Environmental Transformation Movement of Flint - ETM Flint

06/11/2026

Now that the groundbreaking has been achieved for the St. John Street Neighborhood Memorial Park, which we've been working on for nearly five years, the park improvements will be installed!

Congratulations to the St. John Street Historical Committee, the City of Flint, and the many other partners who have been part of this important initiative!

06/11/2026

06/10/2026

Did you know that the Building Board of Appeals (also known as Building Code Board of Appeals) is the City of Flint board that can authorize the demolition of privately-owned blighted properties?

If you have such a building in your neighborhood that is sitting year after year as a public health/safety hazard and isn't being demolished because it's not owned by the Genesee County Land Bank, you need to advocate for the Building Code Board of Appeals to add it to the demolition list.

How do you do that? Go to the Building Code Board of Appeals' monthly meeting. It's held on the second Tuesday of each month, 1:00 pm, in the City of Flint South building or in the dome building. The next meeting is today at 1 pm so if you're just learning this, please mark your calendar their next meeting on July 8th.

-----

The Environmental Transformation Movement of Flint has been advocating for months for the Building Code Board of Appeals to comply with the Open Meetings Act and make the meetings publicly accessible, both in terms of public notice on the City of Flint website where literally all of the other publicly noticed meetings are listed except for this board (see https://www.cityofflint.com/view-public-notices/), and to hold the meetings in a publicly accessible space rather than behind a locked door. They have listed and are moving toward making these changes. Today's meeting is the first to be held in the City of Flint Dome. A placeholder is on the City of Flint public notices website but as if yesterday no meeting info was published. If you think this is a problem too, please call Phil Hendricks at the City of Flint, at (810) 766-7346, extension 2045!

Update: It appears that the Flint City Hall Dome was already reserved at the same time as the Building Code Board of Appeals meet today, so they held the meeting in the Business and Community Services conference room on the second floor of the south building (which connects to the Dome) and kept the door open to allow for public access. Our understanding is that the meeting will be held in either of those two spaces going forward. We're working on getting clarity on this, but when the Building Safety & Inspections Department posts the meeting information on the City of Flint website that should be the regular way to keep the public aware of when and where the meetings will be held.

06/09/2026

The entire community is invited to the long-awaited Groundbreaking Ceremony for the St. John Street Neighborhood Memorial!

Thursday, June 11, 2026 | 1:00 pm
Location: The St. John Street Neighborhood Memorial Park, 3500 W. Boulevard Dr.
This memorial is in honor of the vibrant, historic Black and immigrant neighborhood that was wiped off of Flint's map due to racist "urban renewal" policies. If you live near Flint, you've driven on I-475 which was built where the neighborhood once stood. The St. John Street neighborhood was self-sufficient out of necessity: Black residents were barred from living in most Flint neighborhoods (except St. John and the southside neighborhood now known as Floral Park) and were barred from even shopping in some downtown stores. The elders who created the vision and have been tirelessly advocating for this memorial were the children who grew up in the St. John neighborhood. They share memories of all the places their families frequented - and always note that anything you needed, you could find in St. John.

This memorial is both part of Flint's truth-telling journey about its history so that that inequitable planning decisions are learned from and not repeated. The memorial is also a celebration of the people and life of the St. John Street community. Please join us!

06/04/2026

The long-awaited groundbreaking ceremony for the St. John Street Neighborhood Memorial will be Thursday, June 11 at 1 pm!!

05/13/2026

05/07/2026

Thanks to all who came out for the Flint Community Conversation for Clean Air last night! We had a full house, learned and shared about air quality impacts and how it affects health in and around Flint, and created a list of action items for next steps!

Special thanks to the North Flint Neighborhood Action Council for partnership, Nurse T (Tarnesa Martin) and Nicole from the Genesee Conservation District for presenting, and the statewide Clear the Air Coalition for sponsoring this event.

In addition to the next steps identified in the meeting, we're going to bring the Flint Community Conversation for Clean Air into the Foss Ave., River Park, Brownell-Holmes, Kermit Crestwood, and Northland Gardens neighborhoods!

05/05/2026

YOU'RE INVITED to the Flint Community Conversation for Clean Air!
Wednesday, May 6, 2026 | 5-7 pm
Location: The Cube at Brownell-Holmes, 6302 Oxley Dr.
Free and open to the community. Dinner provided.

Join Environmental Transformation Movement of Flint and the North Flint Neighborhood Action Council for the city-wide Flint Community Conversation on Clean Air on May 6th!

Learn about and discuss air quality concerns in our community and ways to take action collectively, learn how to make an affordable DIY air purifier, and enjoy dinner.

This event is part of the statewide Air Quality Awareness Week programming sponsored by Clear The Air Coalition (flyer attached). We are also organizing a series of neighborhood-level conversations in May in north Flint - more details to come.

05/02/2026

Thank you so much to the 15 volunteers who joined us and the St. John Street Historical Committee this morning for the 2026 Stewardship Day clean up at the St. John Street Neighborhood Memorial Park! We picked up 27 bags of trash plus a bunch of dead brush in three hours, covering a span of about a mile! This clean up was important preparation for the St. John Street Neighborhood Memorial which will soon be built!

And thank you to the Flint River Watershed Coalition and Genesee County Parks for coordinating Stewardship Day overall and providing the cleanup tools, materials, porta potty, and more!

02/04/2026