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Distribution StaffDirector: Edwin D. Custer. Staff: Kim Bargy, JaneBingham, Casey & Nic Custer, Emma Davis,Marabeth Foreman, Andrea Garrett, Charlie &Linda & Patrick & Terrance & Christan & JillianneGoldsberry, Ingrid Halling & Bob Thomas, RobertJewell, Andrew Keast, Carol Larzelere Kellermann,Stephen Kellermann, Jo Larzelere, Mary LeRoy,Bill & Carol Leix, James & Lillian & LiviaLondrigan, Alan & Julie Lynch, Ron & MaryMeeker, Robert & Nancy Meszko, John Moliassa,Keith Mullaly, Mike Neithercut, Ted Nelson, Edith& John Pendell, Dave & Becky Pettengill, LoriNelson Savage & Pat Savage, Barbara & RichardSchneider, Mike Spleet, and Gina Stoldt.

Board of Trustees• Jane M. Bingham • Edwin D. Custer

• Bella Kritz • Jack D. Minore• Robert R. Thomas

• Jan Worth-Nelson, ex officio720 E. Second St.Flint, Mich. 48503(810) 233-7459

Web Site: eastvillagemagazine.orgE-mail: eastvillage@sbcglobal.netLayout by Ted Nelson. Printing by Riegle Press

Inc., 1282 N. Gale Rd., Davison, Mich. 48423.The East Village Magazine is a program of the

Village Information Center Inc., a nonprofit corpo -ration. We welcome material from readers, but allsubmissions become the property of the publicationand if published will be edited to conform to the edi-torial style and policies of the publication. Allinquiries about the publication should be mailed toEast Village Magazine, Village Information Cen ter,720 E. Second St., Flint, Mich. 48503. Distributionis the second Saturday of each month. Displayadvertising rates are $34.00 a column-inch plus anyother costs. Unclassified ads are $2.50 a printed lineor part of a printed line. Rates subject to changewithout notice. The deadline for advertising is 10days before each pub li cation date.

East VillageMagazine

Cover: For-Mar Treehouse

Vol. LIV No. 9Founder

EditorManaging Editor

Copy EditorReporters

Columnists

Business ManagerAd Sales

Éminence GrisePhotographer

Poet

September 2016Gary P. Custer

Jan Worth-NelsonNic CusterDanielle WardKayla ChappellNic CusterJan Worth-NelsonRobert R. ThomasAnne TrelfaJan Worth-NelsonTeddy RobertsonPaul RozyckiRobert R. ThomasCasey CusterAndrew KeastTed NelsonEdwin D. CusterGrayce Scholt

There are at least two ways to win anelection. Obviously, the best is to have a great

candidate, put on the strongest campaign,sell your ideas to the voters and hope theysupport your views. At least that’s theclassical democratic view of winning anelection.The other way is to massage the rules

of the election so your party has a built-inedge. For the last decade or more theRepublicans have been masterful at writ-ing and rewriting the election rules to givethem a great advantage. Gerrymandering election districts Perhaps most significant is the gerry-

mandering of election districts across thenation. In states where the Democratshave won the most votes for a particularoffice such as the state senate, state houseor U.S. House, the Republicans have oftenclaimed the most seats because of the waythe election districts were drawn.Democrats aren’t exactly innocent in thisgerrymandering game either. Given theopportunity, they have done the same tothe Republicans.

Voter ID lawsAnother technique is the voter ID

requirement that has been passed in anumber of states (though the courts haveoverturned several of those voter IDlaws.) On the surface it seems reason-able to require a voter to have a legalidentification card of some kind in orderto cast a ballot – after all we need an IDto cash a check. Those who supportthose laws argue that they only want toprotect the integrity of the ballot andprevent voter fraud. But most studiesshow that real voter fraud is very raretoday and more the colorful lore of pastcorrupt political machines. The real rea-son behind these laws is that if votingbecomes just a bit more difficult (noteveryone has an ID and there can besome cost and effort to obtain one) somepeople will decide not to bother voting –and most of those would be Democrats. So the nuts and bolts details of an elec-

tion do matter. Banning “straight-ticket” votingIn Michigan, the most recent tweaking

of the rules has been the attempt to endwhat is commonly called “straight=ticketvoting” – where one can vote for all themembers of the Democratic or RepublicanParty by checking a single box.

On one level, it seems reasonable.After all, shouldn’t the voters take thetime to learn about each and every can-didate before they cast their ballots?Shouldn’t they know about the candi-dates for the Wayne State Board ofTrustees as well as those running forpresident? Isn’t that what democracy isall about? Yes, in the abstract that’s probably true.

But one look at the motivation behindeliminating the straight ticket vote tells adifferent story. In Michigan most of thosewho use the straight-ticket vote areDemocrats — often minorities in urbanareas. Those who favored the legislativechange were Republicans.

Straight-ticket effectsEliminating the straight-ticket option

would have several effects. First, it couldhurt those candidates below the presiden-tial level. The “down-ticket” offices —members of Congress, the state legisla-ture, county officials and others would notbenefit from the “coattail effect” from thetop of the ticket. In particular, the educa-tion boards would be ignored. Usuallythere is little campaigning or informationon the candidates running for theUniversity of Michigan, Michigan Stateand Wayne State boards, as well as theState Board of Education. Usually theparty that does well at the top of the tick-et carries the education boards. (In fact,the votes for the education boards are oneof the best determinants of which party isdoing well in a given election.)Second, if the voters were required to

pick their way through a long list ofcandidates, almost certainly the lines atthe polls would be longer and votersmight be discouraged from voting at all.Given the history in Michigan, the oddsare that most of those discouraged vot-ers would be Democrats — often thosein urban areas. Worries about long linesand voting delays have caused manycounty clerks and election officials tosupport keeping the straight-ticketoption. Third, Michigan voters had the oppor-

tunity to vote on ending the straight-ticketballot in 1964 and 2002 and they said noon both occasions. This current versionincluded an appropriation of $5 million toprevent the voters from repealing it byway of a referendum. Recently, the legis-

CommentaryStraight talk on the “straight ticket”

By Paul Rozycki

(Continued on Page 6.)

