More than 300 people crammed the lobby of MLK High School for the final town hall meeting

The 8th and final town hall meeting on Philadelphia’s emergency budget cuts tapped into the uneasy relationship some neighborhoods have with police. While most of the anti-police comments were coming from Uhuru Movement members, who believe government oppresses all African-Americans, some of their comments drew applause and cheers. Perhaps the most striking came when one man told Mayor Michael Nutter that he should be cutting the number of police officers instead of libraries. When the mayor responded saying he didn’t think that would be a good idea given the crime rate, the crowd began applauding the man’s suggestion that there are already enough cops. This was also a theme that came from a previous town hall meeting near North Philadelphia.

Also last night one man, who repeatedly interrupted the meeting with allegations that the city was unfairly imprisoning African-Americans, was escorted out of the meeting after unveiling a large banner that temporarily halted the meeting.

Another theme that dominated last night’s meeting was whether the city was open to any alternatives to closing the 11 library branches. To this end, the city sometimes sent a confusing message by saying that the libraries targeted to be closed at the end of this month is final and the closings will be permanent. But Mayor Nutter also continues to say that  the city is in various talks with library supporters to explore ways to keep libraries or library services running.  So it’s not 100% clear to me what these “talks” will accomplish.

There were many inventive ideas for saving the libraries. Those included: adding turnstiles to libraries that would require adults pay 50-cents and children pay 25-cents to enter, making high school seniors staff libraries for class credit, create a city lottery ticket game to raise money, and require all parents in the city to pay five-dollars a month to support the libraries.

Mayor Nutter addressing residents last night in the final town hall meeting on the emergency budget cuts

This was the 8th town hall meeting, making it the last one specifically to address the mayor’s budget cuts announced in early November. Nutter has made it clear during the meetings that the cuts will happen, and these gatherings are for his administration to explain how the cuts were decided, and to get input the city will be used in drafting the next budget cycle that begins July 1, 2009 and runs through June 30, 2010. The meeting attracted 300 people, with African-Americans making up 90% of the audience. It was held at Martin Luther King High School at 6100 Stenton Avenue. We will have a video of this meeting on our website later today, and Ch 64 in Philadelphia will air the video tonight at 7:00pm.

Photo Gallery from Town Hall #8

Mural painted on a wall inside MLK High School in Philadelphia

Woman listening to the mayor respond to her question at MLK High School

Big paw prints discovered on the wall

Nutter listening to a question from a 2nd story balcony at MLK High School