Former Highland Park mayor blames administrators for city's water issues
HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said she is going to take a hard look and weigh the state's options on how it could help Highland Park and its millions of dollars of debt from unpaid water bills.
Earlier this week, the city requested the state look into its finances, but a former mayor of the city is now saying the problem started from decisions made in Lansing.
"The people can't afford it. Where will they go. Where will they go. They can't afford that type of levee," said former mayor Hubert Yopp.
Following a Michigan Supreme Court ruling which ordered Highland Park to pay around $19 million in unpaid water bills, former mayor Yopp is worried the community will be left with picking up the tab.
"The people here have been here for a long time. They are poor people and this is not their fault," he said.
Yopp served two separate terms as mayor of Highland Park with his second term ending earlier this year. He believes the city's water issues started years ago when the previous governor Rick Snyder shut down the city's water plant before switching to at the time newly created the Great Lakes Water Authority (GWLA).
"I feel that since Governor Snyder made the decision to connect it to GWLA that the state government should take on the responsibility," Yopp said.
Yopp said the move was supposed to be temporary. The former mayor said this situation could've been avoided if the state helped fix the city's water system like he requested.
"We requested that the repairs be funded by the state, but it didn't happen," he said.
Earlier this week, city council requested for the governor to look into the city's finances to determine if it's an emergency. Whitmer said the state is weighing the options and one move she could make is to appoint an emergency manager. It's something that the city has had happened several times in years past.
Yopp isn't sure that would be the right move, but he said the governor's decision will determine the future of Highland Park.
"She controls the purse string. She controls the future of the people in this community," he said.
He hopes her decision will be fair for everyone involved.
Dennis Muchmore, former chief of staff for Gov. Rick Snyder, released the following statement Wednesday evening:
"For over twenty years, The City of Highland Park has struggled with the debt incurred by water users in the City. Whether due to their personal economic constraints or choice, the inability to pay individual water bills has created a huge deficit. Coupled with the lack of appropriations at the City level years ago to keep up with needed maintenance and costs in their water plant delivery system, that debt has reached a total that other cities in the system are not willing to absorb. This accumulation of debt goes back far beyond the Administration of Rick Snyder and resulted in several financial managers over the years. Repeated attempts to assist the City in alleviating that accumulated debt have been unsuccessful. It is the City of Highland Park's responsibility to right its finances just as it is the other cities who belong to the GLWA."