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Photograph by Edwin D. CusterPhoto of the Month: Crim speed

City infrastructure plan takes “holistic” approach, may cost $2 billionBy Nic Custer

(Continued on Page 7.)

Rebuild Flint the Right Way, an ambi-tious plan released in August to repair,replace and upgrade the city’s infrastructure,outlines Mayor Karen Weaver’s vision forfixing the city in the wake of the water cri-sis. Implementing the plan might cost asmuch as $2 billion, the document states.The plan asserts Flint residents should

not have to pay for the proposed infra-structure improvements because of citi-zens’ lack of choice in the initial drinkingwater switch to the Flint River. Instead it lays out financing by a com-

bination of state and federal grants – someof which already have been allocated, andsome of which are pending – includingsupport from the Michigan Department ofEnvironmental Quality (MDEQ), the U.S.Department of Transportation, the U.S.Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),and the U.S. Department of Housing andUrban Development (HUD). Block-to-Block Strategy preferredAmong its many proposals, Rebuild

Flint calls into question replacing pipeshouse by house. Instead, the plan suggests taking a

block-by-block approach and recom-mends ways to potentially replace or addother infrastructure alongside pipereplacement including streetlights, bikelanes, demolitions, storm water manage-ment and utility cables.It states, “Flint cannot restore clean

drinking water citywide through a piece-

meal approach. The causes and instances ofunsafe drinking water in Flint continue to bevaried, dynamic and even unpredictable.”The document, released by the Mayor’s

office at her State of the City address thissummer, suggests the work should alsoinclude:• replacing exterior and interiorinfrastructure in occupied buildings;• tearing down vacant structures; • burying telecommunication andelectrical cables;

• building new roads; and • building green infrastructure to manage storm water in roadside rights of way.It suggests Flint needs a new water

infrastructure system to end its water cri-sis because lead and corrosion have beendeposited throughout the entire waterdelivery system, not just in homes withlead service lines. More than two-thirds of the houses

with lead levels testing above the federalaction limit of 15 parts per billion do nothave lead or galvanized service lines,according to the plan. It also says that ifthe additional street infrastructureimprovements are implemented while thecity replaces service lines, that it will“present little to no increase in installationcosts and offer long-term cost savings.”

How much it might costEstimates for replacing Flint’s infrastruc-ture including water mains and servicelines range from $715.6 million to $1.807

billion. The report states if all of the waterline replacement involves excavation,then rebuilding roads, sidewalks andgreenways, it may cost as much as $2.446billion. Replacement of interior plumbing in

buildings, which owners would otherwise beresponsible for, could cost as much as $310million citywide. An additional estimate todemolish approximately 2,000 vacant build-ings will cost another $112 million.The plan states that a block-by-block

replacement approach would make waterservice line replacement cheaper at eachhome, replace water mains and sewerlines, as well as guarantee clean waterdelivery to homes. The report suggests that replacing

infrastructure house-by-house mayimprove water quality but does not guar-antee contamination issues will beresolved. It would also still require long-term replacement of water and sewermains and roads that would be damagedduring replacement of water lines to eachhome. This approach also aligns with thecity’s 2013 master plan goals and the newzoning codes being ratified, according tothe plan.State supports “holistic” approachRich Baird, who serves as the gover-

nor’s senior advisor and “transformationmanager” in Flint, said that the stateagrees that there needs to be a holisticapproach to replacing water infrastructure

5

Camping out is anhonorable Michigantradition. I have aphoto of me at 3years old in the wildsof West Branchholding a hatchetwhile standing infront of my father’sMarine Corps puptent that alwayssmelled of tropicalmold, that made it allthat more exotic as acamp. And it wasvery mobile.Spending much of

my boyhood in theGenesee Countycountryside creating“camps,” which wekids also called“forts,” was alwaysgreat fun.Location was critical. The farther from

home and the deeper into the woods thebetter because what we were creatingwere “hideouts” with their glorious inti-mations of unsupervised privacy. Noadults hung out in kid camps. It just was-n’t done.

That universal fantasyBut of all the kid camps I have known,

including the tent that smelled of theSouth Pacific in WWII, the universal fan-tasy of the kids in my circle was to some-day have a real treehouse. We had plentyof woods, so a treehouse was not much ofan imaginative stretch.But none of us ever did, as far as I know.

Nailing a couple of barn wood planksbetween a couple of maple tree branches washardly the edifice conjured by the grandeur ofa real treehouse. The closest I’d came was afriend who once lived in a treehouse in theHollywood Hills, but I never did visit herthere, which I have always regretted.

A stranger walked into CorkTreehouses recently returned to my fanta-

sy life when a stranger walked into the Corkwhere my wife and I were dining with a fewfriends. Ingrid rose from her chair andexcused herself by saying, “I know thatman. I know who he is.” She headed for thestranger, introduced herself and was quicklydeep in conversation with him.“That’s who I thought it was,” she said

upon her return. “He is The Treemaster.His name is Pete Nelson. Pete builds tree-houses all over the country and has a TVshow about doing just that.”Ingrid had recognized him because she

is a fan of his show, “Treehouse Masters,”on the Animal Planet Network. When sheasked Pete what he was doing in Flint, he

said, “Building a treehouse in For-Mar.”The For-Mar Nature Preserve and

Arboretum is a 383-acre preserve operated bythe Genesee County Parks & RecreationCommission. Its focus is environmental edu-cation. I could not imagine a better location inthe county for my dream treehouse.

