truly twisted and cruel bizarre turn for any public agency to take, to turn off people s water in the 21 numb century in the united states of america. what why is this happening? can i submit to you that the same reasons why hobby lobby doesn t want to pay for health care, the same reason why they fought right wingwwñ?ñ?ñ?ñ? cons fought unemployment extension, the same reason why they shut the government down many times, the same reason why they won t raise the minimum wage. i mean, this is because of greed. this is disenfrance characterizement, privatization, and at the end of the day, it s only going to further push americans into abject poverty. so, the situation right now
this? who is doing this? who s the person in charge that can make this stop? thank you for having me, chris. first of all, we should know that the buck stops in one place and that is at governor rick snyder s desk. he is the one who is in charge of the city of detroit. he sent an emergency manager which effectively wiped out our mayor and city council. they can do nothing but rubber stamp what governor snyder says. governor snyder is the only one who can put a pmoratoriums on sh shutoffs, put together a plan or lower rates for residents in the city of detroit. the water company in issue you re saying is a public entity, part of the city which is reports to the governor because of the emergency manager law. correct. and, you know please. no, i was just going to say this is what we re fighting
for refusing to leave their school. but you could see what had happened to them. you could see what the school mint to them. and katherine ferguson academy was spared, in 2011. kept it open. the system of by passing elect officials and installing emergency managers and giving them unilateral power. that business rolled on. voters repealed existing emergency manager law in 2012. michigan republicans in the legislature put in a new one that voters couldn t as easily repeal. though it is really not at all clear whether this sort of thing works. or helps these towns. when you bypass democracy and instead install a little dictator to act alone without oversight. in muskeegon heights. a state appointmented emergency manager, he announced they were off to the healing process. hooray. then he laid off the entire staff of the school district and hired a for profit company to run the schools. now the company is quit eg quitting effective this month. turns out they couldn t turn a profit.