State will borrow $600M for Flint water settlement
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan lawmakers on Wednesday planned to begin swiftly passing a plan to borrow $600 million to fund the state’s proposed settlement with the residents of Flint, who sued after their municipal water supply was contaminated with elevated levels of lead for 18 months.
Under the bipartisan legislation, the loan from a state economic development fund would cost more than $1 billion to repay over 30 years — $35 million annually. It is believed to be the state government’s largest-ever legal settlement, pending approval from a federal judge.
Other defendants contributing to the $641 million deal include the city of Flint and McLaren Flint Hospital, which each will pay $20 million, and Rowe Professional Services Co., an environmental consulting company that will pay $1.25 million.
“We all determined together that that was the quickest way to get the money to be available for the families and to fulfill the settlement requirements,” said Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, a Flint Democrat who is sponsoring one bill. The mechanism, he said, will avoid a large drawdown from Michigan’s savings account, known as the “rainy day” fund.
Flint switched its drinking water source in 2014 from Detroit’s system to the Flint River in a money-saving move while under supervision of a state financial manager. City workers followed state environmental officials’ advice not to use anti-corrosive additives. Without those treatments, water from the river scraped lead from aging pipes and fixtures, contaminating tap water.
Elevated levels of lead, a neurotoxin, were detected in children, and 12 people died in a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak that experts suspect was linked to the improperly treated water.
Lawmaker disciplined for threatening Trump backers on Facebook
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Republican leaders in the Michigan House stripped a Democratic lawmaker of her committee assignments Wednesday after she threatened “Trumpers” in a social media video.
Rep. Cynthia Johnson of Detroit sits on a GOP-led committee that heard baseless allegations of election fraud from President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others last week. Johnson, who is Black, reported getting multiple threats after the hearing — including one saying she should be lynched — and on Tuesday night took to Facebook to warn “you Trumpers. Be careful. Walk lightly. We ain’t playing with you. Enough of the shenanigans. Enough is enough. And for those of you who are soldiers, you know how to do it. Do it right. Be in order. Make them pay.”
House Speaker Lee Chatfield of Levering and Speaker-elect Jason Wentworth of Farwell said they were exploring further disciplinary action against the first-term legislator.
“Threats to either Democrats or Republicans are unacceptable and un-American. They’re even more unbecoming of an elected official,” they said in a joint statement stating that violence and intimidation is never appropriate in politics. “That applies to threats made toward public officials, and it must also apply when the threats come from public officials. Behavior like this will not be tolerated this term or next.”
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