For-Mar is sacred groundFor-Mar will always be sacred ground forme. A few miles upstream from the For-Mar treehouse is where I did most of myboyhood camping and hunting. My fatherbuilt a house on a hill bordered byKearsley Creek. The creek was our trailinto and out of the woods where we hadour camps. The terrain then was verymuch like For-Mar’s acreage.For-Mar was originally a dairy farm

owned by Forbes and Martha Merkley. In1970 FORbes & MARtha donated theacreage to be preserved and available forenvironmental education as an arboretumand wildlife sanctuary, which is exactlywhat it is today. It is also the very envi-ronment in which I spent the most pleas-urable years of my youth camping withMother Earth.On Pete’s invitation, we visited the con-

struction site several times. Accessibilitycould not be better. Located just a fewpaces down the trail from the visitor centerparking lot, the site is on a wooded bluffabove Kearsley Creek.Our first visit was a Sunday and no one

was at the site, but the work had begun.After gawking at the beginnings of a realtreehouse, we ambled over to the visitorcenter to get the story.Nicole Ferguson, the head naturalist at

For-Mar, answered our many questionsabout how this project came to be.In 2014, a program at For-Mar challenged

the kids in the pro-gram to conjure upand draw their dreamtreehouse. The kidsthen created a presen-tation to pitch the ideato Genesee CountyParks Director AmyMcMillan.So impressed was

the director that theGenesee CountyParks Commissioninaugurated a tree-house fund andapplied to TreehouseMasters to have thembuild it. Six monthsago Nelson Treehouseand Supply acceptedthe application todesign, build andinstall the treehouse.

During one of our trailside superviso-rial visits to the site, we chuckled overthe signs along the site. “Don’t botherthe carpenters!” “Don’t feed the carpen-ters!”Despite such warnings, the carpenters

and crew were a friendly group, thor-oughly enjoying their fine communal cre-ation in a Michigan woods. I thought atsome point they would all break into“Whistle while you work.”Treetops are for wheelchairs, tooDuring another visit, when the ramps

were weaving their ways through the treesand the house was rising, we encounteredKevin, one of Pete’s crew, whom Ingridasked about the educational focus of thetreehouse.“This treehouse is definitely focused

on accessible environmental education.”He added, “How cool is it to be able toride your bike up into the trees with thebirds?”“Or wheelchair,” I added. The tree-

house is universally accessible, featuringan ADA-compliant ramp.I turned around to recalibrate what

was rising before me. The genius of theramping through and around existingtrees, for example. The substance, thewood of the ramps and beams and housestructure, made me grin and shake my

Essay: For-Mar treehouse a childhood fantasy brought to lifeBy Robert R. Thomas

Robert Thomas at his fantasy digs

Photograph by Ingrid Halling

(Continued on Page 6.)

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... Straight(Continued from Page 3.)lature has often used the addition of asmall appropriation to prevent the votersfrom undoing laws they have passed. Fourth, party labels can be a pretty

decent “brand” to decide who youlike or don’t like. Today, if you are aconservative and favor a smaller gov-ernment you will most likely preferthe Republican brand. If you are aliberal and prefer a more activist gov-ernment you would likely prefer theDemocratic brand. It’s not perfect,but in an age of ideologically dividedparties, the party labels can tell thevoters a lot. Finally, the straight ticket is only an

option. Voters are always free to gothrough the whole ballot and cast theirvotes for individual candidates as theychoose.Now it’s true that we are only one of 10

states to still allow for the straight-ticketvote. But Michigan has had it since 1892,and it’s worked pretty well.It’s also true in some abstract, pure

democracy voters ought to be fullyinformed of every candidate on the ballot– from president to dog catcher. But theworld rarely works that way, and this pro-posal was clearly aimed more at aidingRepublicans than encouraging a fullyinformed electorate. As things now stand a federal judge has

blocked the law, citing its discriminatoryimpact on minority voters. A federalappeals panel agreed. More last-minute appeals are possible

before the November election, but fornow, it looks like we still will have theoption of voting a “straight-ticket” thisfall.

Paul Rozycki is a retired professor of politi-cal science from Mott Community College.He has lived in Flint since 1969 and hasbeen involved with and observed Flint poli-tics for many years. He is author of Politicsand Government in Michigan (with JimHanley) and A Clearer Image: The Historyof Mott Community College. He can bereached at paul.rozycki@mcc.edu.

Editing Services. Eagle Eye Editing andProofreading Services provides top-notch copy edit-ing and proofreading for your writing needs by apublished author and East Village Magazine copyeditor and proofreader. Prices depend on the type ofproject and number of pages. Contact Danielle E.Ward at eagleeyeediting@danielleelyse.com.One- and two-bedroom apartments for rent. Clean,partially furnished, all bills paid except electricity.Walking distance to UM-Flint and Mott CommunityCollege. 810-235-0021.Three-bedroom townhouse for lease. Hardwoodfloors, refrigerator, range, 1½ baths, laundry, off-streetparking. In the center of it all on cul-de-sac Avon nearKearsley St. Walk three blocks or less to UM-F, MCC,Cultural Center, downtown. References and credit checkrequested. On-site management. $595 a month plus util-ities. E-mail: ecuster@sbcglobal.net or write: ApartmentBox 9, 720 E. Second St., Flint MI 48503.Four-bedroom apartment for lease. Historic and veryspacious three-story, East Village apartment with a fullfront porch, hardwood floors, frig, range, dishwasher, 2½baths, laundry, off-street parking. In the center of it all oncul-de-sac Avon near Kearsley St. Walk three blocks orless to UM-Flint and MCC campuses, Cultural Center,downtown, Farmers’ Market, horticultural gardens, parksand easy freeway access. References and credit checkrequested. On site management. $795 a month plus elec-trical. Heat and tested water included. E-mail:ecuster@sbcglobal.net or write: Apartment Box 7, 720 E.Second St., Flint MI 48503.

