It was without a doubt the most important and most anticipated State of the State address of Gov. Rick Snyder’s career as the state’s top elected official. The gross mishandling of the Flint water crisis, a crisis that has resulted in the endangered lives of an entire community that was told it was OK to drink lead poisoned, off-colored water, and that has galvanized nationwide outrage and disbelief, is what brought the governor to this point.
The big question was not so much whether the governor would convince Michigan how really sorry he was, because he has already said he’s sorry. Most would agree that although an apology was required, it was by no means sufficient. So the big question was whether Snyder would be able to convincingly demonstrate his commitment to make things right in Flint. Because despite the rising chorus of those calling for him to step down, no one honestly expected to hear anything approaching a resignation speech tonight. That simply was not going to happen.
And to his credit, the governor spent nearly the first half hour of his hour-long speech addressing the Flint crisis, appearing at times to be close to tears. He emphasized several times his commitment to do whatever it took, however many years he acknowledged it is likely to take, to make Flint whole. Snyder also presented the basic outline of his plan for how he believes he will accomplish this, making sure to dress it up as part of his cringeworthy ‘relentless positive action’ approach that felt glaringly out of place and out of context. Enough with the relentlessly positive stuff, Governor. Too late for cute slogans. Just get it done.
But what also needed to be acknowledged – and wasn’t – was the role that emergency management played in this fiasco, because it was Snyder’s own appointed Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Earley (now the manager of Detroit Public Schools) who signed off on allowing the switch from Detroit water to the Flint River in order to save money. This is not some small insignificant aspect of the problem. This, in many ways, is THE problem.
But as both Free Press and Detroit News editors Stephen Henderson and Nolan Finley said during a post-speech commentary on Detroit Public TV, had Snyder demonstrated this level of empathy and determination months ago, perhaps it would not have come to this. But now even Snyder is forced to acknowledge that Flint is his own Katrina, and that he has lost the trust of many Michigan’ residents, perhaps forever. Because, as he himself said (despite trying to shift the blame to other departments who he said did not properly inform him) the buck does stop at his door. And this is a level of failure that can be hard to forgive.
Did the governor say the right things? He said some of them. But it’s his actions that will make the difference.
We shall see.
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