Ex-Snyder aide: Financial focus led to crisis in Flint
Source: Freep
LANSING The drinking water catastrophe in Flint is the result of a failed model of trying to run state government like a business, says a former adviser to Gov. Rick Snyder, who also predicted the governor wont survive a recall vote if the question makes the ballot.
Dennis Schornack, who retired after serving more than three years as a senior adviser on transportation issues to Snyder during his first term, is the first current or former Snyder official to directly criticize the governor and his management style for contributing to the public health crisis.
Schornack said he still believes Snyder is an intelligent leader and "basically a good guy." But, he said, decisions about Flints drinking water should have been dictated by science instead of finances and the bottom line.
"It's sort of a single dimension for decision making; thinking that if it can't be solved on a spreadsheet, it can't be solved," Schornack said in a telephone interview from Florida. He earlier served 12 years as a senior policy adviser to Republican Gov. John Engler and in between served six years on the International Joint Commission.
Read more:
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2016/02/22/ex-snyder-aide-financial-focus-led-crisis-flint/80767216/
Snyder's response: "It's not a business model" that led to the Flint water crisis, but a small group of career civil servants who lacked common sense, Snyder said.
Fellow Michiganders, be on the look-out for that recall petition!