■ Financial assistance for Flint utilities to alleviate the need for the city to send out water shutoff notices to residents for not paying their bills.

Rick Snyder got around to declaring a state of emergency last week in Flint, six months after his own chief off staff warned last July that Flint residents with legitimate concerns about the city's water were being "blown off" by state officials.

Earlier Tuesday, President Obama and senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett met with Flint Mayor Karen Weaver, saying that his administration will provide continued support to state and local officials.

Snyder said Monday that he is considering requests from outside groups to release internal emails about the Flint water crisis, The News reported.

Also Tuesday, President Barack Obama named Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Dr. Nicole Lurie to a position of coordinating federal assistance to Flint.

Flint, the birthplace of General Motors that once employed 80,000 autoworkers, but which now faces widespread poverty after auto jobs largely left the city, has been reeling from the discovery that its water contains dangerously high levels of lead.

But clearly more is needed, and Snyder may come under further attack if he doesn't come up with the state or federal funds to make Flint a safe place to live while at the same time, addressing what could become some disastrous health issues.

Flint was under control of a state-appointed emergency manager when, seeking to save money, it switched its source of tap water from Detroit's system to the nearby Flint River in 2014.

The crisis, which has resulted in elevated levels of lead in local children, and might have been responsible for killing 10 people with Legionnaire's Disease, has put the governor and other high-ranking officials in his administration under heavy fire for being unresponsive to - and perhaps responsible for - the town's plight.

"You really don't want to think about it, you want to block it out of your mind", she told CNN.

Snyder is asking state lawmakers for a $28.5-million supplemental appropriation to cover immediate Flint needs.

To fix the problem, MI will not only have to clean the Flint River that has been for decades a dumping ground for industrial polluters, but it will also need to overhaul the entire infrastructure - expected to cost billions. "Snyder's got to go!" A class-action lawsuit filed past year alleges the state Department of Environmental Quality didn't treat the water for corrosion, in accordance with federal law, and because so many service lines in Flint are made of lead, the noxious element leached into the water of the city's homes. It causes brain damage, especially to children.

The Republican said: "To you, the people of Flint, I say tonight as I have before, I am sorry and I will fix it". Many in the crowd also held up signs that called for the arrest and imprisonment of Snyder.

"We are praying for you, we are working hard for you and we are absolutely committed to taking the right steps to effectively solving this crisis", Snyder said.

Raising the issue unprompted during Sunday evening's Democratic presidential debate, Clinton took responsibility for spurring action in the state's leadership.