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To keep the coronavirus from spreading, almost every group interaction has been digitized over the past year. Grocery shopping, weddings, funerals, and some government meetings have been taking place in our homes for more than a year.
Now, amid a decrease in coronavirus cases and an increase in vaccination rates, a local public health emergency order that would keep public meetings virtual expires June 30. The order was extended May 20 by Detroit Chief Health Officer Denise Fair.
The transition to virtual meetings in Detroit has been relatively smooth save for technical difficulties and expanded the accessibility of public meetings for both disabled and able-bodied attendees.
508 8 minutes read Thousands demonstrate against water shutoffs in Detroit, July 18, 2014. Liberation photo: Kris Hamel
On Dec. 8, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and Water and Sewerage Department Director Gary Brown announced that the extension of the moratorium on water shutoffs that went into effect under the COVID-19 emergency will continue through 2022.
This extension was won through persistent struggle by activists from We the People Detroit, People’s Water Board, Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, Hydrate Detroit, Moratorium Now! Coalition, and others. Since 2014, these forces have fought against the disastrous effects of 141,000 water shutoffs in a city of 672,000 people.
But water warriors are greeting the mayor and Brown’s announcement with skepticism and mistrust. Coming from the perpetrators of the mass water shutoffs, the moratorium extension was opportunistically announced the evening before Duggan, the city’s first white mayor since the election of C
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Michigan Radio reporter Sarah Cwiek, Abdul El-Sayed, and Monica Lewis-Patrick talk to Stateside about Detroit s water shutoff moratorium
Credit Ali Elisabeth / Michigan Radio
Now, Duggan says the city has cobbled together enough public and private dollars to continue the moratorium through 2022. And he said it’s the city’s intention to find a way to end water shutoffs permanently going forward.
For people who have followed the saga of Detroit’s water shutoffs for years, this was a welcome but somewhat surprising turn of events. Since Detroit began its shutoff policy in 2014, in the midst of its municipal bankruptcy, Duggan and Detroit Water and Sewerage Department Director Gary Brown have been adamant that the policy was necessary to get people to pay their bills and fund utility services. They pointed to various payment plans and water assistance programs offered to low-income Detroit residents, programs that Brown has repeatedly called the most generous in the natio