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News briefs June 10-11: Free Chamber Music at FIM, Concerned Pastors/MCC Water Summit
By Anne Trelfa Free Chamber Music Series continues June 10 at the FIM Fridays in June, the Flint School of Performing Art and Flint Symphony Orchestra present the 2016 Chamber Music Series. The four-concert series, sponsored by the Patricia Cumings Dort Fund and the David T. Dort Fund, began June 3 and is free and open to the public. The Chamber Music Series is held at 7 p.m. in MacArthur Hall of the Flint Institute of Music, 1025 E. Kearsley St., with performances in the MacArthur Recital Hall, and is followed by a reception. The first...
read moreEast Village Magazine – June 2016
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read moreHispanic/Latino group aims to help undocumented Flint residents cope with water crisis
By Stacie Scherman Among groups affected by the Flint water crisis, as some worried social service providers have pointed out, the undocumented immigrant community has been much challenged and under-represented. San Juana “Juani” Olivares, president of the Genesee County Hispanic Latino Collaborative (GCHLC), is trying to do something about that. She is working to make the so-called “U nonimmigrant visa” (U visa) available to undocumented people who have been harmed by contaminated Flint drinking water. Olivares recently met with Congressman...
read moreParks, council-mayoral issues dominate College Cultural Neighborhood Association meeting
By Kayla Chappell and Jan Worth-Nelson UPDATE: This story has been edited to reflect that Jody Lundquist, the city’s chief financial officer, resigned May 31. More than 55 people attended the College Cultural Neighborhood Association’s (CCNA) May meeting, which concentrated on an expanded agreement for park maintenance and development between the City of Flint and the Genesee County Parks and Recreation Commission. City issues also were a focus of the meeting, presented by Kate Fields, Fourth Ward City Council member. Other...
read more“We’re better together”: social justice in black and white
By Robert R. Thomas Seemingly different as their backgrounds, Beecher black pride and Northside Chicago white privilege, Artina Sadler and Tracie Kim share a common passion for social justice. They teach a course titled “Cultural Competence in Health Care” at UM-Flint where they have been teaching colleagues for 11 years. They have become friends. In conversation with each other and an audience of 25 at the Flint Public Library May 25, they traced their individual journeys to becoming friends and how their mutual goal of social justice has...
read morePulling weeds by moonlight
By Teddy Robertson I got home late, a bit after 9 pm, coming back in June to my house in Flint after a several months’ sojourn in the south babeach cities west of Los Angeles. My partner Dennis—an LA native—won’t arrive until July. I’ll be on my own in Michigan for a while. Dennis lives in Torrance, just over the hill from the Pacific coast. It’s usually warmer than at the beach, but when I hike up the steep hillside behind his house I can see the ocean in the distance. This part of SoCal (as the media call it) is about as...
read moreEast Village Magazine – May 2016
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read moreThe power of words and a presidential visit
By Nic Custer Author’s Note: This essay is the result of my role as a Flint citizen and not while acting as a journalist. It is in that spirit and in that voice that I am offering this piece to share my experience with the community. In the age of constant communication, a letter is a powerful tool. A letter written by an eight-year-old Flint resident imploring the president to see Flint for himself led to the commander-in-chief’s early May visit and speech at Northwestern High School. Similarly, an email I sent to the White House in...
read moreVillage Life: President Obama’s drink of water, boos for Snyder, and that primal scream, continued
By Jan Worth-Nelson Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an earlier (April 25) Village Life column President Obama’s sip of water from a sparkling clean glass at Northwestern High School during his May 4 visit was nothing less than a show-stopper. After a few small coughs, when the President said, “Uhh, can I get some water?” I bolted upright from my easy chair, where I was watching the speech on TV at home. The President of the United States wants some water! In Flint! Riveted in my chair, a bottled water from Station #1 at my...
read moreAt 100, Applewood Estate celebrates by welcoming community
By Jan Worth-Nelson In 1916, the Charles Stewart Mott family of Flint clearly were “one percenters” as we’d call them today, and the life they shaped for themselves when they built their estate that year at the foot of Kearsley Street reflects a passion for healthy home-grown food, architectural beauty and self-sufficiency. As the city the Motts influenced so deeply struggles its way out of the latest crises, Applewood Estate celebrates its centennial with substantial peeks at an era before lead pipes and emergency financial managers....
