Flint residents protest, want city to reject private company deals

A rally outside Flint's water plant today as community leaders call on the city to reject water deals with private companies.

They want a public system and they want the state to pay for it. On Thursday they may have been small in numbers on this rainy day, but community leaders say they're not letting up in demanding answers in the Flint water crisis.

"They filed the charges the other day, they say that's one step closer, but we still feel justice has not been served," said resident Liasia Williams. "Justice is when our kids can have normal lives. our families can live normally on a daily basis where they can wake up, take their showers, go to work, and tend to their children."

Community leaders and local unions are demanding that the city of Flint reject any deal with a water privatizing corporation, and invest fully in public solutions.

"We don't want them here, we don't need them here - they need to go somewhere else and takeover somewhere else," Williams said.

They are also arguing for the state to fully fund the replacement of the bad pipes and repeal the emergency manager law.

"The best thing for people to do is to ask questions. never accept what you think is wrong in your gut," Williams said.

Representatives met with city officials for a pre-proposal meeting inside the Flint water plant and as you can image, the peaceful demonstrators here were blocked off from coming in.

"That means they're trying to hide something and so I feel we're doing the right thing and we've hit a nerve and there's something they don't want us to be at," said Flint resident Melissa Mays.  they don't want us to know about or disrupt."

The same demonstrators will be back out on Friday to join the organization water defense for what they say will be a huge announcement.

Water Defense has been testing homes in Flint looking closer at water used for water heaters and showering, and they're expected to reveal their results.