Flint's New Mayor Has Host Of Difficult Issues To Tackle

FLINT (WWJ) - Flint's new mayor, its first woman, Karen Weaver, takes office Monday in a city that's been dealing with a water crisis and high crime.

Weaver says she's aware of the issues on hand and has an idea on how to combat one of them: crime.

"One of the things that we really talked about that we used to have in Flint that we would like to have come back to all of our city is community policing," said Weaver. "We had it before. It's something that has proven to make a difference and we'd really like to get that going again, and there are ways to make that happen."

Weaver says that putting a transition team together is the first step for her in office. "We have so many challenges and issues in our city, everybody knows that we have the water issue --that's been nationally publicized -- but we have crime and unemployment -- we have a lot of other issues that we have to tackle."

Weaver says she will work to ensure that kids are tested and helped who have been affected by elevated lead levels in the city water.

"We know that it causes permanent damage, it causes permanent brain, cognitive damage to our kids, and so we've got to put those things in place - we've got to do testing - we've got to look at what services are we going to provide for these families that have been damaged," acknowledged the new mayor.