Meadville City Council’s subcommittee on community engagement meets today at noon in the City Building, 894 Diamond Park.
The meeting will feature a discussion of a community survey regarding potential uses for more than $630,000 in federal pandemic relief funds that the city received this year.
The subcommittee meeting also will feature a discussion of how the proposed 2023 city budget will be presented to council and ideas on how council could implement a participatory budgeting process that allows for increased input from the community, according to City Manager Maryann Menanno.
In recent meetings, interim Finance Director Tim Groves has estimated that the preliminary 2023 city budget will likely come with a deficit close to $1 million.
The subcommittee meeting will include discussions of when such participatory budgeting sessions could occur, but Menanno emphasized the meeting today will not include any presentations on the actual budget. In recent years, a preliminary budget has been presented to council at its first November meeting.
Today’s meeting comes after a regular meeting of the full council scheduled for Sept. 21 was canceled due to a lack of agenda items, according to an announcement at the time. The next full meeting of council, originally scheduled for Oct. 5, has been rescheduled for Monday at 6 p.m. Menanno told The Meadville Tribune that the rescheduling was necessary because a council member will be out of town and unable to attend on Oct. 5.
