Emergency Manager Protest Targets Flint City Hall
FLINT (WWJ) - Michigan's Emergency Manager law is once again under fire as protesters flock to Flint's city hall where a pastor who was protesting the law was arrested four days ago.
Rev. David Bullock from Rainbow Push Detroit led Monday's march.
"It's been a concerted and intentional effort to silence the vote, to drown out the loud response of citizens," Bullock said. "So, here we have a pastor in Flint. Like pastors in Benton Harbor, Detroit and around the state, who are saying, 'Look. Michigan cannot become the new Mississippi. We must stand up for democracy."
"Governor Snyder's administration cannot continue to roll back the gains of the civil rights movement and then at the same time talk about recovery for Michigan," he said. "Recovery must come through the doorway of democracy."
As enacted, the state's new emergency manager law allows the governor to take over a local government or school district by appointing an emergency manager to assume the authority and responsibility of locally elected officials. It includes the power to terminate collective bargaining agreements and even dissolve a unit of government.
Critics say the law gives unconstitutional power to state-appointed emergency managers, who have authority to toss out union contracts and strip power from locally elected officials.
Supporters of the law say it's needed to provide the tools to fix financial problems that locally elected leaders have been unable to fix themselves.
An emergency manager is now in place in Flint as the city battles a $25 million budget deficit. Flint's public safety unions have been operating under expired contracts for more than two years.
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