read moreCrossing Water guides Flint residents to safer shores
By Nic Custer Michael Hood knew from 30 years as a wilderness guide that a canoe can’t get from shore to shore unless the rotten wood is replaced first. This metaphor is what inspired the name for Crossing Water, an Ann Arbor-based organization playing a crucial role in Flint’s water crisis. Crossing Water, Hood’s volunteer outreach organization, is applying multi-disciplinary approaches to finding gaps in social services for Flint residents dealing with the water crisis. They help residents regain some sense of control and receive...
read moreView from a grass-roots table: people coming together to cope with Flint water
By Teddy Robertson We sit in a rectangle of tables, old manila file folders halved and then creased so we can write our names and prop them up in front of us. I’ve found my way to the basement of the Unitarian Universalist church for the meeting of a group called Communication/Publication. It’s something to do with water and print media. Jan [Worth-Nelson, EVM editor] has asked me to find out what’s going on. Is there a role for East Village Magazine here? I am clueless, but diligent. Ready for an hour and a half meeting on a cold Monday...
read moreTurn on the taps first two weeks of May, water officials implore Flint residents
By Nic Custer Flint residents are being asked to run cold water through their systems daily for two weeks starting Sunday, May 1. The goal is to push out lead trapped in the system by getting a higher velocity of water running through the water pipes, especially in interior plumbing, according to Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 Acting Administrator Robert Kaplan. Kaplan explained the situation and the flushing protocol at UM–Flint’s Earth Day celebration. He emphasized that the EPA, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality...
read moreCommentary: It’s not the city charter…it’s the people
By Paul Rozycki After several weeks of high profile hearings, criminal charges, and the governor guzzling Flint’s water, perhaps the greatest risk for the average citizen has been the danger of being poked in the eye by someone pointing a finger at someone else, as the Flint water crisis unfolds. Whatever the resolution of the criminal charges, studies, and investigations, others are looking to Flint’s future with a different spyglass. The Flint Charter Review Commission is doing just that. About a year ago, before the water issue hit full...
read moreVillage Life: Primal scream, anybody? This is going on too long
By Jan Worth-Nelson I was warned: I had Kleenex at the ready. Still, when my tears started up in the dark during Flint Youth Theater’s production of “The Most (Blank) City in America” Saturday night at the Elgood Theater, they hit me like a squall. I was crying for this beleaguered, heartbreaking, devastated town. And for all of us entangled in its travails. Andrew Morton’s powerful, participatory play, framed around the relationship between a Flint teenager and her grandfather, ranges through history distant and recent but ultimately...
read moreSt. John Street neighborhood remembered by McCree Theater’s Winfrey
By Robert R. Thomas Charles Winfrey, Executive Director of the McCree Theatre, once wrote a play titled “The Saints of St. John Street” based on his fondest memories of growing up in Flint’s St. John Street neighborhood. He told his audience of 40 at the Flint Public Library recently he felt somewhat outside his comfort zone presenting history rather than a play. He noted his discomfort was heightened by the lack of research material on the St. John Street neighborhood. Winfrey opened the African American “History of Flint”...
read moreEPA water use handout project aims at hard-to-reach residents, faces funding needs
By Jan Worth-Nelson Note: This is an updated version of a story appearing in the April hard copy of East Village Magazine based on information available when the hard copy went to press. More information has since become available. A two-sided color handout from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed explicitly for Flint details what residents need to know about the city’s “new normal” until the water can be declared safe. But getting the handout to those who might need it most has been complicated by a lack of...
read moreEast Village Magazine – April 2016
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read moreColumn: While we were dealing with the water crisis…
By Paul Rozycki As Flint works its way through its water crisis, the range of problems seem overwhelming. Every time it looks like we’ve solved one problem, another rears its head. At first it seemed that all we needed to do was replace the old lead pipes in the homes that had them, as difficult and expensive as that might be. But getting the lead out of the water may be more complex than simply replacing lead pipes—some of the homes with the highest lead levels had copper plumbing rather than lead. It also seems that there may be problems...
