People’s Water Board Coalition
Water Wednesdays
BLOG: Without Proposal P: Let’s Talk About It!
Hello Again, Beloved Community, I know it’s been a while, but your resident Water Nymph is back!
Today I would like to speak about how disappointed and outraged I am that Proposal P did not pass. For those of you who know and those that don’t, Proposal P would, and still can be a powerful tool for the residents of Detroit. Many of you may have seen the high gloss media smear campaign about Proposal P that was committed against the very people our many elected officials claim to be devoted to servicing, Us! Proposal P is a Bill of Rights FOR THE PEOPLE, NOT POLITICIANS!
Forget what you may have heard, it will bankrupt the city; we filed bankruptcy under emergency management controller Kevin Orr in 2014, it will cost the city too much to implement; they had plenty of money for media ads and high gloss multi-paged booklets stating why we didn’t need Proposal P; it will hurt the residents; WE ARE ALREADY HURTING. From mass water shutoffs, even in the midst of financial crises; from foreclosures on homes that people worked their entire lives to own or can barely afford the rent on, many despite the pandemic that still rages; from a police force that brutalizes our community, at the same time many of whom have no vested interest in a community they don’t reside in.
My beloved community as activists many of us fight for the human rights to affordable’ clean ‘ accessible water and sanitation daily; for affordable housing; safe; affordable well-maintained transit, the right to safety and privacy from facial recognition and its errors, as well as the human right for each and every one of us to be free from discrimination whether its due to a disability or our documented status, as we are all immigrants living on the land of the indigenous tribes. We as residents, activists, and the few city leaders that thoroughly saw the needs of the community worked for years to create a charter revision that embodied the needs of the people, over the needs of the politicos, who care very little of our communities that they deem little more than indispensable.
We needed the support of our brethren, and still do, together we are an unstoppable, mi8ghty force, that was needed on August 3rd and will be needed again don’t wait or neglect the issues because you don’t think they apply to you at the moment. These issues affect someone you know, or yourself right now, if not it may in the future, and we must if they do it to one of us they will do it to all of us. It is time to get people elected that stand with the community and not the corporations that get tax breaks and don’t pay water bills in the tens of thousands and even millions of dollars, and come in and rape our city, its people, and get rewarded for it
Contact us at http://www.peopleswaterboard.org, our FaceBook page; Twitter, or Instagram. THE PEOPLE’S WATER BOARD COALITION TURN THE WATER ON, KEEP THE WATER ON! WE NEED WATER AFFORDABILITY! with your thoughts and ideas, and subscribe to this blog. Until next time, keep your head above water!
Nicole Hill is a directly impacted resident of Detroit, a member of the People’s Water Board and Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, and a Tri-chair for the Poor People’s Campaign. She is a mother of 7 and is devoted to combating poverty on all levels through her work in water affordability and social change.