CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Nothing was off the table Monday evening as many residents gathered for the first of seven community input sessions to discuss the proposed 2024-2025 budget.
Monday's input session held at the downtown Brewster Street Icehouse focused on residents who live in District 1.
However, some showed up to voice concerns towards issues that extended to different areas.
Resident Kimberly McIntosh frequents the Oso Bay Wetlands Preserve and Learning Center with her grandson. She said that she's disappointed at what my happen to the resource.
"It is just a wealth of information for everyone and the idea that it has been put on the cutting block is just appalling," McIntosh said.
Due to the concerns over the future of the learning center and the Dr. Clotilde P. Garcia Library, Corpus Christi City Manager Peter Zanoni said they will be presenting alternative options for city council to consider, but that all starts with input sessions like these.
"It's a great opportunity to hear from them, to see what do they like in the budget, what don't they like, what do they want less of, more of," he said.
Zanoni said that while nothing has been finalized, there could be potential changes on the way for multiple departments.
"Animal Care Services, Co-Compliance Services, some changes to outdated business models in our library system," he said. "Oso Bay would still be open, the preserve itself, there's a learning center we may look at a different business model on how we could operate that."
McIntosh hopes that she can still continue to make more memories with her family.
"Grandson and I go together, we have a lot of together time. It's really important to him, it's really important to me. It's one of the only things I can share with him that isn't on a pad," she said.