read moreFlint Public Art Project evolving to local leadership, “Motion in Play”
By Stacie Scherman Flint Public Art Project (FPAP) is now under new local leadership as a result of recent changes to its organizational structure. Former director and FPAP founder Stephen Zacks stepped down into the newly created creative director position. He is succeeded by FPAP’s new interim director, Joe Schipani. Zacks has been commuting to Flint from his home in New York since founding FPAP in 2011 and said that it has been a challenge to manage the day-to-day operations of the organization. “The most important thing for the...
read moreMarijuana dispensaries focus of planning commission discussion
By Nic Custer Proposals for medical marijuana dispensaries at three Flint locations were the main topic discussed at the March 8 Flint Planning Commission meeting, which drew more than 60 people to the city hall’s Dome Auditorium. Many audience members were College Cultural neighborhood residents who came for a public hearing about Bio-Med LLC’s application to establish a medical marijuana dispensary in the former Family Video, 1835 E. Court St. Most of the audience left, however, before commissioners heard from city planners about a...
read morePretending to be happy: smart guys say it works
This column first appeared in the April, 2009 edition. In light of the rough “Winter of the Water” and all of its depressing side-effects Flintoids have survived, it seems appropriate to remind ourselves of these ideas again. By Jan Worth-Nelson Sheepishly, I admit it: two of my favorite words are “lugubrious” and “lachrymose.” They’re fun to say. I dare you to say them out loud yourself, right now, in Steady Eddy’s or the Lunch Studio or Good Beans or wherever you are: LU-GU-BRIOUS — excessively mournful, and LACH-RY-MOSE —...
read moreConfront America’s history of racism to understand Flint, activist asserts
By Robert R. Thomas Racism and economic inequality go hand-in-glove in America, an anti-racism activist told an audience of 150 at the Flint Public Library, and Flint’s recent travails are a pointed example. Tim Wise asserted to the St. Patrick’s Day crowd that the history of race relations most of us have been taught is a lie. Quoting James Baldwin from a 1965 Ebony interview, he said ignorance of the truth leaves white people in particular “impaled like a butterfly on a pin and they become incapable of seeing themselves or changing...
read moreGray Panthers stalk Flint events: remembering That Weekend (Part I)
By Robert R. Thomas The plan was to take a list of ten events surrounding the Democratic debate at the Whiting and participate in as many as chilly weather and aging bones permitted. My wife Ingrid and I were more interested in the scenes surrounding the main event than the debate itself. We were also interested in participating, not just observing. The opening event was a 2 p.m. rally held by #JUSTICE4FLINT at Willson Park followed by a march across the river, an iconic Flint racial divide. As befits elders, we arrived fashionably...
read moreBernie makes it better: remembering That Weekend (Part 2)
By Teddy Robertson The March 6, 2016 Democratic debate is over. That it was held in Flint seems more amazing now than it did the Sunday I stood in a line that snaked around the Whiting parking lot—students, Flint old timers (“I walked to Flint Central 50 years ago!”), guys with union hall physiques and no topcoat, proper ministerial types, politicos in snug-fitting silky suits. I got a ticket through Flint Neighborhoods United—my name went into a pool of people who posed questions for the candidates. None of my questions were...
read more“Today and Tomorrow–Water in Flint” panel covers “confusing” bills, credits, leaks and lawsuits
By Robert R. Thomas Deciphering Flint’s water bills and the coming state “credits,” assessing the prospects of pending lawsuits, and considering the long-term impact of the city’s water crisis were among topics covered at a community meeting March 10 at the Flint Public Library. Titled “Today and Tomorrow—Water in Flint,” the gathering, featuring nine panelists, was hosted by Flint Neighborhoods United, a collaboration of block clubs, neighborhood associations and neighborhood watches. The panel included representatives of the local, state...
read moreEast Village Magazine – March 2016
The latest issue of East Village Magazine is available for download here:
read moreBeyond the Water Crisis: Ready for prime time? Too much prime time?
