What do you know? The State of Michigan has brought felony charges against two of Flint’s former Emergency Managers for that city’s tainted water.
A criminal investigation into this city’s water crisis reached into the top ranks of supervision over Flint on Tuesday as Michigan officials announced felony charges against two former state-appointed emergency managers, accusing them of fixating on saving money rather than on the safety of residents.
The managers, who were appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder to lead Flint out of fiscal distress, were charged over their roles in the public health crisis prompted by the city’s switch to a new water source, as well as the delays in responding to residents’ complaints as they suffered the devastating effects.
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Charges of false pretenses, conspiracy to commit false pretenses, misconduct in office and willful neglect of duty lodged against the former managers, Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose, were lauded by Flint leaders, some of whom said they had feared that blame for the city’s contaminated water might ultimately be pinned only on low-level workers.
So far as I’ve been able to piece together from the news stories, a consulting engineer and the water plant’s chemist improperly permitted a regulator to overrule their judgment and pump water without chemical additives that would have prevented corrosion of the pipes. When residents complained they were treated dismissively, a cover-up was launched, and there was no correction of the water problem; the reach of the cover-up hasn’t been published.
I understand why the engineer, chemist, and regulator have all been charged. The regulator is a plain-vanilla idiot, and the engineer and chemist should never have submitted to him. Nor should they have kept quiet when residents complained.
But why, exactly, are the Emergency Managers facing prosecution? For the cover-up? Certainly they didn’t know anything about the technical decisions taken by staff at the check-off meeting.
At worst:
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They contributed to a political environment in which the state regulator was able to displace the city employee and city consultant. But the city’s chemist and consultant have the lion’s share of responsibility for allowing that to happen. Seriously: If there was ever a case where they should have pulled their light sabers and made an honest-to-God he-man fight over something, this was it, for they are the responsible professionals who sign and seal the drawings.
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They failed to knock-heads and get answers to the city’s obvious water problems.
Both are firing offenses — but criminal offenses? On what has been published so far, that looks like an overreach.
I guess we’ll learn more when it all goes to trial but, so far, I’m not seeing it.