Think swelling the ranks of the water shutoff protest in Detroit with hundreds of Netroots Nation attendees didn't make a difference?
Think again.
The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department is suspending its water shut-offs for 15 days starting today to give residents another chance to prove they are unable to pay their bills.
“In case we have missed someone who has legitimate affordability problems this will allow them to come to us to see if they can work out payments,” department spokesman Bill Johnson said. “We’ve always maintained that what we were doing was a collection effort — not a shut off effort.”
The department’s decision comes on the same day that a group of Detroit residents filed a lawsuit in the city’s bankruptcy case asking U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes to restore water service to residential customers.
The residents, backed by a coalition of activist and community groups, allege that the city is violating the constitutional rights and contractual rights by shutting off water for those who owe back-payments. [...]
The city has shut off water to a total of 7,556 customers in April and May.
On Friday, nine people were arrested as more than 1,000 people from across the nation rallied in Detroit against the city's ramped-up effort to collect from delinquent water customers by shutting off service to thousands of residents each month.
This is what the march crowd looked like and, make no mistake, without the participation by Netroots Nation activists, the crowd would have been significantly smaller:
We CAN and DO make a difference when we show up which is why I'll be in Phoenix next year. I'll have more on this tomorrow.