Chad Selweski covered state and regional politics for The Macomb Daily for nearly 30 years. He contributes to Deadline Detroit and blogs at Politically Speaking.
By Chad Selweski
Dayne Walling
Two years ago, Democrat Dayne Walling’s political career was as dead as a fish floating belly-up in the murky Flint River.
The Flint mayor had lost his re-election bid to political newcomer Karen Weaver by nearly 2000 votes as the city’s water crisis produced a flood of news reports revealing the many ways that city and state officials had blundered (or worse) in allowing lead pipes to taint the drinking water.
At that point, Flint's unofficial municipal symbol was a plastic jug filled with bottled drinking water. Walling’s pursuit of another term in office never had a chance.
After all, the ex-mayor served as the biggest cheerleader for the ultimately deadly decision in 2014 to switch from Lake Huron to the hometown Flint River as the source of the city’s tap water. At the time, he infamously boasted that the city would enjoy "pure Flint Michigan mineral water” from their faucet.
Yet, in 2018 Walling, 43, is back at it in the political arena as a candidate for the Michigan Legislature. Walling announced last week that he is running for an open House seat that includes part of Flint and some surrounding communities.
Is he delusional? Or hoping that all is forgotten and forgiven by voters?
Perhaps Walling's candidacy represents the surest sign yet that political fallout from Flint's water crisis is fading -- despite the dozen Legionnaire’s deaths and the lead damage done to potentially thousands of kids' organs. His announcement, which would have generated public derision a couple of years ago, was esentially greeted with a collective shrug.
Can Voters Be Fooled?
What has changed? Federal and state officials said last year that the Flint lead levels are down and the water is now safe to drink without filters, though many residents still seem skeptical. More than 6,000 underground lead and galvanized water lines have been replaced but about 12,000 still need to be inspected and likely removed, a process that won’t be completed until 2020. Flint parents routinely have their children’s blood tested for lead levels, including at events known as a Lead Awareness Family Fun Night.
Meanwhile, 18 months after the first criminal charges were brought, city and state officials deemed responsible for this disaster have yet to face trial. Most recently, preliminary examinations in a Genesee County District Court were delayed for another six weeks, as former Flint emergency manager Darnell Earley and former Department of Public Works director Howard Croft likely become the latest defendants hit with involuntary manslaughter charges.
Beyond the jolting allegations of manslaughter, the finger-pointing of the last 3½ years damaged the credibility of numerous current or former officials accused of downplaying or covering up the tragedy that unfolded. At a 2016 congressional hearing on the Flint crisis that gained international attention, one lawmaker declared that there exists “a special place in hell” for those guilty of precipitating the calamity by attempting to stay clean in this dirty-water tale.
Cover Your Ass
Another lawmaker said he found the evidence unfurled “sickening,” including a 2015 memo from Mayor Walling to the governor’s office privately seeking $30 million for water system improvements. Snyder’s top aide dismissed the request as a “cover your ass” attempt by Walling as the November city elections approached.
That solicitation of state funds came just two months after Walling pulled a stunt on local TV by drinking tap water on camera to demonstrate to the public that all was well. After his election loss, the ex-mayor flip-flopped on CNN, claiming that City Hall was the victim and the state was entirely to blame for the mess. In another interview, Walling (falsely) said that, without interference from a state emergency manager, he and other Flint officials would never have agreed to the water conversion because (correctly) everyone knows that the Flint River has suffered from high pollution levels for decades.
Walling faces no charges, though Flint activists paint him as a villain, a mayor missing in action, and/or a political huckster – but he’s no dummy. He is a Rhodes scholar who has calculated that he can rise again. The ex-mayor desperately seeks an encore with applause.
Hopefully, Flint area voters will remember that on the ceremonial day in April 2014 that the conversion took place, with Walling pushing a button at the city’s waterworks plant to make it happen. All the top Flint officials raised their glasses, filled with treated river water, in a toast to the "historic moment."
I suspect that on Election Day this year, Walling won't toast anything.
