spreadsheet , it can ’ t be solved ,” Dennis Schornack , who served as Snyder ’ s transportation adviser , said about the governor . 1
But the governor ’ s austerity attack had only just begun . Soon after , he then moved to hijack power away from predominately minority cities and anoint his own bureaucrats to seize control .
The method was controversial . Step one : declare a financial emergency for financially struggling cities or underachieving schools . Step two : appoint unelected officials to seize power over the elected mayors and city council members . Essentially the process relegated democracy as ceremonial at best . Ever the businessman , Snyder framed it as no different than a company declaring bankruptcy .
Before he proclaimed a financial emergency in Flint , Snyder dispatched his treasurer there . In a classic , good-ol ’ - boys backroom meeting , State Treasurer Andy Dillon met with a who ’ s who of the Mott Foundation , a source revealed . Representing the foundation was Bill White , the longtime CEO ; Phil Shaltz , an investor and cofounder of the Mottfunded real estate company Uptown Reinvestment Corporation ; and the heads of the Mott-funded Genesee County Chamber of Commerce . Joining them were two bureaucrats Mott was putting forth as choices for Governor Snyder to appoint as emergency manager ( EM ) of Flint .
Like so many other government officials and private entities I ’ ve reached out to throughout my reporting , the foundation couldn ’ t confirm or recall the meeting . “ But there is general agreement that many organizations and individuals were meeting with representatives from the state to discuss the appointment of an emergency manager ,” a spokesperson told me .
Michael Brown was a longtime fixture in Flint ’ s political and nonprofit scene . He was also a Mott guy . He had served as executive vice president of the Genesee County Chamber of Commerce and as interim Flint mayor . Additionally , Brown ran two Mott-funded foundations . Mott ’ s floating of Brown as an emergency financial manager was curious considering . . . Brown had no real financial management background or experience .
Ed Kurtz , another Mott-fixture , appeared with Brown at the shadow meeting . A decade earlier , controversy swirled around Kurtz after Michigan governor John Engler declared a financial emergency in Flint . Engler appointed Kurtz as the city ’ s first-ever emergency manager . Like Brown , Kurtz had no financial management background . He was plucked out of academia , having run Flint ’ s Baker College for thirty years . Mott showered the college with millions and named a scholarship after Kurtz .
The backroom convention of aristocrats might have been missing the cigar smoke and top hats , but it set in motion a wrecking ball of disaster for Flint . Treasurer Dillon and Mott officials struck a deal : over the fierce objections of residents , Governor Snyder would declare a financial emergency in Flint and then insert Michael Brown as Flint ’ s EM . For Mott , its own puppet would now be calling the shots in Flint . For major decisions — say like the city ’ s water source — Mott would have a seat at the head of the table .
Snyder publicly framed his power grab over Flint as necessary . The city was indeed broke . Its poverty rate hovered above 40 percent . For decades its population and taxpayer base had dramatically shrunk . The city had an annual deficit between $ 12 and $ 13 million . Flint politicians made up for shortfalls in the general fund by pilfering money from the city ’ s water fund .
State Treasurer Dillon acknowledged the foundation ’ s role in Brown ’ s appointment . “ There were a lot of recommendations from like [ former state senator Bob ] Emerson , for example , to Mott Foundation who had a real interest in Flint ,” Dillon told special prosecutor Todd Flood under oath in 2016 .
Under oath in 2020 testifying in a major Flint civil case , Snyder seemed to distance himself from the Flint emergency managers — who he forced onto the people of Flint — and their actions and decisions .
“ They had responsibility for making decisions as if they were the city government because essentially that ’ s what they were functioning as with certain things requiring sign-off from the state treasurer ,” Snyder testified .
In the church basement , Neeley didn ’ t stop at spilling tea on Mott as Snyder ’ s puppet master . He stressed that after years of the Flint water criminal investigation , Brown and Kurtz were “ names you never hear in criminal culpability .” He added : “ Ed Kurtz is the one who made the decision to use Flint River water .”
***
As I parted ways with Neeley , his comments gnawed at me . My gut told me he was a seedy character , but he was right on this . The two EMs Snyder had appointed after Brown and Kurtz , Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose , had never been politically baptized by the Mott Foundation . Without the Mott connection , both would go on to be criminally charged in 2016 for partaking in an allegedly fraudulent financial scheme that triggered the water crisis .
Despite Brown and Kurtz avoiding the criminal bullseye , there was no doubt which culprits were responsible . It was Brown and Kurtz who fired the first shots in the water war between Detroit and Flint — a battlefield spanning seventy miles with a pipeline between the two .
Jordan Chariton ’ s book We The Poisoned : Exposing The Flint Water Crisis And the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans is available now .
74 x The Trial Lawyer