By Paul Rozycki Before last November’s election there were many who wondered if Dr. Karen Weaver, running for her first elective office, was ready for prime time. It seems that we have our answer. In just a little over three months, has any mayor of a similar sized city had as much national, state and local air-time? Indeed, has any Flint mayor ever gotten so much media coverage? But, after all the interviews, Rachel Maddow appearances, CNN news interviews, newspaper quotes and celebrity photo ops, has it served her well and has it...
read moreVillage Life: Flint’s water story triggers writers’ unease
By Jan Worth-Nelson Scene One: I’m sitting under a yellow umbrella with Andrew Highsmith and my husband Ted in a sunny plaza at a California university. The yellow makes our faces look like we’ve smeared ourselves with dandelions. It’s a chilly but sunny 63. Highsmith has just gone back for seconds on his drink. “This diet black cherry soda is unbelievably good,” he says. I’m finishing my avocado and quinoa salad and Ted is leaning back after a BLT made with artisanal wheat bread. Yeah, I know: It’s Southern California. Highsmith looks more...
read moreEven the Commies came to Flint: reflections on poison water and the “revolution”
By Robert R. Thomas Since Flint has become the rock star of rust belt disasters, all manner of journalistic requests come through East Village Magazine’s office seeking some Flint access. You know, “the real Flint”—that kind of thing. When a request arrived from a journalist named Alan Goodman representing a publication titled REVOLUTION Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, I caught that assignment instead of my imaginary interview with Rachel Maddow or my one-on-one with Bernie Sanders. Journalism can often be cruel. How the...
read moreLocal poets, singers make art from water crisis, racism, justice at “Power of Witness”
By Stacie Scherman Kimberly Brown of Flint steps up to the mic at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Flint in the warm glow of spotlights illuminating the stage, and launches into a poem. “We are so vulnerable to what happens to the waters that nourish us,” she reads. “It was always the other creatures that needed saving, never us. We thought. Now we rethink; the water is life.” Afterward Brown said her reaction to the water situation is very personal and that her poem is part of her “grieving process.” Along with 11 other performers and an...
read moreFlint Public Art Project, Spencer’s Art House leadership changes in Carriage Town
By Lori Nelson Savage The February meeting of the Carriage Town Historic Neighborhood Association focused on a review of the community improvement projects affecting the area. Projects discussed included Chevy Commons, Hamilton Dam, Spencer’s Art House, the Statue Garden and a Carriage Town Flea Market. Chevy Commons project progreses CTHNA president Michael Freeman said the Genesee County Land Bank and the City of Flint are working together to turn the former Chevy in the Hole site into a natural park along the Flint River. The park will...
read moreCity water bill refunds to start soon: 65% from April 2014 “until the water is safe to drink”
Within the last few days, Flint residents received text messages announcing the launch of the $30 million water bill refund program recently approved and funded by the state legislature and signed by Governor Snyder Feb. 26. Here is the text as it was sent on Sunday, Feb. 28, from helpforflint.com, a website of the Governor’s office. When will my credit start? The City anticipates the credits will be on bills issued within a few weeks, once the systems are in place. Will the credit only be for the drinking water portion of my bill?...
read moreStreet light upgrades, zoning changes, water supply highlight CPNA meeting
by Nic Custer The Central Park Neighborhood Association discussed grant applications for lighting upgrades, mobile meetings, Riverside Tabernacle playscape improvements, Kearsley Street zoning and water distribution updates at their February meeting Norma Sain, executive director of the Court Street Village Non Profit Housing Corporation, outlined plans for grant applications and asked residents of other suggestions of improvements to apply for. She will be applying to the Community Foundation of Greater Flint (CFGF) for a $5,000 Next Level...
