By Joel Thurtell
Nepotism, cronyism, self-dealing, insider-trading.
The every-day workings of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department?
Surprise.
Those pejorative adjectives were applied to a sewerage operation that was uniquely a suburban creation.
I’m thinking of the Western Townships Utilities Authority and the scandal nicknamed “Sewergate” that I set off in 1992 with my Detroit Free Press expose of a crooked sewer scheme in the staunchly Republican and hitherto seemingly squeaky-clean western Wayne County townships of Canton, Northville and Plymouth.
Wait a minute!
Isn’t Plymouth Township the home of newly-elected GOP state Rep. Kurt Heise?
And isn’t Heise the guy who wants to hijack the Detroit water and sewerage works?
His plan: Let Detroit continue operating the mammoth water and sewer system. But let suburban politicos like Heise tell Detroit how to do it.
Let Detroit do the heavy lifting, as always, but give control to the burbs.
He’s proposing that eventually, the whole system would be privatized.
Somehow, he says, that would make the whole operation more transparent.
If you think suburban politicians like Heise will inject honesty and transparency into the sewer, please read my Free Press story about the way suburban Republicans hijacked the system THEY created.
And then, please, somebody explain to me how a private operation, by definition not subject to the disclosure mandated by the Michigan Constitution as well as the Michigan Open Meetings and Freedom of Information Acts, would be more open that a publicly-constituted agaency.