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head in awe.Pete and his crew are truly tree masters.

To watch them do their magic over threeweeks was watching art take place at thehands of artists whose media is dreamsand wood and cooperation.When I asked Kevin when I could

move in, he said, “As soon as the job isfinished. Anytime after that, the place isyours.”With Kevin’s assurances, I have come

to calling the treehouse “My House.”

But no matter what the house is called,it will always be my dream treehouse. It isopen to the public every day, as is For-Mar. That I can visit it daily is like step-ping into a time machine to my childhoodwhere I climb up into the trees to take inthe observations of a crow.I invite all to come on up to the house

for a visit.The For-Mar treehouse will appear on

the “Treehouse Masters” TV show inJanuary.

Robert R. Thomas can be reached atcaptzero@sbcglobal.net.

... Treehouse(Continued from Page 5.)

Volunteer Distributors WantedThe East Village Magazine is lookingfor volunteer distributors in some of theresidential blocks bounded by E. Court,Franklin, Tuscola and Meade streets.Spend less than one hour a month get-ting exercise and insuring your neigh-bors get the magazine. Contactecuster@sbcglobal.net or write to 720E. Second St. Flint, MI 48503.

7

instead of taking a piecemeal approach. Baird said the state has been in support

of Weaver’s plan to remove lead servicelines and any galvanized lines that arealso trapping corrosion. But he has sever-al questions about how the cost estimateswere determined that he had yet to askcity officials. He said the estimates toreplace interior plumbing and demolishvacant buildings across the city seemhigher than he would expect. In Detroit,for example, he said demolitions averagearound $7,000 per home.The city of Flint’s 2015 report, Beyond

Blight: Comprehensive Blight EliminationFramework, estimated the average cost ofresidential demolition at $10,000 and theaverage cost of commercial demolition at$50,000. At these average costs, the pricefor 8,000 demolitions (7,500 residentialand 500 commercial) would cost closer to$100 million, but this figure is an averageand does not take into account potentialadditional costs such as removing oldwater infrastructure to vacant lots.Outside funds required to move aheadWhile the city’s Fast Start program has

replaced more than 33 service lines, thecity has not received enough infrastruc-ture replacement funds to meet the pro-jected costs of replacing the entire system.According to the plan, the state ofMichigan has committed $2 million inFast Start funds to replace pipes for atleast 250 homes. Another $2 million has been committed

by the MDEQ toward improving storm andwaste water systems. The U.S. Departmentof Transportation awarded $20 million torebuild roads and replace adjacent watermains on Atherton Road between DortHighway and Grand Traverse Street and onDupont Street between Stewart Avenue andFlushing Road. Michigan State HousingDevelopment Authority (MSHDA) hasawarded $13.9 million to the Land Bank forat least 1,000 residential demolitions in afinal round of Hardest Hit demolitionfunds.Pending funding requests are also list-

ed in the report including an additional$25 million from state of Michigan forservice line replacement. A $146 millionrequest in Drinking Water StateRevolving Funds is pending from theEPA to upgrade the Flint water treatmentplant and replace water mains and servicelines. HUD has a pending appropriationfor $151 million in CommunityDevelopment Block grants to rebuildwater and sewer mains, replace water andsewer service lines, “replace compro-mised in-home infrastructure, and rebuildabove ground infrastructure.” An addi-tional $1 million is pending from

MSHDA for owner-occupied housingrenovation. Roadway upgrades, underground

cables plannedThe plan calls for upgrading electrical

and fiber-optic telecommunications cablesby burying them underground alongsidenew pipes. It states Consumers Energyspends up to $8.6 million per year repairingand maintaining aerial power lines. It alsocalls for repair of the city’s 592 miles ofroadways, replacement of curbs to improvestorm water management, the developmentof bike lanes, low-maintenance plants ingreenways and a LED streetlight replace-ment program that could save the city $1.5million annually in power costs.Baird said his purpose in working in

Flint is to coordinate state, local and fed-eral responses to help stabilize the watersystem. But it is also to coordinate med-ical responses and to improve longer termquality of life issues including safety, jobsand education. He said his immediate con-cern is getting the water stabilized andthen once that occurs he can work onexcavation and the necessary transforma-tion of the water system.“My hope is we will be successful

working with state and federal govern-ment to help Flint get what it needs tohave confidence in its water system,”Baird said.

... City (Continued from Page 4.)

Detailed maps included in the planshow the percentage of occupied proper-ties with lead or galvanized service linesper block and the percentage of propertiesthat tested above the federal lead actionlevel. This data is based on MDEQ watersamples from 10,985 occupied propertiesin Flint – one out of every three buildings.

