Michigan Governor Eyes $230M in Budget for Flint

“Gov. Rick Snyder never ordered a state agency to withhold information about lead testing in Flint schools, but instead quickly announced the results of water tests in 13 school buildings at a press conference in the city on October 8”.

The majority of the people working at the food bank are not Flint residents with the exception of Marseille Allen, who helped raise thousands to help the city through a GoFundMe campaign.

The state’s attorney general has launched an investigation into the contamination crisis, and so have federal authorities.

“I actually grew up in Flint – I have family that is actually living in the area that have lead problems”, said Perrigan.

“A lot of people think that’s a lot of money”, Kildee said. The bill comes in response to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan after high lead levels left residents without drinkable water. “This bill simply states that when there are unacceptable levels of lead in people’s drinking water, the public should be immediately told about it. This bill in itself wouldn’t have prevented the crisis in my hometown, but it is a necessary first step to ensure that such an emergency doesn’t happen again”.

Clinton made the stop at the children’s center in downtown Flint days after her mother and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton visited the House of Prayer Missionary Baptist Church on Flint’s north side to discuss the city’s ongoing water crisis and call for relief funding. The river already had sufficient levels of phosphates to nourish bacteria and adding more would have had no effect on them, he said.

Governor Synder’s total budget for MI was $54.9 billion and the mainstay of the funds will be allocated to finance failing schools in Detroit over the next 10 years.

Researchers at Virginia Tech University made a decision to study the water and, in September 2015, concluded that it was “creating a public health threat”.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Al Pscholka, a Stevensville Republican, said he was happy to see a more intermediate- to long-term plan for Flint beyond the “stopgap” measures previously approved unanimously by the GOP-controlled Legislature. “So there’s much more work that needs to be done in the neighborhood”, said Snyder.

“I am upset that the governor’s not here”, said Democratic congressman Elijah Cummings, a member of the government oversight committee. It was more or less the conference where the governor conceded that yes, there were in fact very real problems with the corrosive Flint River as a water source.

When a legislator asked about the potential for more federal aid for Flint – Congress is debating the issue – Snyder said: “We could use more help from Washington” but later declined to specify exactly how much.

Roxanne Adair, a vendor at the local farmers market, says this goes deeper than just the water.