LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Even though Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer promised a transparent administration in her “Michigan Sunshine Plan” and in past statements that doesn’t appear to be the case when it comes to one of her administration’s consultants who decided to communicate in Greek.

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The website The Free Beacon reports that Andy Leavitt, a consultant for the Michigan Dept. of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) used coded messages in communications with others in the Whitmer administration in 2021, one month before a lawsuit was filed by Benton Harbor residents against the Whitmer administration regarding lead poisoned water in their city.

This discovery was exposed by the Beacon after reading through a June 2023 court filing regarding the Benton Harbor lawsuit. The filing shows that a part of Leavitt’s email communications were disguised by the Greek alphabet font.

The Beacon reports, “The apparent scheme to hide sensitive conversations from public records requests comes years after Whitmer promised to bring transparency to the Great Lakes State as governor.”

The court filing says that the use of the Greek alphabet “appears to be calculated” to conceal statements. The filing continued to say, “Decoding the text (i.e. by changing the font to a standard English font) reveals that the consultant prefaced his grave concerns about the water crises with a reference back to his prior warnings and the State and City Defendants’ failure to learn from the Flint tragedy.”

Leavitt’s email was sent to defendants MDHHS Director Elizabeth Hertel, EGLE Director Liesl Clark, Senior Advisor on Energy & Environment Kara Cook and Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Once decoded, the three sentences read, “Hot off the presses. As I warned there are some major red flags. It seems like we are back at square one having not learned from Flint.”

Since the email was written in Greek, words in the statement made by Leavitt would not show up in public records requests for government communications since the Michigan public records department can’t electronically search for information using the Greek alphabet.

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Leavitt’s scheme to hide his communications only came to light because of the class action lawsuit filed by Benton Harbor residents against Whitmer, the city of Benton Harbor, the state and others. The lawsuit was filed in November of 2021, ironically on the same day a federal judge approved a $626 million settlement for victims of the Flint water crisis.

Regarding the Benton Harbor lawsuit, the plaintiffs argue that “despite having clear information that there were increasing levels of lead in Benton Harbor’s municipal water, State and City Defendants lied to residents that the tap water was safe and recommended remediation measures that they knew were ineffective.”

The factual background in the case filing says that the Benton Harbor community was subjected to water poisoned with lead for no less than three years due to the reckless conduct of their state and local governments. It goes on to name the state officials who are responsible for causing, concealing, cowering up and prolonging the water crisis including Governor Gretchen Whitmer and others in her administration including officials from Michigan Environment, Great Lakes & Energy (EGLE) and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS).

A veteran public records researcher told the Beacon he had never seen government officials use foreign alphabets to convey sensitive messages in the past. He said, “I haven’t seen it before, but it doesn’t surprise me. Agencies play games to fight requests all the time. If they’re doing it here, where else are they doing it?”

That is a good question and a troubling one as well. But just as troubling as the deceptive Greek alphabet used in the exposed communications are the issues that Leavitt points to about the non-notification of the water poisoning issue for the Benton Harbor community.

The court filing says that state and city officials knew that Benton Harbor’s municipal water system was “unfit for consumption” as early as 2018 but “despite their awareness of the elevated lead levels and their familiarity with the Flint water crisis, the officials responsible for operating, overseeing, and regulating Benton Harbor’s water system caused residents to continue consuming the tainted water by, inter alia (among other things), spreading false information and touting remediation measures they knew were ineffective.”

Along those lines, Leavitt discusses in his email after his “red flag” statement made in Greek, a government pamphlet that never said the residents needed to stop drinking the water because there is a lead emergency. He makes many other observations about the pamphlet which he said didn’t focus on water and told the governor and other officials that the residents were not getting the urgent message they needed to know that their water was unsafe. Leavitt said instead of the pamphlet saying “It is best to avoid swallowing water that contains lead,” it needed to say “Do not drink the water because there is a lead emergency in Benton Harbor.”

Over and over again, Leavitt emphasized that the pamphlet should have warned the Benton Harbor residents to STOP DRINKING THE WATER. Those were his words typed in all caps.

A The Detroit Free Press article reiterates facts about the Whitmer administration not informing Benton Harbor residents about what was going on with their drinking water. They pointed to a report from state and federal regulators that found Benton Harbor officials regularly failed to notify people that the crisis persisted, including not contacting “public and private hospitals, pediatricians, family planning clinics, community centers or adult foster care facilities” in the 12-month period between August 2020 and August 2021. They also reported that the state of Michigan did not include notifications with customer water bills during the same time period.

The lawsuit says that Governor Whitmer and the other defendants acted with “deliberate indifference.” On the other side of the issue, in response to the lawsuit, Whitmer spokesman Bobby Leddy said in a statement “Since the first lead exceedance was detected in 2018, the State of Michigan has been on the ground in Benton Harbor working with local partners on a solution to address the aging infrastructure.”