Last Saturday (Oct. 16, 2010), Seattle City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen hosted a community discussion at the Green Lake Library.
Many in attendance voiced concerns about Mayor McGinn’s 2011 city budget, which is now before City Council.
McGinn’s 2011 budget designates the Green Lake Community Center building (7201 E Green Lake Dr N) as office space for Parks Department administration, a move which would reduce the community center to “Limited-Use Status.” Under Limited-Use Status, many classes would be cut or moved to other community centers, drop-in toddler play time would be significantly shortened, programs such as the Pathway of Lights would be canceled, and six FTE staff would be cut from the Green Lake Community Center.
McGinn, who has described these cuts as “relatively small,” has said that “if the Council wants to put more money into [the facilities that his budget impacts], they’ll have to look to another part of the budget to cut. We just have less money.”
City Council has held two public hearings about the budget. The third and final public hearing will be Tuesday (Oct. 26, 2010) in Council Chambers at City Hall (600 4th Ave). Sign-in begins at 5 p.m. and the public hearing will begin at 5:30 p.m. Phone calls (206-684-0481) and e-mails to budget [at] seattle.gov are invited from 4:30 and 5 p.m. to be answered live in Council Chambers and broadcast on the Seattle Channel.
Through Wednesday, Oct. 27 at 5 p.m., you can also share your ideas about how City Council should balance the budget via the online tool IdeaScale.
Contact information for individual city council members can be found here.
On Monday, Nov. 22, the City Council will adopt a 2011-2012 budget.