Replacement over recoatingWhile the plan identifies recoating the

pipes and not replacing them as a viablealternative, it advocates for service linereplacement that uses the master planprinciples to shrink parts of the waterdelivery system and would potentiallycreate a reconnection fund for 500 vacantproperties that can be reoccupied in thefuture.It also identifies components that con-

tribute to lead contamination and affectwater quality which includes water mains,and both the city and homeowner portionsof the service lines. Inside the home, waterheaters, internal plumbing and faucets orfixtures such as shower heads can all leadto poor water quality, once they have beencompromised by corrosive water.The Rebuild Flint plan and blight elim-

ination framework are available for down-load on imagineflint.com.

EVM Managing Editor Nic Custer can bereached at NicEastvillage@gmail.com.

From Michigan Hands to Michigan Homes601 M.L. King Avenue Located inside the Flint Farmers’ Market

8

With an engaged group of 25 in thebasement of Flint Public Library recently,Hubert Roberts led a conversation about“The New Jim Crow,” both MichelleAlexander’s eponymous book and thereality.The conversation was part of the

Tendaji Talks series, sponsored byNeighborhoods Without Borders, whosefocus is systemic racism.Roberts, a Flint educator, mentor and

minister, opened the conversation with theproposition that the American justice sys-tem is not broken, as many critics suggest;instead, he said, it works exactly asdesigned by our founding fathers.He backed his claim by reading from

the Declaration of Independence. Whenhe finished reading, the group confirmedthrough vocal feedback Roberts’ assertionthat the focus of the founding fathers wason property and white men who owned it.The few controlled the many, he said.“America is a business,” said Roberts,

“and the business is white and male.”White landowners took precedence overpeople without property. Women couldnot vote. Slaves were property, not peo-ple. So much for “all are created equal”and equally protected by government.“We live in a culture of lying,” said

Roberts. “History is critical to under-standing American culture.”He then laid out some American

history.After the Emancipation Proclamation,

Roberts explained, slaves may have beenfreed, but there was no equality, no com-pensation of any sort, nor any jobs. AfterReconstruction, from 1877 until the mid-1960s, Jim Crow laws and customs pre-vailed to legitimatize anti-black racism.In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court

helped undermine the Constitutional pro-tections of blacks with its infamous Plessyv. Ferguson decision that legitimatized theJim Crow laws and the Jim Crow way ofAmerican life. Its foundation rests on thepremise that whites are superior and dis-crimination against blacks is acceptable.Roberts continued his history lesson by

noting the derivation of the term JimCrow.“Jump Jim Crow” is a song and dance

from the early 19th century performed inblackface by a white comedian who per-formed all over the country as “DaddyJim Crow.”The song may have been inspired by

the song and dance of a physically dis-abled African slave named Jim Cuff orJim Crow.However it all came to be, the fact is

that by 1838 the term “Jim Crow” and the

mockery of blackfaced minstrel showspresented African Americans in the less-than-equal light lie of “separate butequal.” Segregation reigned.Another needed historical enlighten-

ment, according to Roberts, is that theNew Jim Crow is the Old Jim Crow.“They just changed the names in the

New Jim Crow,” he said. “No matter theCrow, the reality remains segregation dejure.”Roberts then ran a litany of systemic

New Jim Crow operations that he sug-gested parallel the Old Jim Crow castesystem:• law and order• get tough• war on drugs• disposable people• dividing the poor and the workingclass via fear and resentment• mass incarcerations

He pursued the topic by playing a video ofpart of a conversation between Bill Moyersand Michelle Alexander about her book TheNew Jim Crow – Mass Incarceration in theAge of Colorblindness.“To fully understand what’s happened

in this country,” said Alexander, “lookback at least 40 years to the law and ordermovement that was born in the midst ofthe civil rights movement.“Civil rights activists were beginning

to violate segregation laws, laws they feltwere unjust …. Segregationists said thiswas leading to the breakdown of respect

for law. But then this law and order move-ment began to take on a life of its own ….The Get Tough movement and the War onDrugs were a backlash against gains ofblack Americans in the Civil Rightsmovement.”Alexander said that a major result of

such policies has been mass incarcerationof a scale unknown in human history. Sheadded that the majority of those incarcer-ated in America are impoverished peopleof color who, once they are swept into thisjustice system, lose whatever gains per-sons of color had made during the CivilRights Movement. She noted that thereare more people incarcerated today thanthe four million slaves emancipated afterthe Civil War.“Today there are over seven million

people in this country under some form ofthe justice system,” added Roberts.“Why are we in this caste system

today?” he asked at the conclusion of thevideo.“Mitch McConnell done said, ‘We

gonna do all we can to make sure BarackObama will be a one-term president.’“In the interests of this country, even if

you are from many different political par-ties, you should not want your president tofail. That’s insane,” Roberts asserted.What is fueling the New Jim Crow

caste system is what fueled the Old JimCrow system, he contended.“Back to what I said earlier, America is

a business,” he said. “This country wasfounded, and was taken from people thatwere already here to develop business. It’salways a commodity. How can I exploitit? The concept of capitalism, guys, is Ican exploit those that have no power.”He emphasized that the few who have

power control those other people in thatenvironment, as evidenced currently bythe mounting police shootings of unarmedblack men and mass incarcerations ofpeople of color.Roberts concluded with a briefing on

prison labor, the contemporary plantationproducing product for private companies.“The prison systems today are on the

Fortune 500. Michael Jordan has stock inprisons. And all you guys who have401Ks, many of your pension funds are instock in prisons …. Right now you haveprisons across America that are makingproducts for IBM, Motorola, Compac,Honeywell, Microsoft, Boeing, NiemanMarcus, Victoria’s Secret, Whole Foods,Sears, Walmart and more.“So what’s happening is you have peo-

ple in prison that are working making lessthan 25 cents a day that are producingproducts that could be jobs for people that

