Flint councilman takes to the streets with petitions for water rebates

FLINT, MI -- Councilman Sheldon Neeley is asking citizens for their permission to file damage claims on their behalf a month after city attorneys told him he had no standing to do so.

"I'm challenging it the best way I know how," said Neeley, who represents the city's 6th Ward and who filed damage claims on behalf of Flint water customers from his area who were told to boil tap water or buy bottled water this summer.

There were three separate boil-water advisories in 22 days this summer for neighborhoods on Flint's west side because of repeated positive tests for total coliform bacteria.

Residents were told to boil water or use bottled water for drinking, bathing and brushing teeth during the advisories.

But when Neeley and 5th Ward Councilman Wantwaz Davis filed damage claims, asking that residents receive $5 rebates for days when the advisories were in place, City Attorney Peter Bade said neither had standing to assert claims against the city on behalf of individual residents.

Neeley started his petition drive after the City Council voted unanimously Nov. 10 to file a damage claim again on behalf of all water customers -- residential and business -- affected by the advisories.

The petitions, which Neeley said are also circulated by pastors and others in Flint, say, "I hearby give the Flint City Council members the authority to file a damage claim, pursuant to the boil water advisories in the City of Flint, on my behalf, and to ask for an individual water study, as may be necessary."

MLive-The Flint Journal could not reach Bade for comment Tuesday, Nov. 25, but the attorney has said previously that "there is no basis in the charter or state law that would allow (council members) to assert a claim for damages on behalf of residents of your wards."

Neeley said the petitions are in direct response to Bade's previous opinion, which also asserted water rebates given to residents in select wards would "open the door for future claims by individual wards who believe they have been aggrieved by some action or inaction of city government."

"(This action) puts people together," Neeley said of his latest effort. "The City Council voted to go forward. My position is we do have standing."

http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/inde...es_to_the.html


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