Former EFM Darnell Earley Billed Flint $75k to Pay His Lawyer [OPINION]

Flint's former Emergency Manager Darnell Earley is asking the City of Flint to pay for the expensive lawyer he hired to sit with him during the Flint water crisis hearing in Washington D.C.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Mr. Earley hired a pricey attorney -- we're talking $750/hr pricey -- to accompany him while he was question by the House Oversight Committee last month, and to represent him in all further Flint water crisis matters. The total bill, as of now, is a whopping $75,000, which he tried to get the City of Flint to pay.

Earley was appointed to be Flint's Emergency Financial Manager in September of 2013, and was in charge of the city when the water source was switched from Detroit water to that of the Flint River in April of 2014. Earley previously claimed that the decision was made by the City Council and the Mayor, even though that never made a whole lot of sense.

Even if you remove him from the Flint water crisis investigation entirely, he still made other equally-reckless decisions to save money. In 2014, he announced major cuts to the police force and fire department in his two-year budget plan. How can anyone that is a responsible leader thin out an already understaffed police force in one of the most violent cities in America? He's just lucky that there are no blood tests that can be run to show how negatively that impacted the lives of Flint residents.

The point is that this guy has never had Flint's best interests in mind. Not when he did or didn't approve the switch to Flint water, not when he cut the police force, not when he refused to testify before the House Oversight Committee, not when he was collecting $225,000/yr running Detroit's Public Schools further into the ground, and certainly, not when he sent us the bill for his expensive lawyer.

We've got enough financial problems, Mr. Earley. You know where you can put that bill.