“The new Jim Crow is the old Jim Crow,” FPL speaker assertsBy Robert R. Thomas

(Continued on Page 10)

Image from Wikipedia

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In a surprise outcome related to theFlint water crisis, East Village Magazine(EVM) last month was featured in a stan-dard-bearing national journal, TheColumbia Journalism Review.In an article titled “In Flint, a new era

for one of the oldest community outlets inthe U.S.,” Detroit freelance writer AnnaClark described the magazine as “anuncommon source of community news —not an alt-weekly, not a tabloid, not ametro-region luxury magazine, not aneighborhood newsletter, but a beautiful-ly printed publication that is part news-magazine, part literary journal.”She delved into the history of EVM, a non-

profit and almost all-volunteer operation thatis celebrating its 40th year (See ad in this issuedetailing the EVM observance open to thepublic at the Flint Farmers’ Market Sept. 24)including some of the story of the magazine’sfounder Gary Custer, relating that he “found-ed the nonprofit magazine in 1976 and deliv-ered it door-to-door, free to residents, whetherthey requested it or not. Custer carried themagazine (both literally and figuratively) fornearly four decades — editing, writing, solic-iting ads, training writers, choosing photo-graphs, laying it out, launching the website—until his death in January 2015 about a monthafter he accepted the magazine’s second-evergrant: $79,000 over three years from the C.S.Mott Foundation.”

Flint book in the makingClark, 36, is currently at work on a

book about the Flint water crisis forMetropolitan Books, a division of HenryHolt. She is a Knight-Wallace journalismfellow at the University of Michigan thisyear, and her work has appeared in ELLEMagazine, The New York Times, TheWashington Post, Next City and of coursethe Columbia Journalism Review, forwhich she has been the correspondent forMichigan, Wisconsin, Ohio andPennsylvania. Her attention to East Village Magazine,

while an unanticipated outgrowth of thewater crisis, was not accidental. She hasstayed in my house on Maxine Street sev-eral times recently while researching herbook, keeping my bird feeders full whenI’m gone and even sitting in on a longSunday afternoon meeting of the EVMstaff. She kayaked on the Flint River and

attended the “watch party” for ClaressaShields’ gold medal Olympic bout atBerston Field House. So she has been seeing firsthand who we

are as Flint residents and how EVM works.Clark thus knew to describe the EVM

staff as it has evolved since Gary Custer’sdeath as a crew of 16 with a “core team”that is “intergenerational and diverse,”along with a distribution staff of nearly50.

Getting to know EVM crewThe core crew, she rightly detailed,

includes, “a former priest who spentdecades working on the San Franciscocable cars (Robert Thomas), a Slavistfrom California who studied Polish litera-ture and became a history professor(Teddy Robertson), a 91-year-old whoused to be an arts reviewer for the FlintJournal, (Grayce Scholt), a Vietnam veter-an who became a ceramacist, painter, andthe photographer who shot nearly everysingle East Village cover image.”

That last staff member is Ed Custer,Gary’s brother, the EVM board presidentand, in fact, the photographer for nearlyevery cover in the magazine’s long histo-ry.The article features a pastiche of the

last year’s cover photos by Ed Custer,along with shots of Gary Custer and hisworkspace at the Second Street office heoccupied almost around the clock beforehe died. Clark shaped her 2,200-word piece

around not just East Village Magazine’s

history but also its relationship to thewater crisis and to the challenges of localjournalism as many media outlets falter.As she put it, EVM faces a “formidable

task” of “reshaping its identity beyond theinfluential founder, and doing so at a timewhen an unfathomable water crisis bringsnew urgency in Flint.”EVM Managing Editor Nic Custer,

now 28, who has been involved with themagazine since he was a teenager, offeredsome of his views.Clark wrote, “At a time when ‘there was

so much mystery locally’ about the water,the East Village crew did its best to reportthe facts, says Nic Custer. But, he adds, ‘Irealize how some of the stuff I put down,that was given to me by people at the cityor state level, were just plain lies. It justwasn’t reality. In that sense I have a littlebit of regret that (as a volunteer) I don’thave a position like the ACLU journalist todo days, weeks, months on this stuff.”Covering Flint a “daunting task”Clark says she understands that chal-

lenge, concluding, “It’s a daunting task towrite a book about Flint, not least with thewater crisis still playing out in real time.East Village Magazine has a lot to teachme about how to approach this story — itsgrounding in community; its spirit ofservice; its attention to both the politicaland the personal; its capacity for self-reflection; and, most importantly, its com-mitment to the beauty, power, and worthof everyday life in the City of Flint.”In a follow-up email conversation

about why she finds herself increasinglyembedded in Flint, she wrote, “As a jour-nalist, I’ve always been drawn to explor-ing the spaces in between, looking foruntold stories in underreported cities.That’s why I focus on the rich stories ofcities in the Upper Midwest…”A die-hard reporter, Clark falls natural-

ly into posing complicated questions.Underfunded cities under stress“I’m especially interested in how the

chronic underfunding of American citiesimperils residents,” she says. “How candistressed cities provide the services andliberties that citizens deserve, while at thesame time building a prosperous future?What can vulnerable communities do toprotect themselves from those in a posi-tion to exploit them? “At a time when local journalism is

more limited than ever in its role asaccountability watchdogs,” she asserts, “itfeels especially important to dig into thesequestions in cities that are outside thenational media’s radar.”

