The biggest round of applause from the 300 or so people who attended District 13’s Town Hall Meeting on Tuesday, hosted by councilwoman Ann Margolin at the Walnut Hill Recreation Center, was for the Nathan Adams Elementary School Bell Choir. The group performed three beautiful songs. Dolores Chambers, the choir director for this DISD exemplary school, told us the kids learned the songs just for the meeting and had only been able to practice for two weeks.
The next wonderful thing to happen was that Margolin didn’t flash up the city-prepared budget PowerPoint presentation. Rather, she created her own presentation as she said “to explain to you the way the budget was explained to me.” It was a wonderful, concise, informative and understandable presentation. Sobering, but straight forward. It was a heck of a lot easier to follow than the city’s budget PowerPoint packages available to review.
More, after the jump:
Margolin said she wanted to give the audience a picture of what is going on with the budget and then wanted to hear how we felt about it. When she finished going through her presentation, she asked members of the audience to ask questions or give short comments. The audience of mostly senior citizens voiced concerns over the cuts in senior services. Loud applause was given for the appeal to not cut senior dental services and two members voiced concern for cutting senior employment services.
The next hot buttons were the increase in water costs, decrease in library materials and services and cuts in the Office of Cultural Affairs. Margolin expressed concern over cutting after school programs and forcing more kids on the streets in the afternoons vs. using money to hire 100 more police officers.
She asked for a show of hands about who was concerned about increasing water costs, and an overwhelming majority raised their hands. It seemed to surprise her. Given the reaction at other Town Hall meetings, District 13 seemed to be contrarian to other parts of the city on these issues.
