Ye Tian, Oakland North

The hearing had to pause for a while to relocate the crowd that blocked the exit of the City Council Chambers.

Equipped with whistles, banners and plastic noisemakers, hundreds of people crammed into the City Council Chambers on Thursday evening to voice their concerns about the city’s proposed budget cuts at a special hearing held by the city officials. The crowd was so large that many had to be relocated to another hearing room for safety reasons.

Following a brief introduction of the city’s projected budget deficit ($143 million in the next two fiscal years), the hearing began with presentations given by directors of the Public Library, the Department of Human Services and the Office of Parks and Recreation — all potentially facing severe cuts.

“This is how our library system would look under Option A, ” said library director Carmen Martinez, who was showing the crowd a city map with only four of its current 17 libraries marked as open. The “all cuts” budget option, or Option A, is one of the three budget scenarios proposed by Mayor Jean Quan last month. It assumes that in the coming years there would be no new revenues—including none from a proposed five-year $80 parcel tax—and no additional city employee concessions. Under this scenario, closures of fire stations, libraries, senior services and recreation facilities would be inevitable.

Option B, which takes more employee concessions into consideration, would still result in some reductions of public services. Option C, which assumes that the parcel tax will pass and employees will make some concessions, allows all senior centers and libraries to remain open and is the mayor’s preferred version.

The City Council delayed a mail-in vote on the parcel tax proposed by the mayor last month. According to a newsletter sent by the mayor’s office this Monday, even if the parcel tax passes in August, which is the earliest date possible for a vote, the city will likely have to lay off employees and cut programs in July and August, since the new fiscal year begins at the end of June.

More than 50 residents, each given one minute to address the city officials, spoke after the presentations and the majority of them were there to support the public libraries.