Water crisis writer Anna Clark puts EVM innational spotlight, probes many Flint stories

By Jan Worth-Nelson

(Continued on Page 10)

Anna Clark

Photograph by Michelle & Chris Gerard

10

are out in the community. The answer tothis prison industrial complex is to closethe prisons.”Roberts wrapped up his presentation by

stating: “Basically, Jim Crow law meanswhite people have maintained their powerby any means. And history – one thing abouthistory, it does show us how, unless we arecommitted to work together to change somethings, things will be repeated.”The Tendaji Talks continue this month on

the first Tuesday and third Thursday 6 p.m.at the Flint Public Library.

Robert R. Thomas can be reached atcaptzero@sbcglobal.net.

... Jim Crow(Continued from Page 8.)

Clark says she wrote articles aboutFlint before the water crisis, and hasenjoyed visiting the city over the years.But now, reporting for the book has givenher the opportunity to spend more timehere and meet more of the people of Flint.“It is their voices and stories that are

driving this book forward,” she says, “andmy role right now is to be a listener andsimply pay attention.”The whole Columbia Journalism

Review article can be found athttp://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/flint_michigan_water_east_village_magazine.php.

EVM Editor Jan Worth-Nelson can bereached at janworth1118@gmail.com.

... Spotlight(Continued from Page 9.)

Step Forward Loan Rescue program reinvigorates help for Flint homeowners

By Jan Worth-NelsonA six-year-old program of the

Michigan State Housing DevelopmentAuthority called “Step Forward” to helpprevent foreclosures in Michigan is step-ping up approaches to Flint residentsaffected by the water crisis or other finan-cial troubles. Troy Thelen of MSHDA reminded

members of the Flint Water RecoveryGroup at a recent meeting that the StepForward Loan Rescue program using fed-eral Hardest Hit Fund dollars offers no-interest loan assistance to sustain homeownership.The target population, Thelen said, are

homeowners currently delinquent onproperty taxes, neighborhood associa-tion/condo fees, or, in the case of Flintresidents, those who may have a lien ontheir property because of delinquent waterand sewer fees.Applicants also may qualify if they are

unemployed or receiving unemploymentbenefits, are underemployed and can doc-ument a 20% reduction in gross income,are underwater and owe more than 115%of the property value. He said the applicant must be the

homeowner of record and live in thehouse.Thelen said residents in Flint already

have received $5.3 million through theloan rescue program – $3.4 million direct-ed toward mortgage issues and $1.9 mil-lion toward property tax delinquencies.He and his staff reported that 1,564 Flintresidents have received help so far.

Thelen and his staff present at themeeting said the agency has not noticed aspike in applications from Flint since thewater crisis, but attributed that to the factthat the program had been winding downas funds had been depleted. But a February influx in new funds

from the federal government has given theStep Forward program new life and rea-son to advertise.Thelen is manager of transactions in

the assets management division ofMSHDA, a position in which he overseesthe troubled properties section of theagency’s financed portfolio.More information on the Step Forward pro-

gram is available at StepForwardMichigan.orgor at 866-946-7432.

EVM Editor Jan Worth-Nelson can bereached at janworth1118@gmail.com.

Seniors • Retirees • Smart PeopleAArree yyoouu bboorreedd??

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WWoouulldd yyoouu lliikkee ttoo jjooiinn aalliivveellyy ccrreeww ooff wwrriitteerrss??

If so, volunteer for East VillageMagazine by emailing us at:eastvillage@sbcglobal.netOr call 810-233-7459

11

homes in the city whose water has been intense-ly studied – in the month following “Flush forFlint” there was a positive jump – from 71 to93 percent “at or below the action level” – thatis good news and a dramatic change. Theyweren’t sure how to explain it, and as scientists,they knew that correlation isn’t necessarily cau-sation. But, working backwards from “back ofthe envelope calcuations,” as Durno putit, they began to cautiously speculatethat enough people had complied tomake a difference.“My opinion is that Flush for Flint

did have an impact,” Durno said. “Wesurveyed our residents and 70 percentparticipated.” The researchers haddetermined that a 6 percent increase inusage would be enough to effectchange – and “we got it,” he said.To understand the evidence for what

we did, we had to read a chart. I lovethat chart. After all the emotion andpolitics, the chart tells a story of onething, of many, the community didtogether for our recovery. Sitting there under the dome that day, try-

ing to figure out the “x” and “y” axes, I keptthinking about Lee Ann Walters. In aNovember 2015 interview with East Village

Magazine, Walters, the now-celebrated andpowerful water activist who graduated fromKearsley High School, said she had learneda lot of chemistry during the water crisis.At the early water meetings, she said, offi-

cials from the MDEQ and emergency man-ager Jerry Ambrose “called me a liar and theycalled me stupid.“I am neither of those things,” Walters told

our reporter Ashley O’Brien, “so I decided to gowith the science. You can’t argue with science.”

If there is ever a final exam, or even amidterm in this chemistry class, we don’tknow when it will be, and we don’t knowwhen the semester will be over. In fact, it’sour teachers who are on the line.

The final exam of the chemistry classwe’re all in will be the kind I used to hate –the kind you can’t write your way out of, thekind where you have to show what youknow. In this case, the test is to apply all thetheories and hypotheses and methods. The final exam for these teachers – Durno and

Krisztian and Mayor Weaver and Gov. Snyderand all the others, will be clean drinking water. And in the meantime, this town so often

seen as a swamp of trouble, sometimes char-acterized with the condescension ofprivileged outsiders – oh, thosepoor, poor souls of Flint – that townof beleaguered dim bulbs has turnedinto a think tank. We are not stupid. Over the past

two years, the people of Flint havelearned to pay attention in class.It’s the most important class: theclass of our own experience. We’ve found out sometimes sci-

ence actually helps you understandhow to live. We’ve found out sometimes you

go to class because it’s a way tosave your own life – and it’s a way

stop the fakers who are telling you lies.

