Democrat mayor of Flint, MI, demands contract to fix supposedly dangerous pipes be rescinded, given to politically-connected company

If you're an American of college age, you were too young to have been politically aware when the humanitarian disaster!!! [/sarc!] occurred in Flint, Michigan.  And I'm not criticizing you a bit--when you're young you have lots more important things to do that watch manufactured crises.

Similarly, if you're a hard-working parent trying to raise your kids and pay your mortgage or rent and taxes, you almost certainly didn't pay any attention to the humanitarian disaster!!! in Flint.  And again, I'm not criticizing ya:  Your job is WAY harder than mine, so carry on.  I'll fill in the missing information--the utter clusterfuck that Democrat rule creates, with the crucial help of air cover by the Lying Mainstream Media.

Here's the story:

Flint, Michigan, has been run by Democrats for decades.  Specifically, black Democrats.  Of course the residents of any city should be able to choose their rulers, and if the people of a shithole city want...corrupt idiots...that's their choice. 

And before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, this isn't an anti-black screed: there are lots of good, hard-working blacks in this country. Just not enough in Flint.

It won't surprise you to learn that damn near the top thing on a city's gotta-have list is a reliable source of clean water.  And for years Flint, like many small towns, rather than hiring city employees to run its own water supply and purification system, simply bought its water from its much larger neighbor, Detroit.  Which had great water at a reasonable wholesale cost.

Around 2011 Detroit announced that they were raising the price of water sold to the various towns on their system.  The city council of Flint decided they didn't wanna have to raise water prices for their dear, dear constituents by a few cents per 100 gallons, so they looked for a new source of water.

If you're not in the business you have no idea about the numbers we're talking here:  A city of 100,000 (Flint is a bit less than that) needs about ten million gallons of fresh water every DAY.  Replacing a supply of that size takes...more brains and experience than the Flint city council could muster. 

But never fear, citizen!  Da Obama gruberment will save the day!

Sho nuff, there was a Project--that's capital-P cuz it was a gruberment project, therefore Very Important.  Da gruberment proposed to build a pipeline! to being wonderful pure water from Lake Huron.  The city council was delighted.  And because this was being done by da gruberment, the project didn't have to pay any of those nasty private-sector profit thingies.  So da water wuz gonna cost even a bit less than what Detroit had been charging Flint.

Hey, ya think the Flint city council was gonna drop the water rates because of the lower cost?

Hahahahahahaha!  I see you just arrived on this planet!  Do enjoy your stay--soon with FREE medical care for off-planet visitors!

So da gruberment said the pipeline would be finished by March of 2013.  And on April 17, 2013, Flint terminated its contract to buy water wholesale from Detroit.

Jus' one tiny problem:  Da pipeline wasn't finished yet.

Umm...say WHAT?

Oh yeah.  With the classic efficiency we've come to expect from gruberment, da pipeline wouldn't be finished for...wait for it...another YEAR.

"Oh my," said the members of the Flint city council.  Or something like that.

But never fear, citizen:  The brilliant folks on the council had Plan B:  We'll just get water from the Flint River--which, you won't be surprised to learn, runs right thru the town.  Yay!  Problem solved!

Except...the river water needed to be purified, treated, to meet EPA standards.  But the city had never had a water treatment system before, and no employee in Flint had any experience treating water.

Now we come to that moment in all tales of...well, $647 million bucks of wasted taxpayer dollars... when one of our actors utters the fateful words,

"But hey, it's just water, fer cryin' out loud!  How hard can it possibly be?"

Oh, did you see that one coming?

So while the city waited for the gruberment to finish the pipeline from Lake Huron, it used water from the Flint River, treated by city employees who had no experience.  Naturally no one could possibly have predicted that anything bad would happen from this combination.

What happened was that too much chlorine seems to have mobilized lead in some of the old pipes in the city, and tap water began showing lead level above the EPA limit.  Every single media outlet reported this as a "humanitarian crisis."  Oh, and also raaacist.  People were gonna DIE!  To tug on the heartstrings even more, children were most at risk!  Oh, the humanity!

"Hey, no problem!  We'll jus' have dem citizens use bottled water for drinking until da pipeline be finished!  Den we sue da gruberment for being late with da ...wait, what?  You say we can't sue da gruberment for not doing what it said?  My, that's a surprise!"

Meanwhile the black community figured out a way to turn this into actual cash:  Complain that it was all someone else's fault.  And they squeezed $647 Million out of federal and state taxpayers.  This money was supposed to go to replace all the remaining lead pipes.

Contract were put out for bids.  The low bidder began work, and the city council rejected the contract.  No reason given.  So they re-bid.  And now for the second time, the city council has voted to reject the low bid--from an experienced local company--and instead award the contract to the higher bidder.

The favored company is WT Stevens, which is owned by the wife of a former NBA player and which one member of the city council suspects may have a corrupt relationship with Flint politicos.

On Monday, Flint mayor Karen Weaver’s administration abruptly said it would rescind the $12 million contract with the low bidder, Goyette Mechanical, a local firm with 90 years of experience that specializes specifically in municipal water.  The next day the mayor asked the city council to approve the move, but complaints from some members of the city council led to discussions being tabled until July 8.

Goyette is white-owned.

Now Flint--a city of less than 100,000--has collected more than $647 million in state and federal aid for the "public health emergency" caused mainly by their own incompetence.  But when the money reaches City Hall, the so-called "emergency" seems to cool a lot, as officials have repeatedly made decisions that have severely slowed the progress of fixing the water pipes.

Mayor Karen Weaver and incredibly dumb, angry, arrogant city council-creep Eric Mays have bragged that WT Stevens is black-owned.   Mays has also bragged that "Flint" “broke records for giving black folks money.”  Of course it wasn't "Flint," but federal and state taxpayers.

The clip below shows Democrat/black "government" operating in typical fashion: The asshole below is council-joke Eric Mays.  He's got a real problem with people who want to hold him accountable for...well, anything at all.


So when is "a crisis" a crisis?  When you can get money from screaming about it.

And when does it suddenly not matter if there's another six-month delay in fixing the "public health emergency"?  When you've squeezed all the money out of the taxpayers.

H/T Daily Caller