Rick Snyder Hires Out-Of-State Public Relations Firm With Secret Money

Rick and Sue Snyder at Ford Field in 2013 (image courtesy Rob Hall, available under a Creative Commons-Share Alike license)
Rick and Sue Snyder at Ford Field in 2013 (image courtesy Rob Hall, available under a Creative Commons-Share Alike license)

Michigan governor Rick Snyder is really feeling the squeeze from the way his administration (mis)handled the lead contamination of Flint’s water supply. But his latest response may turn out to be yet another stumble. He decided to hire a public relations firm to help manage communications in the effort to respond to the crisis. However, it may wind up creating more problems than it solves for the embattled governor.

Late Friday, the governor’s office announced it had hired Mercury LLC, which bills itself as “a high stakes public strategy firm” that specializes in crisis management. In an email, Mercury said that “the intense media demand and severity of this issue” had led Snyder to enlist its aid so the governor and his staffers can “dedicate their focus and resources to helping the people of Flint.”

Snyder’s chief of staff, Jarrod Agen, reinforced this talking point in a text message to the Detroit Free Press. Agen said that “the extreme interest from both statewide and national media” led his boss to retain the services of both Mercury and Bill Nowling, a public relations specialist who previously worked with Snyder’s gubernatorial campaign.

Hiring public relations people to speak for you looks bad enough by itself. After all, in a situation that looks like a classic systemic failure, why would Snyder even want to appear as if he’s withdrawing behind a curtain in the governor’s mansion? But it turns out that this problem has begotten several others.

Mercury LLC is headquartered in Washington, but none of its 17 American offices are located in Michigan. Why couldn’t Snyder have enlisted the services of a firm located in Michigan? Even more problematic, the Free Press learned that Agen’s wife, Bettina Inclan-Agen, is a senior vice president at Mercury, based at the firm’s office in Fort Lauderdale. However, Aglen and press secretary Dave Murray brushed off the obvious questions of why Snyder is using a public relations firm with such close ties to the governor’s office.

They also brushed off another important question–how Mercury and Nowling are being paid. Murray only said that state money is not being used. Snyder may be paying them out of one or more non-public accounts that he controls or to which he has access, mostly seeded with corporate money.

When former state senate minority leader Gretchen Whitmer got wind of this, she couldn’t help but notice that this was exactly the opposite of what Snyder was advised to do.

Whitmer isn’t the only one who thinks there’s a rank odor about this move. Melanie McElroy, executive director of Common Cause in Michigan, slammed Snyder for hiding behind his exemption from Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act to “dodge full accountability” for the water snafu. As McElroy sees it, Snyder compounded this bad optic move by using “secret money” to hire his new public relations experts, one of which amounts to “keeping it all in the family.”

For someone who spent a lifetime in the business world before becoming governor, Snyder doesn’t seem to understand that part of being a leader is inspiring confidence. Hiding behind a public relations firm probably won’t inspire much confidence in Flint that he’s really doing something about this water crisis.

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.