Jan Worth-Nelson is the editor of EastVillage Magazine. She can be reached atjanworth1118@gmail.com.

... Chemist (Continued from Page 12.)

The chart Worth-Nelson loves (arrow & heart by EVM)

12

Village LifeStrike a Flintoid these days, you’ll get a chemist

By Jan Worth-Nelson

LIV:9 (641 issues, 6,407 pages)(Continued on Page 11.)

One Thursday in August, as Virginia Techresearcher Marc Edwards was presenting hismost recent findings to the cameras and lightsnearby, another less glamorous group of us –me a lone reporter in the third row – were sit-ting restlessly in a chemistry class at City Hall. It was actually a meeting of the Flint Water

Recovery Group (FWRG), an ongoing consor-tium of social service agencies and residents.Every week this group convenes to share infor-mation, coordinate water supplies and othercommodities, and ask questions of relevant out-siders.This day’s “teachers” were Mark Durno a

supervisory engineer and on-scene coordina-tor from the Environmental ProtectionAgency and George Krisztian, Flint actionplan coordinator from the MichiganDepartment of Environmental Quality.We didn’t exactly sign up for this class, but

there we were – that day, in the dim lightunder the dome. The two men were, it seemed to me,

exceptionally careful, straight-forward, andrespectful, taking pains not to claim too much. They were trying to explain to us how

things were going. To do so, they presented aPowerPoint with charts. In a way, they werethe ones being tested. “There’s no mistake, none of us with

acronyms on our shirts are completely trusted,”Durno said. He was talking about the impor-tance of Edwards, whose data provided not justa scientifically necessary objective third sourceof scrutiny, but a psychological one as well. That day’s presentation was a continuation

of a class we’ve all been in for more than twoyears. And I don’t mean just this stalwart groupof about 80, from the Red Cross and UnitedWay and Christ Enrichment Center and a dozenother agencies, but almost everybody in the city.“I just wish I’d paid better attention in

chemistry class,” Tony Lasher, executivedirector of the Red Cross and the moderatorof the FWRG meetings, said with a ruefulsmile at a recent meeting.We’ve all been learning chemistry.

Hundreds – thousands – of us have beenturned by the reality of our crisis into studentsand mini-researchers. And some of us, it seems, have been con-

ducting our own little independent studies.All in the name of the water we drink. Remember when none of us knew what

TTHMs meant? Now we do, though maybewe can’t spell it – (total trihalomethanes) andwhy it matters. We can toss around terms like“sequential sampling,” “action levels of partsper billion,” “micrograms per deciliter” and“chemical parameters.”And oh yeah, we can talk orthophosphates

and chlorine like a bunch of high schoolgeniuses on Quiz Bowl.In my case, I looked at the periodic table

of elements for the first time in about 50 yearsand spotted Pb – the chemical symbol forlead, also called plumbum. And I remindedmyself the word “plumber” – praise be tothose who’ve helped us – comes from theMiddle English for a person working withlead. Durno and Krisztian said Flint has gone

from being the “worst” to the “best moni-tored water system in the country.” Much ofthat data has come from Flint residents our-selves – as we’ve filled thousands of plasticbottles and turned them in for testing, aswe’ve let numerous rounds of researchersinto our homes, as we’ve talked to them overand over again.We’ve learned how to understand and inter-pret their jargon. And we’ve become scien-tists on our own.It appears, Durno and Krisztian said, many

people are conducting their own mini-studieswhen turning in water-testing kits. When see-

ing two kits from the same day and time –with differences in the results – lab workersconcluded people were testing both their fil-tered and unfiltered water.Flint residents’ curiosity and initiative, in

other words, is extending beyond the formal

protocols – maybe because there’s a lot atstake for us. Maybe we’re fascinated by thehope of seeing change in the making. Almost everybody I know has followed their

home testing results with intense interest – track-ing their “parts per billion” in both lead and cop-per (Mine: 2 ppb lead, 6 ppb copper – phew.)Then there was the matter of the May

“Flush for Flint” campaign, when we wereinstructed to run our taps five minutes a day.

Originally, Steve Branch, Mayor Weaver’schief of staff, suggested to the Thursdaygroup that the “Flush for Flint” campaignhadn’t done much good. I remember feelingchastised, as if I hadn’t done my part.But within a few weeks, Durno and

Krisztian noticed something in their examina-tion of results from their “Sentinel” and“Extended Sentinel” sites – two groups of

“September” By Helen Hunt JacksonAs Recited In Miss Werth’s Fourth Grade

By Grayce Scholt (Age 9)

“The golden rod is yellow,the corn is turning brown,The trees in apple orchardswith fruit are bending down.”

I’d memorized it perfectlyto say on Parents’ Day, andspoke real loud so all could hearand got an A.

But I wondered about those golden rods?They make you sneeze, some say.But only in September?I’d sneezed a lot in May.

And apple trees are bending down.Was that what the lady saw?Our apple tree wasn’t bent at all,is that what she thought was fall?

Although the rhymes still fill my earsI learned to think that day:Be wary of a writer’s words,even if it means an A.

Grayce Scholt is a retired English professor fromMott College who wrote art reviews for the FlintJournal. Her book of poetry, Bang! Go All thePorch Swings, is available online from Amazon. Apersonal narrative of the poet’s life in Europe in theearly 1950s, Vienna, Only You, is available atgscholt09@comcast.net. The author’s new book ofpoems, Night Song, is available from FriesenPress (www.friesenpress.com) and Amazon.

Mark Durno

George Krisztian

Photo by Jan Worth-Nelson

Photo by Jan Worth-Nelson