Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press/ZUMA
Last month, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder issued a formal apology for the state’s handling of Flint’s contaminated water system. The crisis began with his decision to cut costs in the town by rerouting its water from Detroit’s water system to the Flint River. The Flint River water contained dangerously high levels of lead and continues to jeopardize the health of children.
The outrage over the public health emergency has only grown louder with the recent discovery of emails showing that state officials were shipping themselves clean water before telling residents that their water was contaminated.
But just a few weeks after begging his state for forgiveness, Snyder apparently thought it was a good idea to throw his wife an extravagant birthday party, replete with this eyesore of a birthday cake:
According to MLive.com, the tone-deaf fête was held at an upscale restaurant in Ann Arbor, where cake designer Heather Anne Leavitt delivered the cake without knowing the recipient. “I had no idea, like seriously no idea,” Leavitt said. “We delivered it to the West End Grill and put it down and I’m taking photos of the cake. Then Claudia, who was also working on the cake with me, looks up and sees Rick Snyder on all the photos in the room, and so we put two and two together.”
Upon learning about the party, local blogger Mark Maynard decided to drop by the restaurant, and discovered the windows were “blacked out.” A cake smothered with Tiffany & Co. and Michael Kors logos was a striking contrast to the residents of Flint attempting to get uncontaminated water out of their faucets.
