Rochelle Riley

Detroit Free Press Columnist

For an hour and 20 minutes, Mayor Karen Weaver watched Thursday's GOP debate from her home in Flint, where many of her 99,000 residents were exposed to poisoned water from the Flint River - and she couldn't believe her ears.

"They're not concerned about Flint," she said. "That's what it seems. It's not even on their radar."

It took nearly an hour and a half before moderators asked a single question about Flint a single question that only Sen. Marco Rubio answered, only to say that the candidates had discussed it and the issue shouldn't be politicized. But Weaver challenged Rubio.

"Tonight is the first time I've heard it," she said. "When have they talked about Flint?"

Rubio called the water poisoning "a terrible thing," and said: "I don't think someone woke up one morning and said, 'Let's ... poison someone.' "

But neither Rubio nor any of the other candidates addressed what was apparent from emails released in the past two weeks by the Snyder administration: That state officials dismissed residents' complaints about the state of the water.

The debate came on the eve of Weaver beginning to replace some of the 8,000 lead pipes in her city. And it was held in the historic Fox Theater in downtown Detroit. But none of the candidates, in the first hour, had a thing to say about specific Michigan or Detroit issues: not autos, not unemployment, not agriculture, the Great Lakes and not the Flint water crisis.

Marco Rubio slams 'politicizing' of Flint's water crisis, defends Snyder

"It's sad that they're talking about everything else, but we have this city that's been poisoned and it's on no one's radar," Weaver said. "It's sad. It's disturbing. It's angering. And that's why we always have such a range of emotions.

"People want to know how we feel," she said. "We're sad. We're angry. We're depressed. We're confused that it has gone on for almost two years, and it's not even worthy of a footnote."

Weaver has been mayor for only four months, defeating the incumbent to become the first woman to run a city decimated by the loss of thousands of auto jobs. One of her first actions was to declare a state of emergency because of the water, something officials couldn't get Gov. Rick Snyder to do until January.

Last month, she fired the police chief, the fire chief and the city administrator. She plans to continue taking no prisoners. She said her city is still waiting on funds the state has promised to replace water pipes, including $500,000 that the state has chosen to spend on pipes itself.

"We were supposed to have gotten some money (but didn't)," she said. "But we're going to go ahead and get started..."

Ironically, Weaver lives in an older home where she is unable to use water filters distributed by the state.

"The filters don't fit," she said. "So I have a pitcher filter, and I use bottled water. I'm in the same boat as everybody else.

"And these people (the GOP candidates for president) don't care."

Contact Rochelle Riley at 313 378-5135. Follow her on Twitter @rochelleriley for updates on the #FlintWaterCrisis.

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