KTLA 5 Six More People Charged in Connection With Flint Water Crisis. Today. NBC three were indicated in April which brings the total number indicted to nine.
The indicted individuals weren’t doing the jobs they being paid for and put the health of the Flint residents at risk. These indictments, particularly should they lead to convictions, should server to put public employees on notice that they aren’t above the law. DO YOUR FREAKING JOB.
Yet, for some of them that may not have been as easy and unconstrained as it should have been.
Contaminating the Flint water system was part of numerous political decisions that go up to the office of the Governor. Sqeeze the poor, make off with the money, and pass the buck to the lowest level employees that can be identified as not having properly done their jobs. The Michigan-Flint Lynnie Englands (as an example and not to single her out for futher berating; she paid for her failings). The grunts that allow the principle “deciders” to walk away not only scott free but also to profit from all their misdeed as public officials.
Are Americans fine with this? (Based on the response to Mosby’s failure to break the blue line and bring it home, it may be yes.) Or are we getting near to screaming, ENOUGH! How I hope to live long enough to see that day.
“These indictments, particularly should they lead to convictions, should serve to put public employees on notice that they aren’t above the law. DO YOUR FREAKING JOB.”
Please. The vast majority of public employees (and I count myself as one) do their jobs competently and honorably. You know that demonizing public employees has been a right-wing talking point for decades as part of the GOP drive to delegitimize government. So I’m surprised and disappointed by your wording here.
It looked from the article you linked that those indicted were mostly mid-level managers, and your analysis seems bang on: they’re the fall guys.
We’ve just had a less drastic version of the Flint disaster here in Portland, Oregon: the presence of unacceptable levels of lead in drinking water at some schools (owing to ancient plumbing, I believe) became known to school district management, but they didn’t take action for a year. Word eventually got out and the sh*t hit the fan. The thing is, there’s a trivial work-around: let the water run for a minute or two to evacuate the water that’s been just sitting in the pipes as lead leaches out. The real solution is of course to replace the plumbing, but the voters have to pony up for that. Anyway, the head of the school district just resigned after she could no longer bullsh*t her way around the issue. This isn’t being treated as a criminal matter.
If you didn’t take so many general comments personally, communicating with others about news reports might be more constructive and less stressful for you.
There are millions of public employees and in the aggregate the required expertise, competence, and performance level of public employees is likely higher than that in the private sector. And I didn’t state nor suggest otherwise. All of them do, however, hold positions that include some level of duty to the public that doesn’t specifically exist in the private sector for individuals independent of the business or corporation and the senior executives. Were any Ford engineers or factory line workers indicted or sued over the Pinto? That would be a no. Therefore, public employees are far more vulnerable should they “go along to get along” when the shit hits the fan than those in the private sector. And it’s easier in the public sector to push the blame down the chain of command.
You appeared to appreciate (understand) the point I was making and then had to go back into a defensive and challenging crouch for some inexplicable reason. But it does seem to fit your pattern of trying to pick a fight with me. A meaningless stupid fight.
This was a quick diary on my part as a follow-up to a more thorough and complete one I wrote late last year. Don’t like mine, you’re free to write your own.
No excuse for any school (or other public) manager to ignore reports of unacceptable or potentially harmful levels of any substance. If there are no SOPs on how to handle such a situation, report it up to the next level of the organization and don’t let it go unaddressed unless that person signs off and takes responsibility for doing nothing. That is SOP (in the private sector as well).
Middle managers, eh. Will they turn state witnesses for the indictments of their bosses?
Dare I hope that Rick Snyder and some MI Republican legislators will wind up in jail for abusing the emergency manager act?
Oh, my friend, when was the last time we saw anything like that? Watergate?
Do any of those indicted know enough, or anything, that would make them useful as state witnesses? A smoking gun order to keep a mouth shut or ignore or cover-up a water test report? Workplaces develop cultures and almost everyone learns not to make waves. And that includes sidestepping those that won’t look the other way when things aren’t properly done, etc.
And middle and senior managers have achieved their positions by implementing the broad directives of the boss (what she/he wants accomplished) into specific actions to accomplish that. ie GWB/Cheney didn’t say, “torture some folks,” but rather get every scrap of information possible from those that are detained.
Common Dreams– Missoula Wins Right to Control Its Own Water in Victory Against Privatization
Montana Supreme Court says city’s use of its water system is ‘more necessary’ than its use by a private company
The whole article is interesting. What it doesn’t include is the history of the Missoula water system before it was owned by the Carlyle Group (which isn’t that old itself).