read moreSyracuse, New York galvanizes city-wide response to Flint’s water woes; Buffalo joins, too
By Stacie Scherman Four hundred miles away from Flint, Daren Jaime, pastor of the People’s AME Zion Church of Syracuse, New York, recently “had a vision in the middle of the night” about helping Flint residents cope with the water crisis. The next morning he reached out not just to his congregation but to the superintendent of the Syracuse City School District, who agreed to make every school in the district a drop-off site for water donations. The campaign caught on in a big way in the city of 144,000. Soon the Syracuse mayor and county...
read more“Rebuild Flint” marchers pass by Karegnondi Pipeline, call for infrastructure, justice
By Nic Custer In the shadow of the former Buick City industrial complex and passing by pipes waiting to be installed in the Karegnondi pipeline, hundreds of diverse local and out of town activists marched a mile from the Metropolitan Baptist Church to the Flint Water Treatment Plant Feb. 19. Their aim, declared on signs and in speeches, was to demand new infrastructure and protest policies and politicians responsible for the city’s ongoing drinking water crisis. Longtime civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson, Judge Greg Mathis, water...
read moreConeys and Vernors in Beverly Hills: Hollywood comes through for Flint
By Jan Worth-Nelson About 200 people, half of them declaring they were from Flint, came together Sunday afternoon at Spaghettini’s in Beverly Hills, California, to raise money for Flint in the wake of its water disaster. By the end of the evening, which featured performances by country singer Ty Herndon and Flint native and jazz star DeeDee Bridgewater, more than $31,000 had been donated for flintkids.org. Contacted two days later, event organizer and LA publicist Howard Bragman, a Flint native, said the amount raised had topped...
read moreByrd Competition stars 26 stringed-instrument musicians March 5
By Anne Trelfa Violins, violas and cellos will star March 5 at the Flint Institute of Music in a day of performance by 26 young musicians that is free and open to the public. The 45th annual international William C. Byrd Young Artist Competition will run from 8:45 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., according to an announcement from the St. Cecilia Society of Flint, which sponsors the competition. The annual event rotates among four disciplines: strings, wind and brass, voice, and piano. Audience members are invited to spend the day listening to the...
read morePolitics of water: blame game, grandstanding, incompetence — and a turning point?
By Paul Rozycki At the end of last year, after our mayoral election, our switch back to Detroit water, and the progress on the Karegnondi pipeline, it seemed that the Flint Water Crisis has peaked. This month I was expecting to say a few words about the primary elections….Trump, Hillary, Bernie Sanders, Iowa, New Hampshire and all that. This should have also been a week when the good news of Amir Hekmati’s release from an Iranian prison dominated the headlines. But, our water crisis now is a 24-hour a day local news story, a state-wide story,...
read moreWater crisis not a “death blow,” Ananich tells neighborhood group
By Lori Nelson Savage Flint’s water emergency, its effect on neighborhood housing and a need to upgrade the tennis courts at Woodlawn Park ignited discussion at the January College Cultural Neighborhood Association (CCNA) meeting. “I don’t think this is a death blow for Flint or for our neighborhood, I think it’s important that we talk about that,” said State Senator Jim Ananich, himself a resident of the neighborhood, addressing a group of about 50. No need to pack up The water is “a serious issue, without question. It needs to be...
read moreFluttered away like a pack of cards: reflections on Alice in Wonderland and adulthood
By Teddy Robertson When I was about eight years old I was very sick with a fever that must have been unusually high. What caused it or what my mother and grandmother surmised it might be, I don’t remember now. But I was in bed in a dark room, restless and confused. The family prescription was that I needed to sleep, sleep being the general cure-all in household pediatric advice, circa 1953. But domestic illness lore also warned that fever would spike at night. Worry must have been considerable. We lived in an undeveloped area in Marin...
read moreAs city-wide lead pipe mapping begins, UM-Flint prof explains how to test your water lines
By Nic Custer Two household items – a key and a magnet – and a set of simple observations may help worried Flint residents determine what their water pipes are made of. UM- Flint professor, Martin Kaufman, Department of Earth and Resource Science, told East Village Magazine how residents can find out if their service line is made of lead, galvanized iron or copper. It’s another step in a crucial process in confronting the lead crisis to gather data about the composition of Flint’s underground water infrastructure. Kaufman, featured in Rachel...
read moreVillage Life: Can water be made holy again?
By Jan Worth-Nelson In the bleached and bleak light the morning after the Rachel Maddow show, I wake up torpid and head-achey with depression. I know the signs. When I get so down, the molten lava flowing just under that lethargy usually comes down to one hot origin: fury. It’s a fury so intense my body, programmed from childhood toward cordiality, automatically tries to tamp it down, tries to modulate it, like a stopcock, like the thing on the stock market that shuts down panic sell-offs. But this powerful vein of anger refuses to be pushed...
read moreAt Luigi’s, Eastsiders “incensed,” “Flint Strong” as Dan Kildee offers hope
https://www.eastvillagemagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/kildee.mp4 Editor’s note: EVM board member and contributing writer Bob Thomas was at Luigi’s for the “after party” following the Rachel Maddow taping. Above is a brief video of U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee’s remarks to the group. Here is Bob’s account of the evening: By Robert Thomas While I was not one of those invited to Rachel Maddow’s Town Hall meeting, I found an alternative that better suited my need for citizen participation. I went to...
read moreFlint’s Water Crisis Followed Us Across the Country
Here is a piece Jan Worth-Nelson submitted to The Daily Breeze in L.A. after arriving in San Pedro last week. .http://www.dailybreeze.com/environment-and-nature/20160119/flints-lead-water-crisis-weighs-on-san-pedro-snowbirds
read moreLiteracy Tutor Training Sessions Set
By Anne Trelfa An opportunity to become a certified literacy tutor is being offered by the Genesee County Literacy Coalition starting Jan. 30. The Coalition will train volunteers to help adults learn to read, finish their GED process or learn English as a second language. The two-session training program for new volunteers will be held at Trinity United Presbyterian Church 5151 Lennon Road, Flint, from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday Jan. 30 and Saturday Feb. 6. Both days are required. Food and beverages will be provided. A $15 book deposit is...
read moreFree course on water crisis offered by UM – Flint
By Anne Trelfa A free course focused on the Flint water crisis begins Thursday Jan. 21 at 4:30 in the UM – Flint Northbank Center. The UM-Flint Department of Public Health and Health Sciences is offering 8 sessions initially throughout the winter semester. Planners say each session will involve students and community in panel discussions with leaders and experts, with all participants learning from each other. “We want to offer this opportunity for dialogue and bi-directional learning so that the ‘experts’ can learn from the perspectives of...
read moreGlobal Film Festival resumes, also features Kildee, Ramsdell, Rao
By Andrew Keast The Global Issues Film Festival continues as usual this month, with another set of cinematic views on people and problems not often covered in the popular media. This, the second half of the Festival’s 14th season, will be held at the McKinnon Theater on the campus of Kettering University, though two of the set’s five films can be seen at the Kiva at UM-Flint as well. The festival is co-sponsored by Kettering, Mott Community College and the University of Michigan – Flint. While the films are aimed at enhancing students’...
read moreBook Review: Demolition Means Progress: Flint, Michigan and the fate of the American Metropolis by Andrew Highsmith
By Robert R. Thomas Like a twisted love affair in which things are not what they seem, living in Flint can be an extremely disorienting hall of mirrors. For 10 years I have been researching Flint’s history, trying to understand my hometown roots and my current residence. Despite having read most of the major books on the subject, my Flint narrative has remained littered with black holes between disconnected tissue. I had more questions than answers. On Nov. 18 in the basement of the Flint Public Library, I discovered some answers. The...
read moreCultural Center plan: Sarvis demolition, Sloan expansion, downtown links
By Nic Custer The Flint Cultural Center Corporation (FCCC) recently updated its master plan with recommendations to demolish the Sarvis Center and several underutilized buildings, connect the street grid, renovate the Sloan Museum, and redesign public spaces between UM-Flint and Mott Community College. The 30-acre campus, which lies just east of downtown, contains five institutions: SloanLongway (consisting of the Sloan Museum, Longway Planetarium and the Buick Automotive Gallery and Research Center), The Whiting, Flint Youth Theatre, Flint...
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