SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.

* indicates required
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
The Progressive

NewsWire

A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release

Criminal Charges Filed Against State, City Employees Over Flint Water Crisis

Snyder narrative that feds to blame for crisis blown wide open with charges

MICHIGAN

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette will announce criminal charges related to the Flint Water Crisis today that refute Gov. Rick Snyder's claim that the federal government was to blame for the man-made disaster. According to MLive, three employees will be charged, including two Michigan Department of Environmental Quality employees and a Flint City Water employee.

"If people broke the law, they need to be held accountable -- period," said Lonnie Scott, executive director of Progress Michigan. "However, the person who has continued to evade accountability in the midst of this crisis is Gov. Rick Snyder, who ushered in unaccountable emergency managers whose only focus was to cut costs at any cost. The governor's narrative that federal regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency shoulder the blame of this crisis that he created has been blown wide open by the charges of allegedly falsifying documents. It was his administration that ushered in this crisis through policies he chose to implement and a governing culture that allowed these abuses to continue for so long."

According to MLive:

Genesee District Court Judge Tracy Collier-Nix authorized charges, Wednesday, April 20, for Flint employee Michael Glasgow and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality employees Steven Busch and Michael Prysby.

"The people of Flint and Michiganders as a whole won't be satisfied until everyone who was responsible for creating this man-made disaster is held accountable," Scott continued. "Rick Snyder was at the helm when Flint was under control of an emergency manager he appointed. He and anyone else in his administration who caused or allowed this crisis to continue need to be held accountable for this disaster - no matter how high in the government hierarchy they are."

Progress Michigan aims to provide a strong credible voice that holds public officials and government accountable, assists in the promotion of progressive ideas and uses state-of-the-art web based new media to creatively build grassroots